The Mrs Poirot

My parents have bred in me a love of mystery stories. Whether in a book (physical or audio) or as film, I grew up surrounded by detectives, adventures, suspense, hidden clues, quirky characters, and all the other elements that comprise an excellent mystery.

These mysteries ranged from young adult/children's literature like Nancy Drew, Edith Blyton's Famous Five and Secret Seven series (which, incidentally, I picked up a copy of each of those series from PaperbookSwap the other day and was delightfully pulled back into those childhood worlds), or the mystery-lite of Patricia St John's books, to more adult mysteries like Agatha Christy and all the various types of mysteries that would show up on PBS's Masterpiece Mystery nights.

Whenever my parents are back here in the US, they go through an inordinate amount of books on tape because of the amount of driving they have to do while they are here. So, when visiting them recently, I was not at all surprised to find in their cars various books on tape/cd checked out from the library. I was even less surprised that some of them were mysteries.

Well, one of those mysteries was Mrs. Pollifax Unveiled which I enjoyed immensely. Upon arriving back home and looking for something new to read, I obtained for myself the first book in this series: The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax. And I have to admit to having fallen completely, head-over-heels in love with Mrs. Pollifax.

In terms of beautifully portrayed character, she reminds me of Agatha Christy's Hercule Poirot--the chubby little Belgian detective with the perfectionistic tendencies, perfect manners, and keen mind. While the suspense in the book is high and the mystery quite well developed, the book is also hysterically funny in parts as you deal with the character of Mrs. Pollifax who feels almost oxymoronic with her surrounding circumstances. After all, the character is based upon a quirky, white-haired, 60ish year old woman who is involved in various charities and other volunteer activities, yet who feels she has nothing to live for but is not quite ready to commit suicide. She goes to the CIA and very pleasantly inquires as to whether or not she can volunteer as a spy for them, thus fulfilling a life-long dream. And it just goes from there.

Read, relish, and enjoy!

Reading is a basic tool in the living of a good life.
~ Mortimer J. Adler ~

My Mother's Daughter

The fact that I really do take after my mother in many aspects of my life was reinforced to me just recently.

My job has been a bit scattered lately--not that this is particularly unusual for me. See the picture below? That's my job on a daily basis. 15 projects in the air at any given time and of course there's the delicate balancing act of public relations, interpersonal office junk, and whatever other looming projects I have that I just don't have time to throw into the air just yet with the other balls but really could be tossed up there at any moment.



Needless to say, I have a lot of notes, and these seem to wind up on random pieces of paper that eventually I transfer onto one nice and neat running log/to-do list. Well, this week in particular, has been really bad for the scattered notes. So I spent a good 30 minutes today just trying to make sense of all the different assignments/projects that have been thrown my way over the last three days.

And then I had a sudden mental image of a sight I saw just a few weeks ago when I was visiting my parent's. I came out in the morning, having slept in late, and saw my mother sitting at a table with about 10 different pieces of paper all with random notes, reminders, and to-dos on them. And she was neatly compiling them all into one list.

And as I sat with my 12 different pieces of paper with random notes, reminders, and to-dos, I suddenly realized who I got this habit from!

Editing Giggle

I do freelance editing for a Christian organization here in town. They send me various letters/emails/promotional pieces to hack away at prior to them making the pieces public.

Yesterday, I received an email to edit that was talking about encouraging people to follow the call of Christ and to witness to others and how this organization offers some tools for doing just that. As I was going through the document, I noticed they had listed a scripture reference (Matthew 24:19) that was obviously intended to go along with this sentiment of witnessing/evangelizing, etc; however, they had not put the actual verse into the email.

Feeling that it’s kind of pointless to list a reference without at least quoting some of the verse, I looked up what the verse says. Somehow, I didn't feel that it had quite the sentiment that they were originally planning on:

“How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers!”

This is why I will always have a career option available in editing!