Slacks for Ella Funt

Because I read a lot of books and don’t watch much tv, I don’t feel like every book I read has to be an enriching, literary masterpiece. Some books are the equivalent of watching a sitcom or a cheesy movie. But even junk reading books aren’t all equal. Some books that I read for relaxing fun don’t manage to be very fun. Most of chic lit ends up being full of whiny heroines and lame plots. But for a good, relaxing evening read, I always love Jennifer Crusie.
Crusie stands out from the crowd because her books are hilarious. Reading this one, I was giggling to myself every few minutes. Agnes and the Hitman has a lot going on—professional hitmen, the mob, food writing, questionable family relationships, trashy Southern-ness, and Crusie’s trademark goofy dog. But it all comes together in a Wodehouse-like snowball mess, and I loved the scene where Agnes makes breakfast for a mob princess, two hitmen, a cop, and the teenager who tried to steal her dog.
Lots of humor, no self-pitying whininess, this was perfect for nursing the end of my summer cold.

Clearly I am not a teenage girl. Though I’m sure Meyer’s massive fanbase is completely swept up in Bella and Edward’s love story, I couldn’t stop thinking about how unhealthy their relationship is for a teenager. No teenage boyfriend should be forbidding her to see other friends or imprisoning her against her will, even their love is some deep spiritual connection. Worse, I find Edward to be kind of dull, lacking in much personality other than being a vampire and loving Bella. In the end, I much prefer Bella’s friend Jacob, the werewolf, who at least seems to have a sense of humor.
However, I still finished most of it in an evening, and I’m sure I’ll buy the next one, so I guess I can’t look down on it too much.

This is how to write literary fiction with a mystery plotline without it seeming like mediocre genre fiction. The primary story is about trying to find out who killed a former fur trader, but there’s no “detective” and all of the characters are fully fleshed out. Penney has many additional plotlines, and tells chapters from the point of view of multiple characters. It was probably really too many plotlines and too many points of view, but I was actually sucked into the book too much to care. Penney also manages to really give the feeling of the bleak land and the bitter cold—exactly what I wanted in the middle of New York summer.

E’s friend Sharon invited us to come out to her share at Fire Island, and we’d never been there before so we were excited to go. Fire Island is a long narrow island south of Long Island. We took the train and then a ferry boat to get there. It’s kind of idyllic on the island—there are no cars and people get around on foot or cruiser bikes.
We spent two days on the beach, though the waves were so rough I couldn’t go very deep into the water. Whenever I tried to get much past waist deep, I got wiped out. Sharon’s friend Kyle also came, and brought his dog, Mazzy. She was pretty cute and we had a lot of fun playing fetch with her in the surf. She was smart—she would wait until the waves brought the ball shallow enough for her to get it.
The share house came complete with a deck and a grill, so we grilled pork loin (a recipe I had tried in Lubbock) and corn on the cob. We always wish we had more opportunities to grill.
We had a great time, but I don’t know how people come back relaxed and refreshed from the beach. We came back exhausted, slightly sunburned, and covered with bug bites.

I went to Texas a few weeks ago to visit my family. I got to do some thrift store and fabric store shopping as well as some bike riding with my parents. Since their rides are mostly straight and flat along the highways near Lubbock, it felt a lot different from the sudden starts, stops, and swerves I do on my ride to work here in New York. Very relaxing to not have to worry so much about cars.
The trip was mostly for my grandmother’s 80th birthday party. It was good to see my cousins—I hadn’t seen them in a few years and hadn’t even met the youngest child of one of them. As with any big family reunion, there were some relatives that I berely remembered, but it was a good time and a good opportunity to take pictures with my new camera.