All posts by verily sherrilee

Directionally challenged, crafty, reading mother of young adult
2026, books, Movies, TV

Tired….

22 Comments

I’m that proverbial early bird.  Not sure it’s ever gotten me any early worms.  It’s pretty rare that I can stay asleep longer than 5 or 5:30, although occasionally in the winter when it’s dark later in the morning, I can manage a little bit longer.  In the summer, once the sun starts heading into the sky, I’m done for.

This is not a problem unless I have too many late nights.  Usually I’m not a night owl  but….

I’m binging Brokenwood these days, so one night in the last week, I was  up until midnight watching the last of the DVDs that I had from the library.  Another night this week, I stayed up too late watching some Peter Davison Dr Who episodes (the DVD was due the next day).   A third night I was getting close to the end of Inside a Dog by Alexandra Horowitz.  It wasn’t really a page-turner (4 stars) but I really wanted to see if the author was going to wrap it up with anything more surprising than she had already presented (spoiler alert – she didn’t). 

No regrets about any of these nights but since sleeping in doesn’t happen so I am dragging a little bit the last couple of days.  Nothing too serious and after a few more regular nights, I’ll be back to my bright-eyed, bushy-tailed morning gal.  Unless I find something else compelling that keeps me up……

What’s worth it to you to lose some sleep?  Last thing that kept you up past your usual bedtime?

2026, animals, Food, Kids, Mysteries

Scrambled?

30 Comments

It was YAs birthday in the middle of the month.  She was out of town for work so she requested a birthday brunch this past weekend.  She had the jalapeno hash with a wide of pancakes; I had the blueberry pancakes with a side of scrambled eggs.  

I used to always order fried eggs, over medium.  No waitperson ever blinked an eye over this, but apparently chefs and fry cooks weren’t up to the task.  Either the yolks were rock solid or the whites oozed out.  After several years of this, I finally decided to switch to scrambled.  Easy peasy, right?  Nope.  It was right about this time that “soft” scrambled eggs started to trend upwards.  I remember seeing chefs online and on tv raving about them.  I always just thought of them as “wet” and certainly not appetizing.  These days when I order scrambled eggs, I specify that I want them “dry”.  Again, no waitperson ever questions this description and I always get the eggs the way I like them.

On Saturday however, YA informed me that I’m ordering wrong.  I’m supposed to say “hard” instead of “dry”.  Since she chose that outing to also inform me of several other things that I do wrong, I didn’t think about it too much.

Then I read Ben’s blog and when I was looking at the chicken pictures, it made me wonder if on the egg point YA was correct.  I can’t imagine what the internet thinks of me based on some of my searches but now it has to add “ways to scramble” eggs to my weird list.  Turns out that most folks do say “hard” although there are enough that use “dry” to make me feel like I’m not completely on my own.  I also discovered that the culinary world also refers to this method as “American Method”.  Hmmm.  I found a lot of videos about how to scramble eggs but nobody seems to know why hard/dry is American.  I did also find that there are “diner” scrambled; the eggs are cooked flat on a grill and folded up. 

When I do eggs at home, my preferred method is fried.  Over medium of course.

Anyway, thanks to Ben and YA for my latest rabbit hole – egg research.  I have frittata and shakshuka on the menu for the next week!

Poached, hard-boiled, soft-boiled, scrambled, over-easy, sunny-side up?

2026, Automotive, Fantasy, Mysteries, Weather

Mystery Car

36 Comments

As I was backing out of my parking space at Michaels yesterday afternoon, another car, two spots up starting backing out at the same time.  I looked toward the driver to make sure that they had seen me and was startled to see NO ONE.  No body in the driver’s seat, no body in the passenger seat. 

You can imagine, I’m sure, that this completely freaked me out.  It also caused me to doubt myself.  I had just mis-seen that, right?  The mystery car was behind me at this point so I drove very very slowly toward the exit lane.  From my rear view mirror, it really didn’t look like there was anyone driving. 

