Category Archives: books

2025, Automotive, books, holidays, Technology

Park at Your Peril

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When you have fifteen kinds of cookies on the front porch during the holidays, you’re always open to ways to spread the wealth.  I usually make cookie platters for my local library, my vet and my hardware store guys.  It’s fun and between assembling the platters and delivering, it takes less than an hour, as all the recipients are very close by.

This past year, I really tested the Inter-Library Loan department of the library system so I decided that I should provide some holiday cheer for them.  I found out that ILL works out of the downtown library (not much of a surprise) and do a straightforward 9-5 schedule. 

I spent several weeks waffling about how to get the cookies downtown as I detest driving downtown and I detest paying a fortune for parking even more.  As of Monday afternoon, my plan was to take the bus.  A long trip two ways but only $2 out of my pocket and the bus stops literally at the front entrance door of the library.  I even went to the bank to get a few one dollar bills.

As Monday afternoon wore on, I wavered more and more about this plan.  I checked online and found that the library parking is only $4 for the first hour.  I even called the library; the librarian confirmed that this was true and that you could park near the elevators and come right up to the atrium.  She also said that if you were in and out in 15 minutes, there was no charge.

Of course, yesterday when the GPS got me to the library, that particular lot was full.  I went around a two block area about five times – no on-street parking open and all but one ramp had their “FULL” lights lit up.  Grrrr.  I considered just going home and dismantling the platter but I figured, I’d come this far….    At this point, I was pretty stressed.  There were two machines at the entrance of the only open ramp near the library and it took me a bit to figure out how to get a ticket.  Found a parking spot near an elevator but when I pushed the door open to the outside world, there was a small sign saying you needed the QR code from your parking ticket to get back in.  Luckily I hadn’t let that door shut, so I went back to my car to grab the ticket.

Delivery went really well but when I exited the parking ramp (about 20 minutes later), they charged me $17.  OUTRAGEOUS.  At this point, I just wanted to get home but my GSP wouldn’t open until I was actually out of the ramp.  More stress.  The fortunate part was that once I got going in the right direction downtown, I did know how to get home.  Even being directionally-challenged.

It’s all I can do to no look up “parking-induced anxiety” on the internet.  Not sure if it would make me feel better to know I’m in good company or if it would make me feel any more weird. And we’ll have to wait to see if ILL ever gets holiday cookies from me again.  Please don’t hold your breath.

Any directionally-challenged issues or parking anxiety for you this month?

2025, animals, books, Uncategorized, Words

Murder at Gull’s Nest

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As you all know, a lot of things strike my interest where books are concerned – recommendations from friends, stories online and titles.  Give me a good title and I’m all in.  At least to start with.

I see a lot of books on Facebook these days.  And as if they are tempting me personally, there are a lot of catchy titles.  Here are a few that I have on hold at the library right now that I chose simply from their titles:  The Dead Husband Cookbook, Inside of a Dog, Seven Reasons to Murder Your Dinner Guests, And Then We Hit a Rock.  Based on my luck with these kinds of picks, most of these probably won’t get finished.  And Then There Were Scones only made it about three chapters.  Awful.

So I approached Murder at Gull’s Nest by Jess Kidd with a bit of trepidation.  I think if the library started a section of Cozy Mysteries, it would probably be shelved there and to be fair, it did tick off all the cozy “boxes”, but not in a way that is run-of-the-mill way.  The characters are real, the story is compelling and importantly I wasn’t able to figure out the murdered until almost 75% of the way through the book.

And even more importantly, the language was fabulous; I do love a good turn of phrase:

  • “Outside, the sky is brightening, which is of no concern to the room, daylight being dissuaded by heavy velvet drapes and the somber yews that crowd about the window.”
  • “Nora steps into a cheap café and orders a pot of tea. When it arrives it is what she hoped for:  decent and strong with a skin a mouse could skate on.”
  • “Humans can’t tolerate emptiness for long… if I’m empty then I can receive, if I can receive it means it comes from somewhere outside of me, if it comes from outside of me I’m not alone!”
  • “Jesus, who would want to read about a failed old nun, with her stipend, and second-hand shoes.”

