It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, whatthe rest of the familyand I have been reading and watching, andwhat I’ve been writing. Some weeks I share what I am listening to.
We had some family time this last week with my brother and sister-in-law and my parents to discuss the future, I guess you would say. It wasn’t easy but it was necessary as my parents are both 81 now.
It was nice to have that family time together even though it was short. Luckily, my brother and his wife don’t live too far away, and we hope to visit them when the leaves change color, since they live in one of the prettiest parts of the state.
Nadda.
The Antique Hunter’s Guide to Murder by C.L. Miller, Gin and Daggers (A Murder She Wrote book) by “Jessica Fletcher” and Donald Bain, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis, and Come, Tell Me How You Live by Agatha Christie Mallowan.
The Antique Hunter’s Guide to Murder is very good and fairly fast-moving so far. It’s sort of a cozy mystery at this point. Clean. I’m reading it as part of a buddy read with Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs.
Gin and Daggers is very good and well-written. I don’t think I expected it to be, even though another one out of the series I read was good as well. This is the first in the Murder, She Wrote series.
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is obviously good.
Come, Tell Me How You Live is my slow read with a chapter or two a week (the chapters are very long).
Nancy Drew: The Clue of the Broken Locket by Carolyn Keene.
Little Miss and I are reading The Good Master by Kate Seredy and are enjoying it. She is reading a chapter a night before bed, and then I read the chapters the next morning.
I am behind. Oops! Ha! She’s enjoying what’s ahead of me now.
The Husband is reading Walkin’ the Dog by Walter Mosley.
I’ve been watching The Dick VanDyke Show, The Monkees (which I could only find a couple of episodes of), Rockford Files, Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman, Murder, She Wrote, The Chosen and other nostalgic shows that bring me comfort.
The week before last I watched the first couple episodes of season two of the Marlow Mystery Club.
I read the first two books in the series and the second one pretty much made me decide to take a break from the series. I did not enjoy it very much. I’ll see if the season based on it is even better.
Yesterday I wrote about watching an episode of The Monkees that I found on YouTUbe (couldn’t find it streaming anywhere else) and then last night I watched a concert with them from 2001 and it was actually very good. Great music, funny, and just flat out entertaining. Watching it was the most relaxed since Wednesday afternoon. You can find it HERE.
I’m going to start listening to Come Rain, or Come Shine by Jan Karon this upcoming week as I get ready for Jan’s new book to come out in October!
What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to, or writing? Let me know in the comments or leave a blog post link if you also write a weekly update like this.
This week I decided to list villains from books I’ve read and some from books I haven’t yet read (and might never read. Ha!)
Professor Moriarty from Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
I have read one book featuring Professor Moriarty, the nemesis of Sherlock Holmes, but not the short story yet. I have also seen him portrayed in at least two TV adaptations of Sherlock Holmes
2. Captain Hook from Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie
Of course Captain Hook from J.M Barrie’s Peter Pan has to be on this list. I have read some of Peter Pan and watched, of course, the adaptations, specifically the Disney one and Hook. Dustin Hoffman pulled off a brilliant performance as Hook in that one
Editorial use only
Mandatory Credit: Photo by Snap/Shutterstock (390884jm)
FILM STILLS OF ‘HOOK’ WITH 1991, ACTION, AGAINST-ALL-ODDS (SWASHBUCKLER, FANTASY, DUSTIN HOFFMAN, STEVEN SPIELBERG IN 1991
VARIOUS
3. Sauron from The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
Hello…what is more evil than a wizard who wants to rule the world? A devil who wants to rule it, but you know what I mean.
4. Count Dracula from Dracula by Bram Stoker
We’ve had way too many kids’ movies that have tried to turn Dracula into a funny, relatable good guy. I’ve never read the book, but from what I understand about it — he was not a good guy. Not at all.
5. Voldemort from The Harry Potter series
Another evil wizard who wants to take over the world, but most of all destroy poor Harry Potter. I have not read the books but I did read part of the first on my own and with my kids and watched the movies with them as well.
6.Hannibal Lecter from The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris
I have never read this book and most likely won’t but I did watch the movie with my husband.
7. Eleanor Shaw from The Manchurian Candidate by Richard Condon
I have not read the book but I watched the 1962 movie with Angela Lansbury as Eleanor Shaw and … shudder…she was super creepy. I can’t get into too much about why she is so evil so I don’t ruin the book or movie for you. Just know she’s scum.
8. The White Witch (Jadis) from The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis
Creepy to a fault, Jadis likes to tempt little boys with Turkish delight to drag all the secrets out so she can find and kill his siblings and keep her chilly hold on all of Narnia. She is, of course, a symbol of Satan, or at least one of his minions. I have read the books she is in (The Magician’s Nephew and The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe) and have seen one movie with her in it.
9. M. Hercule Flambeau from The Father Brown Mysteries by G.K. Chesterton
This conniving burglar is always trying to get by Father Brown who is always hot on his tale. I’ve read one short story with him and have seen him in the modern version of the show. He’s quite handsome in that show too but aren’t all the best villains a bit handsome?
10. Satan from Paradise Lost by John Milton (and …hello….the BIBLE)
I have not read Paradise Lost but I have read the Bible and if you want to get technical about it, Satan is the basis for all the villains we have listed here.
“Whoa slow down the Orient Express, Sherlock. You think you’re going to investigate a possible murder?” It’s one thing for me to bat around that idea in my own private brain or to make a few innocent lists in a new notebook. For my very normal and sensible little sister to make such a suggestion — out loud — is just bizarre.”
After years of slinging lattes, Betti Bryant is taking ownership of her life. She doesn’t need new friends or book club invitations to distract her from finding her way forward. And the unresolved situation with a guy she kissed a few weeks ago might as well stay unresolved.
But there’s one distraction she is not prepared for: finding a murder victim on her way to work one frigid December morning.
Suspicion falls on Betti’s roommate, Callista, who happens to be holding a baseball bat over the victim’s body when the police drive up. Almost totally sure Callista is innocent, Betti buys a new notebook, digs out her scrapbooking supplies, and makes the cutest murder board ever.
