Lisa R. Howeler's Blog, page 66

Spring of Cary: Notorious

Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs, Katja from Breath of Hallelujah and I teamed up this spring to watch Cary Grant movies for fun and then write about them.

These were movies that I picked from a list of his movies I had never seen.

This week we are on the last movie for our feature – Notorious.

Now, I want to preface this by saying that it’s going to sound like, at first, I didn’t like this film, but that isn’t true. I didn’t like it at first because I didn’t like Ingrid Bergman’s character but I eventually got swept up in it all and recognized it for being a very brilliantly written and directed film.

The movie stars Cary, Ingrid, and Claude Rains.

This is another Alfred Hitchcock Grant movie (we watched Suspicion last week) and it again showcased Hitchcock’s brilliant cinematography and directing skills.

We start with a man being remanded to the U.S. Marshal for charges of treason and from there we will be thrown into a world of espionage and mystery as we try to find out who the man is, but most importantly, who is daughter is.

We also will be thrown into yet another world where Cary is sexy and suave and the woman is conniving, heartless, and slutty, even though she’s probably slept with the same amount of people Cary has over the years. But Cary is a man and he’s cool when he sleeps around. Women are sluts. You know how it goes.

Oh, how I hate those commentaries on movies that overthink and look way too deep into the theme of the movie. Yet here I am about to do just that.

First, a bit of a summary of the movie. Alicia Huberman is the daughter of a convicted Nazi spy in 1946. T.R. Devlin is the U.S. Marshal assigned to follow her and ask her to help break up a ring of escaped Nazis hiding in Brazil.  This movie was released in August of 1946. It was filmed at the end of 1945 and the beginning of 1946. It was a very timely movie at the time and I was actually sort of surprised they made a movie so quickly about what was still a very raw subject at the time. It was easy, however, to make German Nazis the bad guys in the movie because, well, they were, but they definitely were in 1946.

After watching so many movies of Cary’s in a row, I do have to say that there is a definite theme in them and this one was no different. Cary is handsome, manly, dashing, charming, and irresistible and all the women know it and love him for it. He can get them to do anything for him. Leave their families, isolate from their friends, turn their backs on their ideals, and, in the case of this movie, spy for the United States and risk their life. Not that spying against the Germans after World War II is a bad thing, of course.

If you know the history of Alfred Hitchcock, you know that he had a particular view of women and that was that they were sort of stupid and had to be molded to the wishes of the men. He had obsessive issues with women in real life and though I hate to use the term misogynistic because it’s been abused in recent years, he truly was misogynistic.

 In his movies, women are often indecisive and need to be rescued by a man, yet they are also strong and have their own minds – deceptive minds with cruel intent of course. It’s a complex dichotomy but in Notorious we see Hitchcock stick with Cary being handsome and charming and Ingrid doing what he wants because of it.

As a Guardian writer shared when commenting on Hitchcock’s history with women:
“Norman Bates is Hitchcock himself, kidding himself that women are scheming devils and men are just innocent folk, acting up because they got caught in a tricky situation.”

While I do like Hitchcock’s movies, I have to admit that there is some truth in that quote and part of it was because Hitchcock had very deep issues with his own mother.

That is why so many of his movies, including this one, feature an evil mother who is behind schemes to destroy someone, usually the woman, in the movie.

There were many obvious moments in this film where I felt like the characters were just plain stupid. Like seriously, Cary keeps showing up wherever Ingrid is, even though she only met him on the plane – or so her story goes. Why would the guy she met on the plane keep showing up at parties? And the man she’s pretending to be in love with (Raines, who is the former Nazi) clearly knows the guy is more than what she says he is. Cary and Ingrid act like the bad guy should believe all their lies too. So annoying.

Like many Hitchcock movies, the mother of the former Nazi is evil and helps him figure out how to do something very bad (I won’t give away what it is in case you watch the movie.) She is more terrifying than Claude Raines and he was a former Nazi. Seriously. She’s horribly creepy. Her deceptiveness with a smile reminds me of someone in my extended family but I’ll keep that to myself for now.

All this criticism I’m offering up, though, can’t take away from the amazing cinematography and angles and use of light and shadows that Hitchcock uses to draw the viewers’ attention to the characters and their faults or to an important moment or expression. For example, there is one poignant scene when he zooms in on the guilty parties in such a unique way that I was just like, “Oh! That is brilliant.”

Yes, he was a brilliant filmmaker. A misogynist and a brilliant filmmaker. Yes, it was possible for him to be both.

Even though I sometimes get annoyed at Hitchcock’s idea that women had to be rescued, I really wanted Ingrid to be rescued in this movie – by anyone, but Cary was fine because…again…he’s good looking.

1946: Cary Grant (1904 – 1986) and Ingrid Bergman (1915 – 1982) get very close in Alfred Hitchcock’s spy thriller ‘Notorious’. (Photo by John Kobal Foundation/Getty Images)

A little trivia about the film:

Hitchcock wanted to make this film two years before it was made and he wanted Ingrid from the beginning.

He pitched the idea for the film this way: “the story of a woman sold for political purposes into sexual enslavement.”

Some think that Hitchcock maybe have gotten the idea for the plot from a short story written in 1921 by John Taintor Foote and called The Song of the Dragon.” It had appeared as a two-part serial in the Saturday Evening Post and, according to Wikipedia, “Set during World War I in New York, “The Song of the Dragon” told the tale of a theatrical producer approached by federal agents, who want his assistance in recruiting an actress he once had a relationship with to seduce the leader of a gang of enemy saboteurs.”

Whatever his inspiration, Hitchcock wrote the plot of Notorious with Ben Hecht who he wrote Spellbound with in 1944. One plot device used in the rewrites caused the FBI to begin following Hitchock. It involved uranium ore, which it later turned out was being used to build the atomic bomb. Hitchcock didn’t know this, but the FBI was worried he did when he started asking a scientist at Caltech about uranium. By August of 1945, a year before the movie was released,  everyone knew about what was being used to make the bomb anyhow.

The project was originally a David Selznick production but was later passed over to RKO when Selznick got bored with it. This allowed Hitchcock to produce as well as direct and write. Selznick had 50 percent stack in the movie as part of the deal with RKO, however, and continuously harassed Hitchcock about changes he wanted.

Hitchcock ignored almost all of those suggestions. Suggestions he didn’t ignore were those by Ingrid, who he apparently worked very well with.

In fact,  he made Ingrid his closest collaborator on the project, which was very unusual since, as I mentioned above – he was a misogynist in many ways.

There were some other interesting tidbits on Wikipedia but they weren’t citing sources and that drove me crazy so I’m not going to share them here.

Les Enchaines Notorious de AlfredHitchcock avec Ingrid bergman et Cary Grant 1946

One thing that is mentioned there and other sources is the very sexy two-and-a-half-minute kiss in the movie, which was filmed in a way to get it past the censors of the day, who determined that kisses in a movie could not be over a certain time limit. In the scene, Cary and Ingrid’s lips aren’t locked the entire time but they are extremely close physically and they are stealing kisses between words about what they’ll have for dinner, where they will go later, etc. The actors did find it a bit awkward to walk so close together and bump mouths off and on, but it turned out to be a classic scene.

