Thank you for your support and kind words about MURDER IN THE ABSTRACT and for checking out my Friday posts in 2011. Please come back in 2012, and always feel free to leave a comment or a suggestion of a topic.

Happy holidays and warm wishes for your happiness and success in the New Year!

Downton Abbey’s second season. C’mon, let it be January. I need my Maggie Smith fix. With World War I beginning, I worry that the Edwardian costumes I adored – oh, to be a pencil in 1910 – will give way to mufti, but so be it. Will Mary and her cousin fall in love with each other on the same day, or are they doomed to careen off each other in fits of pique for yet another season? And what will the bad servants do this time around?

A robot that irons. My habit for decades has been to wait until the floor beside the to-be-ironed hamper is piled with the overflow of waiting, crumpled stuff before I drag out the squeaky ironing board. I was lucky for 18 years: Tim tackled it while watching “Law & Order,” and I’d come out from the study to find neatly folded pillowcases and my shirts on hangers, and all he wanted was a kiss and vast amounts of praise, which I was happy, happy to give. I’d rather have him than a robot any day, but what can you do?

A film option for MURDER IN THE ABSTRACT. Okay, that’s big time dreaming. but more to the point than a pony, right? I mean, why not? We could pitch it as “The Thomas Crown Affair” meets “Law & Order.” You have a better idea, I’m listening.

The happiness of my grandchildren. Whatever makes them smile makes me smile too. Fortunately, they all love books. (I think it’s genetic.) The youngest is only 2 and the oldest is still shy of adolescence, praise be, so they don’t yet see me as a peculiar old lady…their Christmas gift to me!

Peaceful change in the world. Here at home, let the spirit of Occupy bloom in peace. In the rest of the world, I hope that the hunger for money and power submits to a greater hunger for the common good. But I’ll settle for no more suicide bombers in civilian neighborhoods.

A clock. I realized the other day that I am surrounded by time-telling devices. For someone who no longer has to get up at 6:24 (I never gave up one minute of sleep voluntarily) to make it to work in time for the college president’s first phone call, I have less need of keeping precise time than ever in my past. So why do I have clocks next to my bed and on my desk, in addition to a watch, a computer clock, an iPhone clock, two kitchen clocks, a coffee maker clock, a fax clock readout, a car clock, and a couple others I only remember around the start and end of Daylight Saving Time? And, why am I 15 minutes late for everything?

CD by a heavy metal band. There may have been a moment, or a song, or a party that made heavy metal seem possible. But it passed so quickly that I have no memory of it, only a case of tinnitus that adds a hissing sound to the music I do like. Yes, I’m too old for heavy metal anyway, but I thought I’d mention it in case anyone close to me was overtaken by panic about what to buy me for Christmas.

Diamonds. It’s funny, really. I’ve never liked the icy rocks enough to covet them, maybe because I so rarely admire the way they’re set. (In a crown, yes.) I had a couple once, but they were stolen in a house burglary and I didn’t miss them enough to shop around for replacements. I’d much rather have another trip to Hong Kong, Bali, or France. For me, experiences and the memories of them add plenty of sparkle.

Perfume attached to a celebrity’s name. No, no, no. I have a bit of a nose, and perfume and its origins fascinate me. My big treat to myself last year was buying a half dozen tiny bottles from a master’s atelier in Italy, and I devour knowledgeable articles on new and vintage perfumes that ring with individuality and allure. It’s not that good perfume isn’t available, it’s that it doesn’t need to be marketed with images of Elizabeth Taylor or Paris Hilton.

Another cat. I say this because at this very moment two kitties are meowing plaintively at me, stopping only to hiss at each other. They’re like siblings:

“She hit me!”

“I did not.”

“She started it.”

“Make her stop.”

“I’m thirsty.”

Between cleaning the litter box, picking up countless cat toys, filling the kibble bowls, and sending them to their separate rooms 10 times a day, getting up at 6:24 and out of the house by 7 isn’t looking so bad.

CONTEST! LEAVE A COMMENT EVERY DAY – I’LL PULL A RANDOM WINNER OF MY NEW PAPERBACK EDITION OF ABSTRACT FROM EACH DAY’S GROUP OF COMMENTERS AND SEND YOU A COPY IN TIME TO GIVE IT AS A STOCKING STUFFER!

Dick Cartter, The King of Detectives

Haven’t heard of the Sherlock Holmes-type private detective whose exploits had French readers gobbling up 21 stories in the early 1920s? Not surprising. Even though Cartter’s adventures took place in San Francisco, the booklets, which I can’t quite define as a comic since the only illustrations were on the covers, were conceived by a Frenchman, written in France and published there for the tiny sum of 30 centimes.

I wouldn’t know about them if my ex-pat friends hadn’t found a stash at a vide grenier (a cool flea market in which an entire town empties its attics and basements on the same weekend day) in Burgundy last summer and promptly sent them to me.

The stories are allegedly told by a Captain Browning, who was Cartter’s friend (another Sherlockian gesture) and are replete with pipe smoking, chasing around, exclamation points, and “cadavres.” The French is simple enough that I can stumble my way through them. Even if I don’t know the precise meaning, phrases like “une femme etait etendue, immobile et semblant privee de vie” in “La Chambre Bleue” (#15 in the series) are pretty easy to figure out.

It only adds a touch of craziness for that particular corpse to have been discovered after a horseback ride from the steamboat in Oakland to “le petit village of San Ramon.”

I’m not the only one who loves these little booklets. The Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley just accepted them with pleasure into their collection. I thought it was unfair to hoard them in my study any longer. So, if you’re a credentialed researcher, you’ll soon be able to find the elusive Dick Cartter in their archives. Until then, enjoy this cover!