Dear Readers,

It’s hard to believe that it has already been a month since the spring semester ended and that we are now halfway through June. I’m teaching during the first summer session, and I had a whole lot of things I needed to get done during the first half of the summer as well, but apart from the teaching, little else has been done. I wonder if I am the only writer who has run into such a stonewall of writing during the pandemic, despite it giving us what we all long for, time at home to write. It’s just so hard to focus, not to mention my own body waging war on me on a constant basis.

Aksinia and Olga are settling in. We still haven’t introduced them to the others yet, as they half to finish their medicine first, but I will probably let Anastasia meet them later today or tomorrow. She knows they are in the bedroom and she has been laying down in front of the door, so I think that she is eager to introduce herself. She loves kittens. They have two very different personalities. Aksinia is a little on the wild side and quite fearless while Olga is a bit more reserved. Aksinia is happy entertaining herself with various and sundry toys while Olga is turning out to be quite the Daddy’s girl. She just wants me to hold her whenever I’m in the room, though she does get up to play several times a day.

It is almost a certainty now that there will be another surgery in my near future. I had a fairly uncomfortable test done on 6/11 that confirmed the need/benefit of the surgery. My wife and I have an appointment with the surgeon on July 7^th. However, given that he is a department chair at the Med School and also the Chief Surgeon for his specialty at the large teaching hospital system, his schedule is pretty booked and it is unlikely that I’ll be able to have the operation done prior to the start of the fall semester. I really don’t want to have to potentially miss three to four weeks of class mid semester, but I may not have any other option. Then again, it is also possible that despite the objective medical tests and diagnosis, the insurance might deny the surgery anyway.

There is a possibility that I’ll be doing an in-person book launch event/signing at a local library later this summer. It won’t be on the actual day that that Molly’s Song releases, July 29^th, but rather a month or two later in August or September. I guess that is the benefit of coming out with a book in the Summer of 21 instead of the Summer of 20. Things are slowly returning to normal, though it won’t be completely normal for quite some time, I think, if ever. Come to think of it, I’m not sure I even remember what normal is. I never actually did a book signing event with my first novel, so if we can pull this one off, it’ll be a new experience for me.

Until next time, Dear Readers, take care of yourselves. And each other.

L.H.