IT'S BEEN A GREAT YEAR!

Hi Folks!  Season's Greetings from all of us--Bea, Hattie, Connie and Miss Fanny.  The year 2014 has been a fantastic one for our creators, L. Barnett Evans and C.V. Rhodes.

It started with the release of our latest adventure, There's Something Wrong with Miss Zelda. Then there was the play that they wrote titled, Stake Out, that featured Hattie and Miss Fanny doing their thing.  It was produced at the 2014 Indy Fringe Theatre Festival and the play turned out to be one of the top 10 grossing plays in the festival.  Not to shabby, huh?

This year Evans and Rhodes have had the privilege of being invited to speak to numerous book clubs.  They've participated in several book festivals, all the while working on the upcoming book that will feature our next adventure.  It's called, Whose Knife Is It Anyway? 

Yes, the ladies have done well by us in 2014.  Many of our accomplishments have been chronicled right here on our blog.  You never know what we'll do next, so be sure to keep reading!

We're looking forward to new adventures and new experiences in 2015.  We hope you'll join us and continue to enjoy us!

LET ME ENTERTAIN YOU

 

            Folks, I got to tell you that as sure as my name is Miss Fanny Mae Collier, it will be a long time before I go to a movie with a teenager or young adult again.  My friend’s granddaughter, Tina, had a birthday a little while ago and I offered dinner and a movie as her present.  Of course, I let her pick the movie.  She chose something called Interstellar.

          There I sat, watching Earth turn into a giant dust bunny, while the hero flies off in a spaceship to save the world.  He’s supposed to find another planet for humans to migrate to.  So this guy flies through worms--a hole full of worms -- or whatever, nearly drowns on a planet full of water, nearly freezes on another planet and jumps into a black hole just to end up...  Hell, I don’t know!  All I can say is that by this time I was too through with this movie!  I didn’t get it and the theater had the music so loud, I couldn’t hear half of what they were saying.  Not that it would have mattered. 

          Tina is a bright girl and she’s into science and space and all that.  For my money, I’d rather have enjoyable entertainment that doesn’t require a PhD to figure it out.  My advice to you blog readers is that you would be better off going to see the play that me and my nutty daughter-in-law, Hattie were in.  It’s called Stakeout and it was funny, even if I say so myself.  Plus it had some touching moments between me and Hattie.

          If the play is not being performed near you, then buy a copy of our latest adventure, Something’s Wrong with Miss Zelda.  Soon we’ll have a new book called Whose Knife is it Anyway?   Both books are delightful--again, even if I have to say so myself-- and at the end you won’t sit scratching your head and wondering what happened.

 

WE'RE STILL HERE!

Oh, oh!  My girls and I have been so busy that we let quite a few months pass without blogging about a thing!  I'm Hattie Collier and back in August Miss Fanny and I starred in a stage play called Stakeout where I showed the world how well I could track down a no good cheating man.  Well, while Stakeout was a success.  I'm sad to say that my case went belly up, but I really don't want to talk about it.  Maybe one day the play, Stakeout, will come your way and you can attend and find out what happened for yourself.

Meanwhile, Bea is still all up on her high horse about trying to get her detective license.  She wants to have it by the time Whose Knife is it Anyway? comes out.  Whose Knife is it Anyway? is the next book in the Grandmothers, Incorporated series by Evans and Rhodes.  In the book my girls and me go on a retreat with ladies from rival churches, and I don't know what Bea plans to do with a P.I. license stuck on a retreat in the back woods with a bunch of cackling hens, but that's her problem.  I'm just praying that I survive the doggone thing.  Lord knows what will happen.  I know that Evans and Rhodes will come up with something weird.

Over the next few months, our creators will be taking our stories to a couple of book fairs.  They've already bent the ears of a few book clubs about our antics.  I tell you, being an infamous--I mean famous--sleuth is time consuming.  Hope one of the girls has time to write the blog next month.  We'll see.

MORE ADVENTURES AHEAD!!

Time is passing faster than a speeding car, and my girls and I are steadily busy.  I'm happy to announce that I--Bea Bell--am working on getting my private detective license, and I'm strutting around here as proud as a peacock.  I can't wait!

Last month, Miss Fanny told you about the case that Hattie was working on in the new play, Stake Out.  It's coming to the Indy Fringe Theatre Festival in August.  Stake Out was written by our creators, Evans and Rhodes, and I hear it's funny.  Shoot, I've got to give Hattie credit for her ingenuity when it comes to drumming up business for us.  I don't care what Miss Fanny says!

Let me tell you what else has been brewing out there in detective land.  Connie, Hattie and I have been invited on a retreat at a conference center, located somewhere out in the woods, with some women we don't particularly like.  Lord knows there will be fireworks between us, but the purpose of the time we'll be spending together is to end the conflicts.  We'll see what happens with us stuck out in the middle of nowhere.  All kinds of mayhem and murder could occur.  That's what happens on TV and in the movies.

Evans and Rhodes are calling our next adventure Whose Knife is it Anyway?   Who knows, I might be able to put my considerable skills to work once again, but this time as a card carrying "real" private detective.  Stay tuned.

WE'RE GOING ON A STAKEOUT

     As sure as my name is Fanny Mae Collier I know that one of these days my daughter-in-law, Hattie, is going to get herself in a mess she can't get out of.

     One reason it's bound to happen is those nutty friends of hers, Bea Bell and Connie Palmer.  Now, Connie ain't so bad, but if you've been following our adventures in the books, Grandmothers, Incorporated, Saving Sin City, and Something's Wrong with Miss Zelda you know that Bea's got the crazy notion that she's a detective.  The lunatic imagines she sees a crime in anything that's just a little off-kilter.  Bea even went and got a private investigator's license.