For the trailer you can click here:

https://youtu.be/EhMyp8ZvjWs

To read what Erin thinks of the movie, check out her blog either today or at a later date (she’s been super busy all week so she may not have time to write her views this week).

Kajta has also been busy and if she writes her thoughts on it she will post it on her blog.

Sunday Bookends: Some time alone, books about fairies and murder, Summer of Marilyn

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, and some weeks I share what I am listening to.

What’s Been Occurring

As I mentioned in my post yesterday, I had about five hours to myself at home, which is a very unusual thing. I said I would update today whether I enjoyed it or cried because I missed my family.

Update: I had a blast.

Sure, I missed my family and if they had been gone much longer than they were I would have been a mess, but for those five hours I had so much fun by myself.

I watched whatever movie I wanted to watch (How To Marry A Millionaire) without being interrupted 18 times.

I made myself grilled chicken on our grill and ate it while it was still hot! I didn’t have to eat mine after I fixed everyone else’s plate, which I don’t always do, but still . . .

I didn’t have to get up and make anyone a snack for anyone or listen to my movie over the sound of a kid’s show on a phone or stop what I was doing to look at anything someone wanted to show me.

It was wonderful! Again, though, I also would absolutely miss those other things if my family wasn’t around, so I was super happy when they came home. I could only enjoy being alone with my thoughts for so long.

I’m doing my best to carry that relaxed feeling into today. The weather is beautiful and I just want to hold on to that feeling.

I realized at the end of the day that one reason I felt so peaceful last night even after my alone time was that I stayed off social media and the news. Today and into this week I plan to do the same thing. I’m not saying I won’t go on social media at all but I will definitely go on much less than I do some weeks.

The words that came to mind this morning on that topic were: I need to protect my peace.

It was what I did around this past Christmas. I locked myself away in a bubble of comfort, in a way, through the month of December and I need to do that more often. Of course, we can’t always keep the bad way, but we can make every effort possible to protect our peace and not go looking for those things that threaten that peace.

Calamity and chaos will always find us but there is no reason we should seek it out through scrolling mindlessly on social media or news sites.
I mentioned in a recent post that I was worried that the frost and freeze we had was going to kill my peonies and roses as it did my lilacs. I am happy to report that I checked my peonies yesterday while everyone was gone and they survived and are starting to bloom.

The white ones come up first and then the dark purple/pink ones and then the light pink ones. They bloom fully every year right in time for my brother’s birthday (June 9th. Gifts can be sent to him at  . . . just kidding.).

If you want to read more about what we did last week, you can pop on over to yesterday’s post.

What I/We’ve been Reading

This week I am reading Death and Daisies by Amanda Flower and I should have it finished later this week. Her books are quite easy reads and fairly light. They are cozy mysteries with a bit of magic mixed in. Or at least this series (the Magical Garden series) is.

I’m also reading The Regal Pink by Jenny Knipfer. This is a fantasy/fairy book which is not usually my thing but I try to read all of Jenny’s books so I am going to try it.

At night Little Miss and I are reading Little House on Plum Creek.

The boy is finishing Fellowship of the Ring.

The Husband is reading. I can’t ask him what because he slept horribly last night and he’s taking a rest upstairs.

What We Watched/are Watching

Yesterday I watched How to Marry A Millionaire with Marilyn Monroe, Betty Grable, and Lauren Bacall (and William Powell). I started it while everyone was gone and finished it with The Husband when they came home.

I watched it years ago but had forgotten most of it.

While looking for a movie to watch I found a whole stack of blu-rays we own but that I either have not watched at all or haven’t watched in years and remember very little of. Among those movies were a bunch of Marilyn Monroe movies. The Husband pulled out a couple more of her movies when I told him I was considering watching the stack I’d made for the summer and blogging about them – or just watching them without blogging about them.

Seeing that stack of Marilyn movies made me decide I am going to have a Summer of Marilyn through the month of June and July. I’ll create a list of movies I am going to watch for a post later this week. I may be doing this one alone since Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs is super busy in June. I haven’t asked Katja yet if she wants to join but I’ll ask her later this week. I’ll also open the invitation for anyone to watch along who wants to. You do not have to blog about the movies just because I plan to.

Speaking of the Classic Movie Impressions Erin and I have been doing – the last post of our Spring of Cary will be up Thursday of this week.

I watched the movie and wrote the post but then forgot to post it on Saturday, which was the day Erin and I had decided to push it off to. Erin did not have a chance to write her post, however, because she had a very, very, full week with some fun stuff and some not-so-fun stuff.

The Husband and I also watched a Miss Marple movie this weekend (well, we will be finishing it later today) and Little Miss and I watched a ton of Mary Berry clips from YouTube one night this past week.

What I’m Writing

I am working on the second book of the Gladwynn Grant Mysteries.

Are you ready to know what it is going to be called?

I think I already mentioned it, but I’ll share again that it is going to be called Gladwynn Grant Takes Center Stage.

The first book is set to release on July 18th, and you can either sign up for the ARC team (you do not have to promote the book all over – simply read and review it on Amazon and Goodreads) or pre-order it for 99 cents on Amazon.

This week on the blog I shared:

Saturday Afternoon Chat: Some alone time, a couple of outings, visit by friends, and bad Anne of Green Gables sequelsGoodbye May, Hello June!

What I’m Listening To

I’ve been listening to playlists of vintage music as I write this week including this one:

Blog Posts I Enjoyed This Past Week

I have not read a ton of blog posts this week, but I was informed and made necessarily uncomfortable by this post about gender ideology by Abigail Shrier.

Now it’s your turn.

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.

Saturday Afternoon Chat: Some alone time, a couple of outings, visit by friends, and bad Anne of Green Gables sequels

Everyone, I am so excited because by the time you read this, or maybe while you are reading it, I will be having an afternoon to myself to write and watch movies and do whatever I want.

In other words, I will be sitting in my house completely lost and wondering why I thought it would be a good idea to accept my husband’s offer to take the kids to a movie and for me to stay home.

The whole thing sort of went down like this:

Husband: “I’m going to take the kids to Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse on Saturday and you can stay home and write.”

Me: “Uh. Oh. Okay.”

Husband: “Great. Have fun.”

And boom. Here I am. Alone. Writing a blog post.

Alone. In my house. With the dog. With my family 45 minutes away from me one way.

Alone with my thoughts and an old movie (How to Marry A Millionaire).

Ahem.

Did I ever mention that alone time is highly overrated? Because it is.

 I’ll update in my Sunday Bookends post how many times I cried wishing my family was home with me interrupting me 15 times while I try to write and that I had instead gone with them.

For now, though, a little about last week.

There is very little to report, honestly. It was a fairly relaxed week – at least physically. Mentally my mind seemed to race all day.

We spent Sunday at a Memorial Day service at a small cemetery about 30 minutes away. A bagpiper played some music in honor of the holiday at the cemetery which was recently repaired and cleaned up.

The speaker who was supposed to come didn’t make it so it was just the bagpiper, but he did a wonderful job. The music was very poignant and moving as we overlooked the cemetery full of veterans of wars that our country fought as far back as at least the Civil War, if not the Revolutionary War as well.

