Winners and Losers of the Olympic Fashion Competition

 JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: It's here! The XXXIIII (34th) Olympiad, a number which leads me to believe the IOC is still only counting my every four years, despite revamping the schedule to alternate summer and winter games. Mark my words, they'll be adding fall and spring games any year now. Can't leave any of that sweet, sweet broadcasting rights money on the table.

Will Americans crash the Parisian electrical grid with their massive A/C units? Will swimmers get disgusting infections from racing in the Seine? I have no idea. So let's turn from questions to opinions, and get judgy with it: "it" being various countries' opening ceremony (wasn't it amazing?) and competition uniforms. Who better to give a critique than an out-of-shape, couch-bound old lady whose only athletic pastimes (skiing, running) wrecked her knees? (Links to original tweets in the country names.)

United States of America

Classic Americana. Not really fashion-forward, but attractive and looks good on all everyone. You can imagine the athletes wearing these in years to come.

Canada

Oh, Canada.

"New Canadian Olympic uniforms made from real Alberta beef."

Jamaica

 These competition kits are flat-out awesome. Body-conscious without being gratuitously sexy (calling you out, Nike "hoo-hah" uniforms,) great color placement for a sometimes difficult color combo (see Australia, below) these are definitely in the top ten this year.

Australia

Oz's official colors are green and gold, but you can't fool me, that's just yellow. Nice use of teal instead of bright green, and the designs are very down under - breezy and casual, with a hint of British influence. But those skirts! Especially the unfortunate one second from the left. It looks like this poor woman has wandered away from her caretakers and had an accident.

South Korea

 I'm not sure how I feel about South Korea's entry. It's exactly the same for men and women, which is kind of cool, and it's a beautifully draped summer suit. Once you know about the origin of the belt, you can say, "Okay, I get it." But that gorgeous silk lining is wasted hidden on the inside!

Spain

*

The curse of yellow strikes again - what is with these deeply unflattering skirts? The designer may be channeling the carnation for inspiration, but it just looks like not-very-creative tie-dye to me.

Malaysia

You don't have to read Malaysian to understand what this tweet is saying. Remember the blog we did on TEMU? It looks like the team ordered their uniforms and the mannequins used to display them from there. Hope they got free shipping.

France

I'm going to have to agree with the chief fashion critic of the NY Times. France. You had ONE job. You're the host this year, and you're the fashion capitol of the world. Okay, you had TWO jobs.

Nigeria

Going out on a high note - Nigeria, already becoming a player on the international fashion stage, has hit the ball out of the parc with these looks. Maybe Canada ought to look into hiring Actively Black for the next games? Just sayin'.

What do you think, dear readers?  Which uniforms strike your fancy? What have I left out?

A Farewell to Knees

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: On my right knee, I have a small scar. It's shaped like the British Isles, sans Ireland and is white, with a dark "coastline" where Wales and Western Scotland would be. The darkness, I always thought, was a tiny bit of playground grit left behind; I split the knee open playing a jump rope game at recess in the fourth grade and apparently it wasn't cleaned out properly beneath the Band-Aid the teacher put over it.

I've had this scar for  fifty-four years, and today I'm going to lose it.

Not with plastic surgery - far from it! The old scar is going to be subsumed in a much longer vertical scar, running eight to ten inches over my knee. Which will not be the same joint I was born with! This knee will be mine inasmuch as I and my insurance company will be paying for it. As you're skimming over this with your morning coffee or tea, dear reader, I (sadly caffeine-less) will be undergoing Total Knee Replacement.

 

Saying you're getting TKR at my age is like saying you're engaged in your twenties or having a baby in your thirties - everyone you know is doing it. A friend in Maine. A friend in Colorado. A friend in Hawai'i. My agent's husband. Other Reds are looking down the road at this, the third most common surgery performed in the US. (I've already had the number 1 surgery, cataract replacement, and the number 9, gallbladder removal. I wonder how many I have to get punched on my card before I get a freebie?)

 

Maybe I should get a tattoo after?

I swear prepping for this day has taken more time than getting ready for my first kid to be born. Or is at least similar: setting up the bed in a special room? Check. Moving in a small dresser with special clothing (roomy shorts and loose dresses)? Check. Brand new equipment (cane, walker, foam support, ice packs) Check. I'll even be sticking to sponge baths for the first three weeks, just like we did with the babies. No diapers, thank God, but I do have a special potty seat! Maybe turnabout can be fair play and I'll get my daughters to give me M&Ms when I use it, like I used to do for them. 

