What Now?

The Cabot Cove phenomenon

I've read a lot of bad historical murder mysteries this summer, but also a few good ones, and one of the authors I've discovered happily is Kate Ross, who wrote a Regency mystery series starring the dandy Julian Kestrel. For someone who still loves a good Georgette Heyer Regency novel, these novels were a delight to stumble across in the library. The series numbers only four novels, for sadly, Kate Ross died of cancer at age 41. (It's a sign of something or other that at one point I would have been envious of her accomplishments -- she was a lawyer as well as a respected novelist -- and now I'm just grateful that I'm still alive at 42 when clearly that's not a foregone conclusion.)

Anyway, she wrote a very funny poem in 1996 about series novels, one that reminds me of Murder, She Wrote and the fact that Cabot Cove, Maine, was apparently the murder capital of the nation in the 1980s. Enjoy:

Kate Ross, THE AUTHOR; or, LAMENT OF A SERIES CHARACTER

Once upon a morning rainy, while I pondered, bold and brainy,
Over many a wondrous new vocation waiting to be tried;
While among them I was picking, suddenly there came a clicking,
As of fingers lightly flicking o'er a keyboard -- woe betide!
"'Tis a rainy day," I muttered. "Droplets patter far and wide.
That is all I hear outside."

So I watched the raindrops glisten -- stopped my ears, strove not to listen --
Gazed out of the window as the droplets down the panes did glide.
Down those droplets sweetly pattered; when the wind blew hard, they spattered;
But however hard they battered, one dread sound they could not hide:
That accursed, pestilential clicking -- steady as the tide!
THAT sound could not be denied.

"Author," cried I, "stop your typing! Hear my just excuse for griping.
Seven books you've written, and your will I've ne'er before defied.
But what normal, self-respecting person wouldn't be objecting,
When she spends her life detecting fearsome killers far and wide?
Who am I, a hairdresser, to be with crime preoccupied?"
Quoth the Author, "Homicide."

"Author!" said I, "hear me pleading! Give your fans some lighter reading!
Must it always take a blood-soaked corpse to keep you satisfied?
Author, what could be absurder than the grim and gruesome murder
Of that old, one-legged sheep-herder I found in the River Clyde,
Killed by his deranged ex-wife, who in a sheep disguise did bide?"
Quoth the Author, "Homicide."

"Author," said I, "cruel Creator! Of my ills originator!
Think of the embarrassment I've felt at each new corpse I've spied!
Like that performance of Otello, when the guy who played the cello
Turned up floating in the jello -- 'Not again!' my friends all cried.
No wonder people, when they see me coming, run away and hide!"
Quoth the Author, "Homicide."

"Friends complain, with scant endurance, that they can't get life insurance;
Real estate appraisals plummet anywhere that I reside.
When you let me have a lover, he's a gumshoe under cover,
Or a murderer who'll hover, trying to take me for a ride.
All my boyfriends start out Dr. Jekyll -- end up Mr. Hyde!"
Quoth the Author, "Homicide."

And the Author, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
At that damned computer keyboard where for years her trade she's plied.
There she dreams, with greed unslaking, of the money she is making --
Of the royalties in she's raking, to her grisly books allied.
And my life, while she reaps cash by keeping readers terrified,
Shall be plagued with -- Homicide.

Weee!

You know how cats like to stand on computer keyboards and thus inadvertently type stuff?

Well, I was just now making applesauce chocolate chip cookies, the recipe for which on my computer, so I had the laptop sitting open on the dining room table so that it was easy to consult from the kitchen.

I realized one of our cats, the Muse, was standing on the keyboard, so I shooed her off ... and lo and behold, what she had typed was:

Weeeeeeeeeeeeee1`````

Apparently she's very excited about the cookies!

The fact that she loves to chew cardboard boxes might have fooled us into thinking otherwise, but clearly we have a feline genius on our hands.

a bold statement of the obvious

I just heard myself saying the following:

My sense of self-preservation makes me want to live.

Um, yeah, ya think?