After the service we stopped at a playground right down the road for Little Miss to play a bit. She, however, was more interested in playing in the creek behind the playground, which is totally fine with me. She had no interest in leaving the creek when it was time to go and we hope to stop by there again soon to give her even more time to play.

The water was very low there because we have not had a lot of rain recently and also did not have a very snowy winter.

I have a feeling that our county will be under a burn ban soon. In our area we are allowed to burn trash in a barrel outside in our backyards, but not if there is a burn ban in effect. That will probably come soon as our grass is starting to fade to yellow in some places and our trees are very dry.

Little Miss and The Husband threw rocks in the creek and Little Miss and I put our feet in the water. It was really a very nice and relaxing afternoon.

The Boy was home resting after working the night before.

On Monday we visited my parents for Memorial Day after The Husband went to a Memorial Day service to take photographs and my dad and The Boy went to a service downtown.

The Husband cooked steaks on the grill that my dad had bought a while ago from a local farmer.

The steaks were excellent.

Little Miss, The Husband, and the Boy took a ride on the golf cart before we left. Little Miss helped clean out the pool at my parents before the golf cart ride. My dad is trying to get it summer ready. We will have to do some more cleaning tomorrow when we visit to get it all the way ready.

On Thursday Little Miss had a friend over to visit.

Yesterday we did pretty much nothing, other than The Husband who was awesome and braved the heat we were having to pick up groceries.

It turned out to be not as hot as we thought it was going to be but he didn’t want me to have to deal with any drama after the loss of the key fob last week. There always seems to be drama when I do the shopping. Sigh. He also does a great job and keeps us well within budget. Not that I go too crazy with the budget, but Little Miss does tend to add extra fruits to the cart when we do it, which is okay by me.

This past week started writing more of book two of the Gladwynn Grant Mysteries. I am having fun crafting the story and will hopefully write a little more on it today during my break.

I started to watch Anne of Green Gables: The Continuing Story today but – ick. I forgot that the story was not from the books and was, quite frankly, ridiculous and way too over dramatic. The actors were too old to be playing the parts, they took the story out of Prince Edward Island and to the United States and Kevin Sullivan took way too many liberties with the characters for my taste.

I have not enjoyed every Anne book I’ve read (like Anne’s House of Dreams. Yuck. So depressing. Seriously.) but there is a reason I love L.M. Montgomery’s books. They are whimsical and full of joy, most of the time anyhow. There are some sad and hard stories but at their heart is a youthfulness and hopefulness to Anne that I really didn’t see in this mini-series or as much of it as I was able to watch today. I watched it years ago and remember not enjoying it very much then either.

Staying on the topic of Anne of Green Gables, this week I unfollowed the official account of the original mini-series when they started pairing scenes from the film with modern music – particularly Taylor Swift.

I am not a fan of Taylor, one, but, two, I am not a fan of modern music being paired with films about vintage shows or books. I read those books and watch similar movies to escape the modern world. I don’t see why they need to be combined and connected to the modern world in any way. Leave me my vintage fantasy world, please. That’s what I wanted to tell them but instead I just quietly unfollowed. No need to be a prude and a drama queen at the same time. *wink*

I usually share what I am drinking and forgot to do that at the beginning of the post so I’ll share now that I have made myself a cup of peppermint tea to sip and filled it with honey after being without honey for a week or so. The weather was very warm last week so I didn’t bother to make tea, but instead drank a lot of water with lemon or grape juice mixed in.

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

Drink any lovely teas or lovely beverages?

Let me know in the comments.

Goodbye May, Hello June!

Goodbye, May. Hello, June.

Is it just me or did May just whiz by like a race car at the Indy 500?

I don’t even know how we are already to June but we are.

Our May was busier than I expected it to be. There were homeschool trips, library visits, various outings, family days, and then the everyday homeschool lessons and finishing up the school year.

In the beginning of the month, I decided that we would focus on the arts for the month of May in homeschool. Little Miss and I especially focused on various art styles and artists, music and composers, and learned about various instruments. We spent more time doing art and listening to different styles of music.

Also at the beginning of the month, we traveled to a city near us to visit a comic shop and take in the sights. We stopped at a playground on the way back from the city and spent some time there letting the kids be kids.

Later in the month, we had a homeschool gathering at our local library where Little Miss picked out books and was able to pet a pig, which was thrilling for her.

Also in May we visited an alpaca farm as part of another activity with the homeschool group.

We visited the library quite a bit and I’m sure will be doing the same in June. Little Miss has discovered her love of books and I’m very excited by that.

In May I said I would take a photo a day for the entire month. I did not do very well at that, but I did try to take more photos than I had been taking. I plan to stretch the Photo A Day for May into June (which doesn’t rhyme like A Photo A Day in May) to make up for some of the days I lost in May. Who knows, maybe I will try to do it all summer. I always love looking back at my summer in photographs when Fall rolls around.

We spent a lot of time on the trampoline at the beginning of May, but not as much toward the end. The heat keeps Little Miss and me inside a lot. I am pretty sure I’ve mentioned this before, but the trampoline actually belongs to the neighbors who are nice enough to put it up for Little Miss to jump on. They put it up this year for when their grandsons visit as well.

As for what I watched and read in May, I detail all of that in my Sunday Bookends post, but I will say that I participated in Spring of Cary with Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs so I watched a few Cary Grant movies. I also watched a few mystery shows (mainly Poirot and Brokenwood Mysteries) on my own or with my husband.

I did not read as many books as I would have liked to have for the month of May. I did, however, finish Fellowship of the Ring, which was my goal for the month of May. I was determined to finish that book, since The Boy and I started in way back in February. It was a personal accomplishment for me, even if it sounds a bit silly.

I also finished writing my own cozy mystery, Gladwynn Grant Gets Her Footing and it is now being edited and will be released July 18th.

Now looking ahead to June.

This past week we finished the bulk of our homeschool lessons with just a couple of things to do each day. Next week we will do a few more things just to wrap up what we need to do before we meet with the evaluator and then the school year is done for about two and a half months.

After I receive the summary from the evaluator, I will submit it and the paperwork that states that I plan to homeschool again next year all at the same time, which by law needs to be by June 30th.

We will have a short break with no activities scheduled but on June 20th the local library’s Summer Reading Program will begin for Little Miss. There will be various activities a couple days a week.

There will also be Vacation Bible Schools throughout the summer that I’m sure we will attend at least a couple of. There are two that are going to be held in our little town and I know that we want to try to go to at least one of them.

I’m sure June will also be full of plenty of playdates with Little Miss’s friends or hangouts with The Boy’s friends.

For reading, I have a couple of cozy mysteries on my list to read, a couple of books by author friends, and a book from the Anne of Green Gables series. I often plan what I will read in a month but I don’t usually read the books I say I will because I am a mood reader. My mood may change and that means my list will change. I do, however, want to finish the books by my author friends. I’ve been looking forward to reading the one author’s books (A.M. Heath) for a while now and the other author friend (Jenny Knipfer) has written a book in a genre I don’t usually read and I want to try it out.

These are the books I am currently planning to read in June:

How about you? How was your May and what are you looking forward to in June?

Sunday Bookends: I Finally Finished Fellowship of the Ring, and other unimportant things

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, and some weeks I share what I am listening to.