Now, on top of holding down a job (or two) and figuring out her entire future, she’s committed to finding the real killer before any more lives are ruined—including her own.
My thoughts:
I was excited to get back into Betti’s world, after reading book one in this series, and see what Betti and her friends have been up to. I won’t share too much of what happened at the end of the last book, Clueless in the Coffee Station, in case you haven’t read it yet, but let’s just say Betti was trying some new things out at the end of the last book. The description above mentions that, of course.
In this book she’s in the middle of those changes (though still working part time at the coffee shop) when she stumbles onto a dead body outside her roommate’s new studio.
Of course, she needs to find out who killed him because she is sure the police will suspect her roommate.
On top of the mystery, in which her sister, Elsea, joins her in investigating this time around, there is a possible romance between her and a co-worker, Nico, and a new partnership with a local reporter.
Betti is a very quirky character and cracks me up. I don’t know if I would make some of the decisions she makes when it comes to not going to the police, but if she rushed right to the police there wouldn’t be a story, right?
Betti is introverted and indecisive like me and I think that is why I am drawn to her. She is also very funny, which I am not, but like to think I am.
I enjoyed the addition of her sister to this book. She was in the last book but wasn’t as heavily involved in the investigation as she was in this one.
Bee has left us with some questions at the end of this book which I hope means more stories with Betti and her family and friends.
I highlight a lot in my Kindle with Bee’s books because I love her use of words.
“The younger man comes into the café, leaving the argument behind with the snow he wipes onto the welcome mat.”
Isn’t that a cool line?
Or how about:
“Then I scream. Not one of those piercing shrieks from horror movies or playgrounds, but a goofy, uncontrolled yelp. The boy of a man, as iced over as the trees, is splayed out near an empty flower box, under the same window through which I glimpsed Callista dancing last night.”
Or:
“I found a dead man on my way to work this morning. I say it in my mind, over and over, but I can’t say it out loud. Not here, not with tea steeping and Christmas lights blinking and Chopin on the radio. When customers ask me how I’m doing I say, “Great, thanks!”
And:
“I’m going to go home and have a hard conversation with my roommate Then I’ll take a hot shower and fill my new notebook with thoughts on everything except the poor man who definitely accidentally froze to death last night.”
And one more:
“Whoa slow down the Orient Express, Sherlock. You think you’re going to investigate a possible murder?” It’s one thing for me to bat around that idea in my own private brain or to make a few innocent lists in a new notebook. For my very normal and sensible little sister to make such a suggestion — out loud — is just bizarre.”
Anyhow, I clearly enjoy Bee’s writing style. It’s first person, present tense, which I usually do not enjoy in books, but when Bee writes it, I enjoy it. I also enjoy Bee’s characters and how well-developed and 3-D they are. They are believable, raw and real. Bee’s books are also a good, light read, with a smidgen of heavy, but not enough to make her books dark mystery or thriller. Her books are definitely cozy mysteries with a good balance of cozy and mystery.
Hopefully, all my rambling will convince you to give the book a try.
It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, whatthe rest of the familyand I have been reading and watching, andwhat I’ve been writing. Some weeks I share what I am listening to.
I wrote about what’s been going on in my Saturday Afternoon Chat yesterday if you want to catch up there.
I will add that it is very chilly right now where I live. Yesterday morning it was 33 degrees in the morning for a little bit in a town near us that is located in one of the highest elevations. I know I said I wanted cooler weather but that’s ridiculous for August.
A reminder that I — and now my new co-host Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs — host a monthly bookish link party. It’s called A Good Book and a Cup of Tea but I’ve changed the link name at the top of the page to “Bookish Link Party” so it makes more sense. It’s a link up for any post related to reading or books and you can post throughout the month. The new link up for September will go up tomorrow morning .
Another reminder that Erin and I will be hosting a Comfy, Cozy movie watching marathon again this year, and we already have our list of movies.
Erin made this cool graphic for it:
Also, Erin and I host a monthly Crafternoon meet up where we get together on Zoom with other bloggers/crafters and do a craft while we chat about life and books and all kinds of other things. We do our best not to focus on religion or politics so we don’t depress ourselves.
If you are interested in the crafternoon, you can find more information here:
This past week I finished a Nancy Drew Mystery: Password to Larkspur Lane by Carolyn Keene and A Betti Bryant Mystery: But First, Murder by Bee Littlefield
I’ll have reviews up for them both soon, but did share quick ratings on Storygraph.
I enjoyed both, even though Nancy Drew always has some weird things in it with her being almost kidnapped and her or her dad not calling the police! Oy! Those old juvenile mysteries. I swear! Ha!
But First, Murder was a lot of fun and the perfect follow-up to the first book, Clueless at the Coffee Station. I don’t usually like books written in first-person present tense, so it shows you how good the book must have been for me to continue despite that.
I really enjoy Bee’s writing style.
Finishing Bee’s book brought my total books read for the summer to 15, even though I had figured I might only read 10 because I am also writing my own book and have a lot going on personally.
I was going to take a little break on starting another book while I write reviews for the ones I’ve just finished this summer, but then I remembered my husband had bought me a Murder, She Wrote book on Kindle so I started Gin and Daggers by Donald Bain last night. It takes place in England so I’m looking forward to it.
I’ve also started, Come, Tell Me How You Live by Agatha Christie. It’s a type of memoir about her travels with her second husband. I’m only a few pages in but I am enjoying it.
I hope to start The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion: Vol. 1 by Beth Brower soon because a bunch of people on Instagram keep mentioning this series.
I also have The Crime at Black Dudley by Margery Allingham on my radar and have for a while so Emma Lion might get pushed aside for that one first. I’ll see what my mood is since I am a mood reader
Little Miss and I are still reading The Good Master by Kate Seredy. We are also listening to The Moffats by Eleanor Estes at night.
