All posts by verily sherrilee

Directionally challenged, crafty, reading mother of young adult
Family, History, Kids, Media, Technology, Uncategorized

First There was Tesla…

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A few days ago Linda reminded me that the mute button on my tv remote is going to be my best friend for the next six weeks – until the election is over.

As a child, I was the remote control and the mute button, both in my own home and at my grandparents.  Luckily, turning the sound down didn’t come up very often back then, although my grandfather did like to switch channels during commercials.  Also luckily there were only 4 channels back then.

So I’d like to give a salute to Robert Adler and Eugene Polley, the recognized fathers of the remote control. Although there were a couple of earlier versions of the remote control, it was the Zenith Space Command that came out in 1956 that paved the way for future remotes.  Adler and Polley won an Emmy for this work!

Is there an inventor you’d like to canonize?

Art, books, Media, Movies, Stories, Uncategorized, Words

Sherlock Bones

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You all know I’m a little obsessed with all things Sherlock Holmes. I don’t usually go looking for Sherlock but occasionally Sherlock comes to me when I’m not paying attention.

Last week I was looking for something else and stumbled across Sherlock Bones and the Missing Cheese, a children’s picture book.  In that same foray I discovered that there is a video out there also named Sherlock Bones with a terrier starring as the illustrious detective.  I also discovered that there is a series of books pairing Sherlock with Elizabeth Bennet, another character who has lived on past her initial publication.  All of this took about 5 minutes!

The Missing Cheese book was at the local library, the Sherlock Holmes and Elizabeth Bennett is in paperback for a price I’m willing to pay on Amazon.  Unfortunately the video is more than I’m willing to pay.  I’m working to find it on some other library.  Fingers crossed.

In the meantime, the children’s book has great illustrations and the story line is fun, however, the poetry itself leaves a little to be desired. But in the category of new ways to portray Sherlock Holmes, it gets an “A”.

Tell me about a favorite character, or an author you follow loyally or a series you can’t get enough of.

Business, Family, Food, Kids, Stories

Entrepreneurship

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On the way home from work I spied a card table on the boulevard with a little girl sitting behind it. I pulled over quickly; a card table on the boulevard with a child means just one thing – a lemonade stand.

When I was a kid, money was tight. My mother’s go to response when my sister or I asked for something was “there’s no money for that this month”.  We were not poor by any means but there weren’t a lot of frills.  So I was always trying to figure out ways to make a little bit of money, for candy or ice cream and the occasional Scholastic book.

One of those ways was a Kool-Aid stand. I could almost always convince my mother to part with one or two of the little Kool-Aid packets that we had in the pantry as well as the sugar.  Construction paper and crayons were essential as well as paper cups.  I sold the Kool-Aid for five cents and we lived on a fairly busy street so I could usually rake in a buck if I stayed at it long enough.  I’m sure my folks spent more to fund my financial forays than I actually made.  I never asked my dad about this but I’m sure he thought I was learning a good life lesson.  My mother was probably just happy to have me occupied for a few hours.

I’m not sure if I learned any life lessons but I did become a lemonade stand aficionado. I always pull over for a lemonade stand; I’ve even been known to go around a block if I don’t see the stand soon enough to pull right over.  These days juice, Kool-Aid or lemonade goes for a lot more than five cents but I’m always glad to pay it.

What can get you to pull over?

History, Nature, Weather

Posterity

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As this is published, Hurricane Florence is taking out her wrath on the southeast coast. I don’t know anyone named Florence, but I do know a Maria, a Katrina, a Sandy, a Patricia and a Rita – all big hurricanes in the last ten years.  None of these folks are all that thrilled about having their name attached to a nasty hurricane.  I realize that with an unusual name I probably will never have to worry about this happening to me!

What would you like to be named after you? And remember, this is for posterity, so be honest.

Art, holidays, home, Seasons, work

For a Very Important Date

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I’ve bitten off quite a bit to chew for Solstice this year; my card design is quite…um, robust, shall we say. No other word for the situation.  I’ve been having dreams about being late to places recently and I’m pretty sure it’s because I’m feeling behind schedule.  I’ve decided I need to do at least an hour a day in my studio for the next few weeks to try to get on track.  As I’ve said here before, this is difficult because once I get home from work, I’m basically worthless without a looming deadline.  I’m hoping that saying to myself “you have to do an hour a day” will make it seem like a looming deadline!

When was the last time you bit off more than you could chew?

Art, Food, Music, Nature, pets, Uncategorized, Weather

After the Ball Was Over

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I scrubbed off all my temporary tattoos tonight. It’s official – the State Fair is over.

Most people I know don’t understand my love affair with the Great Minnesota Get Together and to be honest, it occasionally mystifies me a bit. But one of the things I do know is that I love getting temporary tattoos at the Fair.  I got nine this year over my four days of attendance –   3 from the airbrush tattoo guy, 2 from Kemps, 2 from the AG building, 1 from the lamb building and my favorite, one of the emerald ash borer.  There was a young man dressed up as an emerald ash borer at the DNR booth, trying to engage people about this new threat to ash trees and I felt sorry for him so I let him put his temporary tattoo alongside my others.

The airbrushed tattoos wear off the soonest (which is truly irritating, since they cost money) but over a week later, my free ones were still going strong. Every day last week I had to explain them at least twice a day to one or the other of my co-workers and today my book club members (my OTHER book club) wanted a full run down.  It’s been my way of extending the Fair – however tentatively.