What I/we’ve Been Reading

I did it! I finally finished The Fellowship of the Ring! It only took me four months (or was it five?), but I did it.

Now, did I like it?

Yes and no.

I really loved the characters and fell in love with them. I didn’t love the descriptions of trees and where they were walking as much, but I also didn’t hate them.

In some ways, I felt like entire sections of descriptions could be cut but this was a book written at a time when television and the internet were not even around or weren’t as popular. Long descriptions that may seem a bit overdone to us now were entertaining to readers back then. They are still entertaining to many readers now. I really did like the book but sometimes my eyes started to cross when he was describing what the trees on the left looked like and the trees on the right looked like and the trees in front and the trees behind and  . . .

Well, you get my drift.

He wrote a lot about trees.

Imagine my sadness too when I realized that this book was not the actual ending.

I thought this book was when Frodo threw the ring to the fire, but, alas, no. There are two more books after this one! And both are just about as long.

Not only that but when J.R.R. Tolkien originally wrote the books, they were meant to be released as one huge volume. I mean – really?? It would have been like a 1500-page book or something. Yikes! You could kill a person if you hit them with that.

I guess it is better that the books are broken into “bite-sized” chunks but I can’t imagine how frustrating it must have been for readers in the 1950s to get that first book and think they were going to get some resolution – that all that reading about trees was going to pay off with Frodo completing his mission – only to get to the end and realize that that book was only the beginning.

Tolkien was like the George R.R. Martin of his time. Of course, I’m kidding. Tolkien was the father of Modern Fantasy so Martin is really just following in his footsteps. The only difference is that Martin will probably never finish his opus. Ha.

Now that I’ve finished Fellowship of the Ring, I need some lighter reads, so I am reading the second book in the Magic Garden Mysteries by Amanda Flower – Death and Daisies. I borrowed it through Libby, and it is due this week so I need to get reading. Her books are very fast reads so I should be able to do it if I just put down my phone and focus! Easier said than done these days.

I’ve also just borrowed a book by Andrew Klavan called When Christmas Comes because I’ve heard a lot about his writing and want to try one of his books and it was only one of two of his available to borrow on Libby. I guess Stephen King endorsed the book, which is funny because they two of them have vastly different political views.

Little Miss and I are still reading The Cabin Faced West during the day and Little House in the Big Woods at night.

The Husband is reading Jack Reacher: Better Off Dead by Lee and Andrew Child.

The Boy is losing his mind trying to finish The Fellowship of the Ring.

What’s Been Occurring

Earlier today Little Miss and I went to a Memorial Day service with The Husband. He had to take photos of it for the paper. The service was a man playing the bagpipes and he did a very nice job. I think there was supposed to be more to the service, but the Civil War reenactors didn’t show up. Not sure why. It was still a nice tribute to our fallen soldiers and held in a cemetery that has recently been revitalized.

Afterwards, we stopped at a playground near the cemetery and explored a creek behind the playground. Little Miss had more fun at the creek, partially because the playground is out in the blazing sun and partially because she just loves exploring nature.

Tomorrow we will visit my parents for Memorial Day and plan to have a cookout there.

We don’t have much on tap the rest of the week. I may visit my mom and help clean her kitchen floor but that’s not very exciting. I’m sure I won’t feel the need to blog about that. *wink*

What We Watched/are Watching

This past week The Husband I watched a Poirot and a Brokenwood Mysteries. Yes, I know. It’s the same every week lately, but hey, we are creatures of habit.

I also watched Suspicion with Cary Grant and blogged about that.

Then I watched Forgotten Way Farms and Darling Desi on YouTube.

What I’m Writing

I am working on book two of the Gladwynn Grant Mysteries and a book I am going to release in 2024. When I run out of ideas for one, I switch to the other.

This week on the blog I shared:

Saturday Afternoon Chat: Still cold in our neck of the woods, digging holes, weird grocery shopping trips and homeschool wrapping up this weekFiction Friday: Gladwynn Grant Gets Her Footing Chapter 5Spring of Cary: SuspicionThe Story Behind the Photo: Mud

What I’m Listening To

I have not been listening to music and I hope to remedy that this week and listen to more.

Blog Posts I Enjoyed This Past Week

Now it’s your turn

Now it’s your turn. 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.

Saturday Afternoon Chat: Still cold in our neck of the woods, digging holes, weird grocery shopping trips and homeschool wrapping up this week

I am writing this post while – yet again – sitting under a blanket with a dog cuddled against me.

Yes, it is still a bit chilly in Pennsylvania but that is set to change next week when temperatures will finally rise into the mid-80s.

I have mentioned before that I like chilly weather and being able to curl up under a blanket with a good book and have an excuse to not go anywhere and instead just stay at home and read a book. Still, 50 and 60 degree days this close to summer is a bit odd.

I remember one summer when Little Miss was a baby, and The Boy was also young, that it was very cold almost the entire summer. It was either cold and raining and it ruined many summer plans, especially swimming at a public pool near us – which is no longer public, sadly. The Boy was severely depressed he couldn’t do most of his summer activities. Now he no longer swims or does too many summer activities – like digging holes in the backyard. I miss that.

One summer he started digging a hole in the backyard. Why? I don’t know. Even he didn’t know. He just wanted to see how far he could get and what the hole would become. He was around 11 and I think it was around the time his closest friend stopped talking to him because I had chosen to pull him from the private Christian school he was attending at the time. Long story short, my son was having difficulties with a teacher and having panic attacks.

Regardless of all the other details, my son found new fun in his life and digging that hole was part of his fun.

He’d grab his shovel and head out into the backyard and play some music and dig a hole. Sometimes his sister would join in.

Anyhow, I have digressed a lot in this post. Back to my week recap.

This past week was very uneventful, other than an issue with the inside of my mouth and a broken tooth I’m having. Right now, I can’t get the tooth fixed because I don’t have insurance or money for the dentist (like up to $300 just to come in and see what needs to be done. No thanks.) I am thankful I am not in excruciating pain but talking has been interesting since I ripped my cheek muscle trying to get a look at the broken tooth. Fun times and stupid move by me. Hopefully it will all heal soon or I will find the money to get the one tooth pulled.

Thursday Little Miss and I drove the van up to be fixed by an exhaust specialist because the van’s exhaust system has a big hole in it.

The Husband met us there from work and brought us home. While trying to turn around because I drove past the place, some very angry man cursed at me out his truck window. I think it was at me. I’m not sure. All I know is that he sounded very angry, used extremely bad words, and then flipped off someone as I pulled out. No idea if it was at me or not because I was already going the other direction by the time he got his hand out the window.

Before we took the van, we stopped at the library to sign Little Miss up for the summer reading program and for her to pick out a few books.

Yesterday we had to pick the van back up and grab some groceries. That was a whole drama as it often is when I get groceries. Something weird happens almost every time I go. One time I locked myself out of our van and our spare keys don’t work to unlock it and the key fob lock button doesn’t work on it. It was a whole thing. Another time the youngest was just about starving and I had to get her food before we could go. This time the key fob fell off the keychain and disappeared into the void of Aldi or the parking lot or my van or I don’t even know. It was just gone. This meant I was once again stranded at Aldi with no way to get home until The Husband (who’d already had a super, super long day) could come and get me. He’d already headed home to rest because he had to take photos for the paper at a Twitty & Lynn concert. If you don’t know who they are, they are the grandchildren of Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn. Having them perform in our area was a little weird since there is nothing out here but trees and bears, but, alas there they were.

