Cliche characters and situations

Today on a blog I read an interview with a seasoned mystery writer--been at it 30 years--who said she created her new series featurig a tough woman with a salvage business (read junk yard) because she thought she'd scream if she read one more mystery about a sweet woman sleuth with a cat and a cop for a boyfriend and a meddling mother. Ooops! She just described Skeleton in a Dead Space, which my agent is trying right now to market. Well, Kelly Jones isn't sweet--she's pretty savvy, and she's a harried real estate agent trying to raise two little girls (I think they're the best characters in the story). No cat, but she does acquire a cop as a boyfriend during the course of the novel--and a dog. The blog is making me think outside the box and go back to that series I started on the Blue Plate Cafe.
I was particularly interested to read Martin's comments because I'd just discovered her Blackbird Sisters series, read two (just finished Dead Girls Don't Wear Diamonds tonight), and found them delightfully different, funny, and suspenseful. The Blackbird sisters are about the wackiest trio I've found in fiction recently.
I've been thinking for some time how frustrating I find mysteries in which the protagonist deliberately, for less than believable reasons, cuts herself off from the man in her life--she distrusts him, or she thinks she can't share her secret knowlege about the mystery with him, or she just erects some barrier between them. You just want to shake the woman or scream at her to be sensible. It's a great device for drawing out the plot, but it's a trap I hope I avoided, at least to some extent. Talk about cliches!
Thunderstorms in North Texas tonight. I just got Scooby in before they started--he is terrified by them, and I didn't want to have to try to dry him off--he won't stand still for having his feet toweled, so I have him dance around on some old rugs I put by the back door. But now we're both snug in the study and listening to the rain. Good for all those plants that Greg put in yesterday.