Honey, Honey

The cast of MM2

I’m participating in Jim’s Song Lyric Sunday again this week, and today he asks for songs about candy, honey, sugar, or sweet. Naturally, I have to feature “Honey, Honey” from ABBA, except I am not using the original 1974 version but the one sung by Amanda Seyfried in the 2008 Mamma Mia movie instead, which I think is better, more emotional, and not as smoothly cool. 

When the movie begins, Sophie greets her friends Ali and Lisa who have arrived at the fictional Greek island of Kalokairi for Sophie's wedding, which is the next day. Sophie tells them she has a big announcement, so of course they immediately think she's pregnant, but that's not it. What happened is that Sophie has found her mother's diary from the summer when Donna was pregnant with Sophie. 

All these years, Donna has maintained the lie that Sophie's dad was a nameless one-night stand who disappeared before Donna knew she was pregnant. But the diary reveals a different story. From the diary, Sophie and her friends learn that Donna had three relationships in a very short span of time, and one of those men is Sophie's father. Not only that, but full names are included in Donna's diary. We hear about Sam Carmichael first...

Honey honey, how you thrill me, a-ha, honey honey

Honey honey, nearly kill me, a-ha, honey honey

I'd heard about you before

I wanted to know some more

And now I know what they mean, you're a love machine

Oh, you make me dizzy

Sophie reads from the diary the heartbreaking account of how Sam left Donna and returned home to the girl he'd been engaged to the whole time, which of course makes Ali and Lisa feel terrible for Donna. But not to worry! Bill Anderson shows up, and though Donna is still depressed about Sam, she goes with Bill for a sail around the islands, and dot dot dot ~ "that's what they did in the olden days!" 

Honey honey, let me feel it, a-ha, honey honey

Honey honey, don't conceal it, a-ha, honey honey

The way that you kiss goodnight

(The way that you kiss me goodnight)

The way that you hold me tight

(The way that you're holding me tight)

I feel like I wanna sing when you do your thing

Finally, we learn about the third man, Harry Bright, Donna's friend from Paris who shows up "out of the blue" after Donna has slept with Sam and Bill, and dot dot dot...

Honey honey, touch me, baby, a-ha, honey honey

Honey honey, hold me, baby, a-ha, honey honey

You look like a movie star (look like a movie star)

But I know just who you are (I know just who you are)

And honey, to say the least, you're a doggone beast

Note that the 2018 prequel sequel shows these events a bit differently. In MM2, Donna meets Harry in Paris and spends a night with him. The next day she travels to Greece, where she meets Bill, who offers her a ride on his boat when she misses her ferry ~ Donna and Bill do not sleep together at this point because they are interrupted by an SOS from Alexio. After helping Alexio, Bill goes off to his boat race, Donna meets Sam on Kalokairi, and Donna and Sam become lovers. When Sam leaves to return to his fiancée, Bill shows up again, and then he and Donna sleep together on his boat. Harry does not return to Kalokairi in MM2, and so Donna goes through her pregnancy and childbirth sans the baby daddy (whoever he is) with help from Sofia, a local woman, who may or may not be related to Bill. 

Some of you may think that I know a little too much about these Mamma Mia movies, and to that I say pffft. Anyway, after the girls are done with Donna's diary, Sophie stands alone at her window and the song subtly switches from being about the three men as Donna's lovers to Sophie needing to find out which one is her father in order to feel complete. Spoiler: she has invited all three men to her wedding and believes she will know which one is her dad at first sight. Ha ha ha. I'm so excited because there are rumors of an MM3, in which we will learn the true identity of Sophie's bio-dad (to date, she's fine with having "three dads").

Listen (and watch) the MM1 song and movie clip here. Songwriting credits go to Benny Goran Bror Andersson / Bjoern K. Ulvaeus / Stig Erik Leopold Anderson. I copied the lyrics from LyricFind.

Two for Tuesday: Movies Again

 

Two ducks in Los Angeles (my photo)

1. Two if By Sea (1996). This romcom stars Sandra Bullock (Roz), one of my favorite actors, and Denis Leary (Frank). Yaphet Kotto (RIP) plays a detective (O'Malley), and you might remember him in the dual roles of Dr. Kanaga and Mr. Big from Live and Let Die, as well as many other roles over the years, Bill Bennett directs. Frank is a small-time Boston thief who steals a $4M painting he plans to hand over to "Phill the Shill," a big-time criminal who is presumed dead by most in law enforcement, except for O'Malley (who has a personal vendetta against Phill). Roz is a bookstore clerk and Frank's long-suffering girlfriend, who wants Frank to give up his criminal ways and become a legit citizen/ husband/ father, but in the meantime she helps him because she's a lot smarter than he is.

Frank decides to make a long weekend out of the art thievery escapade, so he and Roz end up crashing at an unoccupied house in a ritzy area, where Roz meets a wealthy, handsome neighbor who falls in love with her, and she considers dumping Frank. There are some funny side characters, including Michael Badalucco, who has been in a zillion movies. I wouldn't say this is great romcom, but there are some laughs, and Sandra is always enjoyable. I watched this on Netflix over the July 4th weekend.

2. Ladies First (2026). This movie would have been hilarious on July 4, 1986, but it felt dated as a new movie. It stars Sasha Baron Cohen and Rosamund Pike, and it's directed by Thea Sharrock. Charles Dance costars, and you may remember him as Tywin Lannister in Game of Thrones. I certainly do! The acting is top notch, but the premise that a misogynistic bully male boss hits his head and is magically transported to a parallel world where women are in charge feels a bit "been there done that" to me. There are many funny moments at first, but they soon grow repetitive and stale. We get it, OK: everyone wants to be respected, yada yada. The idea that a man would feel bad about being treated like a sex object by women doesn't really work because I don't think most men would feel bad! The movie should have focused more on gender-based pay disparities, which isn't dated because it's still happening, but I guess that's not as funny as penile implants. 

Usually, I don't bother reviewing movies I don't like, but I did watch Ladies First to the end and figured it deserved a bit of a write-up since it's new and being hyped on Netflix.

Summer Reading Bingo 2

Reading challenge bingo card

Welcome to my summer bingo book series, where I post five short reviews at a time. I'm giving myself the whole summer to finish the bingo card, not just the month of June. This is my second set of reviews; you can find the first set here.

1. Free space. Guarded by the Grizzly Bear by Reece Barden. This book was recommended by Mary, and it sounded fun, so I grabbed it off Kindle Unlimited. It had been some time since I tried to read a shifter romance, and this one got 3 stars, which is a good rating from me for this type of novel, where I find it impossible to suspend my disbelief. While the male main character was a stereotypical possessive jerk, though of course totally hot as required (it's never acceptable when a non-handsome man stalks you), the female MC (a cop) was strong and interesting, until the end anyway, and that was a treat. The setting seemed to be in the USA, maybe Montana, but around the halfway point there were a few UK spellings (favour, pyjamas), so maybe it was set in Canada. Unclear. This kind of thing throws me out of the story because I need to understand the logistics. Even a fantasy novel should be consistent with details. Bad proofreading, assuming there was any.

(I wouldn't normally use the "free space" so soon, except I had already started this book when I decided to join in on the summer reading bingo suggested by my book club leader.)

2. Ice cream on cover. Ice Cream and Incidents by Agatha Frost. I really wanted to like this book because it’s been a while since I’ve enjoyed a cozy mystery. It began in a promising way with some unexpected characters, but it soon turned into a boring drag (not punning). The writing was simply flat with loads of telling not showing. There was zero chemistry between the main character Julia and Barker, her fiancé; in fact, I thought they might be headed for a breakup given their lack of affection (I know cozies don't do explicit love scenes, but there was nothing here). They were happy with their dull cardboard existence, apparently. The only reason this novel gets 2 stars instead of 1 is because some of the drag queen scenes were fun. The description on Goodreads is incorrect, btw: there was no murder, just a stage “accident.” Finally, the title had nothing to do with the story. Yes, they had ice cream a couple times on vacation, but Julia was a cake baker. Why not Icing and Incidents?

3. Has June in the title. June by K. Nicole. Despite all the typos (what is it with books lately not being properly proofread and edited?!), I really enjoyed this book! Gave it 4 stars. It was a very atypical romance novel with fresh writing and interesting characters. And chemistry, whew! There was lots of graphic sex in this book, which was important to the plot. Another strong female lead carried half the story, with the hot criminal dude taking the other half. As in Grizzly, the female MC was a cop, but in this case the male MC truly was a bad guy. Some of the Black lingo was a little hard for me to follow, but I got the gist of most of it from the context, especially as the story progressed. The writing was full of vivid detail, which I always appreciate. I have a huge TBR pile, but eventually I want to read more books by this author.