So I’m recommending this book to everybody and have requested a couple more Jess Kidd titles

Have you read something recently just because it had a good title?  How did that turn out?

2025, books, Fantasy, Mysteries

What She Said…

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At a funeral in September, the father of my deceased friend came over to talk to the rest of us from her book club.  He was proud of how intelligent she had been and how much she had loved reading.  He surprised us by asking us each if we had a favorite book and what character would we like to be in that book.  At the time I answered A Christmas Carol, which I read every December and that I would like to be Mrs. Cratchit.  She was considered a good person but wasn’t a doormat.  This is my favorite quote from her “I wish I had him here.  I’d give him a piece of my mind to feast upon, and I hope he’d have a good appetite for it.”

But I’ve had a couple of months and I have a couple more.  I always admired Helen Burns, the little friend of Jane Eyre who dies from mistreatment at the “school”.  “It is not violence that best overcomes hate – nor vengeance that most certainly heals injury.”  Good words for our current times.

While The Martian is one of my favorite books of all time, I wouldn’t want to be Mark (the main character).  A little too distressing for me.  I want to be Melissa Lewis, the captain of the mission, who turns around when they’re almost back to Earth when they find out that Mark is still alive.  “All right team, stay in sight of each other.  Let’s make NASA proud today..”   Even though I’m sure she got court-martialed when they all got back home, even after saving Mark. 

I’m not sure which character in Wrinkle in Time I would want to be but my favorite quote is early on in the book when Meg’s mother says “But you see, Meg, just because we don’t understand doesn’t mean that the explanation doesn’t exist.”  My hero Neil deGrasse Tyson has said something very similar.

Do you have a character you’d like to be?  Or a good quote from a book you like?

2025, books, Fantasy, Movies

Way Back Monsters

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If you were at the Blevins Book Club on Sunday, then you knew this was coming. 

I found an annotated copy of Frankenstein which among a ton of other information, included a list of all the Frankenstein (and quasi-Frankenstein) movies.  You all know I can’t keep away from something like that.

Of the first three Frankenstein films, only the first one from 1910 has survived.  It’s a short and is interesting because the “creation” is not made by putting body pieces together but by pouring a bunch of chemicals into a big vat and then heating it up.  For 1910, it’s actually some very interesting visual effects.  (It’s about 13 minutes long so it’s easy to satisfy your curiosity on YouTube, but too long to post here.)

The monster is an interesting blend of clown, yeti, caveman and monster from the black lagoon and doesn’t actually kill anyone before he seems to repent his very nature and “disappears” into the big mirror in Victor’s study.  But the pantywaist nature of Victor was spot-on.  See the monster and fling yourself out of the room and fall prostrate on the bed.  Monster comes into the room – fall prostrate on the floor.  Next time you see the monster, fall back prostrate in your chair.  The film maker clearly got that part of the book right.

Anyway, the next two films, Without a Soul (1915) and Il Mostro di Frankenstein (1921) have been lost and not much is known about them. The plot of Without a Soul included a dream sequence in which the doctor lives the Frankenstein story fairly closely, but then he wakes up.  The only thing really known about Il Mostro is that many consider it the first Italian horror film.

That’s it up until Universal came up with their massive laboratory, lightning technology and green, neck-bolted creature in 1931.  Which they promptly copyrighted, even going so far as to sue someone planning some kind of Without a Soul re-make.  

There are supposedly some references/appearances of the monster in two films by Sidney Lanfield in 1936 but I’m not willing to watch One in a Million or Sing, Baby, Sing again. 

Have you seen any Frankenstein movies?  Any favorites?

2025, books, Fantasy, Food, Gatherings, Mysteries

When the Moon Hits Your Eye..

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If  you don’t like this post – it’s Jacque’s fault!

As those of you in Blevins know, I sometimes like to bring something for the potluck that aligns somehow with one of the books we’ve read or is a favorite of the author.  Walter Mosley got espresso chocolate brownies.  Louise Penny got miniature croissants with chocolate sauce on the side.  For the book Broken for You by Stephanie Kallos I was very pleased with my cupcakes adorned with shards of “glass” – made by melting Jolly Rancher candies and then breaking it up into sharp-looking pieces.

