lazy day, gingersnappy
Tuesday, Sept. 07, 2004,

Got my wish yesterday�Lazy bum day.

I pretty much lounged around the house, and never made it out of my jammies. Spouse was really quite sick with what he�s decided was food poisoning. He slept most of yesterday, and really didn�t eat much. When he got to work this morning, he found out that his boss and his assistant (who he was traveling with) were also sick this weekend. With the same symptoms. So they figure it was something they ate on the road.

I was feeling fine yesterday, but since the housework was done, and all the running around was done, I was able to play.

I did some beading, starting a new project. It is a ladder stitch bracelet, with dark red glass, 4mm beads in a lantern cut. For the border beads, I�m using #11 glass seed beads in hematite finish. I�m stringing on elastic cord, and the end result will be a stretchy bangle. I�m hoping to capture a sort of Victorian feel�like garnets and marcasite. PITA to string, though. Two-needle technique is bad enough, but with that elastic stuff, it is agony.

I also: finished re-reading Colin Dexter�s �The Wench Is Dead�, made my Swedish Gingersnaps dipped in Ghirardelli white chocolate, and roasted a pork loin with new potatoes and baby carrots for dinner.

I�d been planning to dip the gingersnaps for a while, and found the cookies at Cost Plus. But then I couldn�t find the chocolate. Since I was attempting to approximate the Seroogy�s confection, I really wanted Ghirardelli white chocolate, for the quality. I finally found it at Trader Joe�s a couple of weeks ago, but then, with all the health stuff, hadn�t had time to make them.

And, of course, I had gone on a diet in the meantime. So I made them and brought them in to work, so that others could help me eat them. A couple of people liked them, but several people wanted to know where I got the great gingersnaps (They are Nyakers, which I�m pretty sure is what Seroogy�s uses). I have to admit, they�re pretty damn good plain, too!

I�m reading Ellen Hart right now. I have read several of her books before, going back about 10 years. But they were all Jane Lawless stories, and now I�m reading a couple of the Sophie Greenways. I�ve decided I like Sophie and her lifestyle-most of it. In the one I started yesterday, it seems she was unfaithful to her husband Bram, and I have a real aversion to that. Then there is the fact that she never writes a story that doesn�t bring up someone�s homosexuality. I like the plots, and Ellen Hart is so close to a being good writer that it almost hurts. Her characters and plots are complex, interesting, and well-rounded (sometimes to the point of being super-beings), and the mysteries walk perfectly the line between letting the reader have fair play clues, and being good old stumpers.

No, I can�t fault her imagination at all. She brings the Twin Cities to life and populates them with interesting, amusing characters. But her actual writing ability is just a little dry, and awkward. Just a tiny, infuriating, little bit.