I had a hard time getting up this morning, as if someone else were sick but had transferred the exhaustion to me, but not the other symptoms. It’s the cold weather — the walls are thin, poorly insulated, and my bed is too close to the outer walls, so that my head freezes at night. I shiver.
I baked cornbread, but made a mistake … a silly one, really. See, I know it’s 1 cup of flour, 1 cup of cornmeal, 1 cup of milk, 1 egg, 2 tsp. baking powder, 1/2 tsp. salt, 1/3 cup oil … and 1/4 cup sugar.
Somehow I poured in 1/2 cup sugar!
I was in luck, had an extra egg and just enough milk so as to double the recipe, pull out an extra pan, etc.
Instant perfect cornbread.
Well, not quite instant.
I began another Preston-Child novel, this time Cabinet of Curiosities. I’m only two hundred pages into it; it goes by quickly, but I was distracted often this afternoon and evening. It returns Agent Pendergast, whom I first saw in Relic but who has shown up in other Preston-Child collaborations, I believe. So far Nora is a whiny shadow of Margo Green, but her very whininess is what will allow her to develop a bit as a character over the course of this B-movie-material page-turner. With Pendergast and others we merely get characteristics, often tiny morsels thrown our way that fill in the picture like puzzle pieces, but as with puzzles, they are flat, and any depth perceived is merely an illusion caused by the original photograph used to make the puzzle. I still like Pendergast, mind you … I’m just a bit tired of being manipulated by the type.
Yesterday I picked up Day Watch, the Comedian Harmonists, and Battle in Heaven from Four-Star … I still need to view them all. Watching movies alone, however, is often boring.