4. NY Times Best Seller. Never Leave the Dogs Behind by Brianna Madia. This memoir was hard to read from an emotional standpoint, but it was very well-written and ultimately satisfying. Since her marriage fell apart, Bri is suicidal, manic-depressive, and dissociative. The only thing keeping her going is her love for her dogs. She isn’t a very likable person, but the reader can understand why she became so bitter and ran off to the desert to get away from everyone. Internet popularity is always a double-edged sword, and it was great to see Bri finally quit caring about hateful Instagram comments and root her sense of self in the physical world. Four stars.

5. Published in June. The Beach Holiday by Nina Manning. I had mixed feelings about this book. First, it annoyed me with the now/ then narrative. I understand that a lot of thrillers do this, but I find that it lessens the suspense factor. We know Sadie is safe because there’s a “now,” so we may not be as invested in the “then.” Just tell the dang story as it happened! Why is this so difficult lately? Second, the narration was in first person, but we were only privy to some of Sadie’s headspace. She kept secrets from us and lied to us. If you want to create distance from the reader, use third person. All that said, I ended up enjoying a big chunk of the story only because it was so different and weird, though preposterous. There were a lot of unanswered questions too, the main one being… why the heck couldn’t Sadie have told her family about Bruno?! I guess that would have wrecked the flimsy premise of Sadie “needing” to go to Fiji. Three stars.

Alrighty then, I have completed 10 bingo squares, yay me! Onto the next set of reviews…

Flashback Friday: Some Like It Hot

Somewhere in time...

I'm participating in Fandango's Flashback Friday today with a post from June 19, 2021 that I found on the Wayback Machine for my old WP blog. 

Hot Enough For Ya? 

Are writers pyromaniacs? They sure talk about heat and fire a lot. Romance novels are full of warm looks, hot kisses, burning desires, and fireworks exploding when people make love. The obsession with heat transcends genre however. Here are some titles from my list of read books. OK, most are romance, though some are horror (as if there’s a difference).

Sizzling. One Hot Cowboy Wedding. Devilishly Hot. Firestarter. Firelight. A Song of Ice and Fire. The Girl Who Played With Fire. Little Fires Everywhere. A Dream of Fire. Heart of Fire.

What about music? Fire It Up. We Didn’t Start the Fire. Fire Down Below. Fire and Ice. The Heat Is On. Hot Summer Nights. Hot Legs. Hot Child In The City. Burning Up. I’m Burning For You. And those are just the titles!

It’s kind of weird that fire/ burning is associated with love/ sex/ romance, when it also conjures up notions of hell. Then again, considering my past relationships, perhaps it’s not strange at all…

Lucille's Version

 

Black and white AI image of a woman at a bar

So I finally got the courage to leave Hank, after all those years of acting like a submissive jellyfish, taking care of his four kids (that never had weekends with his ex-wife as Hank had promised), doing a billion chores around the farm (that Hank had promised he would hire help for), not being allowed to work part-time to have my own money, never seeing my friends because Hank didn't like them, and finally never even making love as we were too tired. What kind of marriage is that? Hank refused to go to counseling with me, so I finally went alone, and the counselor told me that she saw no hope for us if Hank refused to even admit there was a problem.

I didn't take anything of his with me, just some of my clothes and the money I made selling eggs at the market. Technically, the chickens belonged to Hank, but I was the one who took care of them. I doubted I would miss Hank or his snotty kids who never listened to me (and Hank never backed me up either), but I would miss those chickens, especially the silkies. My plan was to take a bus to Pittsburgh and go to work at my aunt's coffee shop, and I got as far as Toledo when I had a four-hour wait until the next bus out. I decided to go have a drink at the bar, and, well, the rest is history.

In a bar in Toledo, across from the depot

On a bar stool she took off her ring
I thought I'd get closer, so I walked on over
I sat down and asked her her name
When the drinks finally hit her, she said "I'm no quitter
But I finally quit living on dreams
I'm hungry for laughter and here ever after
I'm after whatever the other life brings

Yeah, I probably had a few too many, but what the heck ~ I wasn't driving. It was fun having a new man pay attention to me and engage in some mutual flirtation, even if it was only for a couple hours. But then Hank showed up! He put on quite a show for the clueless new guy, whining that I was leaving "hungry" kids when I made those little monsters a vat of mac and cheese before I left. And crops in the field, really? He meant the strawberries that he wanted me to sell at his booth at the county fair. What a big phony! But the new guy fell for it. He was some kind of traveling salesman, not too successful by the look of things, and certainly not the brightest bulb.

After he left us I ordered more whiskey

I thought how she'd made him look small

From the lights of the bar room to a rented hotel room

We walked without talking at all

She was a beauty, but when she came to me

She must have thought I'd lost my mind

I couldn't hold her, 'cause the words that he told her

Kept coming back time after time

Fine, whatever. It's not like I was really attracted to him or anything; I just thought it would be nice to have some affection after the drought with Hank. But it was not meant to be. I left the guy sitting by himself in his room, walked back to the bus station, grabbed my stuff out of the locker, and waited for the 10:00 to Pittsburgh. Maybe the drinks would allow me to sleep on the bus and not think about this whole disaster I created by impulsively marrying Hank. Gah! No more men. I needed to find a cheap divorce lawyer as soon as I scraped up some funds, and then I would--

"Excuse me, doll, is this the line for Pittsburgh?" A scruffy 20-something guy holding a guitar case was gazing at me expectantly. He had gorgeous blue eyes.

OK. No more farmers or traveling salesman. I shouldn't rule out all men though. 

~*~

"Lucille" was written by Roger Bowling and Hal Bynum. Kenny Rogers recorded/ released it in 1977. I wanted to expand on the song, which was solely from the man's point of view, and create a version from Lucille's POV.

Books (April A2Z ~ Misty Memories)

Mommy and me, around 1965

Welcome to my April A2Z posts! This time, I am officially signed up on the challenge sheet and will be visiting other bloggers on the list. My theme is "misty memories," which will include a bunch of rambling about old stuff in my life, and hopefully some of it will be accurate, but if not, there's no one around to contradict me. Today we continue with B for Books.

I have always been an avid reader. It’s genetic! Both my parents loved to read, and my daughters do too. It could be environmental, of course ~ if a child sees people enjoying books, naturally she will want to pick one up and see what the big deal is. The first book I remember reading on my own, maybe around age 4, was called Artie the Smartie. It was about a fish. I liked the Bobbsey Twins books a lot when I was around 8-9 years old, and then I graduated to adventure books about dogs. I began as a dog-lover, and my twenties, I switched to cats, though I still love (nice) doggos.

At 10, I read The Velveteen Rabbit, a beautiful story which made me cry and still does. I reread it from time to time.

By the time I was 12, I was reading adult romances ~ yes, the kind the drugstore sells. At first, they were "light" Harlequins, but that's just a gateway drug, and eventually I moved on to steamier stuff. As I have mentioned before, this was bad for me, and as a parent I wouldn't have allowed it (luckily, my daughters had no interest in romance novels and still don't). My parents, however, were of the hippy dippy 70's mindset that nothing should be censored from anyone, and they also believed that reading was so valuable it shouldn't be discouraged. I suppose that's a fair point, as I did have a much wider vocabulary than my peers. 

Anyway, I read everything, and I mean everything. The Happy Hooker. Playboy. Hustler. This was all lying around at my parents' house and at the houses of people whose kids I babysat. (OK, sometimes I had to search for it, lol.) A lot of this material was inappropriate for a young teenager because I couldn't put it in context or process it properly as fantasy. It messed up my head and self-image. I didn't look anything like the women I read about, and in my mind, physical appearance became tied to love: if you weren't beautiful, in very specific ways, you weren't going to be loved. That is how my 12-17 year old brain processed this reading material.

I also read tons of mysteries and detective novels and some biographies and autobiographies of celebs. I still enjoy those genres. For decades, I continued with the romances, gravitating toward novels set in the Regency period, but right now I'm tired of them all. I'm also a bit bored with thrillers, as after reading hundreds of them, they aren't that thrilling. 

I still love books though, just not the reading rut I have been in lately ~ I have struggled to escape and return to the magic of books! These days, I'm apt to choose one that's simply different from stuff I've recently read. Poetry, biography, science, philosophy, etc. Case in point: at the moment I am reading Love of Goldens, a non-fiction "coffee table" book with loads of photos of gorgeous golden retrievers interspersed with adorable vignettes.

Everything old is new again, eh?

