Laura, Cristela, and Tiffani

I think that, by now, you know that I enjoy fairly diverse television shows. I'm a Downton Abbey fan, an Amazing Race devotee, and a Glee watcher (though I refuse to say I'm a "gleek"). And then there are the mysteries like Castle, Elementary, and Sherlock.

And this year I've happily added The Mysteries of Laura, Cristela, and Dinner at Tiffani's to my list of random shows - three very different shows with one common theme: I would be more than happy to hang out with the title character in each.

Unfortunately, I couldn't find good photos of the guy she's dating, but Josh Lucas (on the right) is her ex.

The Mysteries of Laura is a detective show starring Debra Messing (you know, Grace from Will & Grace), and it allows her to be funny, smart, sexy, flirty, and hit all of these amazing notes that just make me happy to watch it. The supporting cast is incredible (and rather attractive - Laura has very eclectic, and very good, taste in men), and so I find myself really enjoying it. I have to admit that it's also nice to be watching a show that has a strong - yet not perfect - woman (who is actually in my age bracket) as its central character.

No, it's not a great photo, but I wanted to find one with Carlos Ponce in it. 

Cristela... well... I'll fully admit that one of the reasons I first watched it was because Carlos Ponce - whom I first heard of a number of years ago because he was a hot Latin singer (he's Puerto Rican, and was a Latin soap actor, but also a pop singer) - was going to be on it. But the show, which was created by its star Cristela Alonzo, is really good, so we've kept watching it. It's a "family comedy" with the main character living with her sister's family (and their mother), while trying to make it as an intern in a law firm. Sure, race is an issue in the show - after all, she's not white and it's set in Texas - but it's mainly about life and family. And Carlos... he's still very easy to look at.

The first "episode" was actually kind of a one-off pilot, but it's an actual series, now.

Dinner at Tiffani's is, technically, a cooking show. Or maybe an "entertaining" show. It's headed by Tiffani Thiessen (you know who she is... she was Kelly from Saved by the Bell, or "the suit's wife" on White Collar). Watching her as she works her way through putting together a dinner party with friends (mostly showbiz friends, so you get to see some great cameos) makes me want to have people over for dinner. She seems incredibly comfortable in front of the camera, and so although I may or may not ever make any of her recipes, I'll definitely keep watching.

Here's the catch, though: Each time I say that I really like a show, it goes away. Earlier this year, Christopher and I were out with some friends talking about the new show The McCarthys, and the next week we found out it had been cancelled. So now that I'm putting these comments out in the world I'm a little worried about what might happen. I guess the best I can suggest is that if you're not watching them already you should check them out soon - you never know how long they'll be around.

Dis/Re-Connected

For the past couple of weeks, our router has been... well... flaky. And not the good kind of flaky, like a nice pie crust (Happy Pi Day!) or a croissant.

Not even the kind of flaky that I can be some times when I let my Gemini nature take the lead.

But the kind of flaky where you never really know what's going to be next.

I've found myself doing things like lying on the floor in the middle of the living room, because the signal had dropped where I was, and it came back about 3 feet closer to the router, and so I just stopped where I was, hoping that I wouldn't lose it again.

Yesterday, though, Christopher went out and bought a new router. And - being the computer guy in the house, as well as being a really great guy in general - he set it all up this afternoon in such a way that when I turned my computer back on, it would automatically reconnect.

So this evening I'm sitting in that "faraway" chair, with a solid wi-fi signal, and no hassle whatsoever.

Which means two things: Christopher is amazing, and life is good.

So, Does the Shoe Fit?

Honestly, I'm not sure, yet.

Yes, after I posted on Tuesday, I ordered some shoes. And they have already arrived (that's one of the rare instances where I really like technology).

But I was only home for about half an hour after work before going out to an event with a cousin of mine, so I didn't try them on.

And then I got home from that late enough that I really just wanted to get into my pj's and hang out on the couch. Which I did. And although I keep looking at the shoe boxes over by the front door, I don't want my first impression of possible new shoes to be how they look with my pajamas. Because they might be great with jeans, but who knows how they'll look with black-and-white plaid flannel?

So I'm waiting until tomorrow to see whether the shoes fit my feet - and my sense of foot style.

I'll keep you posted.

If the Shoe Fits

Shopping for shoes would be so easy if the only factor you had to worry about was whether or not they fit.

I'm trying to find some new shoes to replace some that are going rapidly downhill, and I seem to have way too many conditions in mind to even get to the point of trying them on.