 

I'm blessed - no sarcasm here - with two daughters and a sister who are sequentially staying with me for four weeks post-surgery. And a young friend who was bribed volunteered to drive me to my PT appointments during the fifth and sixth week. After that, I'm cleared to be back behind the wheel, so be forewarned, southern Maine.

Needless to say, you won't be seeing me in the comments today or tomorrow. Luckily, I'm also blessed with six sisters-in-craft who will be taking the wheel. Hopefully, I'll be able to hang out later in the week. Stay tuned, I'll be loaded up on pain meds, so it could be fun!

How about you, dear readers? Have you gotten the slice like all the cool geezers kids? Do you know someone who has?

 

Day's at the Morn

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: During the two-week heat wave we had in Maine, I was performing a very specific morning ritual. I would set my alarm for 5:30am to 6:30am, depending on when the last of the nighttime cooler temperatures ended. I’d go through the upstairs and downstairs, pulling fans out of the windows, closing them and drawing the curtains on the east side of the house. Then back to my bedroom, where the Shih Tzus hadn’t even stirred, and sleep until ten.

 

It was genuinely lovely to see the earliest light and feel the fresh air. In fact, every time I’ve been up and about at dawn in recent years, I enjoy it. I wish my ideal morning started with rising at six. But let’s face it. I spent thirty years rising at six - first as a law student, then working, then as a parent X 3 - and by the time the kids were old enough to oversee getting themselves dressed and out the door, they needed to be driven to school. 

 

And for thirty years, even when I didn’t have to get up early, I was constantly annoyed by blessed with a husband who was the larkiest of larks to ever take wing. Ross disagreed with the poet: morning’s at six, or even better, five-thirty. He couldn’t understand why I “needed so much sleep” - completely unaware that when he went up to bed at 8pm to “read,” he would be snoring beneath his book in fifteen minutes.

 

So despite the charms of the hill sides dew pearl’d, etc., I’ll continue to indulge myself in sleeping in. Maybe after thirty years of rising at nine or ten, I’ll be ready to see the dawn again.

 

How about you, Reds? If there’s no reason to set your alarm, are you larking about?

 

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: If there’s no reason to set my alarm, my eyes open at 5:30. Then they close as fast as they possibly can. FORGETABOUTIT. Then they open again at 7:30. I check—do I HAVE to get up? No? Okay, then, back to sleep. At 8:30 I am up up up because I don’t want to miss any of the fun of the day. Or the work-time.) I don’t go to sleep until about 12:30, though, so the awake-time span makes sense. (If I go to sleep too early, I miss too much of the fun of the night.) 

 

 

 

LUCY BURDETTE: What is this thing you call ‘fun of the night’? LOL I definitely prefer morning and work better in the morning, though I’m not a 5:30 Lark like Ross was. 6:30 or 7 is a good time for me–I enjoy being up first when everyone except for Tbone is asleep. He’s so friendly to the first person to arrive–it sounds silly but I love it! The light very much affects how I sleep, and it gets light ridiculously early in Connecticut. (I would so be in favor of Daylight Savings going the way of the dodo.)

 

RHYS BOWEN:  The larkiest of larks here. Even on days when I don’t have to wake up early I’m awake with the sun. Today it was 5:58AM. So before I got up I read my emails, took care of social media, booked train for four people from London to Cornwall, booked four air tickets to Marseille and then put the kettle on for breakfast.  I can’t sleep in late no matter where I am. This is good as I get my best work done in those early hours. But I do tend to crash right before 10 at night these days (and sneak a nap in the afternoon).

 

HALLIE EPHRON: Count me in the LARK camp, too. Sadly I tend to wake up at 5 AM… MUCH too early but there you have it. It’s when the sun is up. And of course I’m asleep early (10 at the latest) so I should be getting enough sleep. That’s the theory at least. When I was working I’d negotiated an EARLY start to the day (at work by 6:30 AM) so I could leave at 3:30 and avoid the worst traffic and get to my kids. So maybe that’s where I got into the habit of rising early.

