Random whining

[jethrien]

The heavy cream I bought last night is not cream. It's a milk-based product, to be sure, but the texture is somewhere between whole milk and light cream. Which made it kind of hard to whip. We tried putting the already-sweetened, lighter-than-cream stuff on our cereal this morning. (What else are we going to do with a pint of this stuff?) It was not the best idea ever.

I'm continuing on my "famous genre authors I never bothered to read kick", with a Nora Roberts book. So far? Don't get it. There is no plot here - it seems that the only plot involved is about these two people falling in love. But there's no obstacles - there is absolutely no reason why these two people shouldn't jump into bed together. Oh, she's trying to make a big point about how different their personalities are, and about how he's rich and she's not. But while the characters proclaim that they're too different and they must fight their passion, they don't actually act different. They've yet to have a real fight, or conflict of any kind. I suppose that this is more like a real, healthy relationship than the heiress who was forced to marry the rakish duke against her will, or the woman who thinks the guy's only dating her because of a bet. But I don't actually want to read books about reality - they're boring. I have a perfectly nice, healthy relationship of my own, I don't need to fantasize about someone else's. Nothing's happening in this book, and I'm bored.

The only one real jarring moment is at the beginning, when she overhears him talk about how she's a brilliant 25-year-old anthropologist, and he's not into professional spinsters. Um, dude? I don't think someone who's only 25 gets to count as a professional spinster yet. (This streak of assholish-ness, which at least might have made things interesting, disappears after page 3, by the way.) All I can say, though, is there better turn out to be a nice, traumatizing reason why a 25-year-old "leading authority on American Indian culture" is spending a month shacking up with a writer to play personal encyclopedia instead of being in, say, grad school. 'Cause this sounds like career suicide to me. (Also, how is someone who doesn't have a Ph.D. a "leading authority on American Indian culture"? Did Not Do the Research, Nora.)

Comments

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

(What else are we going to do with a pint of this stuff?)

Host a large brunch for people who drink coffee. Best use I can think of for pre-sweetened half-and-half. :-} Also, poured over strawberries?

[chuckro.livejournal.com]

Poured over strawberries is a decent idea. The coffee party is made problematic by the fact that most of our friends don't drink coffee, and we don't have a coffee maker.

[(Anonymous)]

Make a faux cream into ice cream. Strawberries and blackberries are in the stores, which would make a lovely addition. Can never go wrong wth ice cream!

xxxxxxxxxx

[chuckro.livejournal.com]

I was thinking I could make a particularly decadant french toast.

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

I should point out that, if this is the book I gave you, those are some of her Harlequin novels from early in her career. I've never read her, so maybe she got better? IDK.

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

I certainly hope so!

[beastin.livejournal.com]

Depending (strongly) on your graduate advisor, "spending a month shacking up with a writer to play personal encyclopedia" might not be a particularly big deal.

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

Oh, this is very obviously because she has nowhere else to be. There is no mention of an advisor. I don't think the author realized that you needed one. Or that, typically, one needs to be a grad student to earn a Ph.D. I think she thinks you magically write a paper at some point, and then hugs and puppies!