Crime on Their Hands - by Dell Shannon
Topic: Books - Mystery
This is the 17th Luis Mendoza mystery. They are hard to talk about as they are about the same thing but I enjoy watching the detectives as they interact and their families grow up. Luis and Alison are delightful characters, Luis with his intuition and Alison with her creativity. Luis, a hispanic who grew up in the slums of LA only to find out his grandfather was sitting on millions, after he'd grown attached to his job and Alison a red haired Scot-Irish lady who had grown up in Mexico who manages to gather together a menagerie of animals and people. In this book they find a stray dog. Actually he finds them when he stows away in Alison's car and she and Mairi, their housekeeper, try to save a mockingbird who got into some tar.

The detectives at LAPD homicide have the usual spate of crimes with, always, an unusual one or two to pique Mendoza's interest. I do enjoy reading these books. I'm not sure why.

Appearances of Death - by Dell Shannon
Topic: Books - Mystery
This is the 25th Luis Mendoza mystery. Lieutenant Mendoza and his detectives have their hands full, as usual. A nurse is kidnapped late at night while leaving the hospital. An elderly woman, dressed in her finest, is found bludgeoned to death in a phone booth late at night near downtown. A gunman with a stammer is hitting all night stores. A car salesman is shot dead in his showroom office. An elderly couple is poisoned with mouse poison. The usual list of inhumanity towards each other. The interplay of the detectives and they see again the underside of the human race and grumble about why they stay at the unappreciated job.

Luis is also trying to keep his wife, Alison, who is pregnant from running around looking for a house to hold them, their children and all their cats. She finds just the place.

The Best Think I Ever Tasted: The Secret of Food - by Sallie Tisdale
Topic: Books - Food
This is such a wonderful book. It's like she knew me, all of us. The author takes us from the 50s she knew growing up where everyone was enthralled with 'quick' foods. With convenience foods. With convenience appliances. Where no one really thought about what they ate but just ate what they told was good. Wonder bread. Bisquick. Hamburger helper.

She wanders through the years from medieval, and even before, to today and talks about why people eat what they eat. She talks about how we took ethnic food and made it bland and took the rough food of poor people and were told that now we could eat like rich people and have white bread and white sugar.

Most of all, though, she talks about how little knowledge we have of how we get our food and when we do know we try to not know. We don't want to know where our food comes from, we just want what we want, when we want. Most people in western nations never know what it is to be hungry, the natural rhythm of life not that long ago. Abundance and hunger. It's like we still have that craving for more and more that's never satisfied.

She talks about diets, her diets, other people's diets and how demoralizing they are as we struggle to not eat our abundance and yet can never not think about food. I know that's true. I was so smug in my skinnyness until I quit smoking and hit menopause and gained weight. It seems like since then I spend so much time thinking about food and what I want to eat, and can I eat it, and what should I eat but what I really want to eat. It is so pathetic. We starve ourselves in the midst of abundance because fat used to be a sign of wealth only now everyone can be fat so being anorexic is the new status.

I was never really hungry, but I know what it's like to not have much choice in what to eat, both when I was a child and money got tight and when I was a single mother. I remember how orange juice was such a luxury to me when my children were little and I couldn't afford pop or potato chips, but we were never hungry. Now I buy too much because it's such a pleasure to buy fruits and wonderful vegetables and all the meat I want. So I buy it and it rots because it's too much but I go out and do it again like I can't just buy enough.

Tisdale leads us down the roads of food and all it's meaning and angst, disgust and yearning, what we think food should be and what it actually is. She deflates our high opinion of our worldly cuisine.

Good book!

Young Conservatives
Topic: Current Affairs
The New York Times had a story about young conservatives (thanks to Andrew Sullivan). It's very interesting. I've always thought that there was much more diversity in the conservative movement than in the liberal movement and this confirms that it's continuing.

I, Robot - addendum
Topic: Culture
The right to choose our own safety also includes the right to believe how we want to believe regardless of whether or not that means we go to hell. Anyone who thinks that it's okay to harm people in order to save them in the afterlife, is wrong. This is the motive of parents who kill their children in order to make sure they go to heaven. This was the motive of the inquisition as they felt that they were giving the tortured person a chance to repent, and therefore go to heaven. This is the motive of "deprogrammers" who believe they are doing good by brutalizing people who don't believe like they think is correct. It's all justified in the name of saving them. This is no different from "saving" people from their own stupid choices about this life.

