Here We Are Again

A friend asked me about the Crime with the Classics series,

of which the one above is the latest one published...I finished my

re-reading of these 4 books recently and I wrote to my friend the following:

The basic premise of the book series is that a middle aged English professor who is a widow for 2 years and she suddenly inherits her aunt's estate. Which includes a lot of property and 6 million dollars! From there she comes across murders in the four books and each book has links to the authors mentioned in the title of that book and characters who act similarly to various books or plot lines (of the books) are similar. That said this sounds almost cliche and I don't find the books at all cliche. The main character is an Orthodox Christian and that comes into play in various ways including her view of other churches and her thoughts. There's a lot of hard things discussed in the books not just the murders themselves but various things including types of abuse from sexual to alcohol. I feel that the author does a good job in dealing with these and in the plot itself. There's a lot of fun in it as well as the main character loves beautiful clothes from the Victorian era, loves good literature, loves beauty, and is reunited with her 16 year old boyfriend now that they're in their fifties. So I find the books to be at once a cozy mystery read but also really interesting examination of the characters in the books along with ideas and issues that people deal with. At times there's a little bit of rough language and there's certainly some times of emotional intensity because of what the characters have gone through.

So this whole Dread Virus situation's got me down.

Don't know if family visiting will happen.

I feel discouraged about the whole thing.

And just feeling like there is a whole lot of stress going on. 

Diane, these next pictures are the nice bread I buy 

on occasion that you asked me about. 

I don't think you can get it outside of this area as it seems

to be a local to NY bakery. 

There's pluses and minus to living where we do,

and admittedly there is a lot of nice food here.

I get my hair cut tomorrow.

I feel like sometimes the ongoing stress of this pandemic 

is streaked through everything we do, from morning to night.

It's not that I read the news all the time.

It's just the reality of it; husband working from home,

never being out by myself for a day in NYC or alone at home; 

the constant daily tasks of dishes, laundry, food prep.

I know I am not a parent.  But I also know it is OK to realize

and articulate that my reality is hard, that everyone's is hard.

I just hate how trapped the virus makes me feel.

It's hard and it's ok to say.

***

May God have mercy on us and save us.