All posts by verily sherrilee

Directionally challenged, crafty, reading mother of young adult
2026, Food, Gatherings, Health, State Fair, Uncategorized

Nursing at the Fair

1 Comment

We got to see the Emergency Services folks at the Fair in action again this year – NOT FOR ME. 

It was last Saturday, a seriously crowded day.  YA and I were feeling very lucky to have scored seats on the bench across Al’s to enjoy our malts when suddenly a man about 8 feet from us fell into the street.  Neither of us actually saw why he fell, just the fall itself.  I was just about to set my malt down and go over but immediately there were at least 8 folks surrounding him.  It made me think of a scene from one of my favorite films People Will Talk.  Cary Grant has taken over the lecture hall of another professor and during his talk, Jeanne Crain gets dizzy, faints and falls off her chair into the aisle.  All the other medical students jump up to help.  Cary Grant’s line is “Get back, get back. Quiet down, quiet down. A group of  Cub Scouts would know better than to crowd like this”.  I stayed put. 

I suspected from YA’s rapt expression that we were going to sit there until the situation was resolved, one way or the other.  When I asked her if this was the case, she nodded, not taking her eyes off the scene.  So I settled in. 

One of the people who had jumped in to help immediately was the woman who had been sitting next to me on the bench.  She knelt down next to the guy as they got him sitting up.  You could see her talking to him calmly; she kept a hand on his back the whole time.  She never seemed to lose her composure and when the first (and then second, third and fourth) set of emergency services guys showed up, she was the one communicating with them.  I said to YA “she must be a nurse”.  YA agreed. 

At first we had thought maybe heat stroke but then we saw the guy holding and rubbing his left shoulder – was it a heart attack?  Then YA heard someone say that the guy had landed on his new shoulder – he has just had shoulder replacement a few weeks back.  Ouch.  There were four different sets of emergency folks who came to the scene – it took quite some time to make their way through the crowds, even with lights going. They also were calm and assured; they asked questions, took vitals and eventually they were able to trundle the guy onto one of their gators and whisk him off.  Well, whisk probably isn’t the right word, considering the crowds.

I talked to the woman who had been attending to him and she confirmed that she was indeed a nurse.  I knew it.  Anyway, I told her that I had thought so based on her actions and I thanked her for her service.  Turns out that May 12 is International Nurses’ Day – I’m thinking we should have more than one of those celebrations a year.  So thanks to those of you on the Trail who are nurses or spent your career nursing – seeing one of your legion in action was really great.

Tell me about a nurse who made a difference to you!

2026, animals, home, Nature, Seasons

Summer Frolic

8 Comments

It’s been so dry here this summer that hint of possible precipitation gets me all worked up.  So, when there was a forecast for rain for yesterday morning, I was happy to hear it, even if it meant getting a bit damp doing my errands.  When it didn’t rain… well, grumpy-city!   

Time to cave and set up the sprinkler.  I did the backyard first and about 20 minutes later, as I was putting something in the recycling on the back porch, I looked out the back door and saw a good handful of sparrows having a frolic!  It was so cute.  Unfortunately I didn’t get a good picture – the dog barked before I could get a shot.  But here is a video that looked a lot like the scene in the back:

(This is a bit long for what it is… won’t hurt my feelings if you don’t watch it all the way through!) I’m not sure why I was so taken with this.  Maybe because we are barraged on all sides daily with such ugliness, seeing something sweet and unspoiled is even more special.  I know, I’m getting a bit mawkish here, but it was just one of days!

Anything sweet and unspoiled to report in your world this week?

Food, Gatherings, State Fair, crops, 2026

On Line…

46 Comments

Lines and I have a checkered relationship. 

When my baby sister was 14 and coming up to visit me for a week, I slept in line overnight to get Bon Jovi tickets.  When I had to renew my drivers’ license (and had waited too late to get an appointment), I hit the AAA office at 6 a.m. to get one of the 75 walk-in slots.  The office opened at 9; when I got there at 6, I wasn’t the first in line!  You all know I’ve sat outside of Aldis in the past, in the cold for 3+ hours for the wine advent calendar.

But the lines at the State Fair stop me cold.  I think I told the story about YA standing in the donut line last year; the donut concession has upgraded to a building (they were in an RV before) but the line still runs all the way down the street and looks to be at least an hour wait.  Pickle Pizza has opened a second outlet which helps a bit but yesterday at noon, the main outlet had two massive lines, each going in opposite directions.

