April 12, 2022
Daily Diary, Day 590: Yesterday afternoon went as I expected it. After lunch, I had numerous pre-cancerous places on my face burned off my face (thanks to my annual summer attempt in my teens to get a tan—when all I did was burn and freckle). I got home in time to have a cup of tea. Then it was time for my phone call—which lasted 2 and a half-hours, a great catch-up with my oldest close friend. Oh, I also got about 20 mins to read on my Kindle at the doctor’s office. I just completed the mystery I had been reading last week, The Maid, and I quite liked it. The protagonist was clearly “on the spectrum,” which not only got her into trouble, but made for a very interesting point of view narrative.
I had to chuckle over how much I enjoyed her descriptions of cleaning, quite approving of the order in which she cleaned hotel room and her own flat. Because of my mother’s periodic ill health (rheumatic heart disease, eventually having 3 different open-heart surgeries), from an early age, I was responsible for cleaning our house from (literally) top to bottom every Saturday. She had trained me to start with dusting at the corners of the ceiling and the walls, whcre spiders and their webs might hide, then dust the window sills, the tops or and behind all the furniture in a room. In the bedrooms I would strip and change the bedding, in the kitchen all the counters and sink, and the bathroom the mirrors, sink, tub, and toilet. Only then, could I vacuum. In the kitchen and den, which had linoleum, I scrubbed the floors on hands and knees.
I was very proud of the job I did as a cleaner, (although I suspect when I started aout at about 10 years old, I wasn’t all that proficient) and I thoroughly approved of the way the protagonist in the mystery cleaned her hotel rooms!
This reminded me of why I work so hard to be accurate in my historical mysteries. There are always experts out there (in things like horses, iron cast stoves, Victorian dress, etc and even cleaning!) who can be brought out of my stories if I get something wrong. I was extremely relieved when I sent my most recent novel, Entangled Threads, which was filled with detailed descriptions of the 19th century woolen textile industry to a beta reader––who is not only an historian, but a weaver––and she gave the book the seal of approval for accuracy.
So, you won’t be surprised that one of the things that has slowed down the writing I’m doing on my story, Mrs. Stein Solves a Crime, is that I am trying to understand how 19th century banks functioned, including whether or not women would be likely to have accounts. Needless-to-say I was really happy to find that in California a 1862 law said that savings and loan banks had to let women open accounts, no matter what their marital status. See an 1882 illustration of women in a New York City bank.
As for the rest of the day, late dinner, some tv, and this morning I’m trying to get off on my walk earlier than usual so I can spend the rest of the day writing!