Strange Collection of Thoughts

It was such a strange weather day. All day it alternated between hot and sunny and rainy and stormy. We had about three deluges and we were lucky to have just made it back in the house after walking the dogs (two of the deluges) and a brief interlude at the pool (one deluge). With all this rain, and my car stuck at the garage until Monday, it was time to pull out the rainy day crafts. When in Florida we bought the Kids Concoctions Gooey Gunk kit and I have been pestered at regular intervals to put it together. I resisted, knowing I was waiting for "The Day" to arrive. Naturally, I mucked up the instructions the first time and put in 4 TABLESPOONS of borax instead of 4 TEASPOONS and had to scramble save the batch. But it was successful and Riley played all day with the gunk, for lack of a better word. Here he is with one of his gunky pets on his shoulder, surprisingly enough this one didn't get a name:

He also joined me in various renditions of wrecking my journal. I finally breached one of my barriers and did a page I thought I would never do (more on this tomorrow). Riley was screeching and throwing the book around, having a grand time. I had to impress on him that all the usual rules applied to ALL OF OUR OTHER BOOKS AND OTHER PEOPLES BOOKS as far as being gentle with them and treating them respectfully and that this was a special book meant for ripping and rending. He got it but now wants his own wrecking book. I'm hoping to burn him out with mine.

The latest book I read came from my last library run. "Simple Recipes," by Madeleine Thien is a short story book and usually short stories don't appeal that much to me but the cover pulled me in and just something indefinable made me bring it home. It was a lovely collection of stories, all a little dark but I would read an entire novel about any of the characters she created. She has since written two novels from what I can find at Amazon so I'll be on the look out at the library for those.