Browsing in Barnes & Noble

This morning I had a doctor's appointment, not a bad one, not one to get upset over, but still an office visit is an office visit. So afterward, I treated myself to a long browse in Barnes & Noble where I felt luxurious because I had a nice gift certificate. I looked for authors--those I know from previous books, those whose names I know from Sisters in Crime, one a casual browser had recommended to me the other day. I came away with six cozy mysteries, which should keep me occupied for a long time. Oh, yes, I looked at other sections--new in paperback, etc. Did a "shelf check" to see what TCU Press titles were face out, and glanced at the "Staff Picks." But right  now--maybe it's because it's January and things are slow--I'm in the mood to be buried in a good cozy.
I'm reading Tough Cookie by Sue Mott Davidson, one of a series featuring Goldy Schulz, a caterer in a Colorado mountain town. Having just been to Colorado, I can related to passages about high piles of snow and temperatures of 4 degrees but thankfully not to the accident where she is run off the road. I emailed Colin to ask if we had crossed the Continental Divide and gone through the Eisenhower Tunnel, but he wasn't sure. Davidson's books all come with recipes, and I've flagged three I want to try: Chocolate Coma Cookies, a roast pork tenderloin, and Chesapeake Crab Cakes with Sauce Gribiche, which seems to have a bit of everything in it from lemon to tarragon to mayonnaise. I'll photocopy them. My friend Fred says he and his wife, Patt, have fixed some of Davidson's recipes and enjoyed them greatly.
And I'm beginning to think about the new series I want to try--got to do character profiles, but when I napped this afternoon I know they were in my subconscious.
Wish I could figure how to attach an e-mail cartoon to a blog post, but I can't. I'm sure this will lose in the telling, but a friend sent me a Maxine cartoon in which she said she told her kids she didn't want to live in a vegetative state, hooked up to a machine and dependant on liquid from a bottle. So her kids unplugged her computer and threw out her wine. What she said about them is unprintable! Another friend told me tonight his mother-in-law said she didn't want to have anything to do with hospice care because she'd never known anyone who had a good outcome. Ghoulish humor but pretty funny.