One night it’s cold enough that I added the winter blanket to the bed. The next day it’s verging on 90°. Yes, folks, this is crazy time in Texas. Anywhere else, it’s fall. Here, it’s summer-winter-winter-summer-summer-summer-winter-winter-summer. At least we’re getting a bit of rain to make up for the arid summer.
Yesterday was Canadian Thanksgiving, a tradition we always honor by eating a big meal. The usual suspects, prepared with a little more care and attention than usual. Cranberry sauce. Real potatoes mashed instead of prepared ones. Dessert, which is something we almost never have, and usually don’t end up eating anyway. How do people manage dessert, anyway? The best I can do these days is a sopapillas with honey, and even that hardly ever.
I brushed up the interviews that I re-sold last week, a process that took longer than anticipated. I was bemused to find the word count was 6606 on the last pass, so I took that as a sign to quit meddling. Then I wrote this month’s Storytellers Unplugged essay and posted it on the dashboard so it will show up on Saturday. Other than those two items, I didn’t accomplish much from a writing perspective this weekend. Chapter 1 of the novel is in my agent’s hands, and I’m not sure I want to press forward until I hear back from him, hopefully within the next week or so. So I’m not sure what I’m going to dabble at in the meantime. My short story submissions are pretty much up to date.
I’m getting very close to the end of Ilium, by Dan Simmons. The nuclear bomb just went off and the two humans have just met Prospero. I’m not sure if I’m going to leap straight into Olympos when I finish or read something else in between.
Poor Zev and Justin on Amazing Race. Finished the leg first but ended up eliminated because they lost a passport along the way. Turns out it fell out of their bag when they went into a dark temple chamber that they mistakenly thought was their next destination. While rummaging around for lights in their backpack, it came out. When they went to the U.S. Embassy the next day, it was waiting for them at the desk. A day late and a dollar short, as they say. Though they’re consistently at the back of the pack, I’m waiting for the two poker players to surprise everyone.
Richard Castle’s novel, Heat Wave, is now available. The book is also being published chapter by chapter at the ABC web site, though I think they’re only about halfway through the release at this poing. I’m going to read the first batch of chapters before I decide whether or not to buy it for my Kindle. ABC isn’t letting on who the real author is, at least not yet anyway. This week’s episode of Castle was a lot of fun–a con story with a homicide twist. Castle’s interactions with his daughter are among the show’s hidden rewards, and even his mother has become less of a harpie–less like a Harper, one might say, thinking of the mother on Two and a Half Men.
I’m hoping that we haven’t seen the last of 13 on House. Will she change her mind before the plane leaves or after? Her relationship with House is unique, and it adds a lot to the show. The subplot about the tyrant played by James Earl Jones is interesting, too. Takes the focus off House. Everything doesn’t have to be about him, though it usually is.
The Big Bang Theory — funny, funny, funny. Glad to see that the Leonard/Penny romance hasn’t messed up the chemistry.
I found the NCIS L.A. episodes on On Demand this weekend and I was bored, so I decided to watch them while reading. About half an eye is all they merit. Not terrible, but just not all that interesting. A show I might watch if nothing else was going on, but I wouldn’t record it. Linda Hunt is the best thing about the show, by far.
