Jennifer Crusie's Blog

I’m not actually a big fan of Time Travel Stories, but I like Jodi Taylor’s Time Police and Smallhope and Pennyroyal, so I went on to the St. Marys books which I’d started on a long time ago and, considered where my life is right now, they’re a little grim for me until I get back on my feet. Great books, but I think I’ll read Smallhope and Pennyroyal again (second time) and then maybe hit Pratchett up for something.

Any recommendations for something good to read?

It’s Wednesday? Who knew?

What did you work on this week? (I worked on my sanity. It’s taken a few hits lately.)

Continuing my string of bad luck, somebody appears to have hacked the Jennifer Crusie Facebook page and I can’t get into it, they’ve removed me as administrator. Could somebody here look to see if Jennifer Crusie on Facebook is still accessible? Not Jenny Crusie, that’s still there, or was the last time I looked.

Argh.

So for reasons I will not go into, I am currently living in an apartment in a building connected to a care facility. Not because I need care, I can walk again, so no worries. I just moved in today and, thrilled with having an oven in the apartment, I decided to make mustard chicken and baked potatoes. You probably haven’t noticed this, but I am very food oriented, and I haven’t been able to cook for a month. So I preheated the oven, and when it hit 400, I threw in my potato. And the fire alarm went off and many people in wheel chairs came out into the halls. Because whoever had had the apartment before me had spilled something on the floor of the oven and the smoke went everywhere. I apologized to everybody, and now there are a lot of people who know me as the woman on the third floor who didn’t put her baked potato in the microwave like a normal person (they’re better in the oven). Except for the people in the care facility, which is where I moved from TODAY; they just said, “Jenny was baking a potato and set off the fire alarm.” Those people know me.

The fire department was very efficient. I forgive them for laughing about the potato.

What made you happy this week?

This week I glommed Jodi Taylor starting with Smallhope and Pennyroyal, which was a lot of fun, and then moving on to her new series that started with White Silence and moving on to the next three books in the series. After that, I know she has more Time Police books out, so I’ll go back to the first one and read my way through. Jodi Taylor has done an excellent job of getting me through a dicey weekend, so I’m sticking with her.

What did you read this week.

Things have finally quieted down here, so I’m getting back to normal, which means working on Arresting Anna which might end up being Joan of Art, plus the second book, Stealing Nadine. While telling Bob that he can’t have a spaceship in New Jersey. Well, it’s a living.

What did you work on this week?

Krissie got her last cremee of the summer and is so happy she’s e-mailed me about it several times. (I’m assuming that’s like a Dairy Queen cone?). That’s a cause for happiness.

What made you happy this week?

It’s been a bad month for me and I haven’t gotten much done. Bob is being very patient–well, he’s building a basement gym for ducks so he’s distracted–so I sent him the first chapter of our next book, a real spitballing first draft, aka bad. He sent it back with two more chapters so we are now three chapters into Stealing Nadine, and that’s all I’ve read this week. It’s rough but it’s a good start with action (because Bob rewrote it, mine was just a bunch of conversations which surprises nobody) but hey, it’s a start.

And after my PT Evaluation today (ha), I will go back to the first book which is still nameless. That’s a clue, I think. Not sure of what?

So what did you read this week?

I’m late. Sorry, my mind has been full of med stuff, like the X-ray of my pelvis I’m getting shortly. I haven’t had this many people interested in my crotch since college. Heady stuff.

So what have you been working on?

So one of the most important things about being an invalid is comfort food. What I have discovered, to my surprise, is that my comfort food is mac and cheese. I discovered this by cracking my pelvis and buying food that was easy to make from a wheelchair. (I always felt bad for people in wheelchairs, but I have to tell you, wheelchairs are awesome.) Those little cups of mac and cheese turned out to be perfect. They come eight to a box and they’re a piece of cake (piece of cheese?) to make. You peel off the cover, take out the foil cheese packet, add water to the fill line in the cup, microwave on high for three minutes and thirty seconds, tear open the packet, dump the cheese in, stir vigorously, and you have a cup of comfort. This is true whether you use Velveeta or Kraft (I go for the classics) but these things are not the same: Choose Velveeta. Its packet is full of thick cheese sauce that smooths out beautifully in hot pasta water. The Kraft? It’s POWDER. I cannot begin to describe how appalled I was. Then I remembered it’s always been powder, even in the big boxes, but I was a child the last time I paid this much attention to instant mac and cheese. Now I am adult. I have Standards. Buy Velveeta.

So how did you make happiness this week?