Re-Visiting Nancy Drew Yet Again

As I wrote before, I once belonged to a Nancy Drew book club and received a new book each month. My sister Joanna read my books and told me they were different than the ones she had read. She thought the earlier versions had more character.

Years later when Joanna was sick with cancer, I tried to find as many of the original Nancy Drew stories as I could. After Joanna died, I took the books back.

It's been over 20 years. I decided to keep one and donate the rest to the Norwalk Library when it accepts donations again.

Here the books I have:

• The Secret of the Old Clock
• The Bungalow Mystery
• The Secret of Red Gate Farm
• The Clue in the Diary
• Nancy's Mysterious Letter
• The Clue of the Tapping Heels
• The Mystery of the Brass Bound Trunk
• The Mystery of the Moss-Covered Mansion
• The Club in the Crumbling Wall
• The Mystery at the Ski Jump
• The Witch Tree Symbol

I'll be writing about these books and about Nancy in future posts.

A Hero Passes...

...over a bridge strewn with rose petals where his blood was once spilled on Bloody Sunday.

a preacher to chickens

the boy from Troy

a Freedom Rider

the conscience of the Congress

RIP Congressman John Lewis.

Opening Day--Better Late Than Never

In a normal year, we'd be over halfway through the baseball season. But the year, due to Covid-19, nothing is normal.

We only watched part of the game because we went to DPF for the first time this month. We did see the highlight: a solo home run by Yoenis Cepedes; the Mets beat the Atlanta Braves 1-0.

Cespedes became the first designated hitter in MLB history to hit a home run in a regular season National League game. It was Cespedes' first appearance in a game in over two years.

Jacob deGrom pitched a gem, giving up only one hit in five innings. He increased his scoreless streak to 28 innings. Seth Lugo, Justin Wilson, and Edwin Diaz did the rest. The Mets are 39-20 in opening day games, the best record in MLB.

LGM!

Heat Wave, Canine Health Update, and Midweek Miscellany

We're in our first official heat wave of the season. It started Saturday, but it's been hot and humid for much longer. My new morning routine is similar to one of my old routines. I get up, drink some iced coffee, and then drive Lola down to Mathews Park. From there, we take the NRVT to Oyster Shell Park.

We really discovered Oyster Shell Park when we went to the Nice Festival there four years ago. I had thought the park consisted only of the playground at the base. There's a pathway across a bridge, then a loop. The upper loop is separated by a field and a line of trees from I-95; the lower loop is adjacent to the Norwalk River.

I don't like the traffic noise at Oyster Shell, but there are many things I do like. I can walk to Oyster Shell, though I usually don't. I like the breeze off the river--usually without mosquitoes. I like watching the rowers from the Norwalk Boat Club. I like the wildlife at Oyster Shell: groundhogs, rabbits, birds, the hawk. Today an odd-shaped bird on the water caught my eye. It appeared to be a sea gull wrestling with a fish. A moment later, a normal sea bird floated on the water.

*** 

Lola is recovering. She lost 4 to 5 pounds due to her digestive problems. I have to say she looks good, but I feel bad that she had to suffer to do so. She had not been interested in eating. When I made her chicken and rice with WD prescription diet for digestive issues, she just picked out the chicken. On Sunday, I added chicken broth and she finally ate everything in her bowl. Lola's on medications and probiotics. She's not quite back to normal, but seems to be feeling better, and we're relieved.

***

I went to the gym yesterday to put Jeff's and my memberships on hold. The gym reopened in June, but I'm not comfortable returning. I can only put our memberships on hold a month at a time, so we're good until September. I hope I'll feel comfortable enough to return then. I miss working out. I've gotten a little better about exercising at home, and I am walking a lot with Lola, but it's just not the same.

And so it goes.

Another Week Goes By

The days tend to blend together this year. Since Jeff is still working full-time, we still notice weekends, but otherwise, things get confusing. I have a class on Monday, so I have an appointment that day. For a while, I designated Tuesday as my shopping day, but I no longer stick to that. I usually do laundry on Wednesday.

I do better when I give myself specific chores or projects to do on a particular day. I have to work on that.

This week, we've been worried about Lola. She started having diarrhea on Sunday and vomiting on Monday. We took her to the vets on Monday and Friday and I dropped off a poop sample on Wednesday. She hasn't vomited since Tuesday, but the other problem continues. Sometimes she's lethargic; other times she's excited to go out for a walk. It's very confusing.

