Joan Plowright

The flames are curling around the pieces of wood in our woodstove as I write this. My daughter made me a cup of hot cocoa sweetened with maple syrup and it was so good.

Earlier this week we lit the stove one day and didn’t the next, pretty alternating like that all week, because the temperatures were warm, then cold, then warm. Today they are back to cold and I think they are going to stay that way through tomorrow.

My sinuses (and those of my family) are not a fan of the up and down temps of autumn and spring in our area.

I need the weather to pick one temperature and stay there.

I did, however, appreciate the sun and warmth we received this week, even if there was a bit of a chill to it.

This morning I realized that I had not left the house all week. I had no reason to because the Husband took Little Miss to her events and I stayed home and worked on my books, blog posts, social media posts, and washed dishes. I washed dishes all week. That’s how I felt at least. I would finish dishes right before dinner and then everyone would use dishes for dinner and then it would start over. The day our dishwasher died was a very sad day for us, but that’s life.

Usually, The Husband does the dishes and folds the laundry more than I do because he gets to it quicker. I seem to be interrupted every five minutes when I am trying to do something but no one interrupts him, I have no idea why. He’s also just very organized and I am not, which I think I’ve mentioned on here before. I am trying to do a bit better at the housework but if the pile of unfolded laundry in our laundry room is any indication of how I am doing – well, you know how that is going.

On Tuesday I thought we had lost our cat for good when she didn’t show up after being out all night. I woke up early to the sound of Zooma the Wonder Dog barking and when I went downstairs to find out what was going on, our other cat ran in, but not the youngest.

The Husband and The Boy (my now 17-year-old teenager) went to work and when I came downstairs later, I thought I would find Scout, the youngest cat, back inside or on the back porch. She wasn’t there and a quick text to The Husband confirmed that she had not returned that morning. I had to wait a couple of hours for The Boy to come home from trade school to ask him if he had seen her and in that three-hour wait, I had this horrible feeling that she had been hit by a car or eaten by an animal the night before.

Usually, when she comes in in the morning she heads straight to my daughter’s room and curls up with her but she wasn’t there. She is also usually around my feet at some point in the morning.

We do our best to make sure the cats are inside at night because we do have foxes, bears, and occasionally coyotes in the area. A text to my neighbor to see if she had seen Scout made me even more nervous because my neighbor said there had been a huge catfight that morning in her backyard but she didn’t see which cat it was.

A friend of ours down the street has a male cat that likes to come up and try to act like he lives here and can tell my girl cats to get lost, so I worried he might have attacked Scout, but another neighbor also has a cat that fights with my cats (or vice versa).

When The Boy came home, I decided not to mention the cat’s disappearance to him because it was his birthday and I didn’t want him to be worried about her on his birthday. Finally, though, I asked him if he’d happened to see her when he walked to the bus for school.

“Yeah, I let her in this morning,” he said.

So, at some point, she’d been in the house.

That’s when I asked my daughter if she had been in her makeshift fort that morning (she has turned one of our couches to face our large window and has her stuffed animals and toys in there for her own little safe haven). She ran to the fort and – yes, there was the cat. She’d been there the whole morning and completely ignored me while I called for her. I felt stupid for not checking in the fort since she loves to curl up there.

This is the second time in two weeks Scout has done something like this, which should be a sign to me that I need to stop worrying about her and accept that she’ll show up eventually.

Now that the weather is colder, I want to make more soups for dinners and lunches. Earlier this week I made chicken noodle soup. I cooked a whole chicken in the Instapot and later added some carrots and farfalle pasta. The one thing I forgot about cooking a whole chicken down in the Instapot is that the bones crumble so you have to strain the broth and catch them in a strainer.

The only problem is that I don’t have a strainer right now so I tried to pick them out. That didn’t work great since we still found some bones in the soup. Hopefully I’ll get better at the soup making as winter sets in. Also, I’ll hopefully get a strainer.