Last Saturday YA and went up to the Ag building first thing to see the crop art.  We clearly weren’t the only folks who had this thought.  We got there about 8:30 (exhibit opens at 9) and there was a considerable line.  Then a staff person came out to re-direct where the line was forming.  She said that the “come early” thought must have gone viral because the long lines had formed every morning so far; where we were standing was most likely going to be a 2-hour wait. 

And then there are the Apple Fries.  This is a new food at the fair this year and they’ve gotten good reviews, but the lines go down the street and around the corner.  We’ve read on line that most folks are waiting over an hour to get them.  

Not sure if I’ll see crop art this year.  I’m betting money I won’t be getting Apple Fries either.  YA has waited for donuts and Pickle Pizza, but not me.  Even if I had a stadium chair (like when I waited at Aldis and AAA), I’m not sure I’d want to waste so much time of my State Fair day waiting in line!  Hopefully some day in the future, the line for Apple Fries will be shorter!

Any good waiting in line stories?

2026, books, education, History, Movies, Mysteries

Rebel with a Clause

37 Comments

A couple of weeks back, a friend of mine asked me if I wanted to go see the world-premiere of Rebel with a Clause at the Main Cinema downtown.  I’d never heard of this but my friend is a writer, super funny and super curious and super intelligent so without so much as even “bing-ing” it, I bought ticket online and that Sunday, off we went. 

Explaining it doesn’t even begin to do it justice, so here is the trailer:

It was SO funny, mostly because the idea of her quest is funny and a lot of the folks in the clips were hilarious but also because the audience was also hysterical.  The movie is split up into chapters.  For example, The Comma was a bunch of clips about comma questions.  In fact, when “Commas” came up on the screen, there was a huge reaction/laugh/groan from the audience.  Clearly grammar and usage hit a spot for many people and the audience obviously knew what those hot spots are!  This happened several times.

I have never been what you would call a stickler for grammar but for most of my adult life I’ve lamented about the sad state of English.  Even having studied Shakespeare and Chaucer and knowing that English has evolved, I stood my ground.  And then I had one of those life-changing reads.  The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way by Bill Bryson (what a great title too).  He was so effective in mapping out the path of our language that by the final page, I was completely converted.  The grammar that we were taught in school really is just arbitrary made-up rules and communicating is what’s important, not whether we’re splitting infinitives or not.  (And I’m really hawking his book – interesting and funny.)

This doesn’t mean that I have thrown grammar to the wind.  I still like to speak well and I certainly appreciate it when someone uses the subjunctive correctly.  I also still cringe when people mis-use reflexive pronouns, which seems to be more often than not these days.  But overall, I’m trying to let all that go.

Ellen Jovin clearly comes down on the side of not holding people’s feet to the fire over their use of grammar even though she really knows her topic.  (This is not a spoiler alert by the way.)  Turns out that in addition to setting up her Grammar Table, eventually, in all 50 states, she also wrote a book about the experience.  I have it on hold at the library. 

So…. (VS acknowledges she is using the ellipses incorrectly) I’m highly recommending both Mother Tongue and Rebel with a Clause.  And, if you’re here in the Twin Cities, the movie will be showing again at The Main Cinema on September 21 and September 24.  Highly recommended!!

Do you remember learning grammar in school?  Any grammar rule/s that you feel warmly about? 

2026, Art, Gatherings, Mysteries, State Fair, Uncategorized

Eye Catching

19 Comments

For years I wore my State Fair t-shirts to work in August – a different one each day up until opening day.  But then, for some reason, I never wore any of them TO the Fair.  I’m not sure why and I’ll admit I never really thought it was weird.  I have a nice number of flowy, tunic-like tops (you Blevins folks have probably seen all of them) and I usually wore those during fair days.

Then this year, I had several dirty projects the first week of August and didn’t wear any of my fair shirts.  This made me think about my pattern and I decided to wear fair shirt to the fair.  Radical I know.

On Saturday, I wore my newest fair shirt (above) in addition to a pair of earrings I found last year at a little shop in the Grandstand:

I don’t think I’ve ever unintentionally drawn so much attention to myself.  From the time we got in line for the Park `n Ride bus until we got back to the parking lot (about 8 hours), 13 people commented on my shirt, 2 on the earrings.  All positive comments.  And after a few of the remarks, I started to realize that a lot of folks were noticing the shirt, even if they didn’t say anything.  It was weird and surprising since only two people had said anything about the shirt I wore on Thursday.  And one of them was at the Star Tribune booth; the shirt was a Steve Sachs design…

I met a gal later in the afternoon wearing the same shirt and we had a quick conversation about the shirt and she said she had experienced the same thing I had.  I suppose the colorful corn dogs on the black background make it stand out more than most fair t-shirt designs.  The great irony is that I don’t even eat corn dogs!  Haven’t even tried the vegan one at the fair yet!