While I feel fairly safe in Connecticut, Covid-19 is still ravaging the nation. This article is frightening and appalling. As Blue Cactus Grill said on a sign, (more or less) Your grandparents fought a war, all you have to do is sit on the couch.

I continue to try to take pictures on walks with Lola.  Here are a few.


Neighborhood bunnies.

Oyster Shell Park

Writing Class Update

I've had two sessions of my summer creative writing class on Zoom due to Covid-19. I thought it could be a letdown because I really loved my Flash and Micro Fiction Class. But I am loving this class too. In our first class, we wrote about memorable summer foods.

Our homework was to write about a summer person. I wrote about a 17-year-old girl who worked in a candy shop at the Jersey Shore. My story was inspired by my cousin, but it wasn't her story. I liked it as I wrote it. But after hearing some stories in class, I thought that maybe my story wasn't so good, after all. I ended up getting some nice compliments. It reminded me not to compare my stories to other writers' works. 

Our homework for this week is a theme of late at night. The complication is that we have to write an A to Z story. The first sentence begins with A, the second with B, etc. for a 26 sentence story. 

I wrote a story on Monday and read it to Jeff. He caught that I had skipped the letter J. D’oh. That was fairly easy to fix, but I wasn't crazy about my story after L. I rewrote the second half of the story on Tuesday and put it aside. 

I'll take another look in the next few days.

Poor Lola Revisited

Lola's had a rough couple months: infections, toxins in her kidneys, surgery.

Now on top of everything else, she's having digestive problems: diarrhea and vomiting. So back to the vets we went. We got some medicine and I made her chicken and rice.

I hope she feels better soon.

TV Time

Covid-19 has shut down TV production as well as many other things. I have to say that we really haven't noticed the lack of new TV. 

Jeff and I have gotten used to long breaks between seasons: Homeland was on hiatus for two years before it returned. I'm not sure if The Last King was on hiatus for a long time or if Jeff and I just didn't get around to watching it.

We recently watched Turn: Washington's Spies. Apparently it had been on AMC, but I only heard about it once it came to Netflix. I enjoyed seeing the story of a spy ring that had been secret for almost 200 years. I appreciated hearing about Anna Strong, a character on the show, referenced in a lecture about women during the Revolutionary War.

We've been watching Snowpiercer. It took a few episodes to get into it, but we like it. We've also been enjoying BBC America reruns of Deep Space Nine,

Luckily, there are many other movies and shows. We won't have trouble finding something to watch.

Book 14: Gideon's Sword by Preston & Chlld

I'm ambivalent about this book, the first in the Gideon Crew series.

I read it in four days, so obviously it was readable; it kept me turning pages. For the most part, the chapters were short (as they often are in Preston & Child books.) Short chapters make it easy to pick up the book at any time for a quick read.

After a successful attempt at revenge and redemption for his father, Gideon is recruited to find a scientist who may be defecting with a secret weapon that could change the balance of power completely.

I didn't particularly like Gideon Crew. While it's not necessary to like a main character to like a book, it helps. In previous Preston & Child books, I liked/loved Pendergast, D'Agosta, Margo, Nora, Laura, and Corrie. (I won't talk about the standalone books without Nora.)

My brother sent me three other Gideon Crew books. I'll read them and see if my opinion changes.

On the NRVT

On Tuesday Lola and I talk a long walk (1.5 hours) on the NRVT in Wilton, going from Sharp Hill Road to Route 7 and back.

Near Route 7, we saw this stuffed animal on the trail.

I think this is ingenious combination of stuffed animal and pacifier. I probably could have been a customer.

I don't think I ever used a pacifier, but I did suck my thumb. As I did that, I held my puppet Herman in my hand.

Here's Herman.

According to my parents, Herman was some kind of giveaway for Oldsmobile when my uncle worked for a dealer. I don't remember how I got him or why I was so attached to him. At best, he was funny looking; he could have been scary to a young child. He used to have big ears, but various dogs have chewed on him over the years. My mother put a spool of thread in his neck to support him and sewed him clothes.

Here's the latest outfit she made for him.

For whatever reason, Herman was the one I chose over the more conventional stuffed animals.

When I was a teenager, I threw Herman in the trash. My mother rescued him, and I'm forever grateful that she did.

Our Fourth of July Weekend

Jeff had a four-day weekend, his first of the year.

On Friday Lola got her stitches out. She still needed to wear the dreaded cone if we couldn't watch her closely. She wore it the next two nights before it was officially retired.

