All posts by verily sherrilee

Directionally challenged, crafty, reading mother of young adult
2024, animals, books, Gatherings, Kids, Uncategorized

Llama Llama Day

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You all know I have a co-dependent relationship with my local library.  Nothing new about that.  One of the things I appreciate is that it’s on the right-hand side of the street, heading south from my house.  This means that I drive by it on almost ever errand I run so stopping to return books or pick up something that is on hold is incredibly easy.

Two Saturdays back, returning a couple of books was the first item on my to-do list.  As I was putting the books on the return belt I noticed that there were a bunch of Llama Llama signs along the garden side of the building as well as a massive banner across the front window. 

I might have talked about the Llama Llama books back when I discovered them but in case I didn’t – they are kids books, a long series of them, about a young llama and his family.  They’re quite cute.  This is the first one:

Anyway, I texted YA as I got back in the car that they were having a Llama Llama reading.  As I headed south from the parking spaces in front of the library, I saw that the parking lot was blocked off with some kids games.  Then I saw a couple of tents.  Then I saw the llamas.  At the light I texted YA again that there were live llamas at the library.  Her response… “You’re going around the block right now, aren’t you?”  Aaah, she knows me well.

I know the head librarian so after I had waited in line (the only adult without a kid in tow), we chatted a bit about Llama Llama Day.  This was the third Saturday in a row that one of the Hennepin County libraries had hosted the llamas.  Apparently there are a few more scheduled over the summer.  I asked him if the library system was moving the Llama Llama books around so that there were plenty to check-out at each library who was having the llama party.  He was surprised that I knew that; I reminded him that I’m an event planner by trade.

I got to pet all of the llamas before I returned to my list of errands.  Later when I got home, I pulled my Llama t-shirt out and wore it the rest of the day as I considered all the various events that I might have planned if I’d been a library planner instead of an incentive travel planner.

What book do you think would make a good library event?

2024, home, Kids, sports, Uncategorized

Around the Block

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It was a big weekend around here.   On Saturday afternoon, my littlest neighbor Marie (5 years old) announced to visiting relatives during a cookout, that she wanted her father to take the training wheels off of her bike.  Big sister Minnie had been getting a lot of attention learning to skateboard on the driveway so now it was Minne’s turn.

Surprisingly she caught on very quickly and despite the neighbors having a big driveway, it didn’t take long before everyone had to troop down to the sidewalk in front of the house so she could have a longer runway.  And even though I had been a witness to some of this, when I went out to water on Saturday night, Marie hurried over to the fence to announce her big news.

Then on Sunday when I saw her, she announced it again, this time telling me how far she could go (almost 3 houses).   Yesterday I got the news yet again when she saw me in the yard cutting the grass.  This time she elicited a promise from me that when her dad came out to help her, I would come out on the front steps to watch.  Getting ready for this big ride took a bit.  Helmet, elbow pads, wrist pads and knee pads; when Dad was going to skin the elbow pads, Marie insisted since older sister had on a full set of pads for her skateboarding.

I remember learning to ride without training wheels.  We lived on West Cedar Avenue in Webster Groves, just down the street from the local elementary school.  I can still taste the exhilaration I felt when I realized that my dad wasn’t holding onto the back of my bike seat any longer. 

Marie’s ride on the front sidewalk went really well.  As expected Dad had to run the whole way behind her and had to help with the stopping.  We have a slight incline/decline (depending on which direction you’re going) on our block and I did notice that Marie struggled a bit more to stay upright when she was coming UP the incline.  But all in all, an impressive beginning for her biking career!

Tell me about a time you mastered something as a child that you were proud of!

2024, animals, Fantasy, gardening, History, Kids, Seasons, Uncategorized

Viking Daze

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After all the days of rain, YA and I couldn’t wait to get out into the yard and get dirty.  I decided that it had been too long since I cleaned up the edges of the yard and boulevard along our front sidewalk.  This is a two-part job.  First I run my edger along where I think the sidewalk should be ending.  Second I sit on the sidewalk and pull up the bits that are overgrown. 

So there I was sitting on the sidewalk when a neighbor from up the street, along with her son, stopped to chat.  Since they had their dog, who is on the small size, I stayed on the sidewalk to pet the dog while we talked.  Blake (son) and I talked about llama day, which had happened at the library the week before.  Blake had been to the farm where the llamas come from and knew one of the llamas that was at the library. 

