Mystery Summer

We continue this week with another American (Canadian) made mystery. The nearly-always insufferable Maury Chaykin takes an enjoyable turn as the grouchy, misanthropic, hermit private detective Nero Wolfe. Wolfe can't abide time-wasters or imbeciles. His dearest friends are his collection of rare orchids and his only passion is haute cuisine. His is an exceptionally sharp deductive mind, but leaves all the footwork to his capable assistant Archie (Timothy Hutton), a debonair ladies man who can talk himself into--and out of--any situation. 

Nero Wolfe is a light-hearted, humorous and colorful take on film-noir style (as contradictory as that may sound. All pinstripe suits and mysterious damsels in distress, the writing is clever and fun, the production low-budget but highly entertaining. But our favorite unique quality of the show is the rotating cast. The main characters remain the same, but the supporting cast of actors can be found playing new roles in each new mystery. The blond above must show up at least a dozen times throughout the series...always as a new character. Seeing familiar faces crop up again and again makes you feel like you're participating in local dinner theatre or something. 

Check your local library. I hope you'll be able to find some of these. If you get a chance to watch, let us know what you think of them!

Summer Projects...

We've had an alarmingly short, action-packed summer and I'm sorry to say that it is almost over!! Only 3 weeks before Curmudgeon heads back to school. Busy as we've been with family and workshops and well-deserved (I think) lounging, we have gotten some major home projects done around the house. I foolishly neglected to take photos immediately after the work and since then haven't gotten around to all the cleaning, rearranging and fussing needed to take photos of every room, but I'll present them as I clean... a little bit at a time. So first up is Chubbles room (aka the laundry room. what? she loves it!). 

the laundry room when first saw the house.
The same ugly, drab taupe that filled the whole place.

Updated with fresh bright paint, fun curtains, and that same cheap IKEA rug you've seen in a million pictures from every design mommy-blog out there. But it was cheap and pretty, so there. Also, though you can barely see one of them, four gorgeous prints of fairy-tale scenes in watercolor by Edmund Dulac surround the crib. I have been carrying these prints around for almost two years meaning to put them up in her room and now they're finally up. makes me so so happy.

We're also almost finished with our entryway. Remember this? 

   




















and this?
It also started with that bleak taupe color painted over a mish-mass of textured wallpaper and plaster. What a nightmare to get all of that off!

And now it's all bright, happy and colorful. Deep sigh of relief. 

And for the grand finale, our cuties in character: The dour Chubbles and the always silly Happy.

Mystery Summer

Again going along with PBS's programming schedule, we bring you another of our favorites:

Inspector Lewis which is airing on Masterpiece Mystery this month.

It doesn't take a whole lot of viewing experience to get used to the key ingredients of classic British detective stories. One important element is setting, which for many mystery series is the only constant amid a flood of constantly changing characters. In this case, Oxford is a main character in itself, with both victims and perpetrators inhabiting a world where academic stardom is the first order of life. The ancient university, its hallowed halls and looming secrets provide more than enough material to keep the series varied and interesting.

Next, there's always the chief detective and his sergeant.  In virtually every inspector + sergeant partnership we've ever seen, there is some major incongruity between the two characters which provides enough personal tension between them to keep things interesting while at the same time fueling each individual's creative and deductive powers. Inspector Lewis is a working-class bloke with intelligence to spare but no patience for the head-in-the-clouds lifestyle of his academic neighbors. Sergeant Hathaway is his opposite in every way, educated at Cambridge, he studied theology until an existential crisis turned him away from the priesthood and toward a career with the police. But despite (more likely because of) their differences, Lewis and Hathaway make a formidable team. 

 As mysteries go, Inspector Lewis strikes that perfect balance between dark and light... the stories almost always have some gravity to them, but there's enough lightness and humor to keep you from getting depressed (Unlike Inspector Lynley, a similar series with many of the same standard elements which, by the way, didn't make the cut for our summer selections). Lewis is enjoyable and definitely worth the time. 

One tiny little side-note: some of you may remember Lewis as Sergeant Lewis, Inspector Morse's protege from the earlier TV Mystery Inspector Morse. We didn't include Morse in our summer series either mainly because, well, we've never watched it. But anyway, I figured if I didn't mention it that I'd hear about it from all you Morse fans out there.

Family Fun

We've had a great couple of weeks with Grandma and Grandpa from Ohio, Grandma and Grandma from Utah and our Okie cousins. No play-by-play narration of our visits, just a few pictures to illustrate our fun times:

reading with Grammy

an Independence Day waterfight with the Okies

water balloons, cannons and plastic cups gave our kiddos all the ammunition they needed to join in the fun.

visiting our favorite sculpture park with Grandma and Grandpa.

We took a vacation both hosting and visiting family this week, so we also took a vacation from our mysteries. Check in again this weekend for the next installment.