Writer's Block: Is your goose (or tofu) cooked?

We're staying home this year. The Maternal Unit has finally managed to piss me off so badly that we've both washed our hands of her. We might go to my inlaws, but that would only be to visit, they're not doing a bird with all the trimmings. The Maternal Unit always does the turkey with all the trimmings. We live in TX, and it's pretty common to actually deep fry a turkey. They turn out lovely and moist that way, the big drawback is that you can't do stuffing inside the bird, so you lose some of the nice flavor. If we're still not on speaking terms with the Maternal Unit by xmas, I'm thinking we'll either just do a turkey breast here, or buy the supplies to deep fry a small bird for the two of us.

It'd be funny if it weren't so irritating

I just finished reading "The Tomb of Hercules", a novel by Andy McDermott. Apparently he wrote a book prior to this one, which I missed. Having finished this one, though, I don't think I've missed much.

The book jacket described the story, to paraphrase/condense, as basically an Indiana Jones type thing with a female protagonist. James Rollins has written wonderful adventure novels with fully believable female characters. Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child have done the same. However...

Let me just state for the record that I'm not what you'd call a feminazi. I don't go out of my way to look for reasons to be offended at a man's behavior. But this male authors' treatment of the two female leads just chaps my hide. The "good" female lead apparently had the brains to head a museum archaeology department, yet sulked like a child when her bf couldn't read her mind. And apparently it was a point in her favor that she thought getting a five hundred dollar haircut made sense. The "evil" female lead, by her own admission, apparently turned evil as a direct result of going without her family's wealth in order to marry the "good" female lead's now-bf.

So...it's okay to be smart, as long as you have a man to back you up. And it's okay to live on Daddy's wealth, just as it's okay to plot to overthrow the world currency markets once you don't have access to said wealth anymore. So you can be "strong" and "smart" enough make those kinds of plans, as long as you have at least one man around to do the heavy lifting. But it's apparently not okay to be strong and smart enough to, I dunno, take care of yourself without seeking/needing a man's approval?