 

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I’m on Hank’s schedule, bed about midnight and up usually between 7:30 and 8, so neither a true lark or owl. This is partly my own natural inclination, and partly that Rick is a bonafide owl, so we tend to run late on meals, etc. all day. I like being up early once I’m up, but there is no way I’m going to sleep at 8 or 9 p.m.!

JENN McKINLAY: I’m an early bird! In bed reading by 10:00 and up at 6:00! I love morning but also my geriatric schnauzer Otto starts huffing at 5:30/6:00, demanding Hub or I get up. Who needs a rooster?  

JULIA: How about you, dear reader? Do you prefer to hoot it up, or are you more inclined to lark about? Do you wish you were different? And for those of you half-remembering the source of today's blog title, I present Pippa's Song, by Robert Browning:

  

 

 

 

The year's at the spring, 
And day's at the morn; 
Morning's at seven; 
The hill-side's dew-pearl'd; 
The lark's on the wing; 
The snail's on the thorn; 
God's in His heaven,
All's right with the world!  

Sarah Stewart Taylor--Agony Hill

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Sarah Stewart Taylor's Maggie D'Arcy novels, set in Ireland and Long Island, have been huge favorites of all of us here at JRW, and now we have a brand new series to look forward to from Sarah, this one set in small town Vermont! Here she introduces us to fictional Bethany, Vermont, in the 1960s, and contemplates the contradictions of small town life. Welcome, Sarah!

SARAH STEWART TAYLOR:  Small towns loom large in crime fiction — and indeed in literature. I think it’s because they are such ripe territory for exploration of the human condition. When everyone around you has known you since the day you were born, it’s hard to hide, well, anything. And it’s all the more transgressive when you do. The idea of a murderer hiding in plain sight in a small town is fascinating to us as readers because we think of small towns as versions of the many kinds of communities we build in our lives.

St. Mary Mead, Three Pines, Cabot Cove, Midsomer, Miller’s Kill — these places feel real despite being fictional because they contain all of the colorful personalities and hidden and not-so-hidden histories of their inhabitants. And, they provide a special pleasure for crime fiction series readers, a chance to return home to a place you’ve come to know and love every time you open the book.

We have lots of positive associations with small towns. When everyone knows you, it’s hard to fall through the cracks or escape notice when you’re in crisis. There’s a comfort to a place that never seems to change.

But small towns can be suffocating too and that never changing thing can be dangerous for marginalized people. Small towns can make newcomers feel unwelcome or scrutinized to an uncomfortable degree. Vermont, like the other New England states, is engaged in a statewide discussion right now about how  to be more welcoming to the new Vermonters we need to prop up our schools and town governments and help provide more tax dollars to fix our roads and bridges. It’s sparked sometimes difficult but very important conversations about how we may need to change and adapt to attract these new residents.

My own small town (pop. 3,483) is experiencing all of these growing pains. Our town listserv contains daily postings about loose cows in the road, runaway dogs, items for sale, reminders that the food shelf is open, library programs, offers of help with stacking firewood, or free items that might be useful to someone in need. But it also contains arguments over land use and development and, though we’re not supposed to post about political subjects, sometimes bitter debates about hot button topics like book banning, the presidential election, and school funding. Raising my kids in our town, where my husband grew up but I did not, I feel so good about providing them with a community that truly cares about them and will always be there for them. I also really, really hope they’ll go off and explore other parts of the world (and then, yes, move in down the street from us. A mother can hope . . .) 

In so many ways, the small towns near where I live in Vermont, each with their own history and particular makeup and personality, were the inspiration for my novel, Agony Hill, the first in a new series set in Vermont in the 1960s. The fictional Bethany, Vermont has a town green, a general store, a library, two churches, four lawyers, and a widow named Alice Bellows who in many ways keeps the town running. Alice grew up in Bethany and has returned after the death of her husband, who, as they say, “worked in intelligence.” She spent years living abroad and even helped out with some intelligence gathering from time to time. Now she’s back in Bethany and makes it her business to know everything that’s going on, not only because she’s nosy, but because she can help out anyone who might need it. I love Alice and I love the way that she cares for those in her community (even if she sometimes has an ulterior motive!)

She’s committed to her work with the Ladies Aid Society and the town’s library but perhaps feeling a bit bored when a young homicide detective from Boston named Franklin Warren moves in next door. He’s there to take a job with the Vermont State Police and, after a tragedy that Alice will learn more about, is ready to start over in Vermont. He’s barely unpacked when he’s called out to his first case and as he investigates the death of a farmer who no one in town seemed to like, Warren realizes that his new neighbor is an asset in more ways than one.

