Sunday Bookends: Cat update, more Bette Davis movies

On May 3, 2026May 3, 2026 By Lisa R. HowelerIn Sunday Bookends, Sunday Salon12 Comments

It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, what the rest of the family and I have been reading and watching, and what I’ve been writing. Some weeks I share what I am listening to.

A little update on my cats – one of which I wore more extensively about in my post yesterday.

The youngest is acting a lot better but is still not 100 percent, though I’m not sure what 100 percent is for him since he’s always looked a bit rough and bedraggled since someone dropped him off at our house in October. Something is up, or down really, with his tail but he’s eating normally again and being a general nuisance.

The really sick, Scout, one ate a lot more food today and was actually cleaning herself which I haven’t seen her do in several days. She also made it downstairs for a few hours of snoozing on the couch before we rudely had to move her when we put some cat food near her and it spilled on her and the couch. She and the couch had to be cleaned and she growled at us why we did it and once put back down she disappeared upstairs onto our daughter’s bed.

What is funny about her picking our daughter’s room as her sick room, so to speak, is that she doesn’t like our daughter that much. She’s always concerned our daughter is going to scoop her up and carry her around like she did when we first adopted her as a kitten so she growls at her a lot.

At night, though, she waits until Little Miss is asleep and curls up against her butt and then hisses and smacks Little Miss’s feet if she moves.

She’s doing it this morning which shows me she is perking up some but also baffles me. I keep telling her if she doesn’t want to get kicked by Little Miss stretching then she needs to stop picking that spot to lay. She’s being a typical cat and giving me dirty looks and ignoring me.

I’m encouraged that just before I finished this post, she wanted to go outside and lay in the sun on the back porch. So far, cat number three, our oldest cat is doing okay.

What I/We’ve Been Reading

Just Finished

The Enchanted April by Elizabeth Van Arnim

Nancy’s Mysterious Letter by Carolyn Keene

In Progress

I am slow reading Stillmeadow Daybrook by Gladys Taber. Since each chapter is a month, I plan to read a chapter a month. I am excited to start May!

Aloha Betrayal by Donald Bain, The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion by Beth Brower, and Thrush Green by Miss Read.

Up Soon

I’m actually not sure yet but I’ll keep you updated!

What The Family is Reading

Little Miss and I are still enjoying Heidi.

The Husband just finished First Blood by David Morrell.

What I/We’ve Been Watching

Last week I watched Vivacious Lady with Ginger Rogers and Jimmy Stewart and loved it. I couldn’t finish Dark Victory with Bette Davis because of the subject matter, but it was good as far as I watched it. I also watched Jezebel with Bette Davis. My son and I watched Office Space as well.

I started Now, Voyageur with Bette Davis last night and will finish it later today or tomorrow.

What I’ve Been Writing

Last week on the blog I shared:

Some Housekeeping

Erin (Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs) and I host a monthly bookish link party called A Good Book and A Cup of Tea. This link-up is for book and reading posts or anything related to books and reading (even movies based on books!). Each link party will be open for a month. You can find that link up for this month here.

Each week, I host the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot with some great hosts. It goes live Thursday night, but you can share any kind of blog posts (family-friendly) there until Tuesday of each week. You can check my recent posts on the sidebar to the right for the most recent link party.

Now It’s Your Turn

What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to, or writing?

This post is linked up with The Sunday Post at Kimba at Caffeinated Reviewer, Deb at with Deb at Readerbuzz, and Book Date: It’s Monday! What are you reading hosted by Kathyrn at The Book Date and Stacking the Shelves is hosted by Reading Reality.

Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.

You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find me on Instagram and YouTube.

Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot May 1

On April 30, 2026May 1, 2026 By Lisa R. HowelerIn Weekend Traffic Jam10 Comments

Welcome to the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot, where we offer a place for bloggers to link up and get a fresh set of eyes on their posts. We also feature one blog a week, letting our readers know about the blog and providing a link so readers can learn more about it. Please feel free to post new blog posts or old ones you want to bring attention to again.

Look for the post to go live about 9:30 PM EST on Thursdays.

How in the world is it already May! Well, may we all have some lovely May flowers from our April showers!