My plan this week is to make butternut squash/sweet potato soup and maybe vegetable beef (we had some beef left over from the week before last and I froze that) and potato and ham soup. I’ll keep you updated on how that goes.

On Thursday I created a reel on Instagram to promote the blog post feature that Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and I do together. It was simply a clip of the documentary we watched about dames Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Joan Plowright, and Eileen Atkins with a quote from the clip above it. I tossed it up and moved on with my day because usually Erin and I don’t get a lot of views on those reels or on our blogs (which is fine – we do this stuff mainly for fun and distraction for us and our blog readers).

By the end of Thursday I had a lot of people commenting on the reels or liking it. By Friday morning I had some 250,000 views and even more comments and shares.

By Friday night the number was 450,000 or so and the comments kept coming from people who just loved the clip and said how happy it made them.

This morning the number was 1.2 million. As of the time I am writing this, it is at 2 million plus views, 56.2 thousand shares, and 809 comments. I have reached 1.3 million accounts

What does all this mean? Will it help me sell books or make money or … do anything exciting with my life?

Nope. None of that really at this point. I don’t get paid on Instagram for my posts and people are liking this video but they aren’t really there for my books. I did gain more followers but, again, they are following me for my posts that aren’t related to my books.

And, honestly? That’s okay because the clip is bringing people joy and one thing I realize as the number of views increase on this is how hungry the world is for joy right now.

Here is a link to the reels:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Lisa R. Howeler | cozy mystery author (@lisarhoweler)

There is so much sadness, hatred, depression, darkness, and hopelessness. Escaping for even three minutes as we watch four legendary actresses laugh and tease each other is a blessing. Then finding out we can escape for 90 full minutes? Whew! That’s a Godsend for many people right now. I’m glad that people were able to enjoy that clip.

So often lately I am trying to figure out how I can use any kind of social media success to help my family financially as we struggle, but most of the time it is enough that something I put out there gives people joy.

Sometimes we look for a bigger meaning in the things we do in life and I think it is okay if there isn’t a bigger meaning beyond what we did, saw, heard, read, or participated in that brought us joy.

If you want to read the blog posts where Erin and I talked about the documentary, you can find my post HERE and Erin’s post HERE.

How was your week last week? Did you do anything exciting?

Do you like to cook soups when the weather is colder? What kind of soups are your favorite to make or eat?

For October and November, Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and I will be watching cozy or comfy movies, and some of them will have a little mystery, creepiness, or adventure added in. You can find out about the other movies we watched by searching Comfy, Cozy Cinema in my search bar at the right.

This one was a different one this week because it was a documentary about four British actresses who are legends in theater, movies, and television. All four of them have been named “dames” by the British monarchy. This is the female equivalent of being dubbed a knight.

The documentary is a series of sit-down interviews with Dame Judi Dench, Dame Maggie Smith, Dame Joan Plowright, and Dame Eileen Atkins.

The documentary was made in 2018 and all the women were in their 80s. They are now in or nearing their 90s but all four are still alive.

All four women have been friends for probably 40 years or more.

If you haven’t heard of one or the other of these women, I’ll detail below some examples of what they’ve been in. Most would be familiar with Judi Dench and Maggie Smith at least.

I watched this documentary a few years ago and found it enchanting, hilarious, touching, and inspiring. I made my husband watch it with me and now I’ve made Erin watch it with me too.

The entire documentary consists of the women at Joan’s cottage where she used to live with actor Laurence Olivier, simply telling stories about their careers and families and the time they spent together as friends.

All four actresses have worked in theater, the small screen and big screen.

They all started in theater and hearing their early stories about those days was very interesting to me, even though I’ve never been interested in participating in it myself.

Judi Dench is well known for her work on British sitcoms (As Time Goes By and A Fine Romance. She stared in A Fine Romance with her future husband Michael Williams) but more prominently an entire line of movies from the Bond movies where she played M, to Shakespeare in Love where she played a queen. She also played queen in Mrs. Brown.