This month I was in the mood to do something fun but wasn’t sure what to make.  I didn’t think I’d get an answer in time from John Scalzi about his favorite food and I figured the only way I would find out about Mary Shelley’s favorite would be if she communicated from beyond the grave.  Not my cup of tea.

I decided that moon pies would be fun, except that all the commercially available moon pies have gelatin in them- that’s why I haven’t had a moon pie since I was a kid.  So I headed to the internet and found a relatively straightforward recipe using marshmallow cream.  Marshmallow cream is easy to make but purchasing a jar of marshmallow cream from the grocery store is even easier.  I made the graham biscuit dough, rolled it out, cut it with a crimped cutter and baked.  That turned out to be the easy part.  Marshmallow cream is incredibly futzy to work with.  First I tried to pipe it from a pastry bag, but getting the cream into the bag was just about impossible and having a star piping tip was worthless as the cream settled into a star-less blob anyway.  I abandoned the bag and just used a spatula but at this point had cream all over.  I had to put the sandwiches in the freezer for a bit and then I started the chocolate.  I was really having trouble just dipping the whole cookie so I switched to icing the top and the sides with a spatula instead.  I had chocolate EVERYWHERE (think both hands, handle to the double boiler, the counter, spoon, the spatula, the floor….).  I had to use my teeth to pull up my sleeves at one point.  There’s something to be said about having stuff made in factories with enrobing machines:

But in the end, it was very satisfying to make them and they turned out to taste great… quite rich so if I ever try this again, I’ll make them smaller.  Of course, we’ll have to read another book about the moon!

Tell me about a favorite book and what food you would bring to represent it to a potluck!

2025, books, gardening, Music, Nature, Poems

Autumn Musings

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My BFF suggested we go see Ann Reed last week; I haven’t seen Ann in a live performance for many years so I was excited to go.   She has such a huge repertoire, I hate to admit that this is still my favorite:

She (along with Joan Griffith) did a great set and in between many of the songs, she shared haiku with us, some of hers and some that she had found along the way.  When I went looking on the internet afterwards, I discovered she has a book entitled Our Daily Breath: Haiku & Photographs.

During my search I found a website, Haiku Universe, that will sent you a daily haiku or short poem.  You know me, I couldn’t resist.  It’s been fun the last week or so to get a little haiku every day.  Here’s one I particularly liked (by Tomas O’Leary):

then it came to me
like a bomb in my lunch bag –
it was my day off.

So I’ve had haiku on my mind.  Here are a couple of mine:

My orthopedists
Are both about twelve years old.
Having bad knees stinks.

It’s that time of year –
All of my hard work, yard wise
Fills up many bags.

Do you have any fall clean-up/organizing that needs doing?  Any haiku or poems speaking to you?

2025, books, Movies, Science, space, Travel, Uncategorized

Sci Fi

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I have never been a big fan of Science Fiction books or movies. I like Star Wars and Star Trek, but I really don’t consider them real Science Fiction, as they just seem to be Westerns that happen hundreds of years from now.

As I was contemplating the recent 550 mile drive from Dickinson to Luverne, I thought about one of the few Science Fiction books I love from my preteen years, A Wrinkle In Time by Madeleine L’Engle, in which she describes people traveling through space using a tesseract, which is instantaneous travel by making folds in space and time. It would have been been so great to just roll up the Great Plains and get to Luverne instantaneously instead of driving eight hours! I suppose would have gladly accepted an offer from Scotty to “beam me down” to Luverne as well.

What are your most favorite and least favorite Science Fiction stories and movies? Where would you like to be teletransported?

2025, Art, books, Food

Sci Fi Pizza?

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At the library last week I happened upon a little hardcover book called Pizzapedia by Dan Bransfield.  It says on the inside flap that it’s a “biography of pizza”.  I wouldn’t go quite that far but it is a charming piece filled with marvelous illustrations.

