monday afternoon and i'm clunked back with puppy on lap, blogging, enjoying being out of the sun.

it's gotten to be high summer i think you could say. i go out into the garden and there are wild sprouts of weeds all over the yard busting out threatening to take over every place where they've started out; the garden itself is doing well with some vegetables appearing just to give me a good show and a bite to eat. hot, though - i come back in sweating, eyes itching, wanting to sit back in the aircon maybe with a fifth cup of coffee or something.

what's really botherring me is a kid who's caught in a behavioral trap - can't see his way out of doing what he's doing, not getting what he's wanting. if this doesn't work why keep doing it? or rather, something has to change but it has to be something you think of, that's under your control. we clearly are having trouble changing our ways.

i'm vigilant about dizzyness - had a big cinnamon roll this morning and then, later, a few pieces of another one. too much sodium? it seemed, at the time, like i badly needed mood correction and i've always felt cinnamon did that for me. at the expense, in this case, of a few pounds probably. it's the icing, the butter icing that will clog up my veins till i keel over. but somehow this morning i just needed the mood correction.

still reeling from a trip to iowa on friday. almost two hours to get there, it is two hours counting iowa city traffic, but my friends live in a farmstead out in the country, and have two red barns, and mulberries, and a horse, and are surrounded by corn. my view of paradise, i thought. plus the potluck was fantastic, they all make great food and still do, it filled me up and more so. caught up a little on what happened in my fifty years or so of absence. some people maybe were jealous. i talked about galesburg a lot, but believe me, they have nothing to be jealous of there. iowa city is a special place, enlightened, libertine, no matter how many thousands of apartments they jam into its center. galesbug on the other hand is a railroad town, and that's ok, i've learned to like it, but it's not iowa city. and never will be, as far as i can tell.

coming back i get a coffee on the illinois interstate, and i did the same thing last night, just to get through the late-night driving to make sure all kids are where they need to be at the end of the day. coffee leaves me a little zoing in the late night but hey, it's summer, days are about as long as they're going to get, and somewhere the Cabo Verde national team is glorifying in the international stage, since everyone knows, it's all about the world cup, even if nobody shows up for the games.

big huge rainstorms are sweeping through the area, and we seem to be between them at the moment. A little rain comes and goes, but the pounding thunder-boomer and lightning, and pounding rain, is gone for the moment. that was about a half hour ago, and it is due to come back - or rather, another one is due to come through.

at the gas station they said pumps were down, and were down across town. oow that's a little confusing to me - is water getting into the gas? is saturated ground preventing gas from being pumped upward? i don't get it and get nervous about getting gas right after a flood. last thing i want is water in my gas.

i do a lot of driving - mostly taking supplies to a 21-year-old disabled boy unable to get them himself. he may be able, but instead calls my wife mercilessly so she'll get me to bring stuff out to him. it's about three miles, most of it state highway, so very wet but not too badly flooded. our cars can easily be overwhelmed by high water. i get nervous but not nearly as bad as my wife, who gets very nervous. she's not crazy about tornados either. since she's been here she's taken great comfort from the idea that our town is protected by a saint whose body was brought here from europe and who makes sure that no tornados flatten our town. tornados can flatten any town though. people may be getting very nervous but they will either show up or not and they will either flatten you or brush by like you don't matter at all. it doesn't matter if you're catholic or not, or whether you are irish, german or czech catholic as those three had a huge rivalry and the tornado only flattened one school but it also hit a certain sorority and several other things. if you think it has a mind of its own well maybe but don't pretend you can read it. the other stuff it flattens has to just be collateral damage.

my wife is at a meeting; the girls are at a visit. one teenager remains but she's somewhat happily occupying the wife's spot in the light by the kitchen, where one can kind of keep track of the whole house and still work or get something done. i like to sit downstairs but sometimes the girls make such a racket that anything but the most trivial reading is impossible. i have some trivial reading though. and some good. reading. that's mostly what i do, i read a lot, and it keeps me calm, if not well-informed about what passes as indie writing these days.

it was a wild birthday party today, #10 turned 18, and had family from far and wide and a few friends, out in the park, under the hot june sun, with everything very green all around.

one of the wild aspects of it was getting parts of the family together that haven't gotten along in the past. #9 and her boyfriend might not have got along with all of them, but they were all at the same party and that was perhaps the high point - whole immediate family together in one place. #11, 12 & 13, all foster, were all there. #8, hypersensitive, came and brought friends. 1-7 are grown and gone. those who were left, were there and got along.

