Is she a wife or already a widow? Until she knows, ship-wrecked Lady Juliana will not surrender to the captain who steals her heart.
I recently had one of those mornings when I woke up really early. One of those instantly awake occasions instead of the usual dragging myself into consciousness mornings. Because I needed to leave home no later than 9.00 AM that day for my round of appointments and activities, I decided there were things I had time to do without waiting for the alarm clock to go off.
I showered but didn’t get dressed yet. Went to the kitchen, put the kettle. While it boiled for my morning cup of tea, I dusted and vacuumed the living room. Once that was done and the tea made, I checked the time. Oh good, only 7.15 AM. Still time to get some other stuff done. I sorted laundry, put that in the washer, poured tea, turned on my laptop. I guess y’all can see what comes next. Yes, folks, I went down the rabbit hole of ‘just one more thing’.
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| Peter Falk |
Emails led to links, which led to more links. It wasn’t idle procrastination either, I was researching information for my Work in Progress. Who knew lamb bones could be used to buff marble? With a mug of tea in hand and one eye on the clock, I continued on my merry way. When the washer warbled that the cycle was finished, I checked the clock which told me it was 8.00 AM. Yes! I had time to put the washing in the dryer and have another cup of tea before getting dressed.
What I should have done, of course, was to have got dressed and applied my makeup then. Unlike Peter Falk’s Lieutenant Columbo, who’s last minute line of ‘just one more thing, sir’, being the question that usually tripped up and caught the murderer and tied up the case, because of my ‘one more thing’, my day slowly unraveled.
But it’s not that day that concerns me now. No, it’s how that line has inserted itself into more recent detective series. I enjoy watching a good series on TV or Netflix and have heard that line repeated in Hawaii Five-O, the BBC’s Inspector Frost and Death in Paradise, especially the series with Kris Marshall playing the hapless Humphrey Goodman. In fact, the role of Humphrey, with his crumpled clothes and air of distraction could have been modeled on Columbo. In my case ‘one more thing’ was one thing too many which caused me to rush through my day. There’s also the old adage of less haste, more speed. From now on I think I’d better pay attention to both!
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