And some humor.  I found this about ¾ of the way through, right after an illustration of a pizza-making robot and how it works:

Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Pizza Robotics

    • First Law. A pizza robot may not burn a pizza or, through inaction, allow a pizza to come to harm.
    • Second Law. A pizza robot must accept orders for pizzas except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
    • Third Law. A pizza robot must protect its own recipes as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.

If you’re not a Sci/Fi fan, here is a copy of Issac Asimov’s original Law of Robotics.

    • A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
    • A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
    • A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

These laws were first introduced in Asimov’s 1942 short story “Runaround,” which is part of the collection I, Robot. They were designed to create a framework for ethical behavior in robots, ensuring that they prioritize human safety and obedience while also allowing for self-preservation.

I’m pretty sure that any pizza-making robots out in the world aren’t too worried about having to pledge allegiance to Issac Asimov, but the author made me laugh and that’s always helpful these days!

What is your favorite?  Thin crust, thick-crust, stuffed crust, deep-dish?  Square cut or triangles?

 

2025, books, Movies, Mysteries

The Warden Threw a Party

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After Robert Redford’s death last week, I re-visited my goal to see more of his films.  I was able to find The Last Castle for free through my cable so watched it a few nights ago.  As I was watching it, a couple of things occurred to me.  First… while Robert Redford made beautiful and thought-provoking films, a lot of them are dark and depressing.  Second… I really don’t care for jailhouse movies. 

Yes, The Last Castle is a jailhouse movie.  No serious spoiler alerts except to say that it is dark and depressing.  And you know it almost immediately when an inmate, who clearly hasn’t done anything and is panicking in the jail yard, is killed by the prison guards.   I did battle it out until the end, but it wasn’t a feel good scenario. 

The realization that I avoid jailhouse movies occurred to me fairly early into the movie.  I’ve never watched The Shawshank Redemption, despite MANY people telling me it’s the best.  No Green Mile, no O Brother Where Art Thou, no Papillon (although I did read the book).   I haven’t even seen Jailhouse Rock; my aversion to jail movies apparently goes back aways.

That isn’t to say that I’ve taken a pass on all of them.  I have seen Cool Hand Luke, The Great Escape, Escape from New York as well as two other jail movies with Robert Redford – Brubaker and The Chase.  Technically The Chase isn’t in jail but it’s the chase after a jailbreak, so I’m including it.

Not too sure why I don’t like jail movies although it might be tied to the fact that I don’t like a lot of movies in which the chips are obviously stacked against the protagonist.  I’ve shied away from The Hunger Games and the Maze Runner – those kinds of things – for that reason.  And no movies about gladiators at all.

Any jailhouse movies that you’ve liked?  Any types of movies you shy away from?

2025, books, Fantasy, Mysteries, Nature

Best of Times, Worst of Times

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I read for a lot of reasons.  One of them is to find new ideas or to be reminded of ideas I may have had in the past.

The book I just finished (not revealing the title as there would be spoilers otherwise) had a fairly absurd premise but then managed to present several trains of thought that were tantalizing.  A huge asteroid is heading for Earth and scientists have determined that it will wipe out everyone and everything in two years, six weeks.  

One character, who works in banking, came up with a scheme that basically defrauds people but will make the bank a ton of moolah.  His theory is that by the time folks figure out they’ve been defrauded, the world will be ending.  Sadly the other members of the board agreed with him.

Another character, an aging rock and roll star, was facing terminal cancer and decided to end his life so that his music royalties would go to his first ex-wife as soon as possible.  He also made an extremely heartfelt apology to her for how he had treated her back in the day.

A third character, an anthropologist, was worried about the end of civilization before the end of the world.  Why, he postulated, would be the incentive to keep working?  Who would do the jobs that keep us all fed and clothed?

This last character’s questions have remained with me for days now.  Whenever there is some news of an asteroid that’s coming close to the planet, I do muse about the end of days.  But I have never considered what would happen if we KNEW it was end of days for sure.   How could we keep civilization going?  How would I personally get by until the end?  Would I feel the need to atone for my “sins”?  I’m not sure, but I think I would definitely make a trip to Alaska, the only state in the union I haven’t visited.

Anything on your bucket list you’d like to do if you knew the world was ending in two years and six weeks?