Tag Archives: family

The garden of Dr. Evil

Aunt Jacquie’s house is wonderful, unique, thoughtfully decorated. We’ve already talked about her elegant but unloungeworthy living room, and we will be doing a tour of the secret staircase and castle wonderland that is the attic, but today I wanted to revel with y’all in her garden.

Here’s the front of the house with its lush green grass and hosts of plants.

The front of the yard has this marvellous old tree . . .

. . . where aunt Jacquie has thoughtfully installed a little door for the gnomes to go in and out. This will go a long way in improving the crumbling state of human/gnome relations, I’m sure.

But that’s just the beginning of the garden dynasty she is building–let’s go around to the back of the house:

The patio area is brand new, and was the perfect setting for a grilling post, manned by Martin for approximately 12 hours straight.

I dub thee Martin of the Grilled Bacon.

The patio area is also perfect for toenail painting (and the refurbishing of waning pedicures):

And adult conversation under the shade of the umbrella.

Do you remember that time (in your early days on this planet) when adult conversation was a mystery? Why would anyone just want to sit around and talk all day? I would ask myself. Surely there were more interesting things to do–like making paperdolls. Or going swimming. Or jumping over towels. Or pretending that the grass is a pit of quicksand, and you have walk along its edge in perfect balance and not set a single toe on it–or else you’ll fall in and be swallowed whole.

As you can see, the patio is not the end of the back yard.

There is an expanse of open space in which any children at hand can completely exhaust themselves running around.

Go Snugs go!

The adults can also migrate to the shade under the tree and continue their boring conversational endeavors.

While the kids were blowing bubbles, my cousin Eleanor and her friend Summer chatted away on some blankets.

I don’t have any landscaping skills or any reason to do landscaping, being ferreted away in an apartment building far away from things called ‘yards’ or ‘lawns,’ but if I did have some such yard or lawn, I would certainly find inspiration in what aunt Jacquie has done with the place.

Hmmm–that was a convoluted way of saying ‘way to go aunt Jacquie!’

She has some mad skillz.

Yes, I just said ‘skillz’–and I’m not taking it back. Nope.

Let’s venture around to the side of the house, where there is another patio area nestled in.

June and aunt Jacquie did me the courtesy of posing. I think I’ll call this area the ‘breakfast nook.’ Or maybe the ‘afternoon tea nook.’ Or maybe the ‘movie star nook.’

Yes, June is looking like a movie star.

Something about those sun glasses screams ‘glamour!’ to me.

And the flowers . . . oh the flowers. Is there anything more photogenic in the world?

I mean, besides movie star June?

So I’m curious–who out there has yards? And how much design have you put into them? And do you mow your lawn with great joy or with great gloom? Or do you just hire the neighbor boy to do it?

The Alpine mysteries

I’ve talked before about my mother-in-law and her propensity towards mysteries. Every time I visit, she has a new one that I am always welcome to pick up–this is how I got addicted to Diane Mott Davidson and Joanne Fluke. So fluffy . . . so wrong . . . and yet so right. Yes, I am a conflicted person. My brain tells me that I should constantly be ingesting Great Literature and churning out amazing thoughts about how the power of the woman/goddess figure is in direct contradiction with her liminality, and how the psychology of the stock figures . . . blabbity bla . . . well, something-or-another super smart, but let’s be real here. Sometimes all I want is a predictable story with a sure-fire resolution.

A few months ago I got started on Mary Daheim’s Alpine series. Beginning with “The Alpine Advocate,” there is a mystery for each letter of the alphabet. Cut me some slack on the above picture–I know those covers are kind of grim–but these books are seriously enjoyable. And not nearly as fluffy as the books mentioned above! Hence the reduction of my guilt factor . . . and hence my increased pleasure while reading them.

First of all, the main character, Emma Lord, is not your run-of-the-mill mystery-book heroine. She is a 40-something big-city transplant to a small town in Washington; she’s a single mom, a Catholic, a career woman, a smoker who’s always quitting, and a snappy tongue with a soft heart underneath. In the mountainous, frequently snowy community of Alpine, she runs the local paper: the Alpine Advocate. Grumpy at times, full of good intentions at others, generous, and often lonely, Emma makes for a very three dimensional character.

She has a small staff at her newspaper office–the flaky college grad Carla who is both full of the energy of youth and full of rampant typos, ad manager Ed who Emma just doesn’t have the heart to fire (though he’s possibly the Worst Employee of All Time), and finally her strong-willed House and Home editor, Vida, who always wears a hat and unfailingly acts like she’s the boss.

Not all the mysteries are solved. And I don’t mean that there are frustrating loose ends left or holes in the plot–just that the books are more true to life than other mysteries I’ve read, which tend to wrap things up in such a nice and tidy package that it leaves you almost . . . disappointed. When comes out a little too nicely, it’s just not as satisfying, you know what I mean? Not so with this series. The disappointments, relationships, twist and turns, are much more fleshed out than your average cozy mystery.

The books are sometimes suspenseful but mostly character-driven. They are rarely gruesome (though you wouldn’t guess by the covers of the older edition) and just dark enough to be realistic while still being satisfying and an overall happy read.

So in conclusion: if you’re hankering for a nice, long series that doesn’t require too much emotional investment and yet still has enough depth that you don’t feel embarrassed just picking it up, check these books out!