It's true, of course, that I won't wear shoes if they don't fit, but I also want them to look... well... they have to look like shoes I would wear.

Kinda makes me jealous of Cinderella. After all, she already knew the shoe would fit - and that it would look great with her dress.

On-again, Off-again

If you've been reading my blog for any length of time, you know that technology and I are kind of... well... we work together because we have to... usually. 

Yes, there are parts of technology that I really like, like electric lights, and hot water, and even using my computer to write this blog. 

But - much the same as with my car (another piece of technology I greatly enjoy using) when something goes wrong, I'm frequently flummoxed. 

Lately, our Internet connection seems to be coming and going. We're not sure if it's actually the fault of the cable company, the fault of our router (which for many years I thought was only a piece of woodworking equipment), or some combination of things. 

What we do know is that sometimes we're connected to the Internet, and sometimes we're not. 

As you might imagine, there are times when I quite enjoy this. 

I enjoy having the "pressure" to go online taken away. After all, with no Internet, I don't have to check the social networks. I don't have to follow breaking news. I don't have to consider doing a really quick weekend check of my work queue. 

But there are also times when the world we live in kind of requires Internet access. Like yesterday, when I needed to get online to do two pieces of freelancing. Or tonight when I wanted to update our TiVo, but it's also not connected to the Internet (okay... maybe that's not really a requirement). Or... well... when I started to put up a blog post the other day but simply couldn't. 

I'm sure that we'll figure this out pretty soon, and be back to the over-connected life of the 21st century. In the meantime, though, I'll do my best to keep my senses of humor and perspective - and my sanity - as our on-again, off-again Internet relationship continues. 

Some Quick Updates

Due to the fact that it's almost 10 on a school night and I've been feeling short on sleep for the past week, tonight's blog is going to be a bulleted list of updates from topics we've already covered:

• (See? I'm even using real bullet point markers!)
• Nude postings are no longer going to be banned. Don't worry, I still don't plan to post anything remotely nude. 
• I almost made it through one of this week's work projects today. I'm 20 pages shy of finishing the edit of the novel I started on Monday. That means I've edited something like 250 pages of that novel since Monday afternoon. I'd have completed it, today, but I got pulled into one half-hour meeting, and spent about 45 minutes formatting a sample chapter for an author who doesn't understand that you can just type in a Word document without having to put everything into text boxes. So... 250 pages over approximately 2 days' worth of actual work. And, yet, the most I've been able to do in a day for the behemoth is 22 pages. What is wrong with this picture? 
• I finally used some of the pesto cubes I made last fall. They were tasty, but instead of tossing them with pasta I baked some chicken with them. So they separated. The oil went to the bottom of the pan, and the pesto solids (the basil and nut bits) just sat on top of the chicken. Tasty, but weird. 
• We're at that point in the weather year when Minnesotans are just tired of being cold and having to dress in 82 layers. It's supposed to get really warm (like, up into the 40s or warmer) by next week. So today, of course, I saw people walking around with their coats undone and wearing no scarves or gloves - even though it was only about 4 degrees out. (I may or may not have been one of those hatless people on the way to work, but I wore one this afternoon for the dog walk.)*

Okay. That kind of gets us caught up to today.

We'll see if I can come up with anything more pithy on Friday.

*Spellcheck insists that this should either be "hapless" or "headless" - I suspect that if one led to the other, I'd still end up hatless...

Brain Freeze

You know that feeling you get when you've eaten ice cream too fast? That pain in your head that kind of makes the rest of the world inconsequential until it's gone?

I've been feeling like that for the past few days. Only it hasn't been because of too much ice cream.

I must admit that my work is starting to get the better of me. I've got two edits on my plate this week. One of them I'm over halfway through, but it's taken me 7 weeks to get there - and I've only got 4 to finish it. The other is an edit that kind of snuck its way in, and was - kind of - due today. I started it this morning and hope to be done by Wednesday (thankfully, that's fairly doable with it, even though it's 80,000 words it's fairly well-written fiction). But then I'll have to get back to the other one...

I don't usually really worry about my deadlines at work. I just go along doing the work and it seems to get done on time. But the past week or so, I seem to be coming home and still thinking about the amount of work I need to do. And I can't exactly work on the big one at home, because it's so large (nearly 400,000 words, and over 10,000 edits so far) that I'm pretty sure it would corrupt in the emailing.

So I'm just plugging along and desperately trying not to think about it every time I turn around in the hopes of not freezing up my brain's capacity to do anything else.

Not really sure it's working, though, considering that it's nearly 10:30 on a Monday night and I've just blogged about it...