Officially in My Fusspot Era

This year I have read an absolutely insane amount of books (250+), and I have come to some decisions. First, I am slowing down because I want to retain more of the content. Second, I have been in a genre rut with psycho thrillers and romance, and I want to read more broadly in 2026. I don’t mean more fiction genres, but other types of books entirely, such as poetry, biography, and science. Third, when I do read genre fiction, I plan on being much fussier. 

This all is basically just me clarifying stuff for myself; I expect it to have zero interest to anyone else. I needed a place to vomit my thoughts.

I won’t read a contemporary romance novel if the meet cute involves clumsiness/ spilling of food, beverage or paperwork. Post meet clumsiness may be acceptable depending on the circumstances. In The Hating Game, Lucy was trying to make Josh jealous and tripped/ fell in her sexy dress and high heels, dumping out her purse all over the floor. That was funny and cute, but it was also cringe because I would have sprained my ankle. It’s like the scene in Miss Congeniality when Gracie strides out all gorgeous and blows Eric’s mind… then she falls. These are not technically meet cutes!

I won’t read a CRN or any kind of mystery where the plot could be obliterated by one session with Google. I mean, come on. Any type of fake ID/ mistaken identity motif is not going to work in a modern story unless the character has bought fake creds from a super hacker. Or if they’re a government agent. 

I don’t want to read books with teenaged protagonists. This is handy because it rules out genres that already don’t appeal to me, such as fantasy and young adult. I can’t bear anything about high school drama, nor do I want to see teens saving the world in some dystopian yuck. But what about Victoria Holt? All her heroines are teenagers. Great question! I am tired of her books and don’t plan on reading any more of them, so that works out. Granted, teens were different back when and way more mature, but even so. Also, I am suspicious of that “new adult” genre full of people under 30. They’re annoying and not much different from high schoolers.

I still like romances, though I am on somewhat of a break, but I don’t want to read about second chances. They annoy me. I just finished a holiday romance (The Eight Heartbreaks of Hanukkah by Jean Meltzer) that had not only a second-chance motif but also was full of ghosts (a la A Christmas Carol), and I liked it enough to give it three stars. But I consider it an exception, mainly due to the fabulous job Jean did in describing migraines and related issues, including rationing meds because insurance allows only nine pills per month. In general, however, I don’t care for ghosts or exes hanging around past their expiration dates. 

What else? I don’t like the trope of the grumpy boss (billionaire or not) and his “sunshine” romantic interest. Why does the man always get to be the grump anyway? I am over mafia romances because they’re all the same. I am not a fan of contemporary characters who “hate” each other and end up in a fake-dating situation because there’s never actually a need for it other than to satisfy the terms of a will, but characters who are willing to sell their souls for a chunk of change don’t appeal to me anyway. Maybe hater dater fakery is acceptable in a Regency or other old-timey romance, depending on the details. Back then, people had fewer options. I am not ruling out CRNs though ~ they just need to have better plots than the standard omg I spilled coffee on the cutest guy but it turns out he’s my hot new boss and totally grumpy because his grandma cut him from her will unless he gets married in 30 days and he really needs her farmland to develop an enrichment camp for orphans.

Now we come to murder, blood, and gore. In general, I am not a fan of graphically described injury and death, but I do love mysteries and detective stories, so I will tolerate gore for the sake of the story. If I see from the book jacket that the main point of the novel is to come up with gruesome torture scenes, then that’s a hard pass right there. It’s one thing to describe a death in context of a police procedure, but it’s quite another to witness the writer revel in bloody descriptions. I don’t want to go inside the mind of a maniacal serial killer who gets off on amputations, etc. There are so many gross books out. But I also don’t want to read cozy mysteries, where bodies are bloodless and the murder scene smells like pumpkin spice candles. 

Horror is too disgusting and disturbing for me. I gave it a chance with the Haunted series by Lee Mountford back in October because I liked the first book, but they became a nonstop river of gore. The last few books were basically a skim because of all the rotting corpses and mangled eyeballs. Shudder. I’m reading a murder mystery right now that is all about the various clues and psychological aspects of the characters. (So far, there haven’t been any disturbing passages.) That is what I like in a story, not descriptions of death or how bodies look in the morgue. The same goes for any book about relationships ~ I want to read rich and vivid details about the characters’ mental and emotional worlds, not a boring recitation of sex romps. 

This also means I will be more discerning re the books I am willing to read for my book clubs, especially the online club.

Passed My Bloggaversary

Or is it blogiversary? Anyway, I restarted this blog on August 12, 2024 with my review of It Ends With Us (the movie). Next week is my 24th anniversary at my workplace. I think I will bring muffins in on Tuesday when most coworkers show up (many work from home on other days). I've started to finally understand that maintaining and nurturing friendships and connections beyond my immediate family is a good thing and not something to be so wary of. I was repeatedly hurt by friends dipping and dates ghosting in the past and became very guarded. It's normal to go through bad experiences, but it's important to persevere (imo). The more I read about aging and brain health, the more I get that connections are crucial. It's not enough to simply do puzzles alone to keep the mind sharp. People need people ~ even introverts like me ~ for their emotional well being.

To be clear, I am talking about friendship not datingship. That ship has sailed.

I binge-watched The Hunting Wives on Netflix this week and enjoyed it a lot, though it got a bit kooky and farfetched by the end. Still, it was something different, plus I always love Malin Anderson (the sister in 27 Dresses), who had a lead role. The best thing about the show (limited series of 8 episodes) is that it seems at first to be tilted toward making the gun-toting, pro-life, wealthy Republican women appear more sympathetic than the awkwardly liberal Boston newcomer, but just wait... Spoiler: it is an epic takedown! Kudos to Mary Cobb, who wrote the novel, and to Rebecca Perry Cutter, who wrote the series. There's loads of nudity, sex (including graphic FF sex), violence, swearing, drinking, drugs, politics, and SMOKING. So, basically a fun time all around. I'm not sure if I want to deal with a second season however (supposedly on the way). One seems like plenty.

I read Kate White's mystery novel A Body to Die For, which is a fun romp through an upstate New York spa in beautiful autumn. It almost made me long for the change of seasons. Almost! Bailey Weggins, a crime journalist, intends to visit her beloved aunt at the spa she runs, but instead becomes embroiled in a murder investigation. She's also juggling a romance back in the city. We have all kinds of interesting characters to get to know, as well as a very handsome detective, and loads of twisty turns. Four stars. I may read some more books in this series, when I make further progress in getting through my enormous TBR pile.

I gave five stars to William Penrose's A Stranger to Earth. I don't read much science fiction, but this one really hooked me. It wasn't so much about aliens and space travel as it was about our human selves and how inhumanely we often treat each other. It was also frequently hilarious. Bill is a longtime FB friend, and he casually mentioned his book a little bit ago, which made me curious enough to go grab it for my Kindle. I'm glad I did!

Going forward, I think I'm only going to review the books I enjoy a lot, unless there is some particular point of interest to discuss in a book I find mediocre or worse. 

Looking forward to a birthday party tomorrow and some family time on Sunday. 

Love Saves the Day

Our book club leader challenged us to read and review two novellas in addition to our three August books of the month, so naturally I decided to read the novellas first because they're shorter. The first one I chose was Shamrock Kisses by Serena Pier (103 pages). This book is the third in a series of six mini-romances featuring a group of friends located in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. A bar called "High Five" serves as a motif throughout the series along with holiday themes, this one obviously being St. Patrick's Day. I found this book first (you don't have to read them in order), maybe because I love Inky's green eyes, though at times they appear golden (and in some old pics Gatsby's look greenish, go figure!), and if I liked it I would read the rest and if not, not. Welp, it's a not, sadly. This story basically has no plot whatsoever. Patrick meets Rachel, and they're both very attracted to each other. They meet up the next day at the High Five to begin flirting and dancing and smooching, et cetera. Except for the fact that Patrick lives in Chicago (but he can go remote), there is no obstacle at all put in the way of the couple's togetherness. They discover all kinds of cool things about each other, become even more attracted, and everything proceeds smoothly. Isn't that great? Yawn. Two stars.

The second book is 186 pages but is still considered a novella: Wrong Number by Daphne Leigh. This one contains very witty, very sexy banter (much of it via text), which is a welcome relief after the cringe convos throughout Shamrock. Honestly, I was a bit envious of Sarah, since James was the type of man I had hoped to meet back in my dating daze. He is confident, happy, witty, expressive, emotionally available, doesn't pretend to be too cool or busy to focus on one person, employed, etc. But then Sarah and James meet for a real date and everything goes to hell. To portray the heroine’s nervousness, the author has her tripping nonstop over her own feet and spilling drinks, not just once but over and over. So annoying and ridiculous. The relationship moves way too fast for no reason, though at least there are some emotional obstacles on her part to overcome, unlike in the Shamrock story. It would have been nice if James also had some kind of character arc or if there was some outside impediment to their togetherness. This could have been so much better. Oh well. Three stars. 