     The point is Hattie thinks she has to prove that she's just as good a detective as Bea.  private detective--ha!  If you ask me, two things neither one of them know about is privacy or detecting.   

When Hattie decided to take on a "case" for a friend, I had no intention of getting involved but, you guessed it, the fool drags me in it.

     The scandalous affair that Hattie discovers will either establish her as a bona fide detective or blow up in her face.  To see how it all works out, come to our play, Stakeout.  Directed by Deborah Asante, Stakeout will be coming to the annual Indy Fringe Theater Festival in August, 2014.

     This is Fanny Collier and I'll see you at the Fringe.

MATRIARCH! SAYS WHO?

 

 

Hello readers, this is Connie Palmer writing the blog this month, and I’ve got a gripe a lot of folks won’t agree with, but I don’t care.  I want to know when did I become a matriarch.  According to some of my relatives that’s what I am, the family matriarch, and I don’t like it.

 I want to know where it is written that the oldest woman in a family all of a sudden becomes a “matriarch”.  What does that mean anyway?  I guess since I managed to live to be in my sixties all of a sudden everyone can come dump their problems on me?

 Oh, I guess it’s suppose to be an honor being the one who has lived so long that people come to you for your advice and wisdom.  Really?  Age and wisdom in America are hardly respected, especially when it comes to women.

 I don’t mind my four kids calling me once in a while to ask for some advice or to see what I might think about something, I call that mothering.  But all of a sudden some of my cousins are calling and telling me their problems under the guise of this matriarch mess.  Hell!  I haven’t seen some of these people in so long I don’t remember what they look like, and all of a sudden I’m the head of the extended family?  I didn’t run for that office and nobody elected me.

I’ve always been a person who minded my own business, and I expect others to do the same.  I’m not comfortable advising others about what they should do in their lives.  If my advice blows up in their faces, guess who gets the blame.  Uh huh, you guessed it—me.

I can’t do anything about my age, and I don’t want to.  I’m glad that I’m still around.  I’ve found peace in my life now and I don’t want it disturbed by being a “matriarch.’ No thank you. No matriarch for me.

 

 

TWO CINDERELLA STORIES

     Remember the fairytale story of Cinderella?  The poor girl was forced to do all the work in her home while her ugly step sisters went with their mother to the ball in hopes of being chosen as a wife for the prince?

     Fast forward to the year 2014 where the story of a real-life Cinderella unfolds.  A Welsh woman is suing her seventy-five year old parents for a portion of their £7million estate.  She claims, sort of like Cinderella before her that for twenty-five years she worked extremely long hours on the family dairy farm while her siblings went out and enjoyed themselves dancing. 

     According to news reports, the forty-five year old woman claims that as a teen she had to stay and work on the farm while her two sisters went to the Young Farmers’ Club dances.   She says that over the years she says she was told by her parents “You’ll have the whole dam lot one day.”  

     Her parents counter that their daughter received room and board and a fair wage.  They also said they had put her through agriculture school because she said she wanted to stay on the farm.

     Honestly, it would be hard to walk away from any portion of £7milion. (I don’t know what that is in dollars but it sounds like a lot.) But, I wonder, is the estate really “family” money?  Doesn’t it belong to the parents to give, loose, throw away as they choose?  Could the daughter have (gasp) saved up for her own small farm instead of waiting on the parents to die?  On second thought, I guess not since she’s suing for her portion now.

     Meanwhile, on “this side of the pond” we have the New Jersey Cinderella who doesn’t have to contend with ugly step sisters.  Instead she sounds like she could be one, stomping her feet and demanding she be supported in the manner in which she wants to be accustom.  At the legal age of 18 years old, she wants to set her own rules just as an adult can, but be supported as a minor. She feels she is owed the money for her room and board, weekly child support of, and her remaining high school tuition.  Oh, and of course, college tuition. 

     My question is when are our children going to learn self-reliance, respect for their parents, and pride in their own accomplishments?  To me, the obvious answer is--when we teach them.

     At the close of the New Jersey Cinderella case, the judge asked, “Do we want to establish a precedent where parents live in basic fear of establishing rules of the house?”  

     Well, do we?

This is Bea Bell, signing off.

COMING ALONG

Whose Knife is it Anyway? the next installment of the Grandmothers, Incorporated series by Evans and Rhodes is coming along.  While doing some research on the book they found out the most amazing thing.  In some states in the U.S.A. it doesn’t take much to get a license to become a Private Investigator. Isn’t that scary?   Can you imagine one of us ladies of Grandmothers, Incorporated—or even worse—all of us ladies—walking around with legitimate credentials to do something we’re only marginally qualified to do in the first place?  O.K., perhaps the word marginally might be stretching it, and qualified might be questionable, but our readers understand.

Anyway, the point is that with webcams, security cameras, GPS tracking and such, snooping might not be as difficult as it appears.  Everybody’s doing it.  We just prefer to do our snooping legitimately. 

Another reality is that everybody in this country knows how easy it can be to get a gun—and it didn’t take any research at all for this one.  So let’s see, the equation looks like this:  Easy access to a Private Investigators License + Easy Weapon Purchase = a possible crazy person running around with a legal right to hunt anybody down.

Oh my!  Sounds like a good premise for a book.  Whose Knife is it Anway? is coming along.

ANOTHER YEAR ANOTHER STORY

We don't have much to say in this post--the title of the post says it all.  Our creators are busy putting us in another adventure.  It seems that we're going to go on a bus trip with a bunch of our friends (and enemies) to work out a couple of problems.   As you can imagine, more problems may be created than solved. Something mysterious happens during this journey and---

We've said enough, except that the title of the book will be Whose Knife is it Anyway?  We'll keep you posted.