We also talked about school finally being over for the summer and I asked him if he had any plans.  He’s 10 so his short “just camps” answer didn’t surprise me; I followed up with “what kind of camps this year”.   He mentioned a science camp and a viking camp.  I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t know all the kinds of camps there are, but a viking camp seemed different.  I asked if it was a football camp or some kind of history camp.  He laughed and said “BIKING”.  If I’d had any liquid, I probably would have snorted it up on the spot.

When I was a kid you just hung around the neighborhood for the summer and bothered your mother.  Maybe if you knew someone who knew someone you might end up at a vacation bible study camp for a few days.  If kids were doing organized anything, I never knew about it.  So even though Blake will be biking for one of his camps this summer, I love the thought of viking camp.  Not even remotely sure what we would do at viking camp, but I’m positive I would love the outfits!

How did you spend your summers as a kid?  Any camp you WISH you could have gone to?

2024, books, education, Mysteries, Uncategorized, Words

Rules of Engagement

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When I was in junior high I never did really figure out how to diagram a sentence.  In my mind’s eye I can still see the examples that the teacher had written up on the board but I’m pretty sure if it were ever on a test, I probably missed that question.  I think my grasp of the English language is sufficient without that bit of knowledge.  Although I couldn’t point out a dangling participle to safe my life, I do recognize the subjunctive.  In fact, I remember how excited I was that the first paragraph of Uprooted by Naomi Novik not only mentioned dragons but also used the subjunctive correctly.  Twice!

Correcting someone else’s English use isn’t a habit of mine; since I can’t claim perfect usage, I stop short of deciding if anyone else does.  In fact, I’m re-thinking the idea that anyone has perfect usage.  Bill Bryson’s Mother Tongue (which I just finished) has pretty well convinced me that most of the “rules’ that we think know were just made up (fairly willy-nilly) by folks whose only qualification was their strong opinion!

Imagine my surprise when I found that someone else obviously had a strong opinion about grammar.  I turned the page on a book yesterday to find the above edit.  In red pen in a library book no less.  I can’t imagine that anyone would care enough to do this. It’s clear what the author meant – I’m sure every single person reading this book knew exactly what she was saying.  Makes me think of a t-shirt I’ve seen online recently that made me laugh:

I doubt seriously if this “correction” will give other readers an “ah ha” moment.  No one will look at those red letters and say “Oh, I’ve been using that and because wrong all these years”.  So I’ve decided that I don’t care if the way the sentence is written is wrong by anybody’s standards.  I DO think it’s a heinous crime to write in a library book in red ink.  `Nuff said.

Do you write in your own books?  Margins or editing?

2024, Family, Food, Games, Mysteries, Nature, Uncategorized

Strawberry Patch Games

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Friday was my strawberry day.  I got to the fields just a bit after 6 a.m. and was a little surprised to see a mother/father/daughter combo in the strip next to me.  6 a.m. is normally not a kid-friendly time; I know I would never have dragged Child at that time of day.  (Of course, after she turned seven or eight, I never dragged her berry-picking again.)

The young kid in the next row was adamant that her dad (not her mom, just her dad) get every single good strawberry on their side.  She let him know, in a fairly loud voice, when he had missed one.  She would then pick it and show it to him before putting it into their flat.  The rate at which she was finding good berries led me to think that Dad was doing it on purpose.  Basically keeping her busy and allowing her to think she was “winning”.

When YA was young, I did occasionally let her win at some games.  Yahtzee, Cribbage, Aggravation – all those were fairly easy to lose.  Monopoly was a little harder because she could spot if I was doing something stupid.  Same with Checkers and Risk.  It wasn’t constant – just every now and then so she wouldn’t lose interest.  My dad NEVER let us win; in fact he sometimes went to extraordinary lengths to keep us from winning.  He thought it was a good lesson for us to learn how to lose – that classic “character-building” thing. 

Eventually I didn’t need to let her win anymore and it was about that time that she came home from daycare wanting the game “Mancala”.  It looked interesting so I got her a set and then lost every single game we ever played.  It took me forever to even figure out the rules and I never did really master it.  I think we will have it downstairs but it hasn’t been out of the box in years!

Have you ever purposely lost?

2024, Mysteries, pets

Hardware Mystery

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Normally when Guinevere and I are out walking, we wait until we are at a corner to cross the street.  A few days ago though, we crossed Lyndale in front of our neighbors’ houses, two doors down.  As we were just about across the street, I noticed a whole slew of washers on the street in front of their driveway.