Her list of movies also includes Chocolat, Philomenia, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, and … well, there are tons of them. (A link to her work: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001132/)

Maggie Smith is most well known recently for Downton Abbey and Harry Potter. She played the Dowager Countess Violet Crowly in Downton Abbey and Professor McGonagall in Harry Potter. (a link to her work: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001749/)

Eileen has been in a ton of films and television as well, Paddington 2, Wicked Little Letters, The Crown, The Archers, Beautiful Creatures, etc., etc. (A link to her work: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0040586/)

Joan’s film list includes The Spiderwick Chronicles, Mrs. Palfrey at the Clairmont, Dennis the Menace, and 101 Dalmatians among so many others. (Here is a link to her work: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0687506/)

The documentary is pretty laid-back and easygoing. There are some great quotes from all four women about acting and life in general. They bounce off each other in hilarious exchanges between the women and the interviewer and the crew helping with filming. There is footage from their past films and plays woven throughout.

This is not a rated G film with Judi dropping a couple of f-bombs during the filming, especially in regard to a question about growing older.

Maggie is so funny because she seems unable to use the word “child” throughout. She refers to the son of Joan and Laurence (they call him Larry)’as “a small person.” Like when she tells a story about him she says, “When Richard was a small person…”

The story she tells is hilarious too. She once overhead Laurence Olivier begging his young son to tell him if he had thrown the key to his liquor cabinet down the dumb waiter.

“Richard, tell Daddy where the key is. Daddy needs his num-nums.”

Maggie laughs and says, “The idea that a great actor was reduced to using the word num-nums.”

I also really giggled at the conversation about how they each became dames.

Judi became one first and called Maggie when she became one and said, “Don’t worry…you can still swear.

“You can swear more actually,” Judi says with a laugh.

“You just do it privately,” Maggie snickers and speaks with a very posh accent.

Joan was a lady before she was a dame because she married Sir Laurence Olivier, Maggie points out.

“Well, darling, it is quite difficult to have two titles,” Joan replies. “People don’t know which one to use.”

“You’ll have to grapple with it, Joan,” Maggie smith says while the other women laugh.

There are also some very profound quotes from the women mixed in with the laughs.

At one point Judi is asked how people face the fear associated with acting.

“Fear is petrol,” she states in a matter-of-fact tone. “Fear is the petrol. It generates such an energy. Fear. Being frightened. If you can somehow channel it, it can be a help.”

I really love this documentary because it is a wonderful reminder of what women can do when they cast aside societal expectations and just go for their dreams.

These women had a passion for acting. They wanted success and went for it and didn’t let anything stop them. In a day and age where women had to fight for every crumb, they won the whole loaf and then showed other women how to do the same thing.

As I told Erin, I just love watching these women talk about their past but also teared up when they showed all the roles they have played. I mean these women were pioneers for women who were told they couldn’t play certain roles and couldn’t be mothers and wives AND successful in their careers at the same time.

Not only did they defy expectations but they completely exceeded them. I mean Judi Dench was literally in Shakespeare in Love for eight minutes and won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. She is 88 years old and two weeks ago she recited a Shakespeare soliloquy from memory on the Graham Norton Show:

I found the documentary for free (with commercials) on Tubi but you can also rent it off various streaming services.

If you want to read Erin’s impressions of the documentary visit her blog: https://crackercrumblife.com/2023/11/09/comfy-cozy-cinema-tea-with-the-dames/

We are taking a break from the Comfy, Cozy Cinema for Thanksgiving but will be back next week for The Fishermen’s Friends and then on November 30 with a bit of Jane –Sense and Sensibility.

I’m not sure what we have on tap for December but stay tuned. If Erin and I don’t do a joint Cozy Christmas cinema together, I’m sure she and I with both be watching our favorites and sharing about them on our blogs.