We went to Sedona Tap House on Saturday for a lunch of Australian "Kobe" beef sliders, spicy Thai shrimp, and Italiano flatbread. We had walked to the restaurant; after lunch we walked over to Oyster Shell Park on the NRVT.

On Sunday morning, we drove to Mathews Park (my idea to avoid the uphill climb on the way home) and walked to Oyster Shell Park. We didn't even do one loop. Instead, Lola took us to Water Street. Did she want to go to the boardwalk, I wondered. No, she took us to The Spread the restaurant where we had a Father's Day brunch two weeks ago. I told Lola she was very smart but couldn't tell time. It was 11:20, and The Spread didn't open until 12. So, we went home for a scrambled eggs and bacon brunch.

That night we actually went to a cookout. Our friend couldn't stand being at home alone any longer and invited us over. She originally planned for us to eat outside, but it was too damn hot. There were only four of us, so we weren't worried about Covid-19. Other than the dog park, it was our first time socializing in person in months.

Life continues to be weird.

Book 13: The Devouring A Billy Boyle World War II Mystery

I really enjoyed this book. I was surprised to find it's the 12th of 15 in the Billy Boyle series. I had only read the first.

The book is based on how the supposedly neutral Swiss actually favored the Nazis during World War II and made a lot of money in the process. It's estimated Switzerland took in over five hundred seventy-nine million dollars looted from Nazi victims.

Enter Billy Boyle and his friend Piotr Kazimierz working with the Office of Strategic Services to investigate Swiss banks laundering Nazi gold. While Billy and Kaz fail to expose the Swiss complicity with the Nazis, they do manage to retrieve some monies stolen by the Nazis and set up a fund for Jews who survive the war.

The Devouring is a good book; I want to read more about Billy and Kaz.

Canine Health Update

Lola had her stitches out today. Unfortunately, she still has the dreaded cone for another few days. I had asked if we could take it off if we watched her. The vet said okay, but we'd have to put it back on when she goes to bed.

We left it on and went for two walks and now it's dirty and kind of stinky. Jeff just took it off and I cleaned it. We will have to watch her closely before she goes to bed, and we have to put it back on.

We were supposed to keep her inside except for peeing. On Wednesday night, Lola made up her own mind. First. she waited for Jeff to join us on what I thought was just a trip out back.  Then she refused to go to our yard area and started walking out to the street. She led us up the hill for two blocks. She was so happy to be on a normal walk. We kept it short, just in case.

The next two evenings we walked a little farther, although short of our normal late afternoon/evening walk. We also took her to Oyster Shell Park this morning for a loop after we went to the vet's. It makes us happy to see her happy.

Noir Classic Re-Watch: The Narrow Margin

The Narrow Margin is a classic noir B movie starring Charles McGraw and Marie Windsor. Detective Brown (McGraw) is a hard-bitten police detective assigned to escort Mrs. Neall (Windsor) a mobster's widow from Chicago to LA to testify before a grand jury against her husband's accomplices.

Most of the action takes place on a train--the perfect claustrophobic setting for a noir with its small compartments and narrow corridors. Brown and Neall are menaced by men with guns, a man with a bribe, and maybe others.

The dialogue crackles. In an early scene, Brown's partner wonders what the widow looks like. Brown's response: "A dish...Sixty-cent special. Cheap, flashy, strictly poison under the gravy."

Brown's partner is killed before they even get Mrs. Neall out of her apartment. On the train, Brown's drink and conversation with a woman makes her a potential target. Mrs. Neall wants to take advantage of the situation.

Brown: "You make me sick to my stomach."
Mrs. Neal: "Well, use your own sink. And let me know when the target practice starts. "

Later Mrs. Neall suggests they sell out. "Oh, wake up Brown. This train's headed straight for the cemetery. But there's another on coming along, a gravy train. Let's get on it."

I love how compact the story is with a running length of 71 minutes--a complement to the claustrophobic train setting.  McGraw and Windsor make a great team.

I do have a problem with the ending of the movie. It's a bit too sweet and cutesy and does a disservice to a major character.

I still love this film.

Canine Health Report

We found out on Monday that Lola's tumor was mammary cancer. The doctor said the surgery was curative, but cancer could re-occur. We'll have to examine her monthly for lumps.

Her kidney disease means we need to put her on a special diet. We've already been mixing the kidney diet food with her remaining food. We love to share some of what we eat with Lola, but the doctor told us we need to limit meat to a treat.

Poor Lola.

We'll take care of her.