Book completed

The Thursday Murder Club, by Richard Osman. Highly entertaining. Four retirees in an upscale retirement community in a fictitious part of Kent like to meet on Thursdays to solve cold cases – and their talents are exceptional. Elizabeth was apparently a spy for most of her life. Ibrahim was a psychiatrist. Ron was a combative labor leader. Joyce, the new member – well, it’s not entirely clear what her talents are, beyond organizing things, making cakes, and improvising, but she’s very entertaining and keeps a journal. Suddenly they find themselves investigating a real-life murder of a not-very-nice person whom they all knew. Considering this was his first novel, the author is very good indeed. I’m looking forward to reading the rest of the series.

Very warm, plus concerts for both of us

Today was very warm – in the 90s, unusual for early June – and J and I both went to concerts which were also overly warm. My concert was at 3 pm in the Methodist church downtown – a choir of nearly 100 women, including my friend BHW. I was sitting so far back that I wasn’t even sure she was there. By the third song, a violinist who’d been blocking my view of the women on the far side was out of the way, and I could see a woman who was my best candidate to be my friend – right height, right singing range, her general look, etc., except that her hair was darker and cut differently from my friend, and as I said, she was so far away that I really couldn’t tell. Whenever she’d turn to the side, the haircut made her look so different that I was sure it wasn’t her. Finally, after the concert, I ran into her husband in the lobby, and that decided things!

Then, after his Magic event was done, J drove to Portland to see They Might Be Giants. It was even hotter in Portland than it was here, and of course in a concert hall where everyone was standing, it was fairly uncomfortable. He had a good time, though, and was delighted that he recognized about two-thirds of the songs. He’d never been to a rock concert before, although he’d planned to see TMBG in Eugene many years ago… however, the concert was scheduled for September 13, 2001, so both the concert and his flight out here got cancelled. Tomorrow will be very warm too – we’re expecting 95 – and Tuesday should be fairly warm, but after that we’ll be back in the 70s for at least a week.