Little Miss and I tried to watch our first Korean Drama yesterday – Bon Appetit, Your Majesty. We did not end up finishing it. It was not very good.
We watched K-Pop Demon Hunters a couple of times last week because of Little Miss. We are watching it again tonight because she wants her dad to see it. I would like the song Golden to please leave my head now. Thank you. I probably will not watch it again with them for this very reason. It’s a good song, but….enough is enough already.
I watched The Celtic Riddle, a Murder, She Wrote movie for my last Summer of Angela movie and will be posting about that tomorrow.
I also watched my farmer on YouTube – Just A Few Acres Farm and another YouTuber, Under A Tin Roof.
And of course a couple regular episodes of Murder, She Wrote.
And I watched Nonnas on Netflix. What a sweet film. If you have Netflix it is a good one.
I’m not very cool. I don’t watch a lot of modern TV, which is weird since I am not even 50 yet. *snort*
Last week I figured out an issue with the fourth book in the Gladwynn Grant Mysteries and once that was addressed I felt I could move forward with finishing the book. It will still be a bit but I’m on my way to get it done at least.
What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to, or writing? Let me know in the comments or leave a blog post link if you also write a weekly update like this.
It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, whatthe rest of the familyand I have been reading and watching, andwhat I’ve been writing. Some weeks I share what I am listening to.
Even to your old age and gray hairs I am he, I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you
Isaiah 46:4 NIV
I need this verse right now. There is a lot going on in my life these days but I’ll write about that in another post someday.
For now, I’ll share that Friday was a weird day. I spent it painting rocks with my daughter in our yard and that ended when a bumble bee took off after me and I mean took off. It had it in for me. It stung me twice in the stomach after climbing down my pants (yes, my pants) and then proceeded to come after me again when I brushed it off, climbing in my shirt under my arm and stinging me again right after it crawled all over my face.
And, yes, it was a bumble bee and not a yellow jacket. It was possessed.
Surprisingly, the stings actually didn’t hurt hardly at all. They were swollen and red and I was convinced I was going to have a reaction because I’m a hypochondriac freak but in the end I was okay.
What sucked was how I was being brave and pushing aside some of my weird physical symptoms I deal with on a daily basis and playing with Little Miss in the yard and this is what happened.
That’s sort of my life story. I’ve always been afraid to fly. One day I probably will, and — well … let’s not even go there, shall we?
The thing is, that little bumblebee was actually cute. When I looked down at my waistband he was peering up over it at me all fluffy and cute. Then I started screaming and he flew off and came back at me full force. Looks can truly be deceiving.
The Unlikely Yarn of the Dragon Lady and Carry On, Jeeves.
This week I will be reading But First, Murder by Bee Littlefield and A Nancy Drew Mystery, The Password to Larkspur Lane.
Little Miss and I are reading The Good Master by Karen Seredy and at night we are listening to The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis, but I’ve either been too tired or can’t hear it well, so I’ve missed the whole story. Luckily it is one of my planned fall reads.
The Husband is reading Hostage by Robert Crais.
The Boy is listening to Red Tide, a Warhammer book.
We got Netflix for a month and only a month. The price for that service is absolutely nuts to me. My daughter wanted to watch KPop Demon Hunters and my husband and I want to watch The Thursday Murder Club.
I did watch Find Me Falling, a movie with Harry Connick Jr. that I had heard about earlier this year. It was okay. It used a trope I totally hate, and there were parts that fell flat to me, but it was heartwarming and that was what I needed.
Last week, I also watched The Long Hot Summer for the Summer of Angela and then several Murder, She Wrote episodes. I was very disappointed in one, though, where Jessica let the murderer go because he was old and a friend, and the victim was a member of the mob.
I also watched another episode of Ludwig.
Tonight, we are watching the new Superman movie because The Husband and The Boy watched it and loved it. Little Miss saw it with them but wasn’t terribly impressed.
What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to, or writing? Let me know in the comments or leave a blog post link if you also write a weekly update like this.
It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, whatthe rest of the familyand I have been reading and watching, andwhat I’ve been writing. Some weeks I share what I am listening to.
This past week was a tame week for the most part. Things picked up Friday when I picked up a friend of Little Miss’s and they had a sleepover before we all went to visit an old-school mall near Scranton, Pa. yesterday morning.
The mall has a small selection of stores still left but like many malls of today there are a lot of empty store spaces.
I didn’t walk as far as anyone else but one of the most exciting things for Little Miss was finding an escalator to ride up and down on.
That’s the main reason she wanted to go to a mall. She’d heard me tell stories about going on an escalator at the mall we used to go to when I was growing up and wanted to experience it herself.
Her brother and dad were able to visit the mall about two weeks ago but that was the first day of a two-week illness for her and me (which would have been over sooner if it hadn’t been for that stinking sinus drainage she got! Poor kid!). I had never visited that mall. The one we used to go to was in New York State and the other one was an hour south but has since closed.
If you’re new here, we live in a very rural area that requires us to drive about an hour in any direction to find larger stores/malls/movie theaters, etc.
We don’t have a lot of buildings with escalators or elevators near us, so it is quite a treat when we get to visit one. I can’t believe it’s taken us until Little Miss is almost 11 to take her somewhere she could ride an escalator!
Yesterday there was a mechanical horse ride at the mall, but The Husband couldn’t get the change machine to work so Little Miss simply announced she wanted to go back on the escalator again. That was just as exciting to her and her friend as a mechanical horse ride.
The escalator was in a JC Penny Store. Yes, this mall still had a JC Penny and it has two stories.
Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs knows that I don’t have much of a social life or get out much so she challenged me to go into a store and buy one thing I wouldn’t normally buy — like lipstick (she knows I don’t wear makeup so that’s probably why she suggested that. Ha!) I went into the first store I came to, which was Claire’s and grabbed a planner, some hairbands that were on sale, and tinted lip balm (when I originally wrote this I accidentally typed “tainted lip balm”. Well, that definitely would be something I don’t normally buy!). It shows how long it has been since I’ve been at a mall because when that woman with her black lipstick and black hair, wearing a Halloween costume in August, said to me, “That will be $42,” I went all old lady on her.