Now, let’s introduce our current hosts for the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot:

Marsha from Marsha in the Middle started blogging in 2021 as an exercise in increasing her neuroplasticity. Oh, who are we kidding? Marsha started blogging because she loves clothes, and she loves to talk or, in this case, write!

Melynda from Scratch Made Food! & DIY Homemade Household – The name says it all, we homestead in East Texas, with three generations sharing this land. I cook and bake from scratch, between gardening and running after the chickens, and knitting!

Lisa from Boondock Ramblings shares about the fiction she writes and reads, her faith, homeschooling, photography and more.

Cat from Cat’s Wire is a bookworm, movie fan, crazy cat lady, armed with beads, cabs, wire and a very jumpy brain which loves to go down rabbit holes!

Rena from Fine, Whatever writes about style, midlife, and the “fine whatever” moments that make life both meaningful and fun. Since 2015, she’s been celebrating creativity, confidence, and finding joy in the everyday.

We would love to have additional Co-Hosts to share in the creativity and fun! If you think this would be a good fit for you and you like having fun (come on, who doesn’t!) while still being creative, drop one of us an email and someone will get back with you!

WTJR will be highlighting a different blogger each week this year! We invite you to stop by their blog, take a look around and say hello!

This week we are spotlighting: Fit Foodie Megha

A little about Fit Foodie Megha:

Fitfoodiemegha.com is created to inspire you to eat, eat and eat!

Welcome to Fitfoodiemegha.com, owned by Megha Chhatbar, who is obsessed with food. She is an honest food reviewer, ardent traveller and an enthusiastic painter who also loves reading, cooking, trying new cuisines and making good friends. Basically, FitfoodieMegha.com is your guide to good food, wherein, she has shared her personal experience by spending most of the time sampling the city’s food offerings and reviewing restaurants.

And now some posts that were highlights for me this past week:

Krafty Planner’s free May templates are so nice!

Doused in Pink is showing off some nice renovations

Lisa has some ideas on how to reset when you’re feeling off

Pam is sharing about a new Melanie Dobson book

I love Cat’s Barbie outfit for her Bubblecut Barbie

Erin’s sharing books with disability representation

Important things to know about the link-up:

This link party is for blog posts only. All other links will be deleted.

Please link only blog posts you created yourself.

Please link directly to the URL of your post and not the main address of your blog.

Please do not add links to videos, sales ads, or social media links such as YouTube videos or Shorts, Instagram or Facebook Reels, TikTok videos, or any other “social media” based content.

But do visit other blogs and give the gift of a comment.

Notice: By linking with Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot, you assert that content and photos are your own property. And you give us permission to share said content if your post or blog is showcased.

We welcome unlimited, family friendly content! This can include opinion pieces, recipes, travel recaps, fashion ideas, crafts, thrifting, lifestyle, book reviews or discussions, photography, art, and so much more! Thank you for joining us!

Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.

You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find me on Instagram and YouTube.

Spring of Bette (Davis): Another Man’s Poison

On April 27, 2026 By Lisa R. HowelerIn classic movie impressions, Movie Impresssions12 Comments

Another Man’s Poison was my second Bette Davis movie, and I watched it on a whim sometime back in January. All About Eve was my first Bette Davis movie, in case you are curious.

This movie is dark from the start. We have Bette Davis as Janet Frobisher, and she’s already committed a crime that she would like to keep quiet.

A celebrated mystery writer, Janet married a criminal who was also abusive. We never get to see her husband because at the start of the movie, he’s already dead and she’s killed him. Not a spoiler. It’s the movie set up and will set up the direction of the rest of the movie.

She’s already called Larry, the fiancé of her secretary, who she, incidentally, is having an affair with, and asked him to come to her house that weekend. She’s walked to a phone box very far from her house to make the call and her nose neighbor, Dr. Henderson, the local vet, comments to her about how odd it is she is in town when she owns a mansion with phones in every room.

Janet essentially tells him to get lost and goes back home.

She has plans to dump her husband’s body in the pond on their property, but a man, George Bates (played by her real-life husband Gary Merrill), breaks into her house looking for her husband, saying he’s a robber and a murderer he and her husband were supposed to meet there after the robbery to escape together.

