28 April 2001

Mmmm...Marissa Chow. Some people call it Grape Nuts. Whichever way you go, it's the breakfast of...well...of Marissas, I guess. I don't know that I can claim any champions.

Yesterday, Amber said we weren't going to be having supper until we got to Foster City, so I figured Mark and I had better reverse the normal order of dinner and dessert. I made poached pears. Mmmm. As I explained to Amber, poached pears are very little like poached eggs. You cook peeled, halved, cored pears in water, white wine, sugar, and spices. And then, if you're really good, you dump vanilla ice cream over top of them. Mmmm. I may try not peeling them next time, because I love pear peel. But it was lovely, and I felt much better for having cooked them.

Amber, I must say, has no stuff. Pretty much no stuff, anyway. It took us about fifteen or twenty minutes to get her moving van loaded. Same amount of time for the unload. Granted, it was Mark and me, Amber, Evan, and three of Evan's friends, but still. Shortest move ever. And then we had Round Table Pizza, which was no Frankie's, but it was pretty good. You can't expect anything else to be Frankie's. You will live in a state of perpetual disappointment if you do.

When I get showered and dressed, I'm going to head down to Santa Cruz to hang out and write with Tim. He has promised me lunch at Saturn and a stop at the bread place. He has not promised coffee at Pergolesi, but I'm going to lobby, maybe get one to go for in the car if the time has gotten away from me.

I finished reading a lot of books yesterday. Didn't finish writing any, but that's how it goes sometimes. I finished The Thief of Time, Medea the Sorceress, and Whispers from the Cotton Tree Root. Didn't change my opinions of any of them. (Heather knows what that means.) I started A Better Place to Live (about suburbia and designed communities -- interesting, even if it's written on the assumption that all human beings are agoraphobes, not claustrophobes, but I have a good long rant on that for when I finish the book, I think). Ellery Queen finally rejected one of my stories, so a minor task for the weekend is to get printer ribbon so that I can send it to F & SF. Ah, the joys of writing near-future SF murder mysteries: you can send them everywhere. For once, my habit of writing borderline stuff works for me, not against me. Of course, if it's "not quite right" everywhere, it may not work for me. But it's worth a try.

Oh, and one last thing: I have to say happy birthday to Mmmmmmy friend who hates birthdays. And is now old. Though not as old as my other friend who hates birthdays, but his name doesn't conveniently begin with "Mmmmmm."