Speaking of bears, The Boy was up very late one night last week and looked out his upstairs window to see the outline of a bear in the dark sniffing our grill on the back porch. He said it was too dark to see it very well but that he could hear the bear breathing.

He left a note letting his dad know about the incident and then The Husband read in the local paper (not the one he works with) that a bear has been seen wandering our street and the streets around us.

I have been trying to see a bear for three years but only from the safety of my house. However, after hearing one is actually roaming our backyard, I’ve decided I don’t want to see one. I was even too afraid to take Little Miss to the neighbor’s trampoline this week in case the bear came out of the small woods behind it. I have no idea what I would do if a bear came out while we were up there.

It’s fairly rare for a bear to come out during the day, but a young bear was in the yard of a friend of ours down the street last summer and it had no interest in leaving, even with her daughter’s dog barked at it. Zooma the Wonder Dog likes to go with us when we go up to the trampoline and I know she’d try to defend us. This week I am going to look up what we should do because it is supposed to be very nice out, and it will be nice weather to jump on the trampoline. Or it will be too hot to jump on the trampoline. Not sure which yet. We never can tell with Pennsylvania weather.

Today we had gymnastics for Little Miss and then we will have a week off from gymnastics.

School is winding down for us and we are mainly tackling last minute tasks such as finishing book reports and a research paper for The Boy, since I am required to have writing samples for him now that he is in high school.

Our last official day of school is June 2 and then we meet with the evaluator the next week. The evaluator will go over what work we did for the year and then write up a report that says we did what we needed to do under the requirements of our state’s homeschool law. We then hand that in to the school district and the year is officially done when the superintendent sends us a letter saying we have done what we needed to do – again – under state law.

I mentioned above that I signed Little Miss up for the local Summer Reading Program. That starts June 20th and is every Tuesday and Wednesday. It runs for about a month and should keep us busy and at the library at least a couple of times a week.

The Boy is still working at a local restaurant, at least for the summer. His schedule will get busier in the fall because he is going to be attending a trade school near us a couple of times a week in addition to homeschool, so he plans to quit his job.

I have not been drinking as much tea lately because I am out of honey. I planned to get some yesterday but after all the drama, I just wanted to head home. In place of honey, I used sugar. Yuck. I don’t know how I ever drank anything in it with sugar. It’s just too sweet and doesn’t taste right.

Since it will be warm this upcoming week I’ll probably stick to cool water or cool water with a bit of grape juice mixed in.

How about you? What have you been drinking and what will you be drinking this upcoming week? Herbal tea? Iced tea? Lemonade? Let me know in the comments and let me know how your week was.

Fiction Friday: Gladwynn Grant Gets Her Footing Chapter 5

I thought I’d share another another chapter of Gladwynn Grant Gets Her Footing this week. This book is with my husband now for editing so there very well could be typos, etc. here. This is kind of “as is”, but changes will be made before I publish the book July 18.

That reminds me: If you want to preorder a copy of the book, you can do so on Amazon for 99 cents for a limited amount of time. You can only preorder an ebook copy of the book at this time.

If you want to catch up with the other chapters you can do so here:

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

The Birchwood municipal building reminded Gladwynn of an old warehouse. The outside walls and roof were metal. A pair of glass doors brought them into the inside of the building, which doubled as a community hall. The ceiling was tall with bright fluorescent lights hanging on large rectangular fixtures.

They had set rows of long tables and chairs up in the middle of the room and Gladwynn guessed the hall would sit at least 200. Right now, there were probably about 50 people sitting in chairs that had been set up in front of a long table at one end of the hall.

“We’ll sit here in the back,” Laurel whispered. “At most meetings, I’d say grab a seat up front, but for this meeting, Glenn always suggested sitting near the exit just in case. I took his advice and was glad I did that night the fists started flying. I hightailed it right out of here and followed up later with a call to the board president.”

A fist fight? Gladwynn’s muscles tightened. What in the world had she gotten herself into?

Glenn was the reporter who’d covered this beat for 25 years. He’d retired last year, which was why Gladwynn was even here.

Laurel placed a notepad and tape recorder on the table. She tapped the speaker of the recorder. “If you don’t have one of these yet, be sure to invest in one. It’s good to be able to play the meeting back later to back up your notes and make sure you get quotes correct. It’s also nice to have in case someone tells you that what you said they said, isn’t what they said. Understand what I’m saying?”

Gladwynn laughed. “Oddly, yes.”

Two men sat across from them, grinning like they’d just told each other a joke.

Gladwynn guessed the men to be in their late 50s, or early 60s. One was slightly balding, carried some extra weight in the belly and wore dark-rimmed glasses. He reminded Gladwynn of a giddy grade school kid the way he was beaming and practically bouncing in his chair.

He leaned across the table toward Laurel. “You’re in for a good one tonight, Laurel. We hear Daryl Stabler is all wound up about something.”

Laurel kept her gaze on her notebook. “Oh yeah? What has him riled up this time?”

The other man shrugged. “Who knows? He was ranting in the diner this morning about some threat he got. We figure it has something to do with the land the fire department wanted to buy last year.”

Laurel cut a glance at Gladwynn. “This is Frank Tyler and Rich Ryder. They’re residents and–“

“We’re more than that,” Frank broke in. “I’m on the local community watch and Rich is with the fire department and used to be a member of the board.”

Laurel managed a strained smile. “Yes, of course. They are more than residents. They’ve helped me when  I’ve covered meetings out here, especially last month when some tension, shall we say, came up.”

Gladwynn tilted her head questioningly. “Tension?”

Rich scoffed and waved his hand. “Ah, it was just crazy old Lester Jenkins. He’s mental, everyone knows that. It was something about the township leaving snow on his property. He’s always mad about something.”

Frank turned his attention to Gladwynn. “Yeah, but it all got crazy after he did his yelling. He walked outside for ten minutes and came back again. Poor Laurel here thought he’d gone out for a gun.”

Laurel looked up at the ceiling. “That’s not really what—”

“Oh yeah, you did.” Rich agreed. “You thought he was going to shoot us all up. I saw you inching toward the exit.”

Rich leaned slightly across the table and reached down to touch his ankle. He lowered his voice to a conspiratorial tone. “You two don’t need to worry, though, okay? If he does it again, I’m ready.”

Gladwynn’s eyebrows dipped. “Ready for what?”

Rich’s voice was at a whisper now, his hand still down near his ankle. “To eliminate the threat. I’m carrying.”

His explanation didn’t clear up anything for Gladwynn. “Carrying what?”

“A gun!” Rich hissed in a loud whisper.

Gladwynn’s eyes widened, and she leaned back slightly.

Rich scoffed and waved his hand dismissively. “Don’t worry. It’s registered and conceal carry is legal here.” He tipped his chin up. “Where you from anyhow?”

“New York.”

Frank made a face. “Oh. Sorry to hear that.”

She suddenly felt defensive. “I’m not from the city. Just upstate.”

