Turning Japanese: Monday Jitters and Joys

--I am relieved to see my blog up and normal looking today.  I half expected to see Japanese when I logged in this morning.

--Why would I expect to see Japanese?  Yesterday, Kathleen Kirk wrote to me:  "BUT, in attempting to link to Pudding House, I clicked the book cover at your blog and was taken to a Japanese site. I clicked translate, and it was a business site and/or fake business site (?!) (or has Pudding House disappeared?)."

--One other link on my blogsite page also linked to a site that looked Japanese.  That link once upon a time took readers to a poem in an online journal.  I suspect the link has been dead for some time.  Still, it's disconcerting that two links on my blogsite took people to Japanese sites.

--My anxiety was exacerbated by the fact that I was writing on a day when the FBI took down its software that kept a dangerous virus from infecting computers--why would we get rid of that protection?

--But Kathleen and I had a great e-mail exchange.  She's planning to use my poems in a workshop that she offers.  That idea brings me such joy.

--I'm going to offer her workshop participants a deal on my chapbooks.  I'll make readers here the same offer:  get my first chapbook for $6.00 (original cover price $8.95, but $10.00 from the publisher now) and my second for $10.00 (originally $12), or get them both for $15.00.  Plus I'll pay for shipping.  Christmas will be here before we know it.  Order now!  I'll honor this offer until Labor Day ends, the unofficial end of summer.

--Last night, after deleting strange/corrupted links from my blog, I went to my boot camp exercise class.  It's held on the 8th floor of a hospital where my little gym exists (my little gym began life by being a place that educated heart attack patients in new ways of living life).  It's one of the higher points in Ft. Lauderdale.  As I did jumping jacks, I saw a flock of parrots (the tiny green kind) swoop and swerve.  It made me insanely happy.

--I wonder if they could see me.  I wonder what they would have thought.  I like the idea that seeing humans working out makes them happy in the same way that their flight makes me happy.

--I got home to find my pecans had been delivered.  I'm a Southern girl who needs a supply of pecans.   But lately, the price has skyrocketed, for a variety of reasons.  Happily, Koinonia Partners offers a great deal (go here for a variety of options).  And I'm supporting the social justice group that helped bring racial integration to Georgia and created Habitat for Humanity (more here).

--My grandmother used to have a pecan tree, and I remember one Thanksgiving when I collected pecans and shelled them and filled our freezer (my grandmother had already filled her freezer with the bumper crop that came that year).  I miss that tree, which had to be cut down.  I miss my grandmother.  But she would be happy that I'm supporting American farmers with my pecan purchase.  I'm happy too.

--All in all, it could have been a worse first day of classes in our Summer quarter.  We had enough chairs for all the students (last week this time, I wasn't sure we would).  The students who came to me with problems presented problems that were easily solved.  My blogsite and documents haven't been corrupted, as far as I can see.  I submitted a submission to Rattle for their Speculative Poetry section (sci-fi and alternate realities, a genre I experiment with occasionally).  I saw parrots.  And I have 5 pounds of pecans to keep in the freezer.