September Submissions with Stressful Intervals, Storms, and Late Summer Sights

Hot Air Balloon with trees

September Submissions with Stressful Intervals

Well, this week was exciting—and mostly not in a great way. My dad got sick with pneumonia and wound up in the ICU, we were so worried. He’s back home safe tonight, thank goodness. Then Friday, I meant to go to a Woodinville farm, cut some flowers, and go downtown to a poetry reading. Unfortunately, instead of any of that, Glenn and I got stuck in a bizarrely strong lightning and rainstorm and ended up having to go back home. (The one day the weather forecasters had said we wouldn’t have rain, we had the storm—the other days the weathermen swore would be wet were dry and sunny, so ?? Don’t trust Seattle weather!) Not as stressful as family being in the hospital, but still a bummer.

Orange rose

Late Summer Sights

The rest of the week was spent updating my resume (I’m tentatively looking for work again), writing poems, submitting poems (although not to Cincinnati Review or Prairie Schooner, which both closed in under a day, before I got in a submission, whew! Crazy! Submitting is an adventure sport these days.) Also, re-reading Tracy K. Smith’s Life on Mars for book club.

On the days without thunderstorms, Glenn and I spend time at the Chateau Ste Michelle rose garden, getting corn and apples at Bob’s Corn and Pumpkin Farm, and cutting flowers and cuddling farm kittens at McMurtrey Farm. Late summer all around—hot air balloons going up and down, hummingbirds at the final blooms of summer flowers, and earlier sunsets.

Tomorrow we’ll have my little brother and my nephew over for a barbeque, rain or shine (as long as there’s no lightning), and we’ll grill some of that new farm corn from Bob’s. The last days of sunshine and temperatures in the seventies may be nigh. I do love the fall here, however brief and unpredictable—when the sky is blue and the air is a little bit chilly. Wishing you all a happy and safe holiday weekend.