Rich scowled. “Ain’t much difference between the city and upstate anymore with those governors you people been electing.”

Gladwynn was grateful that the sound of a pounding gavel interrupted the conversation.

The room had filled up now, with almost every seat available being used. Gladwynn had no idea people actually showed up to municipal meetings anymore, let alone this many.

Voices merged together, creating a loud hum. The gavel pounded again.

“I’m calling the meeting to order,” the man with the gavel called loudly. A hush began to fall over the room.

Seven people were sitting at the front table. Gladwynn guessed that the one with the pen and paper, scribbling furiously, was the board secretary.

Laurel leaned close to her and lowered her voice. “They’re going to open the floor for a public comment section after the secretary reads the minutes. That’s when all the fur tends to fly.”

“Are all municipal meetings like this around here?”

Laurel shook her head with a smile. “Most are more boring than watching sap run.”

The public comment section didn’t show as much crazy as Gladwynn had expected it to. At first anyhow.

Most of the comments involved questions about trash in the township park, complaints about the snowplow hitting a mailbox, and questions about an upcoming winter festival.

But when a wild-eyed character with white hair that stuck up straight from his head stood with a piece of paper in his hand, Gladwynn braced herself.

The man took a step forward, pointing at the man who had identified himself as board president John Giordano earlier in the evening. “John, did you leave this letter in my mailbox?”

John made a face. “What are you talking about? What letter?”

The man persisted. “I got a threatening letter in my mailbox, and I know without a doubt it’s from you. I had every right to sell that land. You know that. It’s nobody’s business, especially not the townships.”

Laurel leaned toward Gladwynn. “That’s Daryl Stabler. He owns a huge plot of land over on 84. There are rumors some big development has bought it, but we haven’t been able to track down who yet[lh1] .”

Gladwynn nodded and turned her attention back to the front of the room.

John folded his arms across his chest, a deep frown curving his mouth downward. “I don’t care what you do with your land, you old fool. You stop taking your meds or something? Or maybe you need to start. Now, if you’re done, the public comment session is concluded. I motion we –

“I’m not done until you admit that you left this letter!”

John rolled his eyes and let out an exasperated huff. “What’s even in this letter?”

“You should know!”

“I don’t know because I didn’t leave it!”

“You threatened me, and I won’t stand for it!”

John suddenly stood and pointed a finger at Daryl. “I did not threaten you. You take that back right now! I didn’t write that letter and I did not threaten you.”

A man with salt and pepper hair raised a hand at the end of the long table where the board members were sitting. “Daryl, you’ll need to be careful here. You’re stepping into slanderous territory.”

Laurel whispered, “Township Solicitor Trent Styles.”

Daryl’s voice rose. “It is not slander when it’s true!”

Gladwynn glanced at the exit and started calculating how many steps it would take her to get there. She also wondered how many other people in the room had weapons strapped to their ankles.

Someone at the back of the room cleared his throat. Gladwynn turned to see a dark-haired man wearing a uniform, his arms folded across his broad chest.

It was a throat clearing apparently only she heard because everyone else was still shouting accusations back and forth. She kept her eyes on the man, wondering if he was a security guard. He sported a well-kept dark beard, but she could still see a muscle jumping in his jaw. From where she was sitting his eyes appeared to be green with a hint of gold.   

His uniform didn’t look like a state police uniform, but she’d be very surprised if this small township had a police force.

The volume level rose. Curse words were uttered. Two men stood nose to nose.

“That land is mine to sell, not the townships! I don’t care if you wanted it for your fire company!”

“You promised it to our fire company!”

“That’s the way they work, Daryl. Watch them. Threatening. Manipulation. It’s how this township has always worked!”

The loud pounding of the gavel on the table didn’t even silence the room. In fact, it seemed like the people, many of them now standing and pointing fingers at the board members and each other, were trying to shout over it.

“That’s enough!”

The booming voice behind Gladwynn made her jump. She and Laurel both turned to look at the uniformed man. The voices continued at the same volume.

It took another firm declaration from the man before the group began to settle down. His voice settled into a calmer tone as the conversation faded. “Let’s have some sort of semblance of decorum here, people.”

He never moved as he spoke, his arms still folded across his chest, his legs apart in a wide stance.

Even as the voices quieted, many continued to glower at each other, with a few casting annoyed glances back toward the source of their admonishment, as they sat.

John took a deep breath. “Vince is right. We all need to calm down and let cooler heads prevail.” He folded one hand over the other on the table in front of him. “One way to do that is close this public session for now and get to the other business of the evening.”

The other business was routine and mundane with far too much time spent, in Gladwynn’s opinion, on the cost of gravel for the township roads.

She looked at her notes and circled Daryl’s name, then scrawled the words property, fire company, and threatening letter. Next to each she added a question mark.

When the meeting concluded, Laurel stood. “Come on, I’ll introduce you to the board members.”

John held out a hand toward her after Laurel’s introductions. “Nice to meet you. Gwen was it?”

“Gladwynn actually.”

“Oh.” John, a pleasant looking man with a round face and gray hair, huffed out a soft chuckle. “I guess that’s one of those more modern names, huh?” He winked. “Sorry you had to experience that unpleasantness during the public comment session during your first visit with us.”

A woman to his right was busy packing up papers and folders. Without looking up she smirked. “If you’re going to be here every month, you might as well get used to it.”

John laughed nervously. “Don’t let Margaret here scare you off. It’s not always this bad.”

The board member who Laurel had introduced to her as Betty Wilson snorted as she stood and pulled a blue jacket on. “Yeah, but it will be if these nutcases have their way.”

John cleared his throat and stood. “Well, anyhow, it’s nice to meet you, Gladwynn. It’s especially nice to have a new face to look at. Seeing Glen’s grumpy mug every month was grating on my nerves.”

Gladwynn told everyone it was nice to meet them, noticing that everyone except John avoided eye contact as they pulled on their jackets and gathered papers before leaving quickly out the back door.

Back in the car, Laurel tipped her head back and laughed. “Those people are crazy! Seriously! First the guy with the gun, then the whole thing with the threats, and then John Cena telling everyone to shut their mouths. There has got to be something in the water out here, I swear. They’re all nuts. Glad I got out when I did.”

Gladwynn drank the last of her coffee. “That guy was better looking than John Cena.”

Laurel looked at her and raised an eyebrow. “Oh yeah? You think so?”

Gladwynn cleared her throat, warmth spreading from her chest into her face. “Not that I was really looking. I mean, it’s just that I don’t think John Cena is that attractive so . . .”

She let her words trail away as she tried to think of a way to change the subject. “Do you know who he is?”

Laurel was clearly amused by this turn in the conversation. “So, this guy was not John Cena. He was way hotter. Is that what you’re saying?”

Gladwynn sighed. “That is not what I said, but, well, just about any man is hotter to me than John Cena. Anyhow, let’s just change the subject, shall we? What’s the deal with this property that Daryl guy was talking about?”

Laurel shrugged. “No idea. He’s always on about something at these meetings. I only filled in for Glen a couple of times and every time he was there to complain about something or other. These people always have some kind of crisis going on. It’s like they can’t survive in life without having something to be offended or up in arms about.”