I’ve loved exploring the experiences of a newcomer to a small town alongside a longtime resident who knows everyone’s secrets. And as I write the second Bethany mystery, I’ve loved revisiting the personalities and places and rituals that make up my fictional small town. I tried to capture this feeling in Agony Hill. Standing in line at Coller’s Store on the Green in Bethany, Alice thinks, “When she’d been away and returned home, she never felt she’d really landed until she’d been in to get the papers and hear the news.”

What are your favorite small towns, real or fictional?

DEBS: What a great question from Sarah! Readers, tell us about your favorite small towns!

SARAH STEWART TAYLOR is the author of the Sweeney St. George series, set in New England, the Maggie D’arcy mysteries, set in Ireland and on Long Island, and Agony Hill, the first in a new series set in rural Vermont in the 1960s.

 

Sarah has been nominated for an Agatha Award, the Dashiell Hammett Prize, and the MWA Sue Grafton Memorial Award and her mysteries have appeared on numerous Best of the Year lists. A former journalist and teacher, she writes and lives with her family on a farm in Vermont where they raise sheep and grow blueberries. 

Set in rural Vermont in the volatile 1960s, Agony Hill is the first novel in a new historical series full of vivid New England atmosphere and the deeply drawn characters that are Sarah Stewart Taylor's trademark.

In the hot summer of 1965, Bostonian Franklin Warren arrives in Bethany, Vermont, to take a position as a detective with the state police. Warren's new home is on the verge of monumental change; the interstates under construction will bring new people, new opportunities, and new problems to Vermont, and the Cold War and protests against the war in Vietnam have finally reached the dirt roads and rolling pastures of Bethany.

Warren has barely unpacked when he's called up to a remote farm on Agony Hill. Former New Yorker and Back-to-the-Lander Hugh Weber seems to have set fire to his barn and himself, with the door barred from the inside, but things aren’t adding up for Warren. The people of Bethany—from Weber’s enigmatic wife to Warren's neighbor, widow and amateur detective Alice Bellows — clearly have secrets they’d like to keep, but Warren can’t tell if the truth about Weber’s death is one of them. As he gets to know his new home and grapples with the tragedy that brought him there, Warren is drawn to the people and traditions of small town Vermont, even as he finds darkness amidst the beauty.

Fridge Art

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Isn't my granddaughter's latest piece of artwork lovely? I took down some earlier paintings and carefully placed this one in pride of place on my refrigerator, along with my precious limited edition London Transport magnets, and that got me thinking about where people displayed treasures like this if their fridges were no longer magnetic. (Wren made this beautiful print in art camp, by the way!)

Our fridge is just short of twenty years old, and although, according to Mr. Google, stainless refrigerators started to hit the market in the late nineties, we must have been late to the party. But did you know that stainless refrigerators don't have to be non-magnetic? That trend was started by the manufacturers because they thought magnet and photo covered fridge doors looked "low brow." I quote!

So I am low brow, and happy with it, although I have to admit our fridge is tucked away in a corner of the kitchen so you don't see it until you walk into the room.

How about it, dear Reds? Is your fridge still a display space? And if not, where do you put your latest kids/grandkids/dogs/cats etc. pics, your lists and notes and reminders?

HALLIE EPHRON: My fridge is white (my stove is white, too) - and it is festooned with pictures of my grands and their drawings and slips of paper with a reminder to myself of things I’m likely to forget… and I love it just the way it is.

RHYS BOWEN: I have a stainless steel fridge and it is magnetic. I have photos, appointments, phone numbers on it. 

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: High. Lowbrow. Love it. With WAY too many things. Sometimes I think–I’m going to take all this down! But how can I? Here’s the very first article ever about writer-me, and some duck feathers, and blue jay feathers, and the baby children’s photos and notes. And some other very important stuff. (Our stove is new and black, but our oven is brick red.)  This is just the upper right, by the way.

DEBS: Oh, all the babies are so adorable! And, Hank, I love the idea of a red stove!

How about you, readers? Tell us about your fridge art, or lack thereof. It's too bad that Blogger won't allow photos in the comments, but I will post the blog link on our Reds and Readers page and you can post photos there!