Several months ago, during a fruitless search for a corkscrew, I realized that I had accumulated forty years or so of mostly unused and unneeded kitchen junk in my cupboards. Recently I picked up a couple of new gadgets designed for people like me, who live alone, don’t cook much, but like the occasional hardboiled egg or baked potato. It’s not a big kitchen, and finding a place to store them, other than on the counter, has thrown me into cleaning out the cupboards.
Years ago, when I was cooking for three, and even baking, I needed a lot of this stuff. I even have some indestructible wedding presents (and I was married in 1969). But what did I ever think I was going to do with the box of knives I just found? Apart from a few cute little specialty knives left over from a cheese-of-the-month club we belonged to thirty years ago, they’re headed out, along with the utility candles in the same box. I have candles that smell good now.
I didn’t even remember that I had a George Foreman grill. Minus the drip tray. Or the instructions. Into the out box it goes, along with the microwave sandwich maker (no instructions, and apparently no longer made, since I can’t find instructions on line). Lots of microwave cookery gadgets with no instructions. I think one of them is supposed to make omelets. I’ve never made an omelet in my life. And then there’s the electric rice/vegetable steamer, suitable for feeding a crowd.
Cooling racks, muffin tins, pie plates—I haven’t baked anything in more than a decade. Among the large collection of wooden carving boards (I’ve long since switched to plastic) I even found an old fashioned wooden rolling pin! I’m not sure I ever used that. Three sets of mixing bowls. Three lasagna pans. Rusty cookie sheets. At least I’ve found a use for that microwave oven carton I never recycled—instant trash bin.
I’ve cleared enough space to stow my new toys and most of the stuff cluttering up the counter. Not much left there now but the microwave oven and the toaster. I’ve hauled two boxes (one of them so heavy that I’ll have to divide it before I try to move it again) out to the garage.
And I’ve only done half the cupboards. Somewhere there are still three or four toasters that did not meet my exacting standards, a blender or two, a couple of crockpots, and a countertop toaster oven. And a LOT of old pots and pans. Maybe tomorrow.
I still haven’t found the old corkscrew. But I have a new one, and a bottle of wine waiting . . .
This month’s Writer Wednesday prompt is “show us your favorite item on your desk,” and my first impulse was toward one of the stuffed animals in my writing alcove (once upon a time the dinette area, which explains the chandelier). The desk is really a six-foot long all-purpose table, the kind with collapsible legs, long enough to hold all my computer equipment (tower, external hard drive, monitor on a stand, keyboard and mouse, and printer). Then there are containers of binder clips and paper clips, a mug of pens and markers, assorted flash drives (six at the moment—remember when they were exotic and very expensive?), scattered business cards, a stapler, stacks of those note pads that come with charity requests, a folder containing the pages from my last critique group meeting, and so forth.
The reporter is looking for a story that’ll be his ticket out of his small Georgia town. With her political connections, legal assistant Gina Lawson could help Toby realize his aspirations. Their friendship is just an added bonus, but falling in love isn’t part of his five-year plan.
And the book is lots of fun. Goldsborough captures the flavor of Stout’s novels and includes many of the supporting characters populating Wolfe’s world: Saul Panzer, Orrie Cather and Fred Durkin, Fritz Brenner, Inspector Cramer and Sergeant Stebbins, and of course Wolfe’s Brownstone on West 35th Street.
Holloway, gun-toting (and all too often firing) Special Agent of the IRS. I’m a couple of books behind on Tara’s adventures (oh, for an extra reading day every week—why did I ever think cutting back my working days would solve this problem?), and I’ve just recently read 
behaving like a total jerk in the process, Claire decides to investigate the murder in question, for no good reason beyond embarrassing the prosecutor. As usual, she finds herself dealing with more complications than she expected, and her mother-in-law, whom she has never met, is arriving for a visit in three days. This time around Claire deals with aging hippies, organic farmers, and a four-year-old witness with a zombie obsession.
Two years after waiting at the altar for Keith Mitchell, Cara isn’t ready to meet him again, much less work with him as the consultant on her bridal fashion show! For his part, a misunderstanding sent him running, but now that he knows the truth, and they’re spending long days working together, he wants her back in his bed. Will Cara use their passion to gain the ultimate revenge? Let the newlywed games begin.
After one night of tequila and sex, their impromptu Vegas wedding shouldn’t be valid. But Meredith Chandler-Harris just discovered she’s still tied to irresistible businessman Jason Lynhurst. She needs out of their marriage, but to become his company’s new CEO, he needs her as a bride. Let the newlywed games begin.
As the daughter of a marquess, she has a position in society to uphold; she can’t laugh away such an embarrassing incident. But she has no intention of being forced into a loveless marriage, either, even if she did once have a girlhood crush on Philip Ponsby long before he became a duke.
This book is the second in the House of Haverstock series, a follow-up to Bolen’s 
Jeannie Lin’s 
bodyguard, and Jake Parker is a captive Echo, a person displaced from an alternate Earth nearly destroyed by a asteroid. The FBI is involved because the Echoes, not all of them captive, are dangerous, energy vampires needing to feed on native humans to survive.
Motorcycle Guy was wearing one of those soup-pot helmets that look like they came from the prop department of an old war movie. No visor, no neck protection. He was also wearing a scruffy tee shirt with ragged arm holes where the sleeves had been torn away, exposing lots of bare skin.