After a bunch of back and forth, Janet confesses she killed her husband but before she can kick Bates out the door, Dr. Henderson (Emlyn Williams) shows up and not wanting him to know she killed her husband, who Henderson has never met, she agrees to let Bates pretend he is her husband.

What results is another hour or so of panic, blackmail, and manipulation that will make your head spin. And then ending…well I can’t talk about it but oof! All I’ll say is karma is a word I do not write out or usually use so I’ll just say — a jerk!

While researching this film I was surprised to find out that it was co-produced by one of my favorite actors — Douglas Fairbanks Jr. I watched a ton of his movies last winter, which you can find here (scroll down the page).

Bette jumped at the opportunity to film this British thriller in the UK because there was a part for her new husband, free passage on the Queen Elizabeth cruise liner, and she could bring her children. It was essentially a free honeymoon.

There was a problem with the script but, according to TCM, Bette ignored this because she could choose her director (American Irving Rapper who directed one of her biggest hits, Now, Voyager in 1942). She liked him because “she could dominate him” the TCM article says.

“I’ve always wanted to play in a suspense picture as they’re made in England, with that quiet effectiveness which the British singularly seem to possess,” Bette told the British reporter.

Trouble always seemed to follow Bette and this time was no different. As soon as she arrived in England she threw a lavish party for the British press who rewarded her with tabloid articles about her mink coats, her excess and her husband, “Mr. Davis.”

This movie was not really well-received, with critics rolling their eyes at what they called “the absurdities of the script.”

They were impressed with how Bette pulled off the role even with the issues, though.

“No one has ever accused Bette Davis of failing to rise to a good script; what this film shows is how far she can go to meet a bad one,” critic Frank Hauser wrote in New Statesman and Nation.

The movie wasn’t a success at the time for the couple but visiting England was.

Actor Emlyn Williams bringing the schoolteacher who had been the inspiration for Miss Moffat in The Corn Is Green onto the set of Another Man’s Poison, and introducing her to Davis was an absolute thrill for Davis who starred in The Corn is Green in 1945.

The marriage went the way of the movie, I should add, ending only a year later, which was probably good because it was said to be a rocky and abusive one.

Have you seen this one?

Up next for my Spring of Bette feature is: Dark Victory.

My watch list for this feature:

It’s Love I’m After (April 15)

The Working Man (April 21)

Another Man’s Poison (April 27)

Dark Victory (April 30)

Jezebel (May 1)

Dangerous (May 7)

The Letter (May 12)

Of Human Bondage (May 21)

Now, Voyager (May 28)

Additional sources/resources:

https://www.tcm.com/articles/27959/another-mans-poison

If you want to find clips and thoughts about vintage movies and TV, you can visit me on Instagram on my Nostalgically Thinking Account (https://www.instagram.com/nostalgically_thinking/) or on my YouTube account Nostalgically and Bookishly Thinking here: https://www.youtube.com/@nostaglicandbookish

Sunday Bookends: Slow reading this week

On April 26, 2026April 28, 2026 By Lisa R. HowelerIn Sunday Bookends, Sunday Salon11 Comments

I’m starting this post curled up under a blanket with a warm rice pack, while The Philadelphia Story is on the TV. I’ve watched it before, but it’s been years, so I thought a rewatch was in order. I’ve forgotten some of the details, but I know I enjoyed it. (Update: that was a little crazy of a movie, and I don’t know about the morals of some of the characters, but the acting was really good — especially Katharine Hepburn and Jimmy Stewart. Overall it is a really good movie, but The Husband says it isn’t the best of any of the actors. I told him to stop ruining my good mood and to go away. Kidding. I didn’t tell him that. I understood his point of view and I told him that his POV was valid but he was wrong….again, I’m kidding. I didn’t say that either.)

It’s 42 degrees and raining outside. Our cat with the eye infection still seems to have one so it looks like it is back to the vet this upcoming week. He also seems to have gotten his tail stuck in something because he cries when we touch it and it’s hanging weird. Poor thing. His life started tough and it just seems to keep going. At least he has somewhere warm to go and people to feed, pet, and cuddle him now, which he didn’t have when he was abandoned in October.

He also has fellow cats who slap him for no reason but that’s the price he has to pay for a warm, or cool, place to rest.