Fate Takes A Hand - Discussion Thread



She was banking on the idea that burglars
seldom look up.

 Trottie sleeps on the velvet bag of silverware so that burglars won't get it. First of all, that sounds quite uncomfortable. Secondly, if I was in charge of guarding the silver, I'd be looking for someplace that wouldn't force a burglar to commit assault on my person.



Scott Lake. Thousands of frogs, billions of mosquitoes.



At her old home:  'She hoped that the people who had bought it were taking proper care of it and had left the frogs in the pool at the bottom of the garden in peace.'  Betty Keira's oldest son (10 years old) has a gig as a frog bounty hunter. One of their neighbors pays him to gather up all the frogs in their yard. This job is best done in the dark - and frogs like wet places, so he comes home covered in mud, but much richer.  Not to worry, the frogs aren't killed, just relocated.

When I was a little girl, our family used to take our canoe and go up to Scott Lake (in the Oregon Cascades). The road through the McKenzie Pass is only open for about 3 months a year - depending on snowfall.  If we went quite soon after the road opened, we kids would spend hours seeing who could catch the most tadpoles (and then releasing them). Later on in the summer we had the thrill of catching the frogs themselves - they were adorable little things - only around an inch long. Yes, we released them also.


Discuss traditionally acceptable things a girl may accept as gifts (books, chocolates, perfume).  Does the list include a cottage and 50,000 pounds


I'm not sure what my colour-deficient boys would make
of this colour.  My oldest once thought a car was 'puke
green', when it was actually pumpkin orange.

Eulalia has to get planning permission to add a bathroom on the back of the cottage (she gets the OK but has to do the exterior in Cotswold stone).  The small town that I live in requires that all new developments have a Home Owners Association (HOA). Last summer we decided to paint Casa van der Stevejinck. We had to get the paint colours okay'd.  I tend to be a bit of an 'immediate gratification' person - I have my paint colours picked out, let's put on our painting clothes and get going! Yeah, no. It only took a couple of days to get it approved, but because of the delay, I still have some unpainted trim on the back of my house (it was a rainy summer and the number of days which were suitable for painting was limited. And yes, we painted it ourselves. 



I'm sorry, Betty Debbie can't come to the phone
right now, she's...um...ah...er....gone to Tahiti
 for the evening.

Several times, Fenno has Dodge call Ursula to cancel dates with lame excuses.  Craven and cowardly or is this why people have man-servants? I can think of many times it would have been nice to delegate the unpleasant phone call duties - where's that man-servant when I need him?

Dodge is 59 and Trottie is not quite that old.  They fall in love while discussing recipes and making tea things.  (And their kisses are so stinkin' cute--right in front of Fenno and everything!)  Discuss.