Fall Begins…A Harvest Moon, A Concert, Snoqualmie Falls and a Driver’s License

So, in the last few days we’ve been busy getting everything that needed to get done this summer done.

My driver’s license had expired in July (!!) and I hadn’t had time to renew it, what with poetry events, doctor’s appointments, other works, etc…so we decided to drive up to North Bend and get it renewed, taking a quick stop at Snoqualmie Falls along the way. The DMV was as painless and friendly and efficient as could be hoped for. The Salish Lodge in the background (which you may recognize from the opening credits of Twin Peaks) now has its own honeybees and makes honey-caramel popcorn and honey ale and all kinds of cool stuff, so check in out if you visit. The falls are about 45 minutes north of Microsoft, if you use that landmark.

Then we took in an evening concert at the park – something that we like to do in the summer, those concerts at the park, I mean, what else is the last of summertime for? So we saw The Lumineers at Marymoor Park. The concert was mellow (the highlight was a cover of Dylan’s Subterranean Homesick Blues) and the weather was more pleasant than expected – a cool 60 degrees all night before the storm came in. But the real star of the night was the yellow Harvest moon. Sorry the picture of the concert is all smoke and chandeliers – the band was barely visible even in real life with all the smoke.

And all this is to say – goodbye summertime, hello cold rain! Today the cold and rain swept in – a high expected of something like 56 degrees! In the spirit of fall, I wrote a new poem, sent out a couple of submissions, wrestled with cover art ideas (more on that in a later post) and started work on my Geek Girl Con presentation and ArtsCrush event planning. I’ve got a busy couple of weeks coming up, but I’m looking forward to fall – I always seem to write more and I’m one of those weird people who has much more energy in the sparkling early autumn cold than the summer heat. I’m built for the Pacific Northwest’s weather, I suppose. My tenure as Poet Laureate is about to end, and I have to say that I’m looking forward to having a bit more time to write!

Another fall ritual? My copy of the new 2014 Poet’s Market! It had a bunch of useful articles in it on how a writer should use a blog, how to write a cover letter, how to give a reading…and of course a ton of new poetry markets to think about, and state grants and that sort of thing. (Two articles and a poem from me in there, if you’re looking 🙂