When Spring Cleaning Goes Full Dick Van Dyke

 

If you were ever a fan of the old Dick van Dyke Show, you'll undoubtedly remember the episode where Laura, dying of curiosity, opens a mysterious package belonging to Rob, only to discover it's an inflatable boat. The visual of that thing exploding across the room, combined with Mary Tyler Moore's exquisite humiliation, is comedy gold.

 

Welp, last week I lived my own Laura Petrie moment. I’ve never been what you’d call a meticulous housekeeper, but this spring something in me snapped. I’ve been on a cleaning tear: shoving furniture around, second-guessing its placement, shoving it back again, scrubbing walls, baseboards, floors—you name it. In a fit of fresh-start zeal, I decided everything on the bed had to be washed. King-size duvet? Done. Regular pillows? Fluffed and fresh. Even the decorative ones got the treatment.

 

 Feeling bold, I moved on to the three big European square pillows that line the back of my bed. I’ve washed king comforters in my large washer plenty of times, so I figured one pillow at a time would be no problem. The care tag said something about “commercial machines,” but… details.

 

I popped the first pillow into the washer on the bulky setting with warm water and let ‘er rip. About halfway through the cycle I noticed the machine was working awfully hard. When the cycle ended, I opened the lid and—this thing had inflated like a parade balloon. It was wedged against the lid, swollen with water, and looking positively indignant.

 

 I managed to wrestle it out, but it immediately doubled in drama. So, on a bright sunny afternoon, I carried this dripping, overinflated monster out to the deck for some emergency wringing. My grip strength isn’t what it used to be (thanks, dotage), so after a couple of half-hearted squeezes I grabbed it by the corner and gave it a good swing to shake out the excess water.

Big mistake.

 That pillow took flight like a NASA reject. It sailed off the deck in a perfect arc and landed squarely in my neighbor’s yard. I stood there, mouth agape, watching it lie there like a beached whale, leaking water into their grass. Thank heaven they weren’t home. The sheer mortification of anyone possibly witnessing my domestic disaster was enough to make me consider moving.

 I did eventually rescue the runaway pillow (and yes, I washed the other two with extreme caution). But I’m now seriously rethinking my future pillow-washing strategy.

Moral of the story: Spring cleaning is dangerous. Curiosity and large absorbent objects don’t mix. And if you ever see a random European pillow in your yard… you’ll know who to blame.

 This story is part of my series Life on Planet Pattie, about the foibles of life, resilience, and the occasional furniture-moving adventure. It appears the first Monday of every month.

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Clean and Presentable, or so I thought.

A Winter-Weathered Miracle Under the Chair

My Dance with the Devil

 Nothing Is Ever Simple (Featuring a Refrigerator and My — GASP! — Underwear)

 Refrigerator Roulette, Round Two

 The Sun’s Sneaky Victory: My “Brilliant” Outdoor Freezer Defrost Debacle 

Secrets of the Abbey by Jean-Luc Bannalec, Reviewed

  

 If, like me, you’ve been following Commissaire Georges Dupin around Brittany for the last decade, you already know the ritual: sun-drenched salt air, endless cups of grand crème, buttery kouign-amann appearing at exactly the right moment, and a murder that somehow ties into Celtic legends, oyster farming, or (in this case) the eerie former abbey on the wild Côte des Légendes. Book eleven, The Secrets of the Abbey, delivers all the expected pleasures, and that, oddly enough, is part of its slight letdown.

The set up is classic Bannalec. An unseasonably warm October finds Dupin grumbling good-naturedly while Second Inspector Kadeg — usually the butt of gentle jokes — suffers a personal tragedy. His aunt dies after a string of ominous “signs of death,” and when Kadeg visits her home in a deconsecrated abbey someone puts him in intensive care. Dupin races to the coast with the team, and soon the abbey’s shadowy corridors are spilling long-buried family secrets, whispered superstitions, and more than one motive for murder.

As always, Bannalec’s Brittany is practically a character in its own right. You’ll smell the sea, taste the crêpes, and come away with a short course in medieval Breton architecture and local death omens whether you meant to or not. Dupin himself remains irresistible: caffeine-powered, impatient with nonsense, secretly sentimental, and still capable of solving a case by sheer stubbornness and a well-timed pastry break.

The mystery is clever, the writing elegant (the translation by Sorcha McDonagh continues to be seamless), and the atmosphere thick enough to cut with one of Dupin’s beloved Opinel knives. Yet — and this is something I’ve never said about a Dupin book before — I found myself setting it down without reluctance. The pacing feels a touch leisurely, even for this deliberately unhurried series, and the central puzzle, while satisfying, lacks the irresistible pull of the best entries.

Longtime fans will still enjoy every page; it’s like revisiting a favorite café where the coffee is still excellent even if this particular blend isn’t the most memorable you’ve had. New readers could start here, but I’d gently nudge them toward Death in Brittany or The Granite Coast Murders for peak Dupin.

In short: another solid, scenic, croissant-scented investigation. Just not the one I’ll be pressing into friends’ hands with quite the same urgency as numbers 1-10.

(And yes, I still want Dupin’s life — minus the attempted murders, of course.) 3 1/2 stars

 You can order your copy here.

 I received an advanced digital copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

 As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.