“I’m sorry? How much? What in the world did I buy?”
Turns out the lip gloss was $10 each and I had grabbed an extra one for Little Miss because she likes to pretend to do makeup with her friends. The planner was $15 and I do not think that they gave me the sales price on the hairbands.
Live and learn! And what I learned is I really don’t miss malls as much as I thought I d.
The kids had a lot of fun though and we even found a Barnes and Noble down the road to visit for a little while. Each girl picked out a book to read.
They also came home with a candle, a mug, a small stuffed animal, and friendship necklaces each. I loved how excited they were with those little things, but they did try for $10 little hamsters at Barnes and Noble which I turned down because we were there for books and not toys and had already gotten a couple of stuffed animals.
That’s one change from when we used to visit Barnes and Noble back in the day (20-some years ago) — there wasn’t a whole toy section, that I remember anyhow. I am sure bookstores are simply trying to diversify, but I like my bookstores to mainly carry books.
We only grabbed one book while we were there because I just ordered several books from Thriftbooks and I couldn’t think of any books I wanted that were new. The Husband picked up an Erle Stanley Gardner that we will share since we both like his books (or some of them anyhow).
I did want to look at journals, but I’ve gotten used to buying $5 dollar store journals and couldn’t bring myself to spend $18 or more on one. They had a huge 50 percent off cart of journals, but I didn’t see that until we were getting ready to leave so I left that for another day.
The mall and other stores aren’t super far away so we could definitely visit again someday soon.
I do feel like I’ve gotten old, though. The visit to B&N didn’t excite me as much as I thought it would. Maybe it was because I was having a bit of a stinky autoimmune day or maybe it’s because I’ve discovered I like little stores with used books more than I like big stores full of new books. Plus, there are so many books that I just wouldn’t read — like all those BookTok books — out in prominent places which means I would have had to hunt for any books I would really want to read.
Overall, it was a really nice trip, and I would love to go again when I am having a better health day and had had a little more sleep the night before. One of the nicest things about the trip was seeing the beautiful green hills of Pennsylvania. Summer is winding down and some trees are changing already, but for the most part green is dominating our views and I’m fine with that. I am, however, looking forward to the cooler temps of this week.
This morning as I got ready to cast my Sunday morning episode of Just A Few Acres Farm to the TV, I saw a notice that Bob from the Bob and Brad Physical Therapy YouTube Channel had passed away. It hit me very hard as I have watched this channel for years and gone there numerous times over the years to get ideas on how to help the various cricks and pains I get in my neck and muscles.
Bob was diagnosed with cerebral ataxia a few years ago, and it affected how he spoke and walked. I had no idea it would take his life, but apparently, it caused a cardiac event the week before last, and he passed suddenly. Brad and their new host (he stepped in a few years ago) and Bob’s son spoke about Brad during the episode announcing his death and I was a sobbing mess.
I was happy Bob donated his organs and saved at least three more lives, if not more, but it was so depressing for me to hear about I was glad I had not made plans to do anything today.
Right before I was about to post this today, I noticed my blog stats had gone crazy. I usually get 200-250 views a day, and yesterday I had over 5,00,0 but with no comments to match that I can see. The visitors are actually lower than I get too. And all the views are from the Netherlands. That’s all I know! Does anyone know where to find out where these views are coming from? All I can find is “Google search” and I don’t even see a ton of views on any one post. I am beginning to think something is wrong with WordPress’s stats.
I have a monthly book-related link party if you are interested. You can find the A Good Book and A Cup of Tea link party at the top of my page or here. It is for posts about books that you are reading, have read, book reviews — just anything book-related really. So even posts about book collections, authors etc. etc.
We will be holding another one next Sunday, August 24th from 1 to around 3 p.m.
The Crafternoons are events where we gather on Zoom and craft at our respective homes and chat while we work on various projects. We are calling them drop-in crafternoons because you can drop in and out during the time we are on (usually from about 1 to 3 p.m. EST US time). No need to stay the whole time if you can’t. Come late if you want or leave early.
If you want to join in, email Erin at crackcrumblife@gmail.com and she will add you to the mailing list.
This past week I finished Dave Barry Isn’t Taking This Sitting Down by Dave Barry (humor columnist for the Miami Herald). It was very funny! It was a collection of his columns from 2000.
Right now I am reading Carry On, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse and will probably finish it this week.
I am also reading But First, Murder (A Betti Bryant Mystery) by Bee Littlefield and Nancy Drew Mystery: Password to Larkspur Lane by Carolyn Keene (I’m sure I’ll finish it this week. These books are so short.).
I’ll be reading Come, Tell Me How You Live by Agatha Christie Mallowan next. This is an autobiographical book by Agatha Christie about some of her travels with her second husband, who was an archaeologist. I read the first couple of pages already, and her humor really comes through. I am looking forward to getting into it more.
Little Miss and I are reading The Good Master by Kate Seredy.
This weekend The Husband and I watched an episode of Rizzoli and Isles, a show I’d totally forgotten about. I watched a Murder, She Wrote episode and a coupe of Quantum Leap episodes. I also watched a couple episodes of my favorite farmer’s YouTube Channel — Just A Few Acres.
For my Summer of Angela feature, I watched A Life At Stake.
I made some progress on Gladwynn Grant Goes Back to School this past week and hope to make a lot more during this upcoming week. I am shooting for a November release. We will see how that goes!
I hope to finish up The Unlikely Yarn of the Dragon Lady by Sharon J. Mondagon this week. I hadn’t been listening to it consistently so it’s taken a bit for me to finish it. This week I plan to find some time during dishwashing, etc. to listen.
What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to, or writing? Let me know in the comments or leave a blog post link if you also write a weekly update like this.
It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, whatthe rest of the familyand I have been reading and watching, andwhat I’ve been writing. Some weeks I share what I am listening to.