I, Robot - Movie starring Will Smith
Topic: Culture
This is a very good movie. It sort of is based on some concepts of Isaac Asimov's books though quite a bit of liberty has been taken with his original stories. Besides the concept of whether or not robots could evolve to take over the world is the idea of what is "safe enough". The robots think they have to take humans prisoner because they keep doing stupid things. This, of course, is what we often do to ourselves with stupid laws.

The current controversy over whether or not we need someone to tell us what we can and cannot eat is part of this. Personally, I think we are each responsible for what we eat and if someone gets sick or dies because of their choices, I don't feel that that is my responsibility or that I should have to pay for it. I try my best to eat what's right and do what's right but this is balanced by what is pleasurable and exciting. These are choices everyone has to make for themselves and when these choices are taken from us, we are prisoners. Anytime such issues are settled by laws and lawsuits, I end up paying for it one way or another. The only ones that come out ahead are the lawyers, like John Edwards.

This is a very good movie and even though it was loosely based on Asimov it's made me want to read some of his books again. I always enjoyed the "science" side of science fiction more than the "sword and sorcery" side, though I liked the s&s also. I always figure science is way ahead of magic and much more responsiable, though anything can be preverted. I just looked at my bookshelf and I have Heinlein and Gibson but no Asimov. I'll have to check the library. (Pause) Oh, just checked the public library and everyone of the "I, Robot" books are checked out. Good! It's always nice when something stirs people to read a book. I put my name on reserve.

Felony at Random - by Dell Shannon
Topic: Books - Mystery
This is the 27th Lieutenant Luis Mendoza mystery. A girl disappears at the Museum of Natural History and all the detectives at the LAPD Homicide division feel the shiver that always comes when a child disappears. Another child disappeared not long before from her house and has never been found.

While busy looking for the missing children they get an anonymous letter that a lady who they thought had died from drinking too much was murdered and that she wasn't the first one. A policeman is shot in his own home. An innocent man is anonymously accused of a crime and the detectives find out he's been accused again and again over the last few years which has caused him quite a bit of trouble. Elderly people on a small block start dying. All in all a full plate for the detectives.

Luis's wife Alison has their third child, Luisa, and is busy with the new (?) 100 year old winery she's renovating for them.

Storm
Topic: Whatever
I watched the storm move in. I could tell it was coming about 7:00 with winds building up and lightning to the west but it just now, 8:00 PM, hit with rain pouring. It's so cool to watch. I've seen rain move across the desert and never hit me and it's so unlike storms in the midwest and east where it rains everywhere not just in spots. This looks like a fairly wide storm and the rain is so welcome.

It only got to 98 today but it felt like an oven because of the humidity. I went to the mall and walked around for a while just to get some exercise and stay cool. The mall was jammed so I wasn't the only one.

The Wharton's Stretch Book - by Jim and Phil Wharton
Topic: Books - Nonfiction
I've got a book a week ago on stretching since I've felt so tight and creaky lately. At my age I might say that's to be expected but I didn't want to spend the rest of my life like that. I spent about an hour looking at books on stretching at the bookstore and finally took this one, almost by default.

It is a comprehensive stretching book. It stretches you from your neck to your toes. Yes, it even has stretches for toes. It takes a good hour to do all the stretches so I've broken them up in half hour groups and do part morning and part afternoon. I feel a little less creaky but it's not anything to shout about.

What is wonderful is that I'm doing the evening group just before bedtime and I'm sleeping like a log for the first time in a long time. Well, maybe not like a log but I'm falling asleep faster and don't wake up as much. This alone is worth the cost of the book. It does take some effort to spend that much time in stretching but I'll keep it up if only to get better sleep.

DHMO! Oh No!
Topic: Current Affairs
The horror of it! The horror of it! The next time you read something that is designed to scare you go to the DHMO site and read it carefully comparing the statements on the new scare site with the statements on this. What a great website.

Rainy week
Topic: Cycling
I only rode my bike to work on Monday and today. Our monsoons started in earnest and the chance of rain was well over 50% most of the week and I always have to take a big breath and face riding home in the rain. It's not really the rain but the chance of lightning. If there's lightning when I leave work I just leave my bike and work and take the bus home but if it starts when I'm halfway home and no place to stop it's a bit scary. I've also had fairly deep water of the streets to ride though that I'm not too crazy about.

Today I rode though and it was nice. It's cool in the morning but so humid. I can usually ride to work without really breaking a sweat but now that we're getting the humidity it's like riding in a sauna. It was fairly cool this afternoon because of the clouds and a nice ride home despite the humidity.