Note: both of these books are pretty high in “spice” aka explicit sex, not that any of you will likely read them to begin with!

For my in-person book club meeting next Sunday afternoon we have chosen the book Love Saves the Day by Gwen Cooper. This novel made me so angry! The reason is because this could have been a great book, a five-star book for sure, but the idiotic, mixed-up chronology is beyond irritating. Why can't contemporary writers just tell their stories straight? LSTD is all over the damn place timewise, and on top that, half the narration is from "the cat" (Prudence) in present tense. I don't mind this if it's done well and/ or if there's a small amount of it, but it isn't done well, and there is a lot of it. Granted, there are some funny/ cute moments, such as when Prudence speculates that Josh may be off-balance because he shaves his whiskers every day, but much of her narration is repetitive. The bones of an excellent novel are hidden beneath the fluff and silliness, and I became angrier at Gwen for hiding those bones than I would be at a lesser writer. She's a good writer! She could have begun this tale with Sarah's interesting life and proceeded chronologically to her daughter Laura's story, including all the gritty parts about how hard it is to live in NYC if you're not wealthy and the stuff about real estate and evil developers, etc., and perhaps incorporated some kitty input once in a while. Argh! Three stars. I'll probably read it again at some point and possibly fling on an extra star, but right now I am really tired of time jumping.

Speaking of cats, Inky is so mad at me right now because I brushed her and put a cute, blingy collar on her sweet little neck. She pretended she was over her snit when I offered her a bite of cheese (she adores cheese), but then she went right back to pouting in her cubby. 

You Can't Step in the Same River Twice

The title refers to a concept from the Greek philosopher Heraclitus, alluding to the fact that reality is in a constant state of flux. When you revisit the river, the water temp won't be exactly the same, there will be new critters, plants will have died/ others grown, etc. The water molecules themselves will not be the same ones as before. More significantly for the context of this post, you will have changed, especially if a chunk of time has passed; your memories, thoughts, ideas, expectations, dreams, etc., will not identically match the ones you had the last time you stepped in the river. Even if the river is close to being what it was, you will experience it differently. I find this to be true in particular for old TV shows I begin to rewatch.

One of my top favorite shows as a teenager was I Dream of Jeannie. Barbara Eden starred in this show, and she is still around in her 90s! I bought the complete series in a box set and couldn't even make it halfway through all the episodes. My god, this show was dumb. The dialog was occasionally amusing, especially when there was an excellent guest star, such as Paul Lynde, but ugh the repetitive plots and resolutions, usually in the form of Dr. Bellows (Hayden Rourke) complaining that Major Nelson (Larry Hagman) "did it to him again" when Jeannie magically blinks away whatever problem she had created. Jeannie nonstop harps on the idea of wanting to marry Nelson, but why? She can already manipulate him to do almost everything she wants, so it makes no sense that this supernatural creature needs the silly human bonds of matrimony to feel fulfilled. (The male writers naturally couldn't conceive of any world where every woman didn't want a ring on her finger.) Maybe we were supposed to assume that because Nelson was so virtuous he wouldn't have sex with Jeannie outside of marriage, and she was very attracted to him and wanted to sleep with him. This could not be explicitly stated of course because TV had to be "wholesome" back then. 

Another favorite that didn't stand up to a rewatch was That Girl. It's supposed to be about independent Ann Marie (Marlo Thomas), who moves to the big city to stand on her own two feet, except she never does. She immediately acquires a lawyer boyfriend Don Hollinger (Ted Bessell) who is always around to help her out of a jam, and she also relies on her daddy Lou Marie (Lew Parker) at every twist and turn. Yes, Marie is actually the family's surname for some unfathomable reason. It's really sickening to watch Ann giggle and act like a little girl throughout these episodes. The best ep (not that I was able to stomach too many of them before giving up) was one that guest-starred Rich Little as her date (when she was mad at Don). Another weird thing is how "whitewashed" NYC was: not only were the streets abnormally clean, but everyone on the show was literally white.

The same goes for One Day at a Time, which wasn't nearly as cute as I remembered it, and instead it was mostly annoying. The main character, newly divorced Ann Romano (Bonnie Franklin), drove me nuts with her mannerisms, especially when she would put her hand on her forehead and say "Ahhhhhhhhh, [character's name who was upsetting her, usually a daughter's]." Dwayne Snyder (Pat Harrington), the building manager/ handyman was not funny, and in fact on a rewatch struck me as rather creepy. Why did he constantly barge into their apartment? Valerie Bertinelli was adorable, of course, and I still can enjoy some of the romcoms she starred in afterwards. I haven't watched any of her newer sitcoms ~ newer meaning anything after 1980. I know there's a redo of ODAAT with a contemporary family, but I have no interest in checking it out. 

When I was in high school, I would flip on Match Game every afternoon. I thought Gene Rayburn and the guests were the funniest people ever. (I found out later that there was a lot of drinking going on, which makes sense as these folks were very uninhibited and always laughing.) Anyway, I saw it was being re-streamed on one of my channels, so I began watching. Yuck! The entire thing was beyond cringe. I guess my tastes have changed in the last 50 years? One would hope so. I discovered the other day via a friend that there's a new Match Game with Martin Short hosting. I watched it last night and was unimpressed. Short is funny enough, but the guests were not funny, and the questions were stupid, precluding obvious or even clever answers most of the time. Hulu conked out on me before the end, and I am not motivated to finish up the episode or watch any other ones. Oh well.

Shows that have stood the test of time:

1. Columbo

That's all for now. Nostalgia ain't what it used to be.

The Hating Game

In our previous episode, I mentioned that I had read The Hating Game, a contemporary romance by Sally Thorne, and gave it four stars. Yesterday I was poking around Netflix and saw that there was a romcom made from the book, so naturally I had to watch it. Generally, books are better than their movies, but this one was a close call. First, the casting was perfect with Lucy Hale as Lucy Hutton and Austin Stowell as Josh Templeman. Second, some of the slower and more repetitive parts of the novel were sped up in the movie, which was a good thing. Third, the chemistry between Lucy and Josh was super hot, and we could see that immediately in the movie, while it wasn't as clear in the book. There were moments that needed to be lingered over though, and in the movie they zipped past too fast. The movie glossed over the backgrounds of the main characters, but that info was needed for more of an understanding of their insecurities and motivations. In the movie, the job situation was wrapped up neatly with a bow, which was fine, but the book left things more ambiguous. which created the impression that their relationship would transcend whatever happened in their careers. If I could do it over, I would watch the movie first and then read the book.

Today I finished My Heart's Desire by Andrea Kane. The only reason I read this is because it was the 25th anniversary edition, which I needed for a box on my 2025 Reading Challenge. Apparently, it is a much-beloved historical romance (taking place at the start of the War of 1812), but I didn't care for it and gave it only two stars. I found the main characters shallow and boring, and the "plot" consisted of them becoming periodically enraged at each other over nothing just so they could have explosive makeup sex. Oh, there was another aspect to the story, which is that someone was trying to murder our dashing hero, but sadly the reader knew who it was the whole time so there wasn't even a fun mystery to solve.

I also read Kill for Me, Kill for You, a thriller by Steve Cavanaugh (a book club selection). This was a very layered, complex novel with interesting characters and incredible plot twists, and I liked it a lot. One of the major twists left me completely "gob smacked" as they say, but looking back I could have seen it coming. Didn't though! Four stars.

I watched another episode of Sirens, the third one I think, and I liked it but not enough to binge. I will watch them sedately, lol. I quit watching S2 of Nine Perfect Strangers because the new group of nine simply did not intrigue me like the first group did, despite Christine Baranski being one of the nine. Oh well. I will just have to watch her in the Mamma Mia movies 500 more times.

My friend L taught me how to play Farkle today, which was fun, and we also played Qwirkle, which is a good name for a pet. In fact, when I was still writing, I gave a dog that name. Alas, that WIP will sit in its folder for all eternity now. 

Speaking of pets, I've been messaging with a woman from a local forum who is trying to find a home for a neighborhood kitty whose owner can no longer care for her. I'm going to meet the kitty tomorrow night after work. She is an all black cat with golden eyes, and her name is Midnight. I will of course let you all know what happens.

Everything Feels Weird Now

Gatsby died on Saturday, May 17, 2025. Rest in peace, sweetest kitty.

