book read

Loretta Chase, The Last Hellion (1988, one of her early traditional regencies.)
She's a prim and naive but determined and exasperated daughter of the nobility who escapes to London in flight from an arranged marraige to her drunken louty dad's crony and ends up in a brothel. He's the drunken louty but really really cute son of the nobility who's almost her first "customer," rescues her, and goes nearly batty trying to prevent himself from falling for her. They fight a very small amount of crime, in the form of attempted blackmail, but mostly they fight their attraction for one another.

No sex, this is a rengency. I was amused at the frothiness of a plot that had basically serious elements (alcoholism, prostitution) and nowadays would be treated with high drama and wickeder villains and would be very dark and psychological. Hail the true regency; I'm so into light and comedy instead of dark right now. I also like a book where the focus is really on the characters' journey towards falling in love, and less on the plot that gets them threre. So many romance authors work so hard to create conflict through (often outlandish) plot, or have really violent character-based conflicts (he was betrayed and hates all women; she was abused; yadda yadda). It's actually more romantic to me when two normal glumpish people drift together into love, perhaps against their real inclination or expectation, than all this psychology.

I'm getting old and crotchety, aren't I?

dogs of the future...

Last night after we read Phoebe and the Hot Water Bottles, which ends with Phoebe, who has previously only had 158 hot water bottles to play with and longs for a dog, getting a puppy, Casper said, "I want a puppy." I told her that Daddy wanted a puppy, too, and we would get one some day.

I told this to mr. flea when he got home later, and he said, "Yessss! That's my girl!"

Then this morning the bus driver asked me if I knew anyone who wanted a chocolate lab puppy, 23 weeks old, because he doesn't have enough time to spend with the dog and feels bad. But we have a small house, an unfenced yard, a lease prohibiting dogs, and nobody home all day often enough.

Aside: in the book, Phoebe is in bed at night and her widower father, a chemist (= pharmacist) is out delivering something. The shop catches on fire and she wakes up smalling smoke and uses the hot water bottles to put out the fire herself. I am enough of a rationalist that I can't read it without mentally ranting, "Why is he leaving an 8 year old home alone at night? Why don't they have a smoke detector? Why doesn't she know that if you find a fire in your house the first thing you do is tell a grownup/call 911?"

Locopops

Ncistas, Go. Do. Avocado popsicles. You probably all know about this already, as it seems to be a hipster destination, and I am the least hip of us all, but if not, here's a good description, with photos!
http://butenoughaboutyou.blogspot.com/2005/07/perfect-way.html