Oh, thank you all for the kind words. I'm off on a horrendous work trip tomorrow morning, so it's heartening to see kind words tonight.
Sheila,
Too much A plot and not enough Lois & Clark!
Hey! No fair! The last chapter had lots of B-plot.
There is obviously, quite a bit more B-plot coming…
Clark wants to show Lois that he can cut off his feelings and be the friend that she {says} wants him to be.
Isn't this what Clark is good at, though? Pretending he doesn't have any romantic feelings in order to maintain his friendship with Lois?
It's almost as if now she has to live by the friendship rule because she set it and God forbid Lois Lane goes back on her word.
I don't really see her being stubborn here, Sheila, so much as still scared. In my mind, Lois still isn't ready to get involved with Clark as she's feeling skittish about it. Lois has only had bad experiences with men before Clark and then just when she lets herself trust someone else, Clark, he betrays her, too. I think it's reasonable that she'd be pretty leery of trusting him again.
She fell asleep beside him. This is one of the most obvious displays of trust.
Yes, despite her nervousness, Lois clearly trusts Clark.
Ann,
Hmmm, very good part, anonpip! And the A-plot is certainly coming along nicely.
Thank you!
Yes, Nasa is certainly talking about sending people to Mars, though I don't think a definite date has been set, and it won't happen for at least a decade yet.
I did think about this, but decided that LnC never confined themselves to realistic scientific advances, so why should I?
The trip there would take months.
I did look this up to see if it was really feasible for people to travel there, although as you point out, I haven't really held myself to feasible things only. It takes about six months to get to Mars from Earth.
And can you imagine what it would be like to be confined inside a small spaceship, and when you look out the window you can see the Earth behind you, shrinking and shrinking the whole time? (Well, most of the time anyway.)
I know! It does sound scary to me as I'm claustrophobic. But the people going have been living on a Space Station for the last 12 years, so it may be a bit easier for them. It almost seems stranger to me to spend 12 years without being able to go outside.
In order to survive on Mars, humans will have to build their own protection, maybe so called Mars domes
Okay, okay, so perhaps this and the nuclear war idea are a bit far fetched. I struggled with this for a while. But finally, I decided that they were not out of the range of possibilities (as you mention, there are current speculations on how to make Mars habitable and Weis is rich enough to have his own (likely off-shore) source of nuclear weapons). I know it's still stretching it, but given that in LnC Lois' father creates robotic people, an ex-boyfriend of Lois' taps into Druid power, and Lex Luthor can create tidal waves, I decided it wasn't really out of the realm of things we'd see on the show.
Thanks for telling me who Deucalion was. I'd love it if you'd also explain about this MSG thing!
The MSG thing came from my husband, who does put MSG on his pizza (and just about anything else he can think of). And Henderson's explanation was taken directly from my husband – it acts like salt, bringing out the flavors of things without tasting salty.
I read an article about this in the NY Times somewhat recently. There are chemicals in certain foods called glutamates. Glutamates often have very little flavor of their own, but cause a strong flavor sensation with the foods they interact with. Soy sauce and MSG both have high levels of glutamates. Natural glutamates are found in balsamic vinegar (and other foods I can't recall). We have a few recipes that call for balsamic vinegar where it doesn't make sense (like chicken soup), and we've found that if we add too much, it completely ruins the soup as you can taste the vinegar. But if you have just the right amount, you don't taste it at all, but suddenly the soup tastes a whole lot better. I guess MSG does the same thing to pizza.
Beth,
So sweet and yet sad that Clark thinks that getting information on a story is the only way to make up with Lois.
To be fair, I'm not sure this is the only way. It was the fastest way he could think of. Still, though, I think you are right. This is very telling. He really doesn't get how much Lois cares for him.