Wonder if I’ll get a lot of comments when I wear the corn design shirt with the dangly ear of corn earrings?

Do you have any items of clothing that have gotten remarks?

2026, Food, Seasons, State Fair, Travel

It’s That Time Again!!!

35 Comments

You all know where I am, right?  That’s right – the VS State Fair Fest has begun!

Tickets purchased (actually bought them in November for last year’s price).

Blue Ribbon Coupon Book purchased.  Both YA and I have added our post-it notes.

Food list assembled and printed off.  This includes traditional items that we like every year (corn, cookies, crepe, Hawaiian shave ice, etc.) as well as new foods. 

Trial drive to parking lot done.  I do this every year to make sure there isn’t any surprise road construction.

Turtle bag “packing list” updated… actually just printed out this year – we didn’t make any changes from last year.

Turtle bag packed (bandaids, Tylenol, pad/paper, address labels, collapsible container for cookies, coupon book, cash…).

Depending on what time you’re up and reading this, I’m either feeding the dog/cat before I leave, driving to St. Paul, waiting in line, on the Park & Ride bus.  Once the bus gets to the transit hub and I get through the entrance, who knows what the day will bring for me!

You’ll have to talk among yourselves today.  Anything planned for YOUR day?

2026, animals, Art, books, Kids, Uncategorized

Reading Rules

42 Comments

Finishing a book that I started was a “rule” of mine for more than half my life.  If you had asked me, I wouldn’t have said it was a rule, but that must have been what it looked like from the outside.  My three copies of Ulysses are a case in point.  Ever since my college years, I have thought I should read it but could never make it more than a couple of pages.  Then I would forget I ever had a copy and eventually buy a new one. 

At some point I read some place that so many books are published each year that even if you read a book a day, you would never get to all of them.  That’s when I did make a rule for myself – if I’m not enjoying the reading, I quit and move onto the next book.  I can be ruthless about this; more than once I have dumped a book after just a few pages. 

Today I am returning a book to the library that I have not finished.  It’s a Maggie O’Farrell, an author who I normally adore.  Every one of her books that I’ve read has earned 5 stars.  But yesterday, while listening to it on CD in the car, she broke one of my rules… the dog died.  When it happened I turned off the CD immediately to think about it.  That’s when I realized that even though I was about 1/3 of the way through the book, I hadn’t really connected to any of the characters and wasn’t enjoying it.  When I got home I looked up the summary online and found that continuing was probably not going to be enjoyable to me.  That made me ponder my reading rules.  I’ve never written these down before, in fact have never really thought of them as a list before, but here things that can put me off:

The dog dying (specially if the dog is killed)

Children dying (same caveat as the dog…)

Torture/rape (I quit Rob Roy because of this)

Graphic violence (Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy went back to the library quickly)

Child abuse (a fairly long string of abandoned books for this rule – Demon Copperfield, Swamplandia, Where the Crawdads Sing….)

Vapidness.  This probably seems a silly rule, but if the main characters are all shallow and full of themselves, I don’t see a finished book in my future.  (These tend to get rejected very quickly so I can’t even think of a title!)

I realize that these are all negative rules.  I’ve been pondering if I have any positive reading rules; the only thing I can come up with is things that draw me to books and that list is way too long to put here.  Suffice it say that the list would start with dragons and fairies!

Do you have any reading rules?  What draws you to a book?

2026, Games, Gatherings, Mysteries, sports

Fan-Girl

27 Comments

Who would have thought that at I, who has eschewed all sports for 70 years would become a fan girl?

Banana Ball caught my eye on Facebook last year.  They are similar to baseball although they have a different rule structure (games only 2 hours long, no bunting, scoring is different, trick plays are encouraged, tickets cannot be resold for a profit, if a fan catches a foul ball – that’s an out, etc) and they have lots of entertainment and silliness.  This is what I like best.

They sell out everywhere they play and you have to enter a lottery to even get tickets.  The lottery for 2026 was in October last year and by the time I entered, there was no hope.  I joined a fan group in the spring and it paid off.. I got a notice that a bunch of single tickets were going on sale.  You can’t believe how fast I got online and scooped up a ticket for this past Sunday.  You may remember that YA doesn’t care for Banana Ball so I didn’t have to feel guilty that I picked Sunday afternoon when I knew she would be out of town.