I made a comment to someone in the comment section last week that the bear I saw on our back porch, and purchased a Ring camera to keep an eye on, probably would never show again.
How wrong I was.
The other night the dog was barking crazily outside. She is hooked up on a lead and I periodically walk back to check on her. Now we have a Ring camera that I can turn on and watch from my phone, but I didn’t because, well, I really didn’t think anything would happen.
The only thing that might happen is she might take off after a skunk like she did last weekend, yanking the stake to her lead out of the ground and disappearing behind our shed where she, and our son, was sprayed by a skunk.
That’s what I thought would happen anyhow but as I headed toward the back door I turned on the Ring camera from my phone and before I even looked down at it, I was at the back door looking out at Zooma face to face with a black bear, ten or twelve feet from our back door.
Zooma was barking bouncing back and forth in front of the bear, who looked quite confused honestly. I called Zooma back with a tremble in my voice, worried the bear might reach out and take out a swipe at her.
Luckily, Zooma barked a few more times but then came to me and I quickly opened the door and let her in while the bear continued to look confused.
This video does not do justice to how close the bear was to the house because of the angle of the camera. I left the audio in even though I sound like I’m crying, which I really wasn’t, but I was nervous and recovering from the virus we had so my voice sounded pretty shaky. I was just worried Zooma was going to get smacked around.
As the bear turned to leave, The Husband and I noticed he or she was limping, which was so sad to me.
I couldn’t film any longer because the bear was headed toward my neighbor’s backyard and sometimes they are out watering their garden late at night, so I wanted to warn her.
We did contact the game warden and they said they’d send someone out, but we never heard anything back. Hopefully, next week someone will update us on the condition or location of the bear.
Seeing the bear has made me very nervous but really it is a little silly to be afraid of the bear. They are black bears and aren’t really huge fans of people. They also aren’t known to attack people or, usually, pets. They simply come down looking mainly for food and our one neighbor has food out for the animals (yes, I’m pretty sure this is illegal and if not it is at least dangerous!). If you make loud noises or have a barking dog they tend to leave.
Still, I don’t relish the idea of stepping outside of my house and finding myself face to face with one.
That was the exciting part of our week. The rest of the week was spent being up weird times of the night while Little Miss coughed a lot from sinus drainage left over from the virus we had earlier in the week. We spend our days napping and trying to catch up from the weird sleep the night before.
We are still trying to recover from all of that and from the lack of sleep.
This next week I am actually going to start school for Little Miss. I wanted to do it the last couple of weeks but with being sick and recovering, that went out the window.
I have all of Little Miss’s curriculum so there is no excuse to not just get started. I’m looking forward to the upcoming year, especially art and literature, which are her and my favorite subjects.
I am still reading the same books, for the most part, but I am making progress. I finished The Scarlet Pimpernel last night. I enjoyed the book, even more so than the 1970s movie with Jane Seymour, but the ending did seem quite sudden to me. I would have liked a little more of a wrap up.
I am still reading Dave Berry Isn’t Taking This Sitting Down by Dave Barry. It is a collection of his columns for the Miami Herald and they are so funny.
I did not read any from Carry On, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse last week but I will be back into that this week. The Jeeves books are so funny.
I was very excited to receive a delivery this week from Thriftbooks that included two P.G. Wodehouse books, one of them a Jeeves book.
The books are Very Good, Jeeves and A Damsel in Distress. I am gathering that A Damsel in Distress is not a Jeeves book, based on the title and the description on the back, which is fine with me. I am interested in trying Wodehouse’s other books.
The order also included Nancy Drew books Nancy’s Mysterious Letter, The Whispering Statue, and The Triple Hoax, Remains to be Seen by Elizabeth Caldell, An Enola Holmes Mystery: The Case of the Missing Marquess by Nancy Springer, and Come, Tell Me How You Live by Agatha Christie Mallowan.
I am looking forward to reading Nancy Drew: The Triple Hoax soon but first I am going to read the Nancy Drew Mystery Password to Larkspur Lane.
Little Miss is reading The Clue of the Missing Diary by Carolyn Keene (Nancy Drew).
The Boy is reading/listening to Red Tithe by Robbie MacNiven.
The Husband is reading. That’s all I know right now because I forgot to ask which book he is reading. I know he finished Targeted: Beirut by Jack Carr about a week ago.
This week I watched Murder She Wrote, The Picture of Dorian Gray, episodes of Canal Boat Diaries, and a movie called Raffles, which ended terribly.
What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to, or writing? Let me know in the comments or leave a blog post link if you also write a weekly update like this.
Today’s prompt was: Genre freebie (Pick any genre you’d like and build a list around it. You can even narrow the topic if you’d like, such as: thrillers with unreliable narrators, fantasy romance with fae characters, or historical romance with suspense elements.)
My choice was 10 mystery/cozy mystery book series with men as the protagonist (as shown by this post title *wink*)
Because it is such an obvious choice, I am not going to include Sherlock Holmes in this list, even though it would have taken up a spot that I didn’t have to fill with another series. There are a lot of series which could be added to this list, but I added ones I’m either familiar with because I or my husband read them, or ones that I have read and enjoyed.
The Cat Who Mysteries by Lilian Jackson Braun (29 books)
This is one of my favorite cozy mystery series, if not my favorite. James Macintosh Qwilleran, or simply Qwill, is the protagonist. He is a newspaper reporter in the big city in the first two or three books and later he is a newspaper columnist who has inherited a large sum of money from a woman he barely knows and is living in the small town of Pickax, which is “north of everywhere.”
He is helped in his mysteries by his two Siamese cats — Koko and YumYum.
I’ve read almost all of these books and, yes, there are a couple duds, but the series is a comfort read to me.
2. The Walt Longmire series by Craig Johnson (21 primary books and several novellas)
This series is about the sheriff of Wyoming’s Absaroka County and the various cases he has to solve. Yes, the show Longmire is based on the series. Walt’s sidekick is Henry Standing Bear, and his deputies are Victoria “Vic” Moretti and Santiago Saizarbitoria.