YA will tell you that I know nothing about cars, but I would have bet money that cars couldn’t drive themselves.  Even Teslas have to have somebody IN the car, don’t they?  And, of course, I can’t tell you what kind of car it was – I really am hopeless in this area.

As I pulled into the exit lane, I kept my speed slow – barely moving slow.  I saw the mystery car pull over to the front of the Michaels and saw a man and a woman leave the store and jump in the car.  At that point, I decided I couldn’t just sit there with them coming up behind me, so I headed home.

Here’s my real conundrum about this.  This car was four parking spaces away from the store.  And it was 13 degrees, not 13 below.  Cars that you can warm up seem weird enough to me, but having a car that drives 4 parking spaces to pick you up doorside is just too too bizarre for me. 

When hover-cars are invented, will you get one?

2026, Food, Games, Kids, Seasons

Slippery Summer Fun

33 Comments

Slippery Summer Fun

Today’s post comes to us from Krista.

I think I’ve mentioned growing up on Cannon Lake and spending most of my free time swimming. I loved swimming, loved everything about the lake.

I don’t know where Mom got the idea, but one hot summer day, she took a large watermelon and spread Vaseline all over it. Then she tossed it in the lake and told us we had to bring it in so that we could have it for a snack later.

We spent most of the afternoon trying to “catch” that thing. It slipped away with every touch. There is nothing on a watermelon to grab hold of, and a greased one in the lake is a slippery challenge! No one was injured in this game, and everyone was exhausted. I don’t remember who, but someone was finally able to get hold of it.

When we got out of the lake, we were slick with petroleum product and water. We all had to shower before supper.

What unique games did you play as a child? What fun challenges did you give your own kids?

2026, Fantasy, Mysteries, Technology, TV

Keeping Track

18 Comments

I didn’t have a big to-do list yesterday.  Normally when this occurs, I fill in with other little tasks around the house or I plant myself in my studio but for some reason sitting on the sofa and watching tv.  Three episodes of Perry Mason and then a handful of Columbo.

I’ve seen them all repeatedly.  I know who the murderer is in every Perry Mason and, of course, you know who the murderer is on Columbo from the get-go.  Since I don’t have to spend any mental energy on figuring out the mystery, I can while away the time looking at small details and wondering at how the world has changed.

Yesterday what stood out the most was that no matter where Perry or Columbo happen to be, somebody can always get ahold of them.  Perry is interviewing a suspect; the phone rings and it’s for him.  Columbo is at his dog’s obedience academy; the phone rings and it’s for him.  It happened all the time.

Now Perry had Della to call him however the calls weren’t always from her and quite a bit of the time she was with him.  Was there a whiteboard with all of Perry’s stops left in his outer office?  For many years, there was Gertie who took calls.  Maybe she was letting folks know where Perry was?

But Columbo?  He was always portrayed as such a loose cannon – if there was some administrative assistant somewhere back at headquarters, it was a highly kept secret.  Did he really leave the phone number of the dog obedience academy with someone somewhere?

It made me think about the scene in Woody Allen’s Play It Again Sam in which Diane Keaton and Tony Roberts are leaving Woody’s apartment:

Dick:
I’ll be at 362-9296 for a while; then I’ll be at 648-0024 for about fifteen minutes; then I’ll be at 752-0420; and then I’ll be home, at 621-4598. Yeah, right George, bye-bye.

Linda:
There’s a phone booth on the corner. You want me to run downstairs and get the number? You’ll be passing it.

Obviously these days detectives and lawyers are never without their cell phones, so the whiteboards with everyone’s every move and destination are not longer necessary.  Of course, now that I think about it – they probably hadn’t been invented yet?

Do you have a whiteboard?  Whiteboard equivalent?  What do you use it for?