Fog floated across the road and Laurel flicked on her high beams. “Tell me about this name of yours anyhow. Is it a family name? I’m guessing Scottish.”

Here we go again, she thought. Explaining my name.

“Yes, Scottish. Gladwynn was my great-great grandmother’s middle name. She and my great-grandfather came to the United States in 1835 from Scotland.” She managed a half smile, even though she hated telling the story again. “My parents really got into the Scottish names. My sisters are Iona and Sheena. My brother is Caelen and everyone calls him Salen because they have no idea it’s a hard c, not a soft one.”

Laurel glanced at her and laughed. “Seriously?”

“I wish I wasn’t.”

“Are you the youngest?”

“Of the girls, yes. Sheena is two years older than me. Iona is four years older, and Caelen is five years younger. He was a bit of a surprise.”

“Do your siblings live back where you are from?”

She shook her head. “Not anymore. Iona is in Florida raising three kids, Sheena moved to London last year to tour with the London Philharmonic, and Caelen is playing football for the University of Michigan.” She slumped in her seat and looked out the passenger window. “I’m the family oddball. I don’t have any kids, any talent – musical, athletics or otherwise – and I prefer being alone to being with people.” Chewing on her already short thumbnail she decided not to share about the many talents her parents also had – one of them consistently reminding her she wasn’t as talented as her siblings.

Laurel turned on the windshield wipers as rain began to fall. “Sounds like your siblings are just over achievers. Those type of people are usually super boring anyhow.”

Laurel wouldn’t call any of her siblings boring. Not in the least.

Back at the office she and Laurel worked on the story together, comparing notes, and choosing to focus less on the property and letter drama and more on the fact that the cost of cinders had doubled this year, which would put an already struggling township in even more debt.

She was barely able to keep her eyes open when she finally left the office around 10, which was probably why she almost tripped over a cat in the parking lot.

“Sheesh, little guy—or gal—I didn’t even see you down there.” She stopped and rubbed her hand across the top of the cat’s head. The cat raised its’ chin to move itself more firmly under her strokes then rubbed against her legs, weaving in and out.

She petted the cat for several minutes, then yawned. “Okay, buddy. I’ve got to get going. Head on home. I’m sure someone is missing you.”

Looking up as she closed the driver’s side door, she noticed the cat had perched itself on the concrete curb stop in front of her parking space and was watching her with half-opened eyes. It lifted a large white paw and licked it, then began to clean itself. All four of the five-toed paws were white and matched a white streak of fur across its belly, up its front, across one side of its nose.

The cat reminded her of one she’d had back in New York when she was about seven. She hoped this cat had a longer life than that one had. Worrying about the well lbeing of a cat was something she’d have to address later, though. For now, she needed a warm cup of tea and a pile of comfortable quilts to fall asleep under.

Spring of Cary: Suspicion

Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and Katja from Breath of Hallelujah and I have been watching Cary Grant movies this spring.

Up this week was Suspicion.

This one starred Cary and Joan Fontaine.

It was released in 1941 but takes place in 1938 and is based on a 1932 novel called Before the Fact by Frances Iles.

As soon as you see who directed the film – Alfred Hitchcock – you know this isn’t going to be your regular, happy-go-lucky Cary Grant film.

Here we are again with Cary playing a playboy named Johnnie , which I guess was the popular bad boy name back in the day. Or potential bad boy. This time he is Johnnie Aysgarth.

He meets Lina McLaidlaw (Fontaine) on a train by chance. Or is it by chance?

He sees her again at the horse track, where he is well known.

When he asks the women crowded around him who she is they tell him that she’s not really up his alley.

His response? “I’m a little bored with people up my alley.”

He’s clearly looking for a new conquest.

He’s very excited to meet her and she’s, of course, taken by him because, well, hello. It’s Cary Grant and he’s very delicious in this movie. He even knows she’s taken with him by the fact he finds a newspaper clipping featuring a photograph of him that she’s saved and placed inside the book she is reading.

(An aside: as a glasses wearer, I do think it is unnecessary that she keeps taking off her glasses to look more attractive. That is a minor issue, of course.)

At first it appears that Cary is really pursuing Joan in this film.

The question is why? He seems to have some underlying reasons for his apparent affection,

The movie seems very light hearted and he seems very charming and even full of humor.

But here seems to be something more sinister going on. You can feel it rumbling under the surface.

That rumble starts when Johnnie circumvents a trip to church by demanding she go on a walk with him instead. We immediately cut to a scene of them struggling.

“Now what did you think I was trying to do, kill you?” he asks. “Nothing less than murder could justify such a violent reaction.”

Whoa. Say what?

He claims he just wanted to touch and fix her hair. “Your hair has such exciting possibilities that I became passionate.”

Oh. Okay. Creepy.

He’s very handsy and touchy, even showing her first hand where her occipital maxillary bone is by reaching inside the top of her shirt to touch it. Like um…dude. Back off.

He even tries to kiss her on the hill outside the church and they barely know each other. Very forward and if I were her I would have slapped him but it’s clear the woman hasn’t had a lot of male attention in her life so she is wary, but is clearly eating up his pushy behavior. This is the first time he calls her “monkey face” which becomes his affectionate term for her throughout the movie. One I find irritating and degrading.

When he walks her back to her parents house he tells her he’ll see her at three that afternoon. She says she’s busy but then she hears her father saying she’ll never get married because she’s just not marrying material, she turns around and kisses him hard on the mouth.

From there her obsession begins and she starts pursuing him more than him pursuing her.

Now we, the viewers, are thrown onto a path of constantly wondering what this guy is really all about.

Her father suggests that he is wild and this seems to intrigue her even more. Now she wants him even more and begins calling him and sending letters. All of them go unanswered.

It’s actually a bit sad how desperate she becomes.

She finally meets up with him at a dance and all the girls rush to him but he has eyes only for her. He swings her out onto the dance floor and then out the door where they escape in his car.

“Have you ever been kissed in a car?” he asks.

“Never,” she says.

“Would you like to be?” he asks.

This all seems romantic for the most part, but, yet . . . something is just off.

He seems to be choosing someone who isn’t used to dating or attention from men for a purpose.

The camera angles in this movie are so well done – like all Alfred Hitchcock movies. Spinning cameras while they are kissing and panning out and in at the most interesting times. Then there is the play with light and shadows. They create such foreshadowing and a feeling of foreboding, especially toward the end of the movie when Lina really starts to question the motives of this man, who she incidentally marries.

After they marry, she’s whisked off to Europe for tours and excursions that blows the mind of her usually timid self.

Johnnie must have money, she thinks. He spent all this money and rented a beautiful home for them. But then Johnny asks for her help in paying a friend back $1,000 that he borrowed for the honeymoon and the red flags start flying everywhere. She ignores all those red flags and steps all over them.

I’m not going to give away too much about the movie in case you have never seen it but there is a lot of dark behavior by Cary in this movie and even though he is handsome and charming he is also inconsiderate of others and emotionally manipulative when it comes to his wife. Eventually he’s also outright abusive.

There is also way too much denial from this woman for most of the movie. I feel for her and how she was completely swept up by Cary’s charm, but I have to admit I might have done the same. I mean, that smile. Come on. So captivating.