Driving downtown and paying exorbitant parking doesn’t do anything for me so I took the bus (love the $1 fee for us oldies but goodies).  Just a couple of blocks from the bus stop to Target Field.  It was a sell-out, 39,000 folks.  I was in the “nose-bleed” section – five more seats higher and I would have been in the stratosphere.  But I was right behind home plate, so a fabulous view.  And of course, these days, everything is filmed within an inch of its life so you can see all the action on the big screens as well.

From the Stratosphere

Some of the fun was the baby race.  Unfortunately most of the babies were more interested in crowd-watching than racing.  Just one baby thought heading toward mom was a good idea but still a very slow good idea.  Hilarious

Baby Race – Kinda

It was a close game and everyone was on their feet for the last two batters.  The Coconuts took the game—WOOT.  They are my favorite team although I will admit it’s only because I like their team colors the best (and their catcher)!  I had to buy a t-shirt.

The Shirt

I don’t know if I’ll ever get to see another live game, but I did just discover yesterday that all their games play on Disney+.  Watched one in the afternoon – they cut out a lot of the entertainment but it was fun anyway.  I definitely won’t stop watching the FB clips!

Have you ever been a fan-girl or fan-boy?  Any fan merchandise you’ll admit to?

2026, crops, Food, Uncategorized

Birthday Sauce

42 Comments

One my birthday Tuesday, more than one of my peeps said that they hoped I was able to not cook and just take it easy for the day.

My perfect day absolutely had cooking in it!   The weather was perfect for it, lovely and cool, but I would have cooked anyway.  Cooking is a gift I give myself.  Being overrun with tomatoes just cemented my desire.  There was a Sheet Pan Roasted Tomato Sauce recipe that I found in my Simply Tomato cookbook that I was looking forward to.  Here’s that recipe:

1 ½ lbs of tomatoes (all different varieties is fine), cut into chunks
1 large red bell pepper, cut into chunks
1 small onion, thinly slices
3 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
A few sprigs of fresh thyme
¼ cup olive oil
½ teaspoon chili flakes
Salt & pepper
½ teaspoon dried oregano, parsley, basil
Vegetable broth (if needed)
Lemon juice (if desired)
Pinch of sugar (if desired)

  1. Mix the tomato chunks, bell pepper, onion and thyme in olive oil
  2. Spread the veggies on a large rimmed baking sheet
  3. Sprinkle dried spices over the veggies
  4. Roast for 35-40 minutes (stirring a couple of times) until everything looks nicely roasted
  5. When cool, pick out as many tomato skins as your patience will allow.
  6. Scoop everything into a blender and blend on medium until you get the consistency you like. This is where you can add some veggie broth if the sauce is too thick.

When I weighed the tomatoes out, it seemed like such a small amount that I doubled the recipe.  You’d think that after cooking 3 pounds of tomatoes, that my tomato stash would have at least a dent in it…..There are already three tomato dishes in the fridge so I froze the whole batch.   I’m guessing that within a couple more days, I can probably do another batch of this sauce (it’s really good) unless I find another recipe that looks good.

Any new recipes you’re tried out recently?  Any over-abundance of produce in your world right now?

2026, Food, Seasons, State Fair, Uncategorized

That Time Again….

36 Comments

Yesterday I got an email from MPR inviting me to download an e-book titled 2026 Minnesota State Fair New Foods e-book.  I signed up and they sent me the e-book within a few minutes.  Gotta love computers.  The email also said starting Saturday I’ll be getting the Minnesota Today Weekend Edition newsletter.  If there’s any State Fair news, that will be fine, otherwise it will get discontinued.

I don’t really need to have three weeks to get prepared for State Fair.  We have all our tickets already.  I have a little checklist for things to take.  But after getting the e-book, I couldn’t help but do a little more.  So I printed out the actual tickets (back-up in case the whole cell-phone-wallet thing doesn’t work) and downloaded the two fair apps.  One is the official Great Get Together app and the other is called Minnesota on a Stick.  We don’t use these heavily but every now and then they come in handy with show times and locations of various food stuffs that we’re looking for. 

My state fair t-shirts are all folded nicely in one section of my t-shirt drawer.  Back before I was retired, I would wear one every work day in August.   Guess I can still do that, just at home.  I have 11 shirts at this point – short sleeve.  I also have one long-sleeve with a loon on it, but I’m not wearing that in August, so I don’t count it. (It doesn’t even live with the other fair shirts; it lives with my long sleeves.)

I probably won’t be able to keep myself from going to Cub in the next day or so to get our Blue Ribbon Discount Coupon books.  And I might have to print out my checklist!    Good grief.

Any big events coming up for you?  How long do you need to get ready to hear VS drone on and on about state fair this year?