A Play on Nerds: Monsters are Murder

Whenever I settle in with one of Laura Levine's Jaine Austen mysteries, I know I'm in for the Godiva of treats.  Just like Jaine before downing a pint of Chunky Monkey or her cat Prozac poised to inhale her Minced Mackerel Guts.  So when I opened Death by Smoothie, I was set for a feast.

Jaine's latest gig is as a script doctor for computer geek lovers-turned-lottery winners.  They're over the moon to be producing a play of their favorite sitcom, the all-but-forgotten I Married a Zombie.  Yet the duo's dreams are dashed when their talentless leading lady makes an enemy of everyone on set -- and threatens their romance.  So it's no surprise when someone poisons her green smoothie, recasting the undead diva as dead.

Jaine thought she had her hands full resuscitating the script.  But things get really dicey when her neighbor Lance enlists her to find out whodunit.  His actor boyfriend is a suspect, and if there's anything that love-a-holic Lance can't abide, then it's losing his soul mate du jour.  So Jaine dusts off her detective hat and does some digging.  That is, between emails from her wacky parents, hijinks-jammed job interviews, and entertainingly awful dates, all while fueling herself with another Big Mac and/or buttered bagel.  Jaine's sleuthing -- and life -- make for the most deliciously cringeworthy in the cozy genre.  There's no PI I adore more.

Luckily, I can enjoy Jaine's antics for capers to come.  Because despite her dangerous pass time -- and diet -- she has more lives than Prozac.   

Sew Cute Teapot: Happy Birthday, Grandmom

When I was twelve or thirteen, I ordered this sewing machine teapot from Abbey Press (who remembers that catalog?) for my grandmother for Christmas.  She was an incredible seamstress who sewed everything from Christmas stockings to my mom's prom dress. (And hemmed many a pair of pants for yours truly.)  She also enjoyed spending time alone, which made us close because I was (and continue to be) like that too.  Anyway, when I saw this teapot, I knew it was the perfect gift for her.  Almost twelve years ago, she passed away, and the teapot came back to me.  Today is her birthday (she would've been 106), so I thought I'd honor her by posting a picture of it.  I hope that wherever she is, she can see it.  

And that she's eating too much Ben & Jerry's while binging Big Brother and Criminal Minds.

Paint Party Hearty: Sweet Eats

Last spring, my sister asked me to enter an art show with her.  I'd been out of the painting game for a while and didn't have so much as a tube of burnt umber, so I hit Michaels for the essentials.  But even with a restocked arsenal, I didn't want to switch gears from making jewelry.  I still participated in the show; I just used paintings I'd made a long time ago.  Yet the pile of new paints and canvasses haunted me the following summer, fall, and winter until one day I said, "Enough!  No paint will dry up on my watch!"  So I hunkered down in my cozy craft room and proceeded to bust out my brushes.  The above not-quite-symmetrical, day-glo, sugar-fueled dreamscape was the result.  The husband asked if the two suns in the sky looking down at the ice cream were Ben and Jerry.  It wasn't without a little regret that I admitted this wasn't the case.  I didn't have a plan in mind when I was painting, but the finished product looks like the packaging for a Japanese board game.  Which is to say, wonderful.  I had so much fun making it!  I took my time, working on it on and off for two weeks while I watched TV.  I forgot how zen painting can be, how peaceful yet satisfying it is to cover white space with color to create something new.

I'm not the only painter in my household.  You may recall that the husband paints houses.  And he's got the brushes to prove it. 
 

Clearly, he too has whimsy and is a collector of colorful things.  He might not like that I said he has whimsy, though.  It doesn't sound very manly.  Then again, earlier today when we were in Lowe's, he was drooling over a mitre saw.  So, maybe mentioning that makes up for it.

Next time, I'll paint frosting-topped pine trees around a blue blob and call it Tastykake Lake.  Because I live closer to Pennsylvania than Vermont and grew up on Butterscotch Krimpets instead of Chunky Monkey.

Not that I'm opposed to painting a monkey swinging from a Red Vine. I'd call it Snack Attack.

Good thing I have six more canvases.