We’re back from our trip to the Yucatan. Unfortunately our mail was down while we were away. If you e-mailed me after 7/10, chances are your mail was rejected and didn’t arrive – so please e-mail me again at marga @ lacabe . com
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I had previously read two or three of Laure Levine’s Jaine Austen mysteries and had enjoyed them. They constitute very light reading and they are pretty funny. Before writing these books, Levine was a comedy writer with several famous sitcoms under her belt. Her experience writing humor can be seen readily in Killer Cruise
This book is laugh out-loud funny. Laugh out-loud-disturb-your-neighbors funny. In the book, Jaine Austen (Jaine with an “i”), the heroine, goes in a cruise while her parents house-sit her apartment. They communicate via e-mails, and these e-mails are hilarious. She has the cookiest parents in the world (her mother, for example, moved to Florida to be closer to the Home Shopping Network, she thinks her packages will arrive quicker that way), and yet the characters are believable. The first e-mail that her mother sends to her is soooo funny that I had to read it to Mike, and then tell the story to other people. But it’s not the only laugh in the book – Jaine herself is hilarious with her self-deprecating humor.
The mysteries themselves, both in the story and the previous ones, are pretty weak. But most mysteries nowadays are very week – you follow the hero on her investigation of a murder, but are not provided with the “clues” to figure out who did it yourself. There is a reason why Agatha Christie is still considered the master of the who-done-it, nobody can equal her in setting up mysteries. Alas, it’s not easy to find her books anymore (plus I’ve read them all multiple times).
But after reading this book I’m planning to go to the library and read whatever Jaine Austen mystery I have skipped – I need the laughs.
A couple of months ago, Grocery Outlet opened a branch in San Leandro, just across the street from me. I’ve blogged about it before, in my food blog, but I’m writing about it here because the store sells non-food products as well. As you could expect, it sells beauty products. What has surprised me is the number of brand-name products it sells. And not just your regular, supermarket brand-name products, but the more exclusive, expensive ones. And of course, they are sold at considerably lower prices than at the supermarket/drug-store. And indeed, some of this stuff you can’t even get at regular stores. I’m impressed.
For the last few days I’ve been looking for biodegradable sunscreen to use in Mexico – the regular stuff is bad for the coral reefs. I couldn’t find it at Safeway, Longs or Target – but they have it, along with other natural sunscreen and regular lotions, at Grocery Outlet. The sunscreens they have are from Alba Botanica, and they are all-natural without chemicals. Pretty cool. I forgot how much they were, but less than $3. They had a few varieties. They also have Aveeno sunscreen, for $5 for 4 oz – I think it was $9 at Target. I’m not sure that this one is biodegradable, however. I also saw some Jason Tea Tree Scalp Normalizing Shampoo, which sells at Target for about $10, for about $4. But you can’t count on them having a specific product, they often get just one shipment of a product, and when it’s gone, it’s gone. But chances are, they will replace it with yet another high-end product.
As for food, they sell Harris Ranch beef, but only Tyson chicken, which I won’t buy because of their history of torturing chickens. I haven’t seen Twinnings tea yet :-(, but they have/had Good Earth – which you can accompany with some Walkers Stem Ginger and Lemon Cookies ($1.50!).
It doesn’t pay to go to Grocery Outlet to buy a specific product, it may very well not be there, but I think it’s worth it to browse there once in a while to see if something cool has come. Just make sure to grab it immediately, as it won’t be there on your next visit.
Grocery Outlet
2179 E 14th St
San Leandro
(510) 895-3605
We’ll be going in our short trip of the Yucatan soon, and I have set up a blog about it: Marga & Mike’s Yucatan Adventure. We are also taking the girls, so the title is somewhat deceiving, but I think that traveling with the girls will, in itself, be adventure – specially given how hot & mosquito-filled the Yucatan is likely to be when we visit.
So add the website to your RSS feed or visit it periodically.
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