Today was what I hoped--quiet and peaceeful. Since it was to be so hot, I made an early trip to the vet to get cat and dog food--costs more to feed them their special diets than it does me! Then to Central Market for a few things--when you get out of there for under $30, I figure you're really doing good. Then home to stay. It was a good day to stay inside--temperature of 102 and heat index of 105--I wish that darn heat index had never been invented. Makes you feel so much hotter just to heart it. I also think the heat makes you sort of lethargic. By the time I got home from my errands, did a little laundry, and emptied the garbage, I was tired.
But I went ahead and did my yoga. About halfway through my routine, I decided that the house wasn't cool and I wasn't hearing the a/c kick on. I'm an a/c neurotic since my unit is on its last legs and will be replaced Thursday--my birthday present to myself. In retrospect, I was only hot because I was doing a pretty good yoga routine. But I got up off the floor to check the thermostat (it was fine) and stubbed my toe so hard that I lost my breath, my balance, my good sense if I have any. Stood there recovering for a few minutes and then went to check the thermostate. When I came back there was blood on my yoga mat. In fixing that, I discovered I'd left a small trail of blood throughout the house. I have a funky toenail that I cannot do anything with and take to the podiatrist every so often--and of course that was the toe I stubbed. Tonight, I am limping around. It was one of the "Judy Alter wishes to recall this minute" moments. I foresee a visit to the podiatrist.
Got a lot of work done today, mostly reading a corporate history, which amounts to looking for the nuggets of human interest tucked away amidst lists of corporate officers, mergers, advertising campaigns and so on. The book was, however, full of fascinating pictures of artifacts. In between--at lunch and dinner--I gave myself permission to read a mystery. I did it again--ordered a book from amazon without asking for the sample first, in which case I wouldn't have ordered it. One of the things I've heard over and over about writing mysteries, especially cozies, is that you have to have characters that the readers like and identify with. Well, I flat out do not like the central figure--she's schemingly ambitious, even about a murder that happens on her territory. She may be growing on me a bit, and I'll finish the book, but it makes me wonder why this one was published and mine wasn't!
Someone on the Sisters in Crime listserv posted a website where you can insert a couple of paragraphs of your work-in-progress and it will tell you who you write like. Seems I write like Margaret Atwood, which is such a far stretch as to be laughable. But one of the members who writes police procedurals says he posted three times and each time got Raymong Chandler; then he posted his blog and got Stephen King. He's a happy camper tonight. Hmmmm--Margaret Atwood. I wanted to write like Sue Grafton or J. A. Jance or Susan Wittig Albert.
I heard on TV tonight that conservatives are criticizing the Obamas for going north instead of south for their vacation--I can't even begin to fathom the reasoning there. Surely not based on race. Tell me it isn't. But although right now Bar Harbor, Maine, is apparently as hot as the rest of the nation, going north in July for a weekend getaway seems like a no-brainer. I know liberals criticized everything George Bush did, and I admit to joining the chorus, but I swear if President Obama said the sky was blue Senator John Cornyn would object on procedural groundds. As my friend Fran would say, "Give me a break!"
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