He had been declining rapidly, partly because his appetite was so low (even with the stimulant) and partly because his kidneys were failing since last summer. He had quit tolerating the supplement ~ he threw up every time I tried to give him that (a liquid) or his quarter-pill of blood pressure meds. Mostly, he just slept in a box of soft scarves in my closet, no zooming around or grabbing my bookmarks like he used to up until a month or so ago... not much interest in anything. His muscle mass had been decreasing along with his weight. Still, he didn't seem to be suffering and enjoyed affection, etc. But Friday he had eaten nothing and wouldn't touch any food Saturday morning (not even people-tuna), so I called for an emergency exam because I didn't want to wait until Monday. I also didn't want to find him dead in my closet. The idea of humane euthanasia had been floated, so my daughter and son-in-law drove up to help me.

After the exam, the doctor and I decided that letting him pass peacefully right then would be the best way forward rather than trying more invasive treatment options and ending up back there in a few days or a week anyway. Heartbreaking though. He was my little buddy for all these years.

The house feels empty without him. Quiet. Lonely. I used to talk to Gatsby all the time. And he talked back! I feel disconnected from myself. Every minute of the day I think about him, just like after my mom passed. That grief never left, but it did eventually recede to further back in my mind. I guess this will too. Eventually. I think about getting another cat, but I am not sure I want to. It's too soon to make any sort of big decision regarding another 10+ year commitment. I'm just trying to let my emotions settle. It's really tough not having a kitty in my life though. 

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I reread a sci-fi novel, Dark Matter by Blake Crouch, for my online book club. I had given it four stars a few years ago, and my good opinion did not change with the second read. A scientist discovers how he can travel back in time and exist in one of the multiple alternate universes that had branched off from a path he had taken/not taken. Complications ensue! I really dig the concept that you have to "kill" your alternate selves if you want to be happy in the life you choose. Otherwise, you spend your time angsting over what might have been, the success you might have had, the love you might have found, etc. Highly recommend.

I also read The Darkest Sin by Anne Sheridan, a dark romance/thriller that starred a beautiful kidnapped woman and a murderous mafia hunk. I liked it and gave it three stars. Of course, it was preposterous, but that's a given with these types of books. The author did a great job describing the chemistry between the main characters, and I always enjoy a deep dive into the underworld (in a book). The book would have benefitted from editing however ~ it was hilarious how often Sheridan repeated "sail" as a verb, even on the same page. She was very fond of saying "his gaze sailed over my body," which is weird enough when used once. Loads of sex and violence in this one; it’ll be a rollicking discussion in a couple weeks with the club.

Two more Victoria Holt novels are now crossed off my TBR list. One was The Shivering Sands, to which I gave four stars. Interesting heroine and lots of twisty turns in the plot. Fun read! The other book was Snare of Serpents, and while that one was also twisty, it was more predictable, and I didn't find the heroine as compelling as in other Holt books, so I gave it only three stars. For the record, Holt often repeats phrases, but they're innocuous ones, so they sail right past.

That's it. Just trying to get through this depression.

We Can Blog If We Want To

Lately I’ve been having a “Safety Dance” earworm, and it seemed appropriate for this post, after over a week of silence. It’s not that I forgot to blog; I simply didn’t feel like it. In the olden days, that would not have stopped me, and I would have churned out writing regardless. But I don’t have to do that now!

 

I can blog when I want to

I can leave my friends behind 

Cuz my friends don’t blog

And if they don’t blog

Well they’re no friends of mine 

I had a very nice Mother’s Day up in Los Angeles with my daughter, SIL, and grands. Saw my daughter’s in-laws too. Also had a fun social event Saturday with my in-person book club at Classic Cafe in Fullerton ~ though I was not impressed with the coffee shop. Super ridiculous long line to order combined with an insanely long wait for the food. I only had iced tea and a cookie since I didn’t want to wait another hour for a sandwich. What the heck? LOL. It was good to chat with book friends though. The pecan pie cookie was tasty, but I wouldn’t return due to the annoying drive and crazy wait time.

Speaking of books, I read another Victoria Holt novel: Lord of the Far Island. Gave this one four stars for excellent plotting, great characters, and a clever twist. More than one actually. I’m calling this one a mystery for the 2025 Reading Challenge category ~ LOTFI contained several mysteries, so that’s fair. Overall, however, it is probably more accurate to put this book in the romance genre.

I reread Verity by Colleen Hoover for my in-person book club meeting on June 8, but now I'm not sure I can go that day because there might be a grandkid birthday party. We shall see. Anyway, I read Verity a couple years ago and didn't like it, though I don't remember why. I do know I didn't like the beginning, and that opinion remains unchanged. There was simply no need for Lowen to meet Jeremy prior to their meeting at the publisher's office. Why introduce an unnecessary coincidence? After that though, I thought the writing was solid and the story exciting. I truly had a hard time putting down the book! One of the things I loved this go-round is that we really don't know what was true even at the end (and the additional chapter added to the mystery). We have to draw our own conclusions about Jeremy and his wife's behavior before Lowen met them. I am not a fan of multiple "weird" names in a story however ~ Verity is an odd name, so hers should be the only one of that kind. We don't need her kids to also have unusual names, and uhhhh "Lowen?" Too distracting. Nevertheless, I gave it four stars for being such a compelling read. Wish I could remember why I didn't like it the first time.

For my online book club, I read two books so far for May. The first was Those Girls by Chevy Stevens, a psychological thriller. I gave it only two stars. The story was relentlessly violent, and I couldn't relate to the main character, who was a teenager, and later the POV changed to another MC, the first one's daughter, who was also a teen. I dislike reading a teen protagonist unless they're interesting, mature teens, such as those portrayed in Victoria Holt's novels. The contemporary psycho thriller teens act even stupider with respect to men than grown women do in psycho thrillers. I don't want to cringe through an entire book saying "don't do that!" Blech. At least it fit a Reading Challenge category (takes place in summer), so it wasn't a total waste.

Unfortunately, the second book wasn't much better and also received a two-star rating. It was Credence by Penelope Douglas and had a genre-identity crisis throughout. Seems like the author could not decide whether she was writing erotica or a psychological study of a daughter emotionally neglected by her narcissistic parents. Due to this, the book was overlong and repetitive. Again, the MC was a teenager, a sad, spoiled, extremely rich Hollywood girl who immediately takes to life on a ranch and figures out how to fix refrigerators and create clever contraptions for animal feed. Sure, that's all believable. Then there's the fact that this virginal introvert has to seduce the dad and his two sons in extremely vivid and explicit ways because she is so hungry for love. All this seducing takes many pages of narration for each thought and sigh and touch and regret, from multiple POVs. The worst thing is that this book did not fall into any of my Reading Challenge categories, so after slogging through the whole thing, I didn't even get to cross off a box. Tragic!

I have two more books to read for May, plus two "extras" for June ~ that's not counting the actual June reads, which haven't been announced yet. Also, I am happily devouring all the rest of the Victoria Holt books that I can find as I have time in between the book club reads. Needless to say, I haven't been watching much TV or doing any crafts these past couple weeks. Oh, I did paint a sunflower when I was trapped at home last Thursday due to the water guys digging a massive hole behind my car to fix a leak, but it was terrible, so I tossed it immediately.

Gatsby isn't doing well, and I am very sad about that. I'm just trying to keep him as happy and comfy as I can. I know I will miss him so much when the time comes to say our final goodbye, which I think will be soon.

A Slew of Reviews (No Fooling)

Happy April 1! I've been busy consuming other people's creativity, so without further ado, here are my latest reviews. 

Jar of Hearts by Jennifer Hillier – four stars. (Spoilers be here!)

I found this suspense novel compelling even though I didn’t like or relate to any of the characters. The writing was excellent though, and Hillier kept the suspense ratcheted up throughout the story. I hesitate to use the ridiculous nonword “unputdownable,” but it truly was. I simply could not stop reading until the very end. Speaking of the ending, I was a bit perturbed because I didn’t think that Georgina had earned a happy one ~ she was an even worse person than I initially assumed. It appeared for a while as though Geo was simply a naïve teenager who fell for a very bad boy. Well, it turned out that the boy was indeed bad, as bad as they get, but Geo was equally horrible for the part she played in their friend’s murder. She was bullied into helping Calvin dispose of the body, but as soon as they were done with the gruesome task, Grace could have gone to the police. She made a conscious choice year after year to not come forward. Keeping the secret contributed greatly to the parents' suffering ~ and Grace only served five years for her crime! (Yes, she never confessed to the full extent of her participation, and Calvin kept it a secret too, but even so.) 