For the record, this was apropos of a conversation about swimming with dolphins, which seems really cool but apparently can be very dangerous because as part of their play they sometimes hold people under water for too long, thinking that they're fellow dolphins. Not that I've been offered the chance or anything, but it's good to have my answer ready if the situation ever comes up.

So now we know

I have just been informed by a student's essay that "Kindred has two words in it, kin and dred. Kin means someone you are related to through family, and dred means something you regret. Together, these words means someone you regret being related to."

Um, yeah. I have now pointed out both the spelling and meaning of the word "dread" and the merits of looking up unfamiliar words.

But it does have a certain bizarre explanatory value.

Heh-heh

I came home from summer school today on the tired and grumpy side (only three days left!) and made D. take me out to lunch. When the time came to pay, D. used a credit card, and the waitress brought the receipt and a pen -- one of those ballpoint pens that medical drug reps leave at doctor's offices, so I'm not sure how it wound up in our local pub.

The pen was advertising Viagra.

And it didn't work. The ballpoint emerged but couldn't muster up any ink.

We found this hilarious. As did the waitress, once we pointed it out.

I was much less tired and grumpy afterward.

The rhythms of childhood

Okay, I've been thinking about something ever since D. and I went to an Indigo Girls' concert recently -- i.e., renewed our license to practice lesbianism for another year -- and I just have to share:

You know the refrain for "Closer to Fine," which starts "I went to the doctor, I went to the mountain, ..."?

For over 20 years now, every time I've heard this song, my impulse has been to sing, "I went to the doctor, I went to the nurse, I went to the lady with the alligator purse, ..."

Am I the only one who's experienced this phenomenon?

I wasn't even a jump-roper, so it's odd that these words are in my bones, but I guess it's hard to escape the rhythms of one's childhood.

Fortune smiles

On Friday, the cafeteria served fortune cookies at lunch, and one of my colleagues got what is now my 2nd favorite fortune ever*:

You have many opportunities. Work a little harder.

Just what one needs -- a little nagging from one's fortune cookie. A colleague asked if it had been signed by the administration and if other fortunes dictated "Don't ask for more money" or "Look for additional opportunities to serve."

I said that the original fortune sounded like the kind of fortune my mother would write, which led the lunch table to draft a series of maternal-inspired fortune cookies:

You could make so much of yourself if you'd just put in a little effort.

If you had listened to me, you wouldn't be in this situation now.

You're not living up to your potential.

Remember how I raised you.

Why can't you be more like your brother?

* My absolute favorite fortune cookie fortune remains one I got years ago: "You like Chinese food."

The Barefoot Contessa drinking game

D. and I are big Ina Garten fans (D. makes a fabulous meatloaf derived from the Barefoot Contessa recipe), but that doesn't stop us from having a little fun at the show's expense. Over the last couple of years, we've created the Barefoot Contessa drinking game, the rules for which are as follows:

• Take a drink whenever Ina says, "This is a lot of [butter, sugar, salt, bacon, alcohol, etc.], but it makes a lot of [cupcakes, roast beef, cocktails, etc.]." This is the "no need to feel guilty for indulgence" drink.
• Take another drink whenever Ina insists that one must use a "good" ingredient: "good vanilla," "good mustard," etc. She never defines such goodness, and she will sometimes insist on goodness in a food for which the term is clearly never applicable: "good mayonnaise." Since in the D/WN household, mayonnaise is by definition a repulsive food, we do NOT drink for this phrase, but you may decide on different rules in your household.
• One must also drink when Ina asks rhetorically "How [fabulous, easy, delicious, surprising, etc.] is that?" This usually happens once but only once per show, so it's worth a swig.

Now those are the rules for our household version of the game, all dealing with the food preparation itself, but you could add additional rules if you want to incorporate the "selling the lifestyle" components of the show. I suggest drinks whenever:

• Ina is seen driving her BMW;
• Her rich preppy friends arrive with their sweaters thrown carefully around their shoulders;
• We're shown views of fancy-schmancy Hamptons houses, boats, etc.

Enjoy!

Perhaps the best Jesus kitch ever!

Ah, the erotics of spirituality:

(Originally seen here.)