Deuces Wild - by Dell Shannon
Topic: Books - Mystery
This is the 22nd Lieutenant Luis Mendoza mystery. The cops at LAPD homicide are busy enough with the usual stupidity and crime when Mendoza's four year old twins disappear. They don't know if it's some pervert, someone Luis arrested with a grudge or a kidnapper after some of Luis's millions.

While the FBI waits for a call and checks out leads the detectives at LAPD are looking too and Mendoza is following up his hunches. They have other things to do also and are asked to look out for some crazies coming down from Sacramento as well as the regular routine that still keeps going.

One of the reasons I like this series is that you follow the detectives and their families also. Not in detail but bits and pieces of their lives are woven into the story and you see tham as real people. It's hard to give a good review of the books since they are all about the usual police routine but they are interesting.

Cold Trail - by Dell Shannon
Topic: Books - Mystery
This is the 26th Lieutenant Luis Mendoza series. A body is found under an abandoned building and it belongs to a woman who disappeared five years before and had no reason to be in the run down area. Mendoza's hunches are needed to solve the case. The detectives are also busy with a cop who is shot, an elderly women found dead in a Goodwill bin and a store owner beaten to death. Before they tie up the lose ends they find a good hearted hooker and a secret way to avoid freeways.


Grace and his wife are thinking of adopting another child.Alison, Luis's wife, is busy with renovations to the 100 year old winery they bought and very pregnant.

Sharlynne Melon
Topic: Food
It has been so unbelievably hot this weekend. The temps aren't that high, for Arizona, but 101 with high humidity just sucks the energy out of you. I've been eating lots of fruit and finally got to the Sharlynne melon I'd picked up last week. I've been finishing off a watermelon and some peaches that were on the edge of going bad. I love watermelon but when it's a big one and just me it takes all week for me to eat it. I get carried away and buy more fruit than I can eat in a reasonable time.

The Sharlynne was very good. It's green, like a honeydew, but a softer, smoother flesh. Very refreshing. A nice melon and something to look for again. I didn't see any this week so I don't know how often they get them.

Riding in the rain
Topic: Cycling
I had two meetings this afternoon at a building about two miles west of where I work. Since I knew it would be after 5:00 when we finished I rode my bike over so I could just head home from there. As I wended my way west it started raining. More a light drizzle but I was damp when I got there. At 5:30 when we were finally done, it was just spitting as I headed east and toward home.

It was so nice. It never was a real rain, just enough to get me very damp though I did finally stop and cover my backpack with a plastic bag so my stuff wouldn't also get wet. I never could not see through my glasses so it was a light rain.

It was a hard ride though because I rode into the wind the whole way. Our monsoons come from the east. Southeast technically but it always seems strongest from the east. One place I lived faced east and when the rains came with the wonderful coolness and wonderful smells, I always had to shut my door because the rain blew right in. The wind plus the extra two miles, well four miles counting going to the meeting place meant my legs were tired. Still it was so wonderful to work that hard and not get too hot.

There was a full rainbow to the east and I just followed it home. Toward the end the middle of the rainbow disappeared but to the north it became a double rainbow. Just beautiful! After I got home the drizzle turned heavier though it was never heavy. The sunset turned the sky a deep burnt orange. It's still drizzling heavily now, 8:00 pm. Hopefully the monsoons have arrived though they are usually heavier and don't last as long.

On the wall
Topic: Whatever
Almost a year and a half after moving into this apartment I have my pictures on the wall. It takes me a while and I can sit and look at them and see why. They're a little crooked and I need to fix the hooks in the back of the picture and they'll still be a little crooked. Some need to be reframed but that takes me so long and never is quite right.

I would like to just tape pictures on the walls but then, of course, they warp and the tape looks ugly and people think I'm odd. Well, maybe I am odd, but I just have a problem with the normal housy things that everyone seems to get right. I still have basically yard furniture in my living room. I'm nearly 60 years old and never really had a proper living room suite, or bedroom suite, or dining room suite.

Still it's nice to see my kidlets faces on the wall. I enjoy just seeing them as I pass by and remembering when the pictures were taken. So long and so much time has passed. I need new pictures of them.

StIll hot, staying hot
Topic: Cycling
It got to 102 today and some humidity so I was very tired when I got home. I'm doing better though. My face is still bright red for a while but I don't feel almost sick which I did a couple times when I first started riding in the heat. It's still not my favorite thing but riding to work in the morning is great and makes it worthwhile.