But tonight when I was closing a couple of windows (because it’s been getting chilly at night) I realized that it’s time to let this year Fair go and start dreaming of next year.

Do you have a tattoo? If you were to get one, what would you get?

 

 

 

 

 

Family, home, pets, Uncategorized

Destructo Kitty

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The younger of our kitties, Nimue, came into the household 9 years ago like a whirlwind. She was into everything and the number of items that she wrecked was legion.  Everyone told me that she would eventually settle down.  Can somebody tell me WHEN?

I like to display my birthday cards along the top of the built-in buffet in the dining room. The picture above is what it looks like.

The picture below is what I came home to this afternoon. Nimue has lots of nicknames, but now she has another – DESTRUCTO KITTY.

What do you think makes a grown-up?

books, Family, Food, gardening, home, Kids, Nature, Uncategorized, work

Really Cookin’!

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A couple of days ago LJB mentioned finding a recipe and sticking to it. I’ve been thinking about her comments a lot, since I am the exact opposite.

I had a lot of vacation days to use up, so have been off since the 22nd and I have been on a cooking jag.  There are two main reasons for this.  One of the reasons we’ve already discussed recently – TOMATOES!  The other reason is that I’m a morning person. As much as I love to cook, I am just not up for cooking after I get home from work.  Warmed up leftovers (or take out) in my jammies are pretty common fare for me at night.

So the combination of many mornings at home and my glut of tomatoes had me cooking up a storm. I started my vacation by dragging out about a dozen of my cookbooks; for some reason that I don’t even remember now, I pulled out a lot of vegan cookbooks.  Then I flipped through them and used little slips of paper to mark some of the recipes that looked good to me.  I marked about 16 recipes – only one of which I had ever made before.  Then YA looked through and vetoed a few.  I shopped for six recipes and then got going.  I did the last one today – vegan lasagna rolls (which ended up being not vegan).

Here’s what got made on my vacation: Fried Bread Panzanella, Roasted Carrots w/ Parmesan & Garlic, Pico de Gallo, Pasta w/ Tomatoes & Olives, Roasted Tomato & Garlic Sauce, Smash Potatoes w/ Pesto & Parmesan, Apple Honey & Arugula Pizza and today’s Lasagna Rolls. Now we have enough leftovers to last another week or so.

When is repetition good for you? Or not?

Family, Food, Kids, Stories, Uncategorized

We All Scream For Ice Cream

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We went to a wedding reception last night at a local brewery in Northeast Minneapolis – Able Seedhouse & Brewery. It was a lot of fun, with indoor and outdoor seating and an excellent food truck dinner.  The most fascinating thing however was watching the continuous stream of folks going to the ice cream shop across the way and the amazing ice cream concoctions that were coming out with them!

YA is not normally a sweets gal, but if she is interested in a dessert, ice cream is the top of the list, far surpassing cake and cookies. So after not finishing the reception cupcake dessert, she convinced me that we should head over to the ice cream shop before we went home.

At 8 p.m. on a Sunday night, the line was out the door of the shop on the second floor and down the stairs. There were four employees scooping and the line did move faster than I expected – about 15 minutes before we were at the counter to order.  As we made our way out, the line had almost doubled in size and was outside the door of the building and out onto the sidewalk!

I had a pretty traditional chocolate/vanilla swirl with some butterfinger crunchies; YA had a huge cone with a combination called the Berry Nice. We sat outside until I was done (since I was driving) – a beautiful night with our unexpected treats.

What are you willing to stand in a long line for?

Business, Science, Stories

If It Ain’t Broke…..

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I’m not sure how long ago Park `n Ride was instituted by the State Fair, but YA and I have been utilizing it for years. No driving around trying to find a close spot, attempting to parallel park on a busy residential street, having to remember where you parked and best of all, no trekking for what always seems like an interminable amount of time back to the car after all day at the fair.  Our favorite Park `n Ride lot is the Wilder Foundation at Lexington; we’ve parked there for years.  Everything always runs smoothly.

On Wednesday (my 3rd trip to the fair this year), imagine our surprise when things didn’t run smoothly.  First, even though the lot was almost completely empty when we arrived at 7:30 a.m., there was a line up and the staff were flagging some folks away.  Turns out that they were making everyone back into the parking spots, so it was taking three to four times longer to park.  A few of us balked at this requirement and we were allowed to just pull into a parking spot.

Then they tried to manage the line of folks waiting for the bus. Normally we just line up along the west fence, the bus pulls up and we get on. Instead of this, they split the line in two and made the back half come up and stand parallel to the folks in the front half of the line.  Then they tried to get the line to go along the north side of the fence.  This was accompanied by a lot of “make a single file straight line” exhortations.  This all went nowhere fast and was accompanied by a lot of “what are they thinking” comments from the crowd.

The initial consensus of those of us waiting was that they were thinking it would be easier/faster for people to pull straight out of the parking spaces when they got back to the lot. No one really thought this was needed but we couldn’t think of any other reason for being told to back in.  As for the line management, we thought maybe they wanted to park cars along the west end, since a couple of spots on the lot were really muddy.  But they never did park anybody there while we waited and nobody was parked there when we came back at the end of the day.

The cynical among us figured that one of the staff had probably been to “parking lot management” training the day before and was showing off their new knowledge.  I’m going back tomorrow and am curious to see how it goes.

Have you ever tried to fix something that ain’t broke? Or been subjected to someone trying to fix something that ain’t broke?