I’m enjoying the relatively cool weather we’ve been having here the past week or so. I can open my upstairs office window during the daytime and not get roasted out of the room, and the air that comes in through my open car windows when I drive to work in the morning is verging on cool.
Everyone along the Gulf of Mexico has to keep an eye on Ike to see where he decides to make landfall, but that’s several days in the future, so there’s no way to make anything other than a random guess. Though hurricane season technically lasts until the end of November, Texas is usually in the clear once the end of September passes. So far we’ve had one tropical storm and that’s it—and that storm proved to be more beneficial than destructive.
I whittled down my list of projects with deadlines this weekend. Crossing things off lists is one of the highlights of my days. First, I applied for a Canada Council writing grant. This is the second time I’ve applied—the grants only come up every other year, and only about 20% of applications are funded. Not hideous odds, but not encouraging. At least I was able to do the complete grant application online this time instead of having to mail a huge packet to Canada. Won’t find out anything for up to 20 weeks after the close of applications, but I’m not holding my breath in any case. A shot in the dark.
Then I finished two book reviews for the next issue of Dead Reckonings. I have one more left to do, and I’m just about finished reading the book, so I should be able to get started on the review tomorrow or the day after. After that, I came up with the idea for my next Storytellers Unplugged essay, wrote the piece and posted it to the dashboard to appear, like magic, on the 17th. I didn’t think I was going to get it done so far in advance, but another line scratched through another list item, and I was a happy camper.
I started a new flash story yesterday afternoon. It’s for an upcoming contest, and has an upper limit of 1000 words. I didn’t even have it on my list, but I discovered the guidelines while sorting through some papers on my desk and the setting for the story came together as I was jotting some idle thoughts on the page. I only wrote 250 words, but it helped me solidify the concept in my mind. This one isn’t due for several weeks, but I’d like to get it knocked out sooner rather than later.
Tomorrow night’s PoV contest on Big Brother will define the shape of the final three. I think Keesha’s in jeopardy unless she wins PoV. She’s feeling comfortable since Dan didn’t nominate her, but if either Dan or Memphis win, I think Memphis comes off, Keesha goes up and has a 50% of ending her tenure in the house. Jerry’s a pretty canny guy, suspecting that there was more to Dan’s luxury competition victory than met the eye. Even though Dan kept some of the details to himself, it seemed like he gave more away than necessary. Why even mention that he had a choice about taking someone from the house with him? Still, his gambit of putting Memphis on the block seems to have had the intended impact of causing Jerry and Keesha to think that he doesn’t have a strong alliance with Memphis.
As expected, Stephen Harper called an election in Canada for October 14th. Conventions, campaign and election all in five weeks.