Spacing
Topic: Walking through the world
I'm on the Pednet listserv though I rarely, and not in a long time, have posted. I seem to get shot down a lot when I post as I'm not quite politically correct enough, in other words, I think all types of transportation have a place in the infrastructure of a town or city, not just transit, walking or cycling. The same thing happens to me on the Carfree lists but then I have a find like today. The post was actually a week ago but I'm just now reading it.

There was a link to Spacing an ezine about walking. I believe you can also subscribe and get a paper copy. It's great! The article are very good and it's so wonderful to see people walking for pleasure not to attain some political goal. So often on Pednet it seems like people walk because it's their duty, but Spacing is very good. So nice to have a resource like this. It doesn't look like they have new issues very often, in fact this is just the 2nd one, but at least I have this one. The purpose of Spacing is actually about keeping public spaces public instead of them being privatized and walled off, which I tend to agree with. After all without public spaces there would be no walking, would there.

There's one article on alleys, which I enjoy walking through. They call them laneways so I didn't realize at first that they were talking about alleys. The one drawback of alleys is the dogs barking at you, but you find bits of nature and parts that aren't prettied up.

Highest grossing movies
Topic: Culture
Interesting figures via Commonsense and Wonder and Box Office Mojo on what the top grossing movies really were. I can't believe that Forest Gump made it but I love that Gone With the Wind is the top. Grease is on there, Mary Poppins, the Sound of Music and all the first three Star Wars movies. Yes! Here they are:

DOMESTIC GROSSES
Adjusted for Ticket Price Inflation*
#1-25 -
As of 4/22/04

Rank	Title	Studio	Adjusted gross	Unadjusted gross	Year
1	Gone With the Wind	MGM	$1,218,328,752	$198,655,278	1939
2	Star Wars	Fox	$1,074,061,157	$460,998,007	1977
3	The Sound of Music	Fox	$858,764,718	$158,671,368	1965
4	E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial	Uni.	$855,381,641	$434,974,579	1982
5	The Ten Commandments	Par.	$789,930,000	$65,500,000	1956
6	Titanic	Par.	$779,086,619	$600,788,188	1997
7	Jaws	Uni.	$772,315,273	$260,000,000	1975
8	Doctor Zhivago	MGM	$748,536,797	$111,721,910	1965
9	The Exorcist	WB	$666,729,078	$232,671,011	1973
10	Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs	Dis.	$657,270,000	$184,925,486	1937
11	101 Dalmatians	Dis.	$602,501,023	$144,880,014	1961
12	The Empire Strikes Back	Fox	$591,573,955	$290,475,067	1980
13	Ben-Hur	MGM	$590,940,000	$74,000,000	1959
14	Return of the Jedi	Fox	$567,178,243	$309,306,177	1983
15	The Sting	Uni.	$537,531,427	$156,000,000	1973
16	Raiders of the Lost Ark	Par.	$531,495,386	$242,374,454	1981
17	Jurassic Park	Uni.	$520,077,229	$357,067,947	1993
18	The Graduate	Avco	$515,995,503	$104,397,100	1967
19	The Phantom Menace	Fox	$511,705,203	$431,088,297	1999
20	Fantasia	Dis.	$500,752,174	$76,400,000	1940
21	The Godfather	Par.	$475,903,072	$134,966,411	1972
22	Forrest Gump	Par.	$475,611,919	$329,694,499	1994
23	Mary Poppins	Dis.	$471,436,364	$86,000,000	1964
24	The Lion King	Dis.	$466,708,371	$328,541,776	1994
25	Grease	Par.	$463,838,169	$188,389,888	1978

Salads and Saturn
Topic: Food
I went to the mall to walk since it is so hot here and I needed some exercise. After an hour I grabbed the Health-Mex salad at Rubios. So Good! Yes, I know, I'm trying to not eat fast food but Rubios has such fresh food. This has grilled chicken and grape-serrano dressing. I'm not sure what that consists of but it's just a moistness on the cabbage and lettuce that is very good. I squeezed on a little more lime juice and just a bit of regular salsa. They even have margaritas, which I hadn't realized, but the lady taking my order said they weren't very potent, but very refreshing. I'll have to try it one of these days.

The salad is good but not very filling, it's only 220 calories, so when I got home I had a couple saturn peaches. They look like peaches that someone sat on, like donuts without a hole, and they are very sweet and good.

Since I didn't sleep well last night, I think it's time to take a nap and wait for the day to cool off. This is such a great way to spend a day. I'll watch the fireworks on tv tonight and have a fine independence day.