There was an incredible twist at the end that I didn’t see coming, and that was fun to read. It was a bit farfetched, but I still enjoyed it. Otherwise, not only do I think that Geo deserved a harsher penalty, but also I wish Kaiser hadn’t still been in love with her at the end. It would have been more satisfying for him to have said, yep, I had a mad crush on you as dorky high school boy, but now as a grown-ass man (and a cop!) I see what a terrible person you are, and my love has died. That’s the ending I would have written, but I am no longer writing books, and Jar of Hearts kept me interested until the last word. Maybe you can call it a hate-read, but that's OK: it still counts as good writing. Besides being a book club selection, this book also fit into my 2025 Reading Challenge category of taking place on the West Coast (Washington State).

Behind Closed Doors by B.A. Paris – three stars (SPOILERS!).

I was turned off from this psychological thriller immediately because it was another one of the "perfect marriages whose shiny exterior hides beastly abuse" stories that we have seen a zillion times already (yawn), but I persevered because (1) it was a book club selection, and (2) it fit my 2025 Reading Challenge category of having a four-star review (on Goodreads). Despite my boredom with this trope, I tried to be fair ~ the solid writing and satisfying ending boosted the rating to three stars from its initial two. It's hard to feel sympathy for the female MC, Grace, as she ignores all the red flags flying from Jack because no other man was willing to tolerate Grace's lifelong commitment to her semi-disabled sister. She never stopped to question why Jack was so eager to embrace both women into his life. I mean, duh. Wouldn't that be your first question after all these other guys rejected you for it? But we don't have to like the MC to get invested in the story. We can think she's stupid and still want to find out what happens.

The first twist is that Jack the monster really wants Millie, Grace's sister with Down Syndrome, though we never understand why. Why is the idea of torturing a disabled person more exciting than torturing a fully functional woman? You would think the author might give us a clue as to what is going on in Jack's evil brain. Jack briefly mentioned his backstory after his marriage to Grace, but it didn't explain much, plus we aren't sure if we can trust what he says in the first place. His father abused his mother; Jack ended up getting turned on by that; he killed his mother; his father took the fall for it. But Jack's father was also a monster, so why would he go to prison for his son? Is he still alive? How did Jack become a lawyer with all the necessary background checks when this scandalous info was in his past? Yes, he changed his name, but given his high profile cases, you would think an opposing attorney would have investigated and outed him. OK, let's move on.

It was hard for me to deal with the section where Jack killed the puppy that he had given Grace and forced her to bury the dead body in the backyard. I almost DNF'd the book at this point. Human murder OK, but doggie murder? No way. Just no. One of last month’s books, Allegedly, described the aftermath of a cat's murder, which was incredibly gory and disgusting, but we hadn’t really gotten to know the cat at all, plus it was possible the death was quick and the maiming came afterward. The doggie in Behind Closed Doors suffered however, which was super upsetting to read, but even so the suffering was "only" imagined after his death, not described during. Anyway, I kept reading. At least Jack got exactly what he deserved at the end.

Saraband for Two Sisters by Victoria Holt (Philippa Carr) – four stars.

I vaguely remembered loving this romance novel from my teen years, and yay I was not disappointed. Usually, books/movies are not as good as I thought they were, but this one still intrigued me last week. I’m a huge fan of the way Holt creates momentous events layer upon layer, so the reader is aware that something big is coming that will change the MC's life, but we have no idea what it could be. It’s not easy to write in this way without sounding clunky or shoveling a ton of boring backstory at us, but the first-person narrative technique Holt uses, usually from a teenaged girl protagonist, works well to build the suspense. In this case, there are twin sisters, Angelet and Bersaba, who share some similarities, but ultimately are very different, especially in regard to romance. Spoiler: they both go after the same man. Like many a good gothic novel, there’s a mysterious house with a secret door to a hidden passage that no one is supposed to explore because it is “very dangerous.” The servants in the house are suspicious as well. Fun! This book fit my 2025 Reading Challenge category of involving a vacation, for Angelet is sent away on an extended holiday when Bersaba contracts smallpox. Due to this trip, Angelet meets the man who will change both sisters' lives. 

Anora – Academy Award for Best Picture, Director, Actress, etc.

Seriously WTF? A female stripper (Ani/Anora) is introduced to a wealthy young Russian dude (Vanya) at the sex club where she works because she speaks a little Russian. Vanya and Ani negotiate $15,000 for her to spend a week with him and ditch her job. Vanya and Ani have tons of graphic sex all over his lavish NY mansion ~ he is obviously loaded with money ~ and impulsively jet off to Vegas with friends where they get married on a whim. Vanya seems to have the idea that he will be allowed to stay in the USA indefinitely if he marries an American (I guess the screenplay was written before Trump II). Soon after they return to NY, his mother back in Russia orders her thugs to come after the couple because she’s enraged that her son has married a prostitute. As these goons break in and assault Ani, Vanya runs out of the home and leaves her to them. A tedious scene ensues where Ani screams “mother*cker” about 5000 times. Such wonderful writing/acting, eh? Sooo creative.

It occurred to me that I didn’t care about any of these obnoxious characters, so I DNF’d this movie and read the ending on Wikipedia. It still boggles my mind that Anora won awards, since it is literally p0rn with a very thin plot. 

More reviews soon.

Knight Moves

Lots of excitement here, bloggy friends (all three of you). First, I unclogged my shower drain this morning. I thought I had unclogged it a few weeks ago, but apparently I didn't go far enough because water still wasn't going down properly. So today I really went to town on it, and voilà! 

Yesterday, I went to lunch with one of my Meetup groups ~ I haven't seen these peeps for ages, so it was nice to catch up. My bad for not checking Meetup for a while, as it turns out they restarted the Saturday lunch a while ago, but I didn't know about it. (I don't allow notifications from most non-essential websites because the bombardment drives me nuts.) Anyway, we went to The Cheesecake Factory, where now in addition to their traditional humongous, high-calorie items, there has also been an astronomical increase in prices. They do have a skinny menu, but it is pricey too. Remember how a few years back, there was a viral thing going around about how men were "cheap" for taking dates to TCF? I ordered the lunch-sized vegan Cobb salad, which was $24 with tip, tasty, and quite large: greens, beans, beets, avo, toms, cukes, quinoa, etc. I would get that again. And no, I am not vegan (or vegetarian), which I always have to explain to peeps each time because no one understands why someone might simply want a fresh, healthy plate of food. I know, so weird.

We had all kinds of great convos at lunch... dating, love languages, philosophy, evolution, the meaning of self, the Myers Briggs indicators, etc. One of the guys highly recommended the Netflix mini-series Adolescence, and other friends on FB have mentioned how wonderful it is, so I began watching it last night. I figured I would binge the whole thing, or at least two out of the four eps, but I stopped at one. It was interesting, but not fabulous, in my opinion, and I was more into reading my book. I will finish the series, but I am failing to understand what the big deal is about the camera work/angles. It all seemed pretty ordinary to me.

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Speaking of books, the one I was reading last night was a romance called There's Something About Mira by Sonali Dev, and I gave it five stars. It was absolutely fantastic! It fulfilled my 2025 Reading Challenge requirement of taking place on the East Coast, though it didn't exclusively take place there. The story begins in Naperville, IL, where Mira lives with her traditional Indian family and is planning her wedding to a doctor. The couple is gifted an engagement trip to NYC, both for sightseeing and wedding shopping, but Mira's fiancé has to cancel several times due to work emergencies, and she ends up going alone. There is also the matter of her twin brother who lives in NY and is estranged from their parents. After a mishap, Mira finds a ring on the street and is compelled to locate the owner by posting a video. She is contacted by a journalist and adventure ensues, including a trip to India! Besides being a great love story, TSAM also gives loads of interesting info about Indian food and culture.

Earlier in the week, I finished Her Knight at the Museum by Bryn Donovan, and I gave it five stars too. It's a super fun contemporary romance about a nobleman from 1428 who is turned into a statue by an evil spell, endures centuries of being mentally alert while trapped in stone, and is rescued by beautiful Emily, a restoration specialist in the current day. Donovan's attention to detail is superb, from the police procedures regarding an extremely valuable museum piece gone "missing," to all the pesky problems a time-traveler may have, such as needing vaccinations. I would categorize this book as "spicy vanilla," and I counted it as "recommended by a friend" for my 2025 Challenge, as Bryn and I follow each other on Bluesky and have chatted a bit.

Lest you think I've gone mad flinging out five-star reviews everywhere, rest assured that I also read a terrible erotica book this week and gave it only one star. Why did I read it at all? Welp, because it semi-fulfilled the Challenge requirement of taking place at a college (technically, it was a frat-type crazy party, which wasn't exactly on campus, but everyone was a student there), so I suffered through all the dumb sex ~ luckily it was a short story ~ so I could check the box on my Challenge chart. I don't feel like naming the book/author here, but it's on my Goodreads list, which I believe is public.

