livin' the vida caliente.
For weeks I said, Gee, isn't it nice how overcast it is in the mornings? Really keeps down the temperature around here.
It is no longer overcast in the mornings. It's gotten hot in a hurry. This is the kind of heat that gives Los Angeles a bad name.
Yesterday I walked to the coffee place for a nice iced latte at noon. It's roughly a mile and a half roundtrip. When I returned home I went to Darin and said, "Next time I decide to take a walk around noon, I want you to stop me, okay?" I would have been a puddle on the sidewalk, except it was so hot that the liquid part would have evaporated immediately and all that would have been left is the stain part.
I had to drive into the LA Basin yesterday. It was 10 to 15 degrees cooler there. Only 86 degrees F.
On Sunday Darin went to see American Pie--he liked it, thought it was very funny; not my cup of tea--and I went to the Barnes and Noble to read the submissions from the mystery writing class. There's a definite range of subgenres in the class. (Also a range of talent, but that goes without saying.)
What surprised me was that there were a couple of supernatural ones. I guess it's a big crossover subgenre right now. Unfortunately, one of them was so close to the beginning of the Buffy TV series that I have to be a big weenie and say, "Change it."
Recently--while not passed out from the heat--I've been reading mysteries:
- Immaculate Reception, by Jerrilyn Farmer: She gave me this copy, in order to convince me that I would like her books. (And I'll never say no to a free book, except possibly The Book of Mormon.) The story is about the series character Madeline Bean's commission to put on a brunch for the Pope's visit to LA--hilarity and murder ensue. Hey, this is a tough town. There are lots of wonderful asides about Hollywood. My only complaints are that I hate Madeline's boyfriend Arlo and wish Jerrilyn would ixnay him already, and plot is not the strong suit here. But who cares when you get to learn about the Amber Room?
- Good Night, Mr. Holmes, by Carole Nelson Douglas: I got so into these Holmes pastiche things that I picked up the first in Douglas' series about Irene Adler, the only woman to ever best Holmes. The book is primarily a retelling of "A Scandal in Bohemia" from Adler's companion Penelope Huxleigh's point of view. Penelope comes off as a twit, which I guess is further homage to the Holmes genre, but it makes for very tough going for this reader. I don't want to feel superior to the narrator, I want to like the narrator. Irene is quite engaging, however. I'm not so thrilled I would pick up another one, though I can see why some would. If you like Holmes pastiches, this is worth checking out.
- Emperor Norton's Ghost, by Dianne Day: I got this one out of the library. Smartest thing I've done lately--stop me before I ever pick up another book with Day's name on it. I can't imagine that making your main character sound incredibly stupid is a recommended technique for a mystery series. Day even gets an incredibly easy piece of San Francisco geography WRONG, WRONG, WRONG (characters walk northwest from Union Square...and end up in Chinatown), which for a writer who lives in San Francisco is tragic. Rating: Pass, pass, pass.
I saw a billboard the other day that said something like, "The sweepstakes van isn't coming." The billboard was for E*Trade, the modern roulette wheel.
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Copyright 1999 Diane Patterson
Send comments and questions to diane@spies.com