Blog

The Mystery Writers of America held its 60th Anniversary this week, which culminated in the Edgar Awards ceremony last night. I think the best way to share this event is to write it like a travel diary. Sooo here we go.

There are weeks when very public moments of sadness occur at the same time as personal ones. While the world was watching the worldwide coverage of the funeral of Pope John Paul II, a number of us in New York were hearing of the untimely death of a former colleague, Elizabeth Crow, who we had worked with at Mademoiselle magazine when she was Editor-in-Chief.

For the last few seasons a show has been running on NBC called American Dreams. It ran on Sunday nights at 8 till a few weeks ago when it was moved to Wednesdays in the same time slot. It was one of the few shows regularly watched by me and my two sons. For those of you not familiar with it, it was set in the '60s and chronicled a family's world during these turbulent times. The show looked at Kennedy (both John and Bobby), Vietnam, the Pill, racial strife, psychedelic drugs and just about every other "issue" of the time. I enjoyed the show as a look back at a time that I lived through.

This week confirmed my thought that the umpteen cable channels available 24/7/365 are hindering our opportunity to actually get the news in a timely manner. This story started last Saturday. I walked into the kitchen and a News Flash was on the Fox News Channel. There was a press conference on and the words BTK Killer were on the screen. Serial killers intrigue me in books; they do so even more so in real life and I assume BTK is a serial killer. So I stop to watch. Even though I never have heard of BTK before.

I have been a Simon and Garfunkel fan for years --- an ardent one. Since I was 13 my life has had a running score under it of songs from the duo, and both of the artists solo. I hear a song and it quickly brings back where I was at the time when I first heard it. I have some pretty vivid memories of lying on a tweed couch in a room in our house in a room that we called "the study" listening to S&G while wearing HUGE headphones.

I would check off the following boxes of jobs that I would like to have: ER triage, air traffic control and programming the NFL Schedule. I thrive in an environment where the pace is fast and each one of these jobs has that. Since I have absolutely no aptitude in science, the ER triage job is not being offered to me any time soon. Thus I love watching ER and medical shows. I still miss Chicago Hope. (Okay, I confess that I had a wicked crush on Peter Berg.) I also like reading books about the medical profession.

I spent last week in Nashville at a trade show for the Christian Booksellers Association. I stayed at Gaylords Opryland Hotel, a sprawling hotel where walking from one end to the other constitutes a major workout. They actually said their fitness center is not very large as they feel everyone works out just walking around.

Yesterday I went shopping at Borders on 57th Street for a present for my son who turns 15 today. He wanted Season Three of Friends on DVD and a copy of THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME. Sounded pretty easy to me. I figured I would hit two aisles, select a couple of cards and on to the register. Ha! What was I thinking? I was thinking logically and one cannot shop in a chain bookstore this way.

It's snowing. Big time snow. I have decided not to turn on the TV to watch the snow reporting, which consists of reporters in very ridiculous cold weather clothing standing in the middle of the street watching a) empty streets, b) streets with cars stuck on them or c) roadways where people are traveling slowly. These same reporters then measure the snow with a ruler and are gleeful when the ruler gets buried.

Warning: Do not read John Grisham's new one, THE BROKER, if you are hungry. I made the mistake of doing that this weekend. As his character, Joel Backman, travels around Italy, he eats. And Grisham does great descriptions of the food that he eats. And every time you read about the food, you will want to eat. I found myself salvating for panini and yearning for a warm mushroom salad, and let's not talk about both tortellini and tortelloni (he spells out the difference). Keep a pad and pen next to you as you read so you can note what foods you need recipes for!