HOLLY NADLER

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(hollynadler@gmail.com)

Some random thoughts on this 93rd straight day of rain:

That double-gabled Victorian on upper Circuit avenue, formerly known as Rollins Respite, has finally received its new coat of paint. If you’ll recall, in an earlier column I extolled the raspberry and rich, deep ocean green applications it was getting from the cheerful crew of painters. Then one day I encountered paint boss Jimmy LeBarre sitting on the front steps looking downcast (not a common attitude for him; he’s more of the rollicking, swashbuckling type).

“I’ve never had so many people comment on the colors,” he said. The critiques were along the lines of “Eeew!” “Ugh!” and “Yikes!”

I ask you naysayers, what’s wrong with raspberry and ocean green? Well, if anybody thinks one or both of those hues are desirable, I’m sure Jimmy has extra paint cans to give you.

So now the sizable home has been toned down to a pale pampas-grass green. The trim is a buttery beige. The new owner, Jim Hart, has talked about daubing the fancier shingles dark green. I’m thinking purple might jazz things up, but don’t listen to me: I’m color poison in this town. That original raspberry of a few weeks back picked up my mood for days.

Another item of interest: At the northeast corner of Narragansett and Waban, there’s an old blue VW bug that has sat on the small shelving of someone’s lawn for so long, ivy has formed ornate tendrils all over it. It’s a work of art, like those Kienholtz conceptual pieces of the 1970s of mannequins making whoopee in old automobiles. In fact, let’s shove a couple of mannequins in this VW Bug, or maybe actual couples who need a place to get, you know, friendly. But please don’t anyone ticket the ivyed car or tow it away. It’s settling into the soil and the foliage like a sleeping giant hydrangea.

Finally, I just finished the most readable mystery novel since the days when Nancy Drew used to transport me to a land that I can only describe as book-lover paradise with 72 virgins serving up 72 titles of Nancy Drew mysteries.

The book is called Deadly Mission (Mainly Murder Press) by Oak Bluffs resident, writer, Unitarian minister, quilt-maker, and fun lady about town, Judith Campbell. It takes place in Cambridge in all its seasons, the minister-slash-professor-slash-amateur-sleuth is a Judy clone and her British best friend is a Chris clone, Chris being Judy’s actual charming, British husband. There are dead bodies and a sinister religious cult and a ghost in the sleuth’s old farmhouse outside the city, but none of this can convey the sheer page-turning quality of the writing. I sat down in what I call my sprawl chair (I could read, write, eat and sleep in this chair 24 hours a day), and I didn’t rise from it until four or so hours later when I finished the book.

This quality of keeping the reader hooked is not something a writer can learn in workshops, although I know Judy has studied the craft backwards and forwards. You just have it or you don’t. Carolyn Keene had it for the Nancy Drew stories (oh, how it pained me to learn Carolyn Keene was actually a collection of ghost writers and some of them were male!) This isn’t to say that Judy Campbell’s mystery isn’t thoroughly grown up – it is. And a few years back I opened a Nancy Drew to see if an adult could access it and the answer is, she can’t: It’s written for children.

All I can add to my admiration is, Judy, you’ve got that X factor. Please keep writing Olympia Brown mysteries so we can dive into one after the next, and keep them lined up on our shelves just the way our grammar school girlfriends used to do, lending them out as long as you stayed pals with them.

P.S. It was a good thing that while I sat mesmerized in the sprawl chair, Huxley had finished up a several-hour romp through the woods to Trade Winds, all around the doggy campus, then back across the woods where, once we reached the wooden walkway alongside Farm Pond, he hurled himself into the wetlands, splashing through the rivulets, burrowing under the bridge, then up again on the far side to do it all again. When we reached home, he crashed for a good 12 hours.

Rose Ryley, who lives in Oak Bluffs, had a good reason for running in the Cape Abilities 5K Walk/Run in Hyannis on May 14. Her brother, Danny, works at Cape Abilities Farm in Dennis, which employs people with disabilities. When Danny bought Rose a new laptop computer for her 30th birthday, she decided she wanted to do something special to honor him. So she signed up to run the 5K — her very first — and raised more than $1,265 for Cape Abilities. Included in that sum was Rose’s personal donation of half of a day’s tips from her job as a waitress at the Artcliff Diner in Vineyard Haven to Cape Abilities. The other half paid for the ferry trip over to Cape Cod for the Saturday morning run. The family shared that with Hy-Line, and the ferry company donated a round-trip ticket for Rose to use for another visit. As it happened, Rose won another ferry ticket — a round-trip pass for two people on the Falmouth-Edgartown Ferry — for being the Top Individual Fundraiser at Saturday’s 5K. Cape Abilities is grateful to have the support of this thoughtful and hardworking young woman.

A lot of good info from the Oak Bluffs Public Library: Toddler storytime is Wednesday, May 25, 10:30 to 11:15 a.m. and the theme is Birds. Come have fun and develop early literacy skills with Sondra. Read, sing, dance, and play instruments. Designed for ages one to three. For the three-to-five set, preschool storytime is Wednesday, 11:30 a.m. to 12:15 p.m.

For children of all ages, it’s seed planting on Saturday, May 21 from 10:30 a.m. to noon: Decorate a peat pot and plant your own seeds to take home. Free! Then, also for children of all ages, on Saturday, May 28 from 10:30 to noon, is a bird’s nest craft program. Create your own little nest and baby bird to take home. Free.

The library’s used book dropoff days are as follows: Saturday, May 28, from noon to 3 p.m.; Saturday, June 18, from noon to 3 p.m.; and Thursday, July 7, from 4 to 7 p.m. Bring your gently used books, DVDs and CDs for the Library Friends July Book Sale. Clean out your library and help raise funds for our library. The Friends cannot use Reader’s Digest condensed books, encyclopedias, text books, outdated computer books or dirty, damaged books.