I’ve read five or six in this series and have enjoyed them, but they do get a bit repetitive after a bit. Book series are supposed to be a bit predictable, though. It is what makes us feel familiar with them and makes the books become “comfort reads” even if the topic is heavy.
One thing you come to expect from a Walt Longmire Mystery is that there is going to be a fairly gruesome murder, Walt is going to have to go on a long journey (often in the snow) where he will probably see his Native American spirit guides, Henry is going to be both a support and a smart mouth that provides the comic relief, and Vic is going to figure out how to make complete sentences using only the words “the” and the f-word. So, no, these are not “clean” books. But the writing is really great.
3. Detective Daniel Hawthorne series by Anthony Horowitz (5 books)
In this series, screenwriter and author Anthony Horowitz has inserted himself in the mystery. He solves crimes with a complex and unlikable retired police detective turned private investigator named Daniel Hawthorne. Mixed up in the mysteries of each book is the mystery of who Hawthorne is and why he left the police force.
I’ve read two of the books in this series and plan to read the rest.
4. The Lord Peter Wimsey Mysteries by Dorothy Sayers (15 books)
This series is about an aristocrat from England who seems to have nothing better to do with his time than solve mysteries. Lots of tongue in cheek humor mixed in with a ton of satire.
(Have read one and enjoyed it and plan to read more)
5. The Hercule Poirot Mysteries by Agatha Christie (34 books)
One of the most famous mystery series with a male protagonist. Hercule Poirot is a private detective from Belgium living in England. His trusty sidekick is Arthur Hastings.
I have read four or five and enjoyed them. Will read more.
6. The Hamish MacBeth series by M.C. Beaton (36 books)
This is a series about a police investigator in the fictional Scottish Highland village of Lochdubh. There was a show based on the series but it is much, much different. For one, Hamish is a ginger in the books and has dark brown hair in the show, but a lot of the characters are different in general.
I do think Hamish sleeps around a bit in both, though.
I have read one and it wasn’t amazing writing (I’ve never thought Beaton’s writing that good but it gets the job done to deliver the story) but for some reason I still fell for Hamish and will be reading more. I have one on my physical bookshelf right now.)
7. The Albert Campion Mysteries by Margery Allingham (21 books)
According to the site, booksinorder.com, “Author Allingham has introduced the central character in this series in the form of a suave sleuth named Albert Campion. Along with the novels of this crime fiction series, the character is also seen in a few short stories, which are also written by author Allingham. It is believed that author Allingham has created the Albert Campion’s character as a parody to the character of Lord Peter Wimsey created by author Dorothy L. Sayers. But, she eventually went on to develop a unique personality of Albert Campion.”
I haven’t read any yet but have one in my Kindle and can’t wait to try it.
8. The Perry Mason Mysteries by Erle Stanley Gardner (82 books!! In this series)
This series follows the investigations of attorney Perry Mason. Yes, they are the basis for the TV show from the 60s and 90s and yes, they are a lot different than the show.
I have read two Perry Mason Mysteries and enjoyed them both. I plan to read more and looks like I have a lot to choose from.
9. The Father Brown Mysteries by G.K. Chesterton (52 short stories compiled into 5 books)
I read one of the short stories and listened to another and enjoyed them both and hope to read more. This series of short stories is about a Catholic priest who is also an amateur sleuth. Yes, the shows are based on the short stories.
10. The Nero Wolfe Mysteries by Rex Stout (48 books)
I have not read any of the books in this series so I don’t know as much about it, but my husband has and enjoys them. They are about a detective named Nero Wolfe and are narrated Wolfe’s confidential assistant Archie Goodwin.
Here I am with another recap of an episode from The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries show from 1977.
As I’ve mentioned before, in the first season of this series, the episodes switched back and forth from Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew episodes and in the next season, they started to join together. Eventually, they began to phase out the Nancy episodes and focus more on The Hardy Boys. A new actress also started as Nancy when Pamela Sue Martin became disenchanted with the parts that were being written for her character.
*Disclaimer: These posts do spoil the entire episode. Also, I do joke around a lot about the cheesiness or plot holes or the “weird” 70s hairstyles, clothes or music, but please know it is all in good fun. I have fun watching these and the mysteries are often very interesting. Please don’t leave me comments enraged that I am making fun of your favorite show. *wink* I make fun of my favorite shows too!
In this episode, focused on Nancy Drew and titled, The Mystery of the Ghostwriter’s Cruise, we start out with people loading on to a cruise ship.
First, we see the ship with people waving from the decks and then we see a scrapbook with photos featuring an elderly man and the headline under the one photo reads: “Famous Mystery Writer John Addam to Set Sail.”
Underneath the photo there is a handwritten note which reads: “Castling to protect king — two moves to checkmate — this will be your last cruise, Mr. Addams. Your going to . . .” A hand begins writing and finishes the sentence by adding the word “die.”
I should note here that I copied that sentence verbatim from the threatening note in the journal (as you can see by the photo) and really wanted to go back and change “your” to “you’re.”
Imagine the editors not noticing that error before this episode aired. Or maybe they never noticed. Ha!
Immediately after this scene we see an elderly man and a young woman standing next to him and they are being interviewed by a TV reporter. The reporter asks the man, who we can see is Mr. Addams, the mystery writer we saw in the photos in the first scene, what made him decide to retire.
What she actually says is, “What finally decided you to do it?”
Um…huh? I don’t know about the writers of this show sometimes, but anyhow….
Mr. Addams answers that writing is getting boring now. “There isn’t a new twist anywhere.”
She asks him if this means there will never be another book featuring the main characters from his mystery books and he tells her she clearly hasn’t read his books because he killed off one character, retired the other one, and the third has simply gotten too old to do anything.
The camera pans to Nancy and her father, Carson, and friends George Fayne and Ned Nickerson. Ned is carrying all the luggage asking why the girls have so much if they are only going on the cruise for a week.