One of the many odd things about this movie is apparently everyone is supposed to be British and it’s supposed to be in England but almost no one has a British accent.

I found it interesting that Fontaine won an Oscar for this movie and that it was the only Oscar won by any actor in a Hitchcock film. I was shocked that Cary didn’t win and wasn’t even nominated for his role because I really thought he did a phenomenal job of being both charming and creepy.

I also thought it was interesting to see a woman dressed as a man at one of the dinners with a local crime novelist (whose books Johnnie loves to read and that’s all I’m going to say about that. Ahem.), which was not common in movies back then. A blog says that the woman dressed as a man is the female novelist’s wife or partner, but I have no idea. I suppose that’s what is implied but it wasn’t the main focus of that scene.

The film, according to an article on Wikipedia, shows what happens when Hollywood transfers a novel to film because this film changed the intent of the book. The book’s message was about how a person feels knowing they might be murdered. Again, not to give away the end of the movie, this was changed in the film under pressure from the studio and it’s something that Hitchcock was not happy about and apparently complained about for years.

It was his own fault, though. He caved under the pressure and let the screenplay writers write the ending the studio wanted. It is not the same ending as the book and now I want to read the book and see how it differs.

This was definitely my favorite of the movies we watched other than Holiday.

Next week is Notorious, which is another Hitchcock film and that will round out our Spring of Cary features.

I don’t know if we will do a Summer of … whomever or not yet. I am considering doing one on my own but…I haven’t really committed yet.

So, if you want to read Erin’s impressions of Suspicion you can do so HERE and you can read about Katja’s views HERE.

The Story Behind the Photo: Mud

Growing up my children really liked making messes outside.

In this photo, my son had added water from the hose to the already starting mud in our side yard.

He and my daughter made a type of mudslide, even though the yard was flat. They slid all over in that mud, made holes and filled it with water, splashed mud and water, piled the mud up, and rubbed it all over themselves.

Bottom line?

They had a blast.

We lived on a fairly busy street at the time, right across from the high school. People who drove by probably thought one of two things: 1) I was a horrible parent who let my kids make all kinds of messes and took photos of them doing it or 2) I was the best mother in the world because I let my kids make all kinds of messes and took photos of them doing it.

Either way, I don’t care.

My kids had fun.

They had real childhoods.

They lived in the moment.

They don’t do that as often anymore. Not with the messes. They still live in the moment and I still let them be kids. They still have a real childhood.

I can’t lie, though, if they poured some mud and water down the hill in the backyard of the house we live in now and slid down it and covered themselves all over in mud . . .

I’d totally let them.

I’d grab my camera, and would absolutely love photographing it.

#letthembelittle

Sunday Bookends: Good but unrealistic books, what are these flowers? And super cold weather in May.

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, and some weeks I share what I am listening to.

What I/we’ve Been Reading

Last week I finished Flowers and Foul Play by Amanda Flower. I liked the book for the most part but did find how the case happened and was solved all within a matter of a few days (and the police inspector started to fall for the main character) farfetched but so is a garden that comes to life when the main character walks into it. So, I suppose, you need to suspend some belief when reading Flower’s books, but that’s okay. They are a nice escape.

I have the second book in the series in my Kindle now. I’ll see if it is as ridiculous in its timeline as the first. Again, though, I still enjoyed the book, even if the timeline was a bit silly to me. My books are silly too so…I’m not going to get too up in arms about it all.

I am determined to finish Fellowship of The Ring this week even though I feel like I will never finish the book. Every time I think I’m almost done, I look, and I have several more chapters left. I have four chapters left but considering Tolkien’s chapters are like 100 pages each, I have like four more novellas left. Sigh.

I’m enjoying the book, even though it is very long. I have also paused during the reading of it to finish the cozy mystery I am writing and read other books, so that is another reason it is taking so long to read.

I started reading Anne of Ingleside by L.M. Montgomery, which I hope is better than Anne’s House of Dreams, which was extremely depressing. Reading about the innocent, wide-eyed Anne growing up is a bit depressing honestly. Within the first two chapters of this book Anne is lamenting growing old and talking with her best friend Diana about how she’d love to be young again. All of that conversation hit a wee bit close to home for me. I think I might prefer reading about the young Anne since that is more of an escape for me. Reading about her older with five kids is a bit too much reality for me, I think. We will see.

What’s Been Occurring

I didn’t get a Saturday Afternoon Chat post written because we were gone all day yesterday for gymnastics, a family picnic and then a movie with The Husband, The Boy, and Little Miss.

I know I should just write their real names on here, but I can’t seem to stop writing the nicknames, so I’ll keep doing that.

Earlier this week I was writing blog posts under a blanket with a warm cup of tea.

Under a blanket in May?

Yep. I was,

This week’s weather was cold. Yes. Cold. In May. It was so cold that on Wednesday night into Thursday we had a freeze warning. Not a frost warning. A freeze warning. It dropped to 32 degrees and it killed part of my lilacs. Not cool, Pennsylvania. Not cool at all. The death was a bit slow too. They looked pretty good the next day but by this morning they have shriveled. It makes me want to cry. I’ve really been looking forwards to the flowers blooming in our yard and having them ripped away just as they started to bloom feels very cruel.

I’ve heard that we are going to have a mild summer and if May is an indication, those predictions are accurate.

Little Miss and I did get outside at least one day for a jump on the trampoline. She jumped. I read from the historical fiction book we are using for history.

Both of us are more than ready for school to be over this year and it will be on June 2.

Dragging through our schoolwork has not been easy at all.

As I’ve mentioned before, though, we are focusing mainly on art and music for the month of May and that has been easier than pushing through Math every single day. We still have some math I would like to finish before the school year is all the way done, though, so the kid will have to suck it up a bit this week and next.

Abrupt topic shift warning: At the park yesterday before the movie, I saw this tree. Does anyone know what it is? Because I had no idea. From a distance, I thought it was a lilac tree but it is not.

What We watched/are Watching

I mentioned above that we went to the movies yesterday.

The Husband and I split with the kids. Originally, we were all going to go see Guardians of the Galaxy 3 but shifted gears late in the week when we heard that the movie was pretty intense in language, etc. We thought it might be a bit much for Little Miss who is not a fan of violence or swearing.

She wanted to see Super Mario Brothers anyhow, so we lucked out that they were both playing at the small theater near us, which has four theaters. That’s a lot for our little theaters around here.

The only issue was that Super Mario Brothers didn’t start until 45 minutes after their movie started so Little Miss and I wasted some time with a piece of red velvet cake and a juice pack for her and a cup of tea for me.

We also looked at all the artwork at the theater.

While we were in the movie it hit me that this was a Chris Pratt weekend since he plays Star Lord in the Guardians movies, and he voices Mario.

Earlier in the week The Husband and I watched an episode of Poirot and an episode of Brokenwood Mysteries.

Little Miss and I watched Mary Berry episodes and she rewatched Bluey again.

What I’m Writing

I have been working a little bit on book two in the Gladwynn Grant Mysteries and a little on blog posts and a little on..well, I’ve just been working on a little of a lot of stuff.

What I’m Listening To

Elevation Worship has a new album out this week so I will probably be listening to that a lot this week.

Now it’s your turn

Now it’s your turn. 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.