2026, books, Business, Fantasy, Mysteries, TV

The Doctor

34 Comments

When I was in the bookstore, I was offered a “new” position in Store #1 (Southdale).  My title was Associate Manager, a title that didn’t exist anywhere else in the bookstore world at that point.  This fancy title meant that I had more responsibility, more work but no more power than any average employee.  And certainly not a lot more money.  But the one thing that I was promised was the doing this job would mean that when it came time for me to become a store manager, I would be able to skip the traditional small “starter” store, but would jump right away to a medium store. 

If you live in the Twin Cities, if you ever visited the store over in Sun Ray Mall (not there any longer), you’ll know that they lied to me.  There were only a few stores smaller than Sun Ray at the time.  However, the Associate Manager job was such a pain in the patoot that I didn’t argue when they offered me the teeny store – off I went.

I’ve mentioned the teeniest because despite it’s small size, it had the largest Dr. Who section in the Twin Cities – seven full shelves in the corner so basically its own section.  A couple of times a week, someone would come in the front door and ask “Dr. Who?”.  We sold A LOT of the little mass market editions.  Some of them were books based on episodes and many were other Dr. Who fiction.  Written by many different authors.

That was over 30 years ago, only half way through what is now a 60-year legacy and still going strong.  Even though we had cornered the Dr. Who market at the time, it didn’t interest me much.  As time has passed, I’ve watched just a few episodes and a couple of years ago I did read the very first book. 

A couple of weeks ago I read something on FB that commented that Dr. #5 (Peter Davison) is the father-in-law of Dr. #10 (David Tennant).  Not sure why but that seems like a funny happenstance.  So I decided I might learn a bit more about the whole Dr. Who universe.  I’ve started with a series that was made about 10 years ago.  There is one DVD per doctor with a 30-minute overview and interviews covering the doctor, the companions and what made them special and different.  Then there is one episode, sometimes the first of that particular doctor, sometimes one of the most iconic.    

There have been 14 different Dr. Who actors, although some folks count 15 because David Tennant came back.  However clocking in with a whooping 892 episodes filmed so far, this is not a rabbit hole I’m going to jump down.  I’ll watch the rest of the series.  Maybe in the future I’ll watch a few more here and there – particularly David Tennant and Peter Davison, both of whom I already liked from other roles.  I don’t think I’ll need a spreadsheet!

Is there any science fiction you like?  A Dr. Who fan?  Star Wars?  Star Trek?  Firefly?  Avengers?

2026, Automotive, Kids, Technology

When They Roamed

40 Comments

My car (Honda Insight) is 12 years old.  She has held up remarkably well but I wasn’t overly surprised when a couple of weeks ago, I had to push my key fob repeatedly to open the car.  But it only happened twice, so then I forgot about it.

Then three days ago, the key fob quit locking.  It would unlock but not lock.  I tried the old key fob – that one was deader than dead.  A quick trip to the hardware store and two new batteries didn’t fix the problem; the internet search listed about 10 possible causes, only one of which was something I could fix on my own.  And that fix didn’t work.  *&#^^%@$.

With YA coming home Sunday night, I was worried that if I messed around too much, locking the car the old fashioned way, that I might not then be able to open it.  Since I needed the car to pick up YA and also needed the car to take a friend downtown yesterday morning, I didn’t want an issue.

Then I made my big mistake; I texted YA about the situation.  What I really wanted to know was where her keys were, in case I needed to use her car to pick her up.

What I got was:

  • Directions on how to change to batteries in the fob. (Thanks, did that on my own already)
  • You know you have the old fob in the drawer? (Yep, been there, done that)
  • Why don’t you leave it until I get home. (Really, you don’t trust me to drive your car to the airport and back?)
  • You know, you can lock the car with your key. There’s a key hole on the door.  (I am not making this up).

Fortunately, the fob is now working intermittently so the short-term issue is on hold although I’m sure I’m going to have to deal with this in the coming month.  Not sure how to let YA know that back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, the ONLY way to lock a car was with the key in the door!

Did you know how to drive a stick-shift?  Did you learn on it or teach yourself later?

