Wednesday, May 24, 2017

WWW.WEDNESDAY

WWW.WEDNESDAY asks three questions to prompt you to speak bookishly. To participate, and to see how other book lovers responded, click here.

1. What are you currently reading? Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn. Oh, my, but this book is intense. A Chicago reporter is sent on assignment to the small Missouri town where she grew up. Young girls have been disappearing, and she's to use her hometown connections to get the story. The writing is wonderful. Ms. Flynn creates an  atmosphere so claustrophobic that after reading awhile I want to run outside and feel the sun on my face. This book is as dark and creepy as it is involving. As opposed to the tripe I just finished ... 

2. What did you recently finish reading? On Borrowed Time by Jenn McKinlay. This is one of the "Library Lovers" series. I know when I pick up one of these "cozy mysteries" that I'm not going to get breakneck action or a challenging character study. But this book requires such a suspension of disbelief that to accept it you'd have to be brain damaged.

For example, our heroine, Lindsay, has just seen her brother kidnapped. Now she and her ex-boyfriend are in a small boat, chasing after a much larger one through dark and dangerous waters. There's an explosion. Lindsey and Sully are almost killed and her brother and his captors are lost in the night. So what do you think she does?

Call the police? No. Fall apart? No. Have passionate, life-affirming sex with Sully? No. 

She sits in the kitchen with her landlady, Nancy, as Sully makes them all some of his famous hot chocolate. I believe there was mention of nutmeg and cinnamon. 

The entire book is just this dumb. Last fall I read an earlier book in the series -- Book, Line and Sinker -- and, taken on it's own terms, I enjoyed it. But this one is borderline insulting, and I finished it only out of misguided optimism and stubborness.

  3.  What will you read next? Stories I Only Tell My Friends by Rob Lowe.
 

Nail polish and mimosas

Here it is Wednesday and I'm just now catching the blogosphere up on my weekend!*

Saturday afternoon brought me to the salon for my 2017 pedi. I went back to the future and revisited my Fall 2014 color: OPI La-Paz-itively Hot. The weather has been chilly and gray so my pretty pink toes have not yet been able to dazzle the populace, but I love looking them. When I gaze upon my new pedi, I hear Beatle George in my head: "Little darling, it's been a long, cold lonely winter."

The Saturday Cub game was rained out. The unscheduled day off turned out to be a good thing for my guys, for Sunday afternoon's game was a blowout. Cubs 13 - Brewers 6. And the score makes it sound closer than it was.

Sunday afternoon also found me enjoying a mimosa at brunch with Nancy. It's the first time I've spent any time with her in months! For all that I've expressed wanting a closer relationship with her, I have been soooo lazy in pursuing it. Friendships take work. I must remember that.

Anyway, she's very happy these days, so it was nice to be around her. She told me about her trip with her kids to Hollywood to be a contestant on Jeopardy! She's legally unable to tell me how she did before the show airs this summer, but she was able to tell me all kinds of cool stuff about the taping. For example, Jeopardy! contestants stay at the same hotel and tape in the same studio as Wheel of Fortune contestants. These Jeopardy! folks -- who have never met before and would soon be competing against one another -- were united in feeling superior to the Wheel of Fortune contestants. Wheel of Fortune is all luck, "no brains required."

She's also happy and confident in her new job. I wish I was happy and confident in mine.It was fun to see her enjoying her life so much.




*Oh, blogosphere! How have you managed to roll along without hearing how I've spent my free time?