That Was A Good Idea

 
Tonight for supper I heated up half of one of the herbed chicken breasts with a serving of WW marinara sauce with fresh asparagus on the side.  That was a good idea.  It was so delicious that I think I'll do it again tomorrow.




 
I don't often buy music but after seeing an interview with him on CBS Sunday Morning I had to invest in James Taylor's new CD, American Standards.  He says in the liner notes that when he was a kid they listened to show tunes so those were his first loves in music.  Good stuff.



I finished square number three of the Mod Pillow cover today.  Only six more to go, thank god. I noticed that the squares seem to have nipples, the center rounds protruding in a provocative manner.  I'm really hoping it blocks out.  I'm also hoping that with repetition I'll get more comfortable casting on stitches and starting the next square.  I finished this one after dark and won't cast on the next one until tomorrow when it's light out.  It's easier to weasel the needle into those tight little stitches in daylight.


There wasn't much daylight today, well, no sunlight anyway.  It rained.  No, really.  Here it is March 5 and it's raining in Green Bay.  Not a drenching rain, but rain showers, little spatters of rain, just enough to have the wipers on the lowest intermittent setting.  It's supposed to be windy and colder tomorrow and then get up into the 40s and 50s over the weekend.  And rain on Monday.  I... I just don't get it.  This is one weird winter.

05 March--Barbara Malcolm, Three Cheers for Murder. 

The early morning of Tuesday, June 15 found Cecilia sitting at her breakfast transfixed by the television.  She listened in disbelief to a news report of the murder of Teddy Allgood.  According to the reporter a homeless man heard a struggle in the alley behind her shelter, called out, and running down the alley, discovered the lifeless body.  “Police are investigating.” 

I’ll bet the police are going wild, Cecilia thought.  Three murders in just over a week.  Not many clues, if Alan’s telling her everything.  She began to go over the events of the last week, the brutal deaths of three young women.  A cold feeling started to grow in the pit of her stomach when she thought of the rapid transformation of Marlene seeming to accelerate after each murder. Marlene’s suddenly deep relationship with Lt. Graybow.  Could the love affair be an effort to deflect police suspicion?  Could her friend be the murderer?  Could the lifelong hatred Marlene harbored for the three women her mother seemed to prefer over her have finally boiled over into action? 

Cecilia lifted her coffee cup, took a sip, and found it ice cold.  How long had she been sitting there thinking?  She looked at the clock.  It’s 9:30!  Barely time for a quick shower before racing to open the store by 10.  All thoughts of murder left her while she hurried to get to work.

Arriving barely before 10, Cecilia opened the store and spent a few minutes going over her stock to figure out what needed to be replenished.  After compiling her inventory, she decided to call and arrange a lunch date with Marlene.  Surely with all the gossip going around town it won’t seem odd to talk about the murders.  Maybe she can find out some information to help Alan with his case.  That is, if she can convince him that what he calls her “woman’s intuition” is valid.  Men!

She called Marlene and invited her to lunch at the New Delhi Deli that just opened down the street.  It took a little persuasion to convince Marlene to close from 1 to 2 but Cecilia insisted that they need to brainstorm before their plea to the city council.  The rest of the morning flew by as Cecilia assisted a bride-to-be and her mother select gifts for the bridesmaids.  As she ushered them out the door Cecilia was glad that she wasn't involved in that wedding.  The mother had very definite ideas about things, overriding everything the bride seemed to want.  If the bride said, “Lavender”, the mother said “Freesia.”  If she wanted bath salts, the mother firmly said bath oil.  Cecilia wagered that the bride would be very happy when the entire ordeal was over. 

I had a good trainer session today.  We did some leg work and lots of shoulder work so that I stay flexible and strong.  For the first time the thirty minutes seemed to fly by.  That's a good thing, right?

Did you know that you can go online to usps.com and order stamps to be mailed to you for no extra charge?  I figured it out a while back so now I go there, shop for the best stamps, and they send them right to me.  No more rubbing elbows with people out at the post office and hoping that they've got the cool stamps.  This time I got "spooky scenes", "orchids", "Woodstock 50 years", and "the Year of the Rat."  I love stamps; I try to pick the right stamp for the person I'm mailing things to.  I suspect that no one but me does that anymore because I suspect that I'm about the only person that mails stuff anymore. Except for junk mail and random coupons.
--Barbara