As you can see from the photo, they are all different sizes and a few of them even have different finishes.  I was tempted to stop and pick up a bunch of them.  You can always use a washer – I had to buy one at the hardware store just a couple of weeks back.  But with the traffic and the dog on the leash I decided to take a pass on them.  Maybe the next time I need a washer, I’ll check to see if any of these are still lying about!

Any thoughts on how all these washers ended up on the street?

2024, Business, education, Kids, Uncategorized

Sidewalk Sales

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Photo credit: Ames History Museum

On Sunday, my little neighbors Minnie and Marie came home from errands with their folks and decided to have an “Icee” stand down on the boulevard.  I was weeding in my yard so I got a front row seat to all the proceedings.  First off, “icee” was a misnomer, since they were actually selling those Fla-vor ice pops but they had their signs made so I wasn’t going to quibble.  They also were giving out dog treats free and borrowed one of Guinevere’s bowls so they could have water for dogs as well.

Most of the work for setting this up was done by their folks and then Dad sat up on the driveway with his laptop as they got going.  They were selling the ice pops for $1.00 – a long cry from the 5 cents that was the going rate for a cup of Kool-aid when I was a kid – but that didn’t seem to stop anybody (including yours truly).  Of course, there was also some sampling of their own product as well.  Even on a busy street like ours, a few people actually stopped as they were driving by.  A third neighbor child, Lindsay, joined them for the last hour, although it was clear they were all flagging by then.

Minnie told me that they made $18 and then confided that it was really boring.  They were open for 3 hours total (they took a break for lunch), so that’s 6 ice pops per hour… not terribly rigorous traffic. 

I had several Kool-aid stands when I was a kid.  The house we lived on when I was Minnie’s age was on a corner lot of a fairly busy street.  Like most kid-run stands, my folks paid for the Kool-aid, the sugar, the cups and any other supplies that were used.  One time my father suggested that we kids split the profit with him since he had paid for everything.  Unfortunately this lead to graft and a second set of “books”. He never asked again.

Did you ever sell stuff as a kid?

2024, Business, Food, Games, Mysteries

Reverse Jenga

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Part of my post-milkman life now includes just running out get milk. And if it’s only milk that I need, Aldis is my grocery store of choice.  Easy parking, fast in, fast out.  My shopping trifecta. 

Normally at Aldis I do self-checkout; even if I get more than just milk, I don’t have the much so usually can’t get myself in too much trouble.  But this past week, I was determined to use some of my surplus quarters (lots leftover from my day at the laundromat) so I parked myself in the regular cashier line.  I’m retired – I have time.

The couple in front of me had more groceries in their cart than I have ever seen at Aldis, heck that I’ve ever seen anywhere.  The child seat was full, the cart itself was practically overflowing and even the bottom shelf under the card was full of stuff.  It was amazing.  While they were unloading everything, the guy even went and grabbed a few more things from the freezer section.

The cashier was bound and determined to get everything back into one cart was she was scanning.  (I’m not sure why… there were plenty of empty carts next to her station.)  She stacked and wiggled and moved stuff around.  I was pretty sure things were going to start sliding off the mountain that had been created in that cart.  The woman looked at me with my two cartons of milk and gave me a “I’m so sorry” quasi-smile.  I laughed and said “it looks like reverse-Jenga”.  Everybody, including the cashier thought this was pretty funny. 

The total on their order was $312!  Considering that Aldis sells pretty much everything at a bargain price, you can imagine how many groceries it takes to hit the $300 mark.  And how funny it felt to cough up my $4.98 in coins right afterwards. 

Cash or credit card for your groceries?

2024, Health, Mysteries, Nature, Science, Uncategorized

Gabbing From Ear to Ear

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Today’s post comes to from Bill.

An article in National Geographic caught my attention recently. The headline read, “Do You Have an Inner Monologue?” It caught my attention because my response was, “Of course I have an inner monologue. Doesn’t everybody?” Turns out not everybody does.

I’m not on any of the social media platforms but I gather that the presence or lack of an inner monologue has been a topic of discussion there. Inner monologue has also been a recent focus of scientific study, one product of which is a name for the lack of one: anauralia. Those studies contend that fewer than half of all individuals—by some estimates only about 30%—possess an inner monologue.

