Cozy Mystery (and Other Favorite) Books, Movies, and TV
Yikes! I almost forgot to tell all of you who are Jesse Stone fans and/or Tom Selleck fans:
Don’t forget to watch (or record) the latest Jesse Stone movie tonight on CBS!
Most of you who are fans of Robert B. Parker‘s Jesse Stone mysteries already know about this, but I thought I would just remind you…
As I was driving cross country a while back, I saw some things that I thought were interesting:
1) I drove on a patch of highway that had to have had one dead skunk on the side of the road every ten miles. (Is there a place that boasts of being the Skunk Capital of the World?)
2) I saw windmills, windmills, and more windmills. Wouldn’t it be great if wind and sun could be our main sources of energy?
3) Which takes me to the next item on my list. I saw a lot of oil drills. Those things always remind me of that Rock Hudson, James Dean, and Elizabeth Taylor movie Giant. (I’m not even sure if there were oil drills in that movie…)
4) Oh my goodness! How neat is it to drive through a little Dairy Queen-type of town and see those beautiful, old courthouses?!?
5)Yikes! There’s a place called “Cannibal Draw”. I don’t even want to know how that place got its name!!!
6) You are not going to believe this: I pass by a functioning Drive-In Theater on my regular route. Oh my goodness! That takes me way back to days when we (even our Cocker Spaniel!) would go to a drive-in movie and feel all snug in the comfort of our car- watching the movie as fireflies fluttered around, anticipating the cold, sweet watermelon that awaited us in my grandmother’s kitchen.
Sometimes it seems that a long, boring drive through the flat, barely inhabited plains can be a lot more picturesque than one would expect…
The recent comments on my Midsomer Murders entry (from 2008) made me want to go seek out the information about Inspector Tom Barnaby leaving the county of Midsomer. Yikes! I’ve been able to get used to the different sergeants who work for Tom, but Tom is leaving?!? (And taking Joyce and Cully with him?!?)
Midsomer Murders is (of course) still playing in Great Britain, and, unfortunately we have to make due with being a little behind on the goings-on in Midsomer… a definite case of better late than never! But here’s the scoop:
Tom Barnaby (John Nettles) will be visited by his cousin John Barnaby during the first episode in England’s season 13. Actually, this has probably already happened…
The good news is that John Barnaby will be played by Neil Dudgeon. For those of you who remember the Mrs. Bradley Mysteries (with Diana Rigg), you will no doubt remember George Moody, Mrs. Bradley’s chauffeur (or was he more?!?) Yep, that was Neil Dudgeon. (I loved that series, and I loved the chemistry between Rigg and Dudgeon.)
End of Season 12 (2009-2010):
Small Mercies
The Creeper
The Great and the Good
Season 13 (2010-2011):
The Sword of Guillaume (Tom’s cousin John Barnaby is introduced.)
The Made-to-Measure Murders
Blood on the Saddle
The Silent Land
Master Class
The Noble Art
Not in My Back Yard
Fit for Murder (Tom Barnaby leaves.)
Season 14 (2011-2012):
Death in the Slow Lane (John Barnaby arrives.)
Dark Secrets
Echoes of the Dead
The Oblong Murders
The Sleeper under the Hill
The Stag
I have enumerated the seasons with the numbers from England. It sure would be a whole lot easier if Amazon would use the same numbers for their seasons as they do across the pond, wouldn’t it?
Our daughter came home for a week before heading out to Washington, DC for her summer internship. She will be living in the same housing place as she did during her last summer’s internship. I have come to terms with her living so far away, although I wish she were closer. Between Cambridge for the school term and DC for the summers >>> I guess I should resign myself to the fact that she is now an east-coast adult.
My husband and I planned to visit her during her internship, as we did last summer, but the three of us have decided that since she won’t be there as long as she was last summer, we will probably wait until the fall and visit her in Massachusetts instead. I have to admit that visiting her in DC last summer sure calmed the “mother in me.” Seeing all the police officers patrolling the area set my mind at ease. It seemed like there were police officers on every corner – not at all like what it was like when we lived the area – way back in the 1980s and early 1990s.
Whenever my husband and I are away, our son takes on the responsibility of taking care of Sprite. And, at 16 1/2 years old, she is one finicky puppy. She has definite likes and dislikes, and she lets you know about them! I am almost embarrassed at what Sprite now has us doing just to get her to take her pills each morning and night.
Anyway, it’s not officially summer yet (June 21), but we’ve already had our yearly summer visit from our daughter. It does seem those visits are getting shorter and shorter…