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Today, Sunday, I went to lunch with my friend Jenny. We met at Lemon Thai in Huntington Beach, and it was as delicious as last Saturday. Then, I had the spicy eggplant and tofu dish; today, I ordered egg rolls to share plus a mandarin beef salad. I love this place, and their prices are reasonable. Plus it's always fun to see Jenny. She’s going to be a grandma imminently! I do need to get back to Mother's Market soon for their veggie quesadilla ~ I think theirs is my favorite. Loads of mushrooms! Although, come to think of it, Harbor House Cafe has a fabulous veggie quesadilla as well. Hmm, dilemma. Where to go next time for my veggie quesadilla craving?

When I got home, I watched the three remaining eps of Adolescence and was entirely underwhelmed. Once again, I simply fail to understand the appeal of a show that a zillion other people enjoy. To me, the story was as slow as sludge, with scenes (mostly conversations) dragging on interminably. I didn't feel any connection to any of the characters, and the only interesting angle was the teens' use of emojis that referenced the men-hating-women subculture of the internet, but even though this seemed to be a huge factor in the murder of a teen girl, not much time was devoted to exploring the issue. Instead, we had boring interview after interview by the cops/counselors and a dullsville family trip to the hardware store for paint. Gah. And I still don't get the fascination with the camera work. Shrugs.

I didn't paint this weekend, but I did go over to my friend L's house Saturday night and colored a fish. It was very relaxing!

Happy Pi Day

Did you do anything to celebrate 3.14? I didn’t; I just worked all day. I ate a round tortilla with peanut butter and honey, which I think counts a bit, but I would have been happier with real pie. I didn’t see the eclipse of the moon last night either. Or maybe it was this morning. I don’t know. I work, I sleep, I exercise, I read fiction, I scroll social media, and I play solitaire on my phone… that’s my life Monday through Friday. I don’t like to go out after work because Gatsby has been alone all day, and I want to spend time with him. 

This week I read a book I had been looking forward to: Wild Ride by Jennifer Crusie and Bob Mayer (it ticked the multiple authors requirement on my 2025 Reading Challenge). Crusie used to be one of my fave romance writers, and a while ago she paired up with Mayer for more action-oriented novels so he could write the tough guy characters. This was the first one of theirs that I read cover to cover. Blech! It was about an amusement park in Ohio that served as a demon prison, and a select group of humans with special powers had been tasked with keeping the demons contained. There was also a bad human who wanted to let the demons out for his own nefarious purposes. Except for the hot sex, which there wasn’t that much of, the story seemed like young adult fantasy silliness with a plot full of holes, and I didn’t care about any of the characters. Oh well. Two stars. 

Even though I hadn’t read Crusie in years, I realized that I was tired of her writing style. She has this tedious pattern of internal monologue for her characters, which quickly gets on my nerves, and then I remembered it had begun to annoy me 20 years ago. I suppose at one point I found it fresh and amusing, but now it’s grating. Not to mention that if you’re going to create a world with supernatural elements, please make it make sense, be consistent rather than turning the magic off and on for convenience, and give the motivation an adult level of sophistication. Grrrr!

I decided tonight that I want to put a bird in my cherry blossom painting, so it’s not ready for the ‘gram yet. I will paint the bird this weekend and probably start a new painting too. It rained all week, which makes me crabbier than usual, so I’m hoping for a nice sunny day tomorrow. 

Existing Between Lists

Part of the reason I keep so many lists for everything, beyond my memory not being as great as it used to be, is that I feel very unmoored lately when I am not doing a task to check off, even if it's something silly like "watch The Bachelor (Tuesday)." I realized this today when I completed a couple chores and had a few hours before I needed to leave for my book club lunch. I didn't feel like starting another book (I have been reading a ton and just finished one this morning); I don't really like watching TV; I have no craft projects in progress; I wasn't in the mood to begin a new painting; etc. I was like OMG what am I going to do? I felt a bit dizzy and weird. Like do I even exist if I'm not doing something I had planned in writing? It was a very scary feeling. 

Then I remembered I needed to reorganize one of my Spotify playlists, whew. If I add songs to a playlist on my phone app, Spotify sticks them at the end of the list, which is unacceptable. Sometimes I want them arranged alphabetically, and other times I like to group them by theme. I can only move the songs around if I log onto Spotify on my laptop (logging into the website on my phone does not work as far as moving songs within a list).

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Anyway, I finished Voices in a Haunted Room by Victoria Holt, which I enjoyed very much (four stars). It was a typical family drama/political intrigue story that I am becoming (re)familiar with from this author. Then I gobbled up Victoria Holt's The Spring of the Tiger, which wasn't about Spring or a tiger, but about a woman who travels to Ceylon (Sri Lanka) with her new husband and ends up fearing for her life, from humans not tigers. The title is actually a quote from a poem by Lord Byron about a woman's revenge when she loses her love. I also gave this book four stars. 

Although I am having fun rereading these novels and intend to continue until I can't easily find more, I am getting slightly tired of the Holt standard trope of a 10-20 year old girl enmeshed in a complex family structure who grows up, finds love, loses love, travels to an exotic land, blah blah blah, not necessarily in that order. Each book contains a romance, but they are not necessarily formulaic. We don't actually know who the hero is at the start or even halfway through ~ the narrator may or may not end up with the first man who interests her as she would in a traditional romance where the first man to arouse a woman's sexual desire must be her mate for life. Sometimes the hot guy turns into a bad guy as the mystery portion of the story untangles itself. There's a lot more physical coercion happening in the Holt novels than I remembered from when I read them as a teenager. It's "behind closed doors," in the sense that nothing explicit is said and no below the neck body parts are mentioned, yet the reader understands exactly what is going on. I used to think of Victoria Holt books as tame compared to the bodice rippers, but they aren't tame... they're euphemistic. 

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I used to blame romance novels for my screwed up ideas about relationships, but I don't know anymore if they had anything to do with it. Assigning blame to something outside my control was a convenient excuse and allowed me to avoid working on myself to improve as a potential partner in order to attract and be attracted to the kind of partner I needed, as opposed to jumping into whatever shiny new thing that came along. Luckily, none of that matters now, and I can keep gobbling up romance novels without worry of brain warpage. Someone I know has begun a relationship at a "mature" age, and while she seems happy about it, her convos make it all sound like an enormous amount of effort, especially all the compromises one constantly must make in order to keep the thing from going off the rails. I don't think I could do any of that in my 60s ~ it seems so pointless.

This week, I plan to read The Last Sane Woman by Hannah Regel and The Color Purple by Alice Walker. As always, I won't force myself to continue on with any book I dislike, but I think these two will be good. Tonight, I might try to find a movie because my eyeballs are saying enough reading for one weekend!

Time Weirds Me Out

I visited my eldest daughter and her hubby this weekend. They have a fun house full of different species ~ 2 dogs, 1 cat, and around 16 fish plus anemones and coral. Sometimes I just sit and stare at the aquarium because it's very relaxing. I asked my daughter if she realized that she was turning 35 later this year, and she said she was aware. Thirty-five! That's so crazy. My youngest has 3 small children, which is also mind-boggling when I can so easily remember my daughters at those ages. I guess every grandma says this sort of thing. It seemed like 2024 went on forever with all the US election bullshit, but 2025 is going by at warp speed. I can't believe tomorrow will only be a week since that asshole was sworn in again, as so much is happening, and it's all bad. If you don't agree, that's fine, but I'm not hosting arguments in my comments. Anyway, yeah. Time... weird.

I read Chaos, Desire & a Kick-Ass Cupcake by Kyra Davis for the murder mystery square on my 2025 Reading Challenge. This book was an impulse buy, since I loved the title and cover, but I hated it and gave it only one star. I rarely do that, but ugh! Where to begin... OK, I couldn't stand the main character Sophie and her snarky first-person narration. Her motivation for becoming obsessed with a stranger's death made no sense, but the entire story hinged on her increasing involvement in his life. She kept doing idiotic things to put herself in danger, which justifiably upset her boyfriend Anatoly, and not only didn't she care, but she decided that their sex was hotter when they were arguing, which is a huge turn-off to me. Sophie was a writer, which is one of my nope tropes, so that didn't help anything. The side characters were all annoying, including Anatoly and Sophie's two besties, and I just could not wait for the story to end. There were also loads of typos and other writing errors. Great books go by so quickly while these awful ones take a million years to finish. Another time-ish mystery to ponder.

