Yes. I know. It’s been a bit of a while. Since then, I have prepped four books to teach for this semester and begun teaching, and my daughter now says she’s writing a book about bears and water (she may seriously have a picture-book career.) I will just share a few things that are happening with my mystery story.

Both happily and sadly, my classroom is nothing like this one.

1) I learned that a haberdasher is not, in fact, a hat-maker, but anyone associated with men’s clothing. Who knew? To be honest, I think I did. I think that every few years, I wonder, “Is a haberdasher a hat-maker?” and then look it up to find that it is not. Maybe next time, I will remember.

Okay, doesn’t this totally make you want to be a haberdasher? Maybe this blog post will start a new series: SYWTBAH

2) I learned that the difference between Coronation and Investiture is that Coronation is religious and Investiture is for secular countries, like Holland, where Queen Beatrix, the 76-year-old monarch, recently abdicated so her son could have a hand at governing. Right on, Beatrix! And good luck present ruler, whose name I have forgotten and don’t think it would add much to include. It’s not Harald; that’s a Norwegian king of recent-ish rule, but I feel like it does add something to the proceedings to have Harold spelled with two a’s.

So THAT’s why the stores are full of royal blue! Duh! It’s in the name!

3) Excitingly, I have made up a new food for the invented kingdom I’m writing about. The name popped into my head: a gruntlet. I quick-quick turned on the internet (because I was in a netless hour–holla, new discipline regime) and confirmed: a gruntlet does not already exist, so I could invent one.

And what is a gruntlet? No spoilers here, but I will say that it’s like quiche, only delicious. (Couldn’t quiche so be improved upon? Couldn’t it be immeasurably better without that hard, flaky crust? Mini-quiches are often yummy, but when they go for bigger shells, they just end up tough and sad. A gruntlet, I feel certain, will be the way back into love for large-style egg-and-vegetable dishes.

It’s almost sad to have to look at this picture, but I want to inspire you to create your own gruntlet.

4) So unrelatedly, I began watching “Orange is the New Black,” and after one okay pilot and two kind of terrible episodes, it suddenly became awesome. Which is a) awesome and b) a surprising and useful tale of how sometimes authors may lay out too much exposition but should really get into the meat of the story sooner. I mean, possibly it’s just me, but aren’t we all watching that show to see whether Piper and Alex will hop into a closet together? Episodes 4 through 7 get us closer to that, and they are harder to pull away from.

Tell me: is there a quiche recipe I should know about? Does anyone want to test-pilot a gruntlet? And do you agree with me about Piper and Alex?