Month: November 2020

Book Review-Linda Howard: Kill and Tell

Image credit: tieury / 123RF Stock Photo

Kill and Tell by Linda Howard was a little difficult to get into. The first time I read the book I didn’t much care for the heroine–I thought she was unfeeling. She so unlike me, I had a difficult time relating. The hero, IMHO, was a jerk. Let’s just say the characters improved the second time I read the book, and continue to improve with each re-reading.

Why, you may ask, did I revisit the story?

  • Vietnam Vets
  • Political corruption light
  • Black Ops light
  • Family
  • New Orleans (even though most of the story takes place in Ohio)
  • Great first kiss/seduction scene

Of all of the above listed things, the last one was the clincher.  Picture a rainy, steamy, sultry New Orleans night, sitting on a balcony in the French Quarter, sipping red wine, eating cookies with white chocolate chunks, and listening to bluesy jazz being played in the distance. A perfect recipe.

Oh. My.

 

 

MJ Monday-Movies: The Women

My husband thought I would like The Women, a 1939 movie directed by George Cukor, who was known as a woman’s director. The film is based on a play by Clare Luce Booth and adapted for the silver screen by Anita Loos and Jane Murfin.  There are 130 speaking parts–none of them male. The cast is stellar: Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, Rosalind Russell, Paulette Goddard, Joan Fontaine, and so on.

While the movie has only women in it, the story is all about men. That’s all the women talk about. All they think about. Their worlds revolve around the men in their lives. The movie is supposed to be a comedy, a satire of wealthy Manhattan-based women and their marriages. Maybe it was for its time.

Today, I thought it was sad. Pathetic. It also made me angry that the men could be forgiven everything, but if the women had done the same things, they would be ostracized. Again, for the time frame of the movie, this was acceptable.

On the positive side, if my husband hadn’t told me there were no men in the film, I might not have noticed. The actresses conversed directly to the camera as if it were the person to whom they were speaking. The dialogue was scripted in such a way that the viewer understood the male responses as if one had heard them.

Although I didn’t love the movie, watching it wasn’t a waste of time.

Thursday Thought-Self Help: Crucial Conversations

A success coach suggested I read  Crucial Conversation as a way of improving my verbal communication with various factions in my life.

So many people rave about the book. I couldn’t get past chapter three.

Sometimes I feel like there’s a secret society of people who can read books of this ilk and actually understand them. My brain isn’t wired to do that. I’m a smart woman, but I frequently have a problem with abstracts. So many self-help books deal in abstracts that I end up feeling not smart when I try to force myself to read them.

There are just certain kinds of things my brain refuses to deal with. Too bad when I try to explain this to some people, I’m not understood.

One specific “crucial conversation” that went no where.

MJ Monday-Meal: My New Sandwich

Here’s my new favorite sandwich.

It’s made with turkey (good deli turkey, not the slimy, fat free stuff that you buy in plastic tubs), pesto (my supermarket sells small jars of premade basil pesto), roasted red peppers, and provolone on a sandwich thin (I prefer sandwich thins to bread because they’re not so . . . bready).

Spread pesto sauce (stirred well to incorporate the olive oil) thinly onto each side of the sandwich thin, as if it were mayo or mustard (I’m not a fan of either condiment).

Add a slice of turkey (doubled over) to each side of the then, then top with strips of roasted red pepper.

Add a slice of provolone. Personally, I prefer smoked provolone, but my husband doesn’t, and he buys the cheese at a local warehouse store, so that’s what I use.

Slap the two sides together and voila, a sandwich.