Frances Norris

Julia Daniel is a food-stylist who really wants to be a photographer, and who has recently lost her father and stepmother in a plane crash (her mother had died years before), which event spurs her to examine her life. She hates her boss, she's not dating, and she's unsatisfied with her career, all of which are fairly typical for fictional characters in their thirties.

But while Blue Plate Special does include the usual chick-lit standards of the perfect guy and the supportive friend, as well as the mother-surrogate from childhood friend, it strays from the genre in that the happy ending is still a bit out of reach at the end of the novel – it will come, but not instantly.

While I enjoyed the book, I'm really bored with women in books who are only happy when in a relationship, not just happy in themselves.

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My brain feels as if it's shrouded in grey gauze, protected, somehow, from thinking deep thoughts today.

I woke, disoriented, from a dream in which I was waiting for college acceptance letters ⓠthat hasn't been part of my life for almost twenty years ⓠbut in my dream, the thing that was most vivid was the décor of the dorm room ⓠcolor coordinating bedsets and computer systems. Well, why not?

When I let the dogs into the yard's humid warmth, I noticed that there was no pattern of sunshine on the patio. Like my brain, the sun, too, is shrouded today.

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While Fuzzy sat and watched the usual Friday evening Sci-Fi Channel fare, and I listened to it, catching glimpses now and then, I also mixed and chopped, beat and blended, stirred, and smoothed, adding vanilla here and half a cup of Ghirardelli ground cocoa powder there, until finally, there was a chocolate cake with chocolate-walnut filling, and chocolate frosting, a belated birthday dessert for my favorite guy.

Somewhat ironically, we did not manage to eat any of it last night, but will have its flavor to anticipate all day, while we drive a rescued dog part-way home.

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Saw this in ' LJ:

Javier Grillo-Marxuach (), writer and supervising producer of LOST, and all-around excellent person) will donate $5.00 to the American Red Cross Katrina relief efforts for every person who links to his post.

Just link to him, then comment in his post that you linked.

Link Here: http://www.livejournal.com/users/chaodai/30592.html

(And for the record, Martha Wells writes really cool sci-fi/fantasy novels and you should all buy her books. :) )

Amy of BeautyJoyFood is hosting a collection of NOLA-themed blog entries (well, links to them, anyway), in an effort to help increase donations to the Red Cross (see banner), in the wake of Katrina. I think it's pretty cool of her to put her blog to use that way, and would like to encourage folks to go to the roundup post and either submit their own entries, or just read the existing contributions.

* * * * *
Half-Heard Thoughts (100 Words)
Half-watching â“ I was reading, and mainly listening to the show – Charlie Rose last night, I heard a Southern author say that while a rebuilt New Orleans can never be the same as the previous incarnation, change of some kind is inevitable â“ the pre-Katrina version of the city is not the same city as the 2004 or 1994 version, but the differences are more subtle, and came more slowly, and without such drama.

None of this is meant to make light of the situation, but, I think itâ™s a perspective worth considering, and a notion that is laced with hope.

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âœHi, I'm Michael, I'll be your sonographer today,â he greeted me, in a tone not unlike Julie announcing she is your cruise director, though his curls were natural, I'm certain.

I followed him into the dimly lit ultrasound room, exchanged my t-shirt and loose black pants for a stunning cotton gown with blue ties at the back, and the heady scent of bleach issuing from the fibers, and then took my place on the exam bed.

While he squirted my stomach with warm gel, and then took pictures of my internal organs, we chatted about children's literature, and hurricane victims. At the end, he assured me that I do not have appendicitis, and left me with the oddest compliment ever: âœYou have pretty ovaries.â

And I do.
I've seen the pictures.

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Happy birthday to my dearest darling !!!!

Louise Marley

In The Child Goddess Louise Marley introduces us to a future in which the Catholic Church, bowing to peer pressure, and the need for clergy to serve on Earth and various other worlds, has allowed an order of female priests, the Magdalenes, celebate Enquirers who have accepted Mary of Magdala as Christ's first disciple.

Despite that, it's not a religious novel, as much as it is a good first contact story. A power company on an obscure, mostly-oceanic world discovers an island of lost children, remnants of a 300 year old colony. There's the inevitable skirmish, and one child is brought home to Earth, where Isabel, the Magdalene priest who is the lead character, is assigned as guardian, and with the help of a friend (which backstory, I'm hoping, is in one of the other books in this series) discovers the truth of the girl's life and culture.

It's an excellent novel as a stand-alone, and I enjoyed it as much for the plot as for Marley's feminist sensibilities with regard to Catholocism.

I look forward to visiting her work again, in the future.

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In lieu of a real post, I offer bullets.
Also, the word of the day is tomato. I challenge everyone to write a blog-post or a flash-fic piece interpreting that word.

1. I woke up this morning with Ruby Tuesday on my lips – the song, not the burger joint – and it's still echoing in my head as I write this.
2. Inspired by a friend, I wrote some flash-fiction this morning, which you can check out at MoonChilde.com, my fiction site. If you read it, please leave a comment there. (LJ users can ignore this, as MoonChilde also mirrors to this journal.)
3. I really wish I had a butler who would make french toast and coffee and bring it to me, poolside. Well, one can dream.
4. Yes, I AM stil in bed at one, but I've posted to my new account at Blogit.com, and written a book review, and the above-mentioned flash piece. (Most of the Blogit content is the same as here, some is not.)
5. I love the way Zorro's fur smells like cinnamon and honeysuckle. He's so comforting. Cleo is also comforting, but she just smells like sun-baked dog.
6. When I first read Harriet the Spy, as a child, I began eating tomato sandwiches. Sometimes, I still do.

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Joanne Fluke

Hannah Swenson owns a bakery called The Cookie Jar in a fictional town in Minnesota, and when she's not pushing sugar, she solves crimes. The formula for a Culinary Mystery is not new: cozy murder mystery combined with a cookbook, but unlike Diane Mott Davidson's tales, the mystery here is predictable, and the text is desperate for a good editor.

I confess that the book did inspire the need to make cobbler (mine was strawberry), and the recipe worked, for the most part, but I find it jarring to have the recipes within the chapters, and not grouped together at the end.

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