non sequiturs

Tonight I read - and had the pleasure of reviewing - a book that was egregiously bad. I won't mention the title or author here, because that seems vaguely unprofessional (if I weren't reviewing it, even for a minor review journal like mine, I'd feel free). The best thing about the book was that the author had these bizarre non sequiturs that interested me more than the actual story. Like, "he ordered half a pound of potato salad. Oh! I bet poor eating habits will come up as a plot point, or one of the characters will be allergic to mayonnaise. Or perhaps he's not budgeting his money well?"
Turns out that none of the above were true. It wasn't a red herring, either. Perhaps this author self-edits; I hope so, because a different editor should have deleted all the unnecessary, bizarre details.
On the bright side, I went on a bus tour tonight to look at Christmas lights. I don't live in a huge town, so the people around me kept saying, "oh, we're coming up to so-and-so's house" or "Oh, yes, they have beautiful lights. I went to high school with her". I had a Christmas cookie with too-sweet, too-pink frosting, but somehow that also added to the Christmas feeling (I don't much like sugar cookies, so not appreciating them is tradition). Just when the tour started getting a bit dull, two things happened: the bus came to a lovely set of lights, so many sets of lights that the electric bill goes up every December. I mean, there were practically villages on this roof, and on the lawn, and everywhere. Whole subplots. And then some kids in the middle of the bus (we were in the back, where the cool kids sit), began to sing Christmas carols. Well, I love to sing, so that was fabulous.