We switch quickly back to the interview and the author is mellowing a bit as he answers questions. He also refers to his niece Cathy as being his main helper with his books these days.
Nancy and the crew are now listening in the background and soon Mr. Addams ends the interview so he can meet up with them.
It isn’t clear why, but Nancy and George seem to be going on this cruise with Mr. Addams. At first, I thought maybe he is an uncle to one of them but that’s never really made clear, so I believe he is simply a friend of Carson’s.
This is one of the first times I’ve seen Nancy act like she and Ned might be more than friends. As they are saying goodbye Ned expresses concern that she will get herself in trouble and she says she doesn’t plan to and then assures him she will be safe on the cruise, leans up, and gives him a quick peck on the mouth.
Oh. Um. Well then.
Carson tells Mr. Addams to take care of the girls and Mr. Addams answers, “I’ll certainly do that.”
This whole time there is a man with either an amused or creepy smile on his face, we aren’t sure which, watching both the interview and the gathering of Mr. Addams and Nancy and her friends and Dad.
This will start an interesting episode-long tactic of making the viewers question who is suspicious and who isn’t, by the camera focusing on a person frowning, smiling, glaring, or simply looking, well, suspicious while watching Mr. Addams and the girls. This is done a number of times making us guess who was behind the eventual threats against Mr. Addams.
Let’s get back to the story, though.
On their way to find their rooms, the party is stopped by the captain. He tells Mr. Addams what a pleasure it is to have him on board and invites them all to dine with him at his table that night.
After that praise fest it’s on to their rooms but not before we have the suspenseful music and a pause by the captain with him watching the group walk away. Huh…is he also suspicious? And then there is a young woman watching them too. Is she suspicious or just a fan?
They were really dropping the red herrings left and right from the start in this one.
After the captain, the group run into George the activities director. He’s excited to meet George since his name is also George. George and George. Ha. Ha. He clearly thinks George is cute and lets her know he can’t wait to see her later during the cruise. He creepily touches her face, trailing his finger down her cheek, and says “There’s a hidden depth to you….”
Her expression cracks me up. It is a mix of flattered and horrified — pretty much how most viewers probably feel watching that moment. *snort laugh*
Once they finally get to the room there is a man waiting for them and he is not welcoming. He is the man who we saw at the beginning of the episode watching the interview and he says his name is Peter Howard. He has a tape recorder and starts smooth talking Mr. Addams, telling him he wants an interview with him about the memoir he’s planning to write. Mr. Addams says he isn’t going to be writing a memoir and tells the man to get out.
George and Cathy go to explore the ship, leaving Nancy and Mr. Addams in his cabin. Mr. Addams says he’s going to take a nap and settles back in a chair. Before he can fall asleep, though, Nancy finds the scrapbook with the threat written in it. She reads it to him and he sort of shrugs and says, “You don’t go through life like a battering ram without making some enemies.” He doesn’t like the idea someone may be after him but he also thinks it might be a prank so he decides to nap and Nancy decides to go meet up with George and Cathy.
Mr. Addams asks her to leave one light on in the cabin because he doesn’t like to wake up in pure darkness and when she goes to turn a lamp on, a huge spark flies out, knocking her down.
There is a fade out as the show goes to commercial break and when we “return” (there are no commercials where I watched this on a YouTube channel where someone uploaded all the episodes), George and Cathy are back and Nancy is sitting on the couch with a glass of water.
Everyone is concerned about Nancy and the captain steps in because he’s probably concerned about his ship’s reputation with the light in a celebrity’s cabin almost zapping the life out of someone. A ship electrician has arrived and says the lamp was definitely rewired to it would zap someone on purpose.
Mr. Addams points out how bad the situation is but how it could have been even worse if he had touched the lamp since he is an old man with a heart condition.
The electrician is a fan of Mr. Addam’s and lets him know how the fact someone targeted him is like a scene from one of his books. Wow. I bet Mr. Addams had no idea the attack was similar to one of his books. Good thing that electrician was there to tell him.
Viewers are left feeling that there is something not quite right about this electrician but can’t put their finger on it. He goes on the list of suspects too at this point.
As if we don’t have enough suspense, we will soon find out that the captain is worried about what could be deadly fog settling around the ship. He tells the crew to keep him abreast of the situation and then heads to dinner.
Throughout the episode we keep being shown a person in a long trench coat moving around the ship. We see them again as Nancy is on her way to dinner. They are cutting some wires and putting what looks like a bomb somewhere in the bottom of the ship. Eek. This episode is intense and I’m not kidding.
As in any Nancy Drew episode of the series, we have another moment where an older man seems to be flirting with her. This time she’s dancing with Mr. Howard who wants to know how well she knows Mr. Addams. What’s a little icky about this scene is that it’s like Nancy is flirting back with the man. He’s old enough to be her father! *gag sound*
“I’m not a stepping stone to him, you know, Mr. Howard,” she says coyly.
I’m sure that’s not how the writers meant it, though, really, so I’m just teasing.
Anyhow, they chat a bit about how she knows him and she says she knows his niece Cathy more, which is something I’m just learning about because for this whole episode I’m assuming Mr. Addams is friends with Carson.
Anyhow, Mr. Howard says he’ll get what he wants from Mr. Addams, mainly by intimidation. He’s smiling but…hmmm….is he the mystery note writer?
Nancy escapes Mr. Howard by bumping into the electrician or crew member, whose name is Tony by the way, and asking him for a dance before questioning him if there could be a stowaway on the ship. The man says there couldn’t be and the two continue to dance while Cathy looks on sadly. Her uncle encourages her to go out and dance but she simply looks sad and declines.
A girl named Adrienne approaches Cathy and Mr. Addams at their table and tells Cathy she went to school with her brother.
Cathy invites Adrienne to sit with them, and a chat ensues.
On the dance floor, the Georges are dancing together and the male George says the female George (yes, this does sound like the start of a joke…), “You know George, you’re very attractive.” And the female George responds, “You are too, George. In your own way.”
Ouch.