I watched No Good Deed on Netflix, and I can happily report that I enjoyed it a lot. This is a limited series of 8 episodes, and it came to a satisfying conclusion, which I appreciate. (There is an open issue for a possible S2.) Lisa Kudrow and Ray Romano did a wonderful job as the main characters, and the plot took several delightful twists and turns. I enjoyed the focus on real estate in Los Angeles, as that's something I can relate to. The side characters were all excellent as well, including a wacky neighbor played by Linda Lavin who passed away in December 2024 (RIP). I won't put any spoilers, since this is a new show, and I recommend it.

I also watched Somebody I Used to Know on Prime. It was moderately enjoyable, though a bit slow, in my opinion. I dozed off for a few minutes in the middle. My daughter and son-in-law liked it.

Take care, peeps. 

Love? Actually, Not!

I had vaguely remembered disliking Love Actually, the British Christmas romcom, but I didn’t know why, so I decided to watch it again since it’s such a big deal and keeps coming up as a suggestion (Netflix, I think). Let’s go through the movie step by step (with a little help from Wikipedia). Spoilers!

1. Billy Mack and Joe. Billy is a washed up singer who is trying to make a comeback via a schmaltzy remake of a popular love song into a Christmas song. Joe is his manager. Billy fat-shames Joe several times, and at the end, when Billy realizes he “loves” Joe in a romantic way, it feels totally fake.

2. Juliet, Peter, and Mark. Juliet marries Peter as their friend Mark does the videography. Mark is kinda rude to Juliet, but we don’t know why ~ I suspected that he was in love with Peter. Wrong. He is in love with Juliet and has to let her go (after he tells her in a silly way). That’s it. Just another case of unrequited love. Juliet isn’t going to leave Peter, and Mark has to deal with his broken heart like the rest of us. Realistic, but so what?

3. Jamie and Aurélia. Jamie discovers that his girlfriend is cheating on him with his brother. He takes off for his French cottage, as you do, and while there he falls for his cute Portuguese housekeeper who doesn’t speak English. OK! This love story was adorable, probably because it starred dashing Colin Firth, and the ending was super sweet. The whole movie could have just been about these two characters and would have been much better.

4. Harry, Karen, and Mia. Harry and Karen are typical frumpy 40-somethings, married with children, and Mia is Harry’s sexy secretary. For some inexplicable reason, Mia keeps coming on to Harry in grossly inappropriate ways (because don’t all hot 25 year old girls want their tired looking old bosses?), and he ends up buying her gold jewelry for Christmas. Karen finds the box and thinks it’s for her, but all she gets is a Joni Mitchell CD. The marriage disintegrates, and everyone is sad. WTF?

5. David and Natalie. First, a question: Is Hugh Grant utterly incapable of playing any other role besides the boyishly handsome awkward bumbler, or are those the only roles he’s ever offered? That persona has worked out well in a couple romcoms, but here he’s supposed to be the freaking Prime Minister! Needless to say, he’s completely unbelievable, and his acceptance of the fat-shaming of poor Natalie by his nasty staff makes him thoroughly unlikable (plus he joins in at the end by calling her heavy when he picks her up). Their “love” story is blech.

6. Daniel, Sam, Joanna, and Carol. Daniel is mourning his dead wife, Joanna, but not for long as he starts to fall for Carol, a mom at his stepson Sam’s school. At the same time, Daniel encourages Sam, who is like 12, to chase after Joanna, a classmate. Why did they give the girl the same name as the dead mom? Just yucky. And the “joke” that Daniel will be faithful to his Joanna until he meets Claudia Schiffer, who plays Carol, is not funny whatsoever. I have never found the “game” of comparing lovers to unattainable celebs to be in any way romantic ~ it’s the opposite in fact, not to mention unkind and insecurity-provoking. 

7. Sarah, Karl, and Michael. Gah, this just keeps getting worse! Sarah has the hots for Karl, a coworker, and they finally get together but are interrupted by a call from the facility where Michael, Sarah’s brother, is institutionalized. Somehow, this love story can never happen because Michael comes first, so Sarah has to give up the idea of dating. But why? Because one sex session got derailed? She has a responsibility to her family, so therefore she must be alone forever? This is all just sad. 

8. Colin, Tony, and American hot girls. Colin is not having any luck with British girls, so he decides to go to Wisconsin, where he is sure his accent will be an aphrodisiac. Tony says this is stupid, which it is, but Colin goes anyway and picks up a whole pile of total stunners. He brings two back to the UK, and one falls for Tony. Ughhh.

9. John and Judy. This is one long tedious “joke” about two actors who are standing in (usually unclothed) for p0rn performers in order to block their scenes, while at the same time they’re too shy to ask each other out. Guess what happens? Yep, they end up going on a date. Hurrah! Eye roll.

10. Rufus the doofus. This character appears in a few scenes as a foil for the main characters, and he seems to end up alone at the end. All things considered, this is the best outcome for anyone in this depressing loveless movie, unless you happen to have a Portuguese maid. 

My Dark Vanessa

There will probably be spoilers in here.

This novel by Kate Elizabeth Russell is one of the November challenge books for my online book club. It could definitely be triggering for some peeps with themes of rape, grooming, older teacher/younger student, substance abuse, and suicide too. The only thing missing was anorexia! I liked it though and thought the writing was excellent. The abundance of specific sensory details and emotions were so on point that I felt connected to Vanessa's world from page one. She is simultaneously disgusted by and attracted to Professor Strane when they first meet at the boarding school, and this makes sense ~ he isn't some studly 24 year old recent grad, but a paunchy, bearded, 42 year old teacher in a sweater. There is nothing about Strane physically that would make a 15 year old girl swoon with delight, but he pays close attention to Vanessa, noticing every nuance of her appearance, voice, mood, etc. (and she's been starved of attention), while simultaneously praising her intelligence and writing abilities. No one paid much attention to Vanessa previously, including her parents, plus she doesn't have close friends, either at home or at school. Also, not insignificantly, Vanessa isn't particularly attractive to boys her own age, partly because her looks are ordinary and partly because she doesn't have a bubbly personality, but to an older man who is turned on by awkward underage girls... Vanessa is a goddess. 

Strane's grooming is insidious. The reader can see it happening even as Vanessa doesn't and/or is trying to process it given her lack of maturity and experience. Sometimes we may imagine every rape as forceful and violent, but that's not always the case. Strane asks for and receives Vanessa's "consent" each step of the way. There are no threats of violence, overt or implied, only the possible withdrawal of his attention, which is enough to keep her motivated to please him. To our horror, Vanessa views her abuse as a "love story" and believes she has all the power in the relationship due to her ability to out Strane at any time. Yes, she does have that one bit of leverage, but he knows she isn't going to use it, and he reinforces the need for utter secrecy by describing how her life would also be ruined if their "affair" became known. Why wouldn't she believe him? She has no experience otherwise nor anyone to turn to for advice ~ and Strane is a Harvard grad to boot.

Of course, I found this book disturbing while at the same time enjoying the excellent writing. Often, evil is presented as binary and obvious, and thus it's unbelievable that anyone falls for it, but it's more often cloaked in a dizzying fog of gaslight accompanied by a tray of sweets. When evil is layered and complex, we can see how someone, especially a naive teenager, is slowly drawn into its silken web. Strane's abuse of Vanessa is a process, not a one-time event, and he makes sure to protect himself as much as possible along the journey. He doesn't even have to exert himself to get her to lie for him and ultimately throw herself under the bus so he can continue on unscathed; Vanessa believes everything is her own idea ~ she is making sacrifices for love because she is 100% bought into the idea that they are soulmates. Again, she relishes the delusion that she is a powerful goddess and Strane is under her spell. 

There are Lolita references sprinkled throughout the novel as well as other literary notes (Strane is an English teacher after all), and Russell dedicates the book to the fictional Dolores Haze (aka Lolita) as a stand-in for all the victims whose names we do not know. "My dark Vanessa" is a snippet from "Pale Fire," a poem by Nabokov (Lolita's author), that Strane refers to when suggesting that Vanessa has dark desires. She absorbs this idea and reinterprets it as her own, along with all his other suggestions that she is special and different, as opposed to simply being a lonely teenaged girl who should be hanging out with her peers. Strane worms his way inside her head until Vanessa believes that everything he wants she wants too, and later, when he's accused of misconduct, her only goal is to protect him.

I would have given this book five stars, except that the timeline is all jumbled. We begin in the present, then jump back to when Vanessa is 15, go forward, leap to the present, back to the past, etc. There is absolutely no good reason for this, since the story is compelling and could have simply been told chronologically. In fact, I think it would have been better that way. Maybe start with a teaser in present time then go back and stay back until we reconnect. It was a letdown to see Strane in the future when we weren't done with him 15 years prior. Jumping around in time created a distance for me as a reader, when otherwise I would have been totally immersed. Four stars.