If that is true, I am gobsmacked. My inner monologue never shuts up. It is so integral to who I am that I can’t imagine its absence. Persons who lack that relentless flow of words say they imagine having them would be overwhelming.

The National Geographic article portrayed the inner monologue as self-critical and self-evaluating, a voice that regulates and replays social interactions and situations. As such, the article suggests, it can be inhibiting and destructive to one’s confidence, a source of negative thoughts. That’s not my experience. My inner monologue is not, for the most part, focused on how I appear in social contexts. Rather it’s a source of enrichment and entertainment, whether it’s replaying a conversation I had with someone years ago (those just pop up unbidden), preliminarily composing a commentary like this one, working through matters of personal philosophy, or pondering questions that just pop up out of nowhere, like, “what is the commonality between taxicabs and taxidermy?” (It all goes back to the Greek “taxis”, which means “an arrangement” or “to put things in a certain order”) or “if you describe something as the color of mercurochrome, does it mean anything to anyone under about 40?” All of this mental conversation happens while I’m busy doing other unrelated things.

Another article addressing the inner monologue: https://metro.co.uk/2024/05/16/like-live-no-internal-monologue-20853880/

It provides a simpler and easier to parse way to test for an inner monologue. It asks, “When you read, do you hear the words read, (presumably in your own voice)?” Apparently, those with anauralia do not. That for me is incomprehensible.

Do you have an inner monologue? What does it tell you?

2024, Mysteries, Nature, Stories, Travel, Uncategorized

April 30, 2024: Overboard! 

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Today’s post comes to us from Krista.

I wrote about our ride on the Doolin Ferry, about how wet it was. It was windy and cold too. The sea wasn’t too rough, but once in awhile a wave would hit the side of the ferry and it was easy to lose your balance.  

Anyway, when I came in from the lower front deck, I had noticed the door that opened onto the sea and was held shut by a simple sliding latch. I passed it by, noting it to another woman who was there. I found a seat inside and sat down. A pregnant young woman sat down beside me. She looked at me and indicated her backpack. I understood that she wanted me to watch it, so I promised I would. I stayed right there until she returned for it, then I went to find my friends. They had found a table near a window, so I joined them. It was really hard to take photos. The windows were all bleary with moisture and my hands were damp and almost frozen. Clouds of mist hung over the Cliffs of Moher, obscuring the best sites. Almost everyone was looking toward the side of the ferry that was moving along the base of the Cliffs.  

Suddenly everyone heard a loud banging which didn’t sound right at all. There were several loud bangs in a row that sounded like something smashing into the boat. There were quite a few people standing up in the central aisle. I noticed the look on their faces – they looked horrified. Suddenly someone started yelling, “OVERBOARD! OVERBOARD!” Some people started screaming, “Oh NO! She fell overboard! She’s in the sea!” Colleen and I looked out our window and there was the pregnant young woman whose backpack I had watched. There she was in the water, holding her backpack and a shoe above her head! The ferry backed up a little and someone threw her a life ring. She must have been shocked and cold, but she was able to slip the life ring over her head. She must have triggered it to release an orange dye. They began to pull her toward the boat. A rescue boat came quickly to assist. I think the woman was in the water for about 5 minutes. It seemed like more, but it probably wasn’t. She really kept her head together. I can’t imagine how cold she must have been. The water there is around 50 degrees Fahrenheit. They pulled her in and got her into the captain’s cabin. 

I don’t know what happened after that. They brought us back to the harbor immediately, and for us the event was over. We went into Doolin and did a little shopping. We talked to others who had been on the ferry, and they said she was seven and a half months pregnant. Everyone was really disturbed by the incident. Someone said she had been on the upper deck and a wave had hit the boat from the side. She lost her balance and fell, sliding, and hit a door similar to what I had seen on the lower deck. The door just popped open and she fell out into the sea! Someone else said that there was a woman who had once worked on a similar ferry who grabbed the life ring and threw it out to the girl. A man said he watched her slip and fall and caught her phone as she went. Everyone was worried about her.  

The roads are really difficult out there. It’s actually a fairly remote area of Ireland. When we came out of the stores about an hour later, we saw the ambulance finally coming from Galway. I hope they were able to help that young woman. 

We never saw a news report about it or heard anything more about it. I wish her the best.  

When have you been deeply concerned about a total stranger? Any cold water experiences to share?