Sunday Salon: Summer of King

 Good Sunday morning friends.  Well it's been one of those weeks.  I don't know how else to put it.  Not the worst week, but one that could certainly not repeat itself if I had my druthers.

On a good note, my dad returned from Africa.  He had an excellent experience this time around, and didn't harm himself, get Ebola or get shot down by terrorists.

My daughter started school on Tuesday.  She is a high school Junior so it is old hat by now, but there is already no shortage of stress going on.  She gets up at 4:40am for cross country practice, has three AP classes and is taking an SAT exam prep course.  She's going to have a most shitty first three months of school.  I plan to stay out of her way, except to provide food and the occasional pedicure.

My son starts high school tomorrow.  Gah!  So this week we ran around trying to get the information we needed to, you know, be prepared, and it isn't easy.  I did attend a Freshman Mom Mixer and orientation, BUT.  This is our first foray in public school, and they do not hold your hand like the private schools do.  It is like a scavenger hunt to figure things out, dependent on your wily and creative skills.  He is going from a class size of 40 to 600, from a school he has attended since he was 2 1/2, and I know he is worried about fitting in and finding his place in this sea of humanity.  Pray for us tomorrow!

We had a doctor appointment to follow up on his endoscopy from a couple weeks ago.  Esophagus is awesome, and they pulled him off one med.  But he has lost a lot of weight since April and doesn't have much of an appetite, so more tests.  So I guess several weeks into the new year we will miss a whole day of school.

The Robin Williams thing.  I'm worn out over that.  It pretty much devastated me, not only because he was a beacon of light, but because of his suffering.  If I hear one more person that says he was selfish, I'm going to lose my shit.

Books, then, kept me settled this week.  I finished Karen White's "Return to Tradd Street", the latest in that series.  As I have said before, the male and female protagonists in these stories drive me crazy.  They adore each other but they take part in a ridiculous game of self-denial and pride.  But praise the Lord, things are finally looking up, and I did enjoy this installment much more because of that.  (Small digression:  The funniest thing in this book was when Melanie's secretary, an avid golfer, becomes one of Tiger's flings and moves to Florida to be closer to him.  LOLOLOL).

Then I decided it was finally time to institute Tina's "Summer of King", never mind that summer is almost over.  I needed this.  So I started "Duma Key" on audio, something I've had loaded on my iPod for EVER.  And it is so good.  Not an action-packed novel, but classic King storytelling on a fictional Florida key two islands south of where we just vacationed.  I also just started "Joyland" in print.  King is good stuff, and not necessarily horror.  He gets a bad rap for that, and people don't read him because they think it will be terrifying.  Some of his stuff IS terrifying ("It" or "Pet Semetary" come to mind), but some is very subtle and more about the journey, on which you will be totally sucked in.  I'd match some of his work up against any author of highbrow literary fiction.  It is that good.  There is a reason why a gazillion people love him.

Besides running my daughter up to her SAT class today, I'm not really sure what is on the agenda.  I'm hoping to keep it low key but these things are often not in my control.  Hope everyone gets their day of rest today.