We flip to a scene with Mr. Addams out on the deck of the ship for a smoke. Suddenly a voice starts speaking over the loudspeaker, telling him that this is his last cruise, etc. The voice is echoing and s female voice. The voice taunts him in reminding him of what happened to his victims in his books. He is looking freaked out as the voice tells him he is going to die.
He runs into Nancy and asks her if she can hear the voice. She can and they start to look for the source of it and find a cassette recorder broadcasting through the loudspeaker.
Nancy points out that the recorder looks like the one Peter Howard had and suggests that he was hoping to sneak up behind Mr. Addams when Mr. Addams was looking for the source of the voice.
Cathy is out on deck next and says she heard the voice too.
“Whoever did it made a very big mistake,” Nancy says and stares at Cathy pointedly. Cathy stares back. Also pointedly. Dun-dun-duuuuuuuun.
Nancy and Mr. Addams rush to the captain’s office to play him the tape but when they hit play, the recording is gone.
Now they both feel stupid and leave with their heads hanging down. The captain watches them leave with a little smirk.
There are a lot of smirking people in this episode.
To speed this recap up a bit I’ll skip ahead a bit. After discussing that this all sounds a lot like a book Mr. Addams wrote called The Mystery of the Ghostwriter’s Cruise (gasp! The episode title!), Nancy goes to look for the book in the ship library because, yeah, sure, a ship is going to have an extensive library with just the book she needs. She can’t find it and we see the person with the gloves and the trench coat throw the book overboard.
Moving ahead again, Nancy bumps into Tony, literally, and he looks at her with “come hither eyes” and says, “I heard the captain say you think someone wired that lamp on purpose.” She says she does and he … yes, you guessed it…smirks.
“Who would do a thing like that?” he asks, suggesting she’s just some silly girl.
He tells her he will help all he can but to please be careful “in case there is some nut running around the ship.”
Are you the nut, Tony? Be honest now…you did think it was important to tell Mr. Addams you read all his books
Adrienne has somehow wiggled her way into the show and is now playing chess with Mr. Addams. She seems a bit miffed when the old man wins.
Nancy looks at the scrapbook with the threat in it again to see if she can figure out who might be making the threats and finds an article about a Martin Carroll who sued Mr. Addams for stealing his idea for a book.
When Nancy asks, Mr. Addams says Martin Carroll would be about 50 now. He also says he didn’t steal the man’s idea. They were working on the book together and Martin Carroll simply flaked out and walked away. There was also never enough evidence for the lawsuit to go forward.
Nancy begins to suspect that Martin Carroll is actually Peter Howard.
She somehow uses a CB radio to contact her dad and ask for more information about Martin Carroll. The captain is listening in and looks very concerned about her conversation.
Nancy soon gets a telegram for her dad telling her that Martin Carroll died six months earlier. He also tells her he will be meeting her on the first island the cruise ship is stopping at.
Nancy then finds someone leaving Mr. Addams room. She chases the person into the belly of the ship and is knocked off a metal ladder and is about to fall to her death when Tony shows up to rescue her.
Tony tells her she needs to be careful (he’s the new Ned, I guess) and then we are in the bridge and the captain sees on the monitors that they are about to hit a tidal wave. He wants the crew to tell the passengers what is going on without alarming them.
In between all this, George (the female one) is asked to sing by George (the male one). We listen to a subdued 70’s style song but they are interrupted by crew members telling everyone to get their lifejackets on.
Nancy smells a hoax though. She runs to tell the captain that she thinks the tidal wave is a hoax and that it isn’t going to hit. While she tries to convince him, we get cut away shots of Mr. Howard smirking while he drinks some kind of alcohol and Cathy looking creepy.
Turns out Nancy is right and someone has hacked the radar. But why?
Nancy has to find out.
She asks Tony if he knows anything about the Carroll case since he was such a huge fan of Mr. Addams. He says yes and that Martin Carroll did write one book and it was called The Mystery of the Haunted Cruise.
Nancy rushes to the ship library again and — it’s a miracle — the book is there! She reads the ending of the book and finds out that the character in the book is backed against a railing before being killed. She flips to the front of the book and sees a dedication that reads, “To my wife Celeste and my daughter …. ADRIENNE??!!!”
Nancy rushes out of the library and then we are sent to the deck where George and George are talking but that isn’t important — what is important is that Nancy runs out looking for Mr. Addams.
George tells her that he’s walking on deck with Adrienne.
“She’s the one who has been doing all this!” Nancy cries. “Get the captain right away.”
Suddenly we are on the deck where Adrienne shoves Mr. Addams toward the ship railing and declares he killed her father.
“He was a broken man, Mr. Addams in health and spirit,” Adrienne tells him. “I’ve lived under your shadow for years. Your name was all I ever heard in our house. My father was obsessed with you. You ruined his life. You robbed him of the success that might have changed his life.”
“And you wanted me to relive the events of that book?” Mr. Addams asks.
Adrienne says, “That’s right. Everything the way it was.”
Mr. Addams suggests that she couldn’t kill him, though, not really. Adrienne disagrees and is about to shove him over the railing when Nancy stops her at the same time the captain and his first mate are walking up to the scene.
“I don’t think she would have gone through with it,” Mr. Addams says, an optimist, despite being a grump through much of the episode.
All is well now, but Nancy and George decide they’re going to get off the ship on the island where Ned and Mr. Drew are meeting them.
Mr. Addams is going to finish his cruise, and he decides not to press charges against Adrienne, instead asking that she get mental help.
He even grants an interview with Mr. Howard.
And with that the episode is over.
As I said, this was one of the more intense and exciting ones.
Up next for a recap is Episode 13 of the series with The Hardy Boys and entitled The Secret of the Jade Kwan Yin.
If you want to read some of my recaps of other episodes of this show, you can find them by doing a search for Hardy Boys Nancy Drew in the search bar on the right sidebar.
Lisa R. Howeler is a blogger, homeschool mom, and writes cozy mysteries.
You can find her Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.