2026, Business, Mysteries, Stories

Keen

20 Comments

I haven’t been anywhere the last couple of days.  No errands of any import, no lunches, no appointments, just a quiet few days.  The one downside to this is that I’m listening to a CD in the car that I have been missing.  The Woman Who Walked in the Sunshine by Alexander McCall Smith; it’s part of the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series.

A need arose for something from the hardware store yesterday so I hopped in the car and immediately turned on the CD player.  Mma Ramotswe is having a holiday and is enjoying an afternoon tea with some ladies at President Hotel in town.  As the other women are gossiping away (just as I was getting to the hardware store) this passage came up on the CD:

Mma Ramotswe lowered her eyes.  She was not enjoying this conversation, but she had to say something.  “There are many shocking things that happen,” she said.  “I see them in my work.”

One of the ladies exhaled loudly.  “You must tell us about these things some time, Mma,” she said.  “You must tell us about some of these shocking things.”

“Yes,” said another.  “We are very keen to disapprove.”

I had just taken a big swig of coffee and it was all I could do to keep from snorting it up my nose when I laughed out loud.  “Disapprove” was not the ending to the sentence that I expected but it was a better ending than anything I could have thought up on my own.

Has anything made you laugh recently?  (Book, film, kid, meme…..)

 

 

2026, animals, Food, Mysteries, Nature

Critter Conundrum?

29 Comments

I can’t decide if I’m losing my mind or not.

Backstory.  For many years, I have kept dog treats in my car – a box in the backseat and usually two or three in the little well in the drivers side door.  Most of these go to dogs at the hardware store – there are two official hardware store dogs but there are also often shoppers who bring their dogs in.  Occasionally if someone asking for money on a street corner has a dog, I will stop and talk to them a bit.  Dollar or so if I have it and a couple of treats for the dog.  I haven’t changed the type of dog treat – ever. 

This summer, I went to grab a treat from the little well and there were none there.  No big deal, I must have used them the last time I was at the hardware store.  I went to get a few from the box and the box was empty.  It’s completely within the realm of possibility that I took the last few treats out the box the last time I filled up the well, but I couldn’t grab a memory of doing that.  I bought another box, opened it and put a few in the window well.  A couple weeks later I noticed the well was empty, so went back to the box.  It was open and tipped over in the storage box where it sits.  Hmmmm.  This is where it gets tricky.  I am not 100% certain that I put any treats in the well at that point but the next week when I wanted one, the well was empty.

There is absolutely no evidence that critters are the culprits of all this.  No crumbs, no droppings, no scratch marks, no odor, no damage to anything else in the car.  Even in summer, I never leave the car windows open.  I could do a more scientific investigation (other than relying on my perhaps faulty memory) by taking a photo and jotting down the date and time to compare it later if I find the well empty.  Same with the box – picture and date of it closed.  So far, I’ve been too lazy to do that, although truly, how long would it take to snap a photo with my phone as I’m getting out of the car? 

It’s hard to imagine a squirrel getting into the car and it’s harder to imagine mice getting in and traipsing off with whole dog treats without leaving some kind of trail.  

Any thoughts?

2026, Business, Family, Food, Travel

Pea Green

32 Comments

When I started in the travel department of my company (35 years back), nobody had cell phones.  Of course, mobile phones did exist, however they were huge and very expensive.  Nobody I knew had a cell phone until the 90s.  The first small phone, the flip phone, came out in 1989. 

If you needed to call home while you were traveling, you needed to call through the hotel and it was exorbitant.  (This was also before everybody had laptops.)  My company had a strict “once every three days” rule for these expensive calls.  We all know how much technology has changed the world.  Now the company doesn’t even have a rule about calls home. 

This morning, I got up to the above photo texted to me from YA, who is on a work program right now.  Up until that moment, I had thought we were having a really warm couple of days.  Everything is relative, I guess.   The caption under her photo was “Breakfast on my balcony.”

Are you jealous of anybody this week?