she's very low on meds. she's been having outbursts and has been very fragile since her boyfriend broke up with her and she came home. when she did come home, we discovered that she hadn't been taking enough - confused about doses, maybe. kind of a subdrama in that, as birthday girl, she's the center of all attention. but that part was difficult. also, i tried to play badminton. i believe it's one of the better games. i got some birdies out and some people willing to bat them around with me. unfortunately i'm very old for sudden turns, wild arm swings. hand-to-eye coordination. i was appalled and actually had to rest. often.

about fourteen years ago we were adopting these girls, 9 & 10, and i pointed out to my wife that i'd be 72 when the youngest turned 18. you can do it, she said. i knew it would be a long haul. but in that sense, i made it. the fosters are just that - we have borrowed them and will return them. the main fam, 1-10, is up and out.

except that you do raise them forever, especially when they aren't quite ready for independence.

maybe it's all about attention span. this one article says kids these days just don't have it, can't read a book, can't even watch a whole movie. i realize i've had a problem with it all my life. even now i read six or seven books a week, but read them about ten minutes at a time, and have five or six open at any given time of the day. i. have to do it that way. some days a single book doesn't 'take,' i read it and don't get into it, and i have to switch books just to stay in the game. and it's been going on all my life.

i feel like telling my kids that if they do learn how to read a book, they'll be way better than all their classmates, and this is true. the world is full of kids like me. television and screens has done it to them, although i was born this way. now i have stuff i want to write, and kids, nine and ten, are shrieking and squawking downstairs as is their wont, and we, 72 and 68, are their foster parents with no one to give them back to, watching. them get back on their screens and chop up their attention span like you would a carrot for dinner. They're pretty normal kids aside from being traumatized by the explosive breakup of their family which they got removed from for like the second or third time. a little bottled up frustration and insecurity which is where the shrieking and squawking come from, probably, but what a dead setup for screen addiction you've never seen.

warm and steamy air has moved in where when i went outside i wasn't sure if it was raining or not, partly because of lots of trees and partly because it was so wet that you couldn't feel if it was drizzle or just wet air or what. i can't complain because actually it was a nice long spring with lots of rain and cool weather, and the garden has been going bonkers and very happy. some years it goes straight from winter to summer but this one we had a spring, more spring, plenty of spring. nice and green, and wet, and lush.

lots to do, hoping i can stick with it and get some writing done. look at the squares on the templates, and i'll be working on them, if i get the chance.

summer heat has moved in and i, with my aversion to heat, feel pushed farther back into my chair, away from the light, away from the heat, away from movement or running around or sweating in it.

the puppy is in total agreement since, when i make a lap, he's there, and takes a good long nap, and gets angry if i try to move him. no, he's saying, stay where you are. this holding still is really good if not the only option.

yet there's stuff to do. stuff on the computer, which i could be doing as i sit here, but don't; stuff just in my room, which needs some cleaning out and redecorating, but worse, stuff in the garden, or outside, that needs tending to. outside, you go out there like i did yesterday, and mow or whatever, you need an extra shower when you come in. that's what happened yesterday. no thanks. i'm sitting still, not sweating.

in a nearby room, another puppy is unhappy. there are also girls to keep track of, as they don't always just stick with the program. getting up for another cup of coffee might be a reasonable option. the lap-puppy might be upset yes but he recovers. the other puppy could be let out if he's truly miserable. i could just kind of do the rounds and see.

but above all, conserve energy. if it's going over 90 out there (?) which it might be, don't go out there. wait 'til dinner. don't fall. one of my books is about old people falling. what percent on the stairs, what percent in the. bathroom, the kinds of injuries they get when they fall. hear hear! i'm already paranoid. don't want to fall. my time of limited mobility is already approaching fast enough. just calm down, sit still, don't go anywhere except deliberately.

the girls, nine and ten, have a lot of energy. we, sixty-eight and seventy-two, have much less. it's like being brought up by grandma and grandpa. you get wisdom, and calmness, but you lose activity, getting and running around. i'm not going to do it. i'm old. i'm going to make another cup of coffee.

another month turned over and things are busy. lots of blog traffic these days and i have to repair some promo site template problems for sites that are really raking it in in terms of views. all these views are. not especially converting to sales but that's life. if you're a pop artist you're happy with views alone. maybe that's my warholism coming out. ubiquity is my new slogan.

some hot and sticky days are finding their way into the mix. i have to mow today or soon. this converts to get off my butt in the morning. coffee first!

finally finished the final proofread of Beasts of Ayutthaya. took forever. it wouldn't let me put it in the Global Beasts series but let me start my own Global Beasts series, so I did. had to do something. not sure how that's done and might ask.

things going on all over the place, got to run but i'll be back.