Category Archives: Fantasy

2026, Fantasy, Health, Technology, Uncategorized

AI Ears

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Husband’s hearing aids are the sort that are battery operated. At least once a week he has to replace the batteries, those tiny round ones that come in a round plastic case and that are impossible to remove from their packaging. Husband has very poor fine motor skills at this point, and it has become increasingly difficult to change the batteries. I am always worried he will drop one and a dog will swallow it.

We decided it was time to move up to rechargeable hearing aids. We visited an audiologist last week and ordered these high tech, state of the art hearing aids. They come in a nice red color that are easy to see when not in his ears. They are somehow hooked up to an AI program that causes them to mainly pick up sound from the dominant environmental sound source. They sound so wonderful I almost want to give them names and have a welcome home party. They also cost a bundle, so Husband better not lose them.

I find the emerging AI presence in our world disturbing, but I can see the benefit if used for things like hearing aids. We pick them up next week in Sioux Falls. I hope they live up to their hype.

Thoughts, fears, hopes about AI?

2026, Fantasy, Health, home, News, Uncategorized

Rumours

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I am giggling. On Monday afternoon, Husband was in the driveway seasoning his new automatic charcoal smoker/grill, when the neighbor across the street came over to talk. She is a couple of years older than I am, and I was a high school classmate of her younger sister. Our mothers were in the same sewing club. Her family owned the Old Norwegian Boarding House in Luverne in the early years of the 20th century. Her son recently fixed our tires.

Mary asked Husband anxiously how I was doing, as another neighbor, someone we only met once, told her he heard that I had been diagnosed with dementia.

Well, this was quite a surprise! Husband had me come out to reassure Mary that I was fine, and in possession of all my faculties. She gave me an enormous hug, and said she would go have a little talk with the neighbor to let him know he was wrong, and that he had probably mixed me up with another close neighbor who actually has been diagnosed with Alzheimers. We walk our dogs with that woman, whose name is Jeanette. Her husband is a Vietnam Vet with MS and Agent Orange issues.

This is a small town. I am curious if any other residents have heard I have dementia, and how I should address it. Start reciting facts and figures? Wear a sign that says “I am cognitively intact”? Maybe I can act outrageously in public and everyone will forgive me!

How would you manage a situation like this? Ever been the subject of a rumour?

2026, Fantasy, Food, Gatherings, Music, Uncategorized

Lucky Eggs?

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Last Saturday I re-created a dish that I had seen on the internet (love Webspoon – if that’s not the definition of food porn, I don’t know what is).  The first step is to whisk 3 eggs with salt and pepper.  When I cracked the second egg into the bowl – double yolks!  I’m not sure but I think the last time I came up with a double yolk was before YA was born.  The internet says the odds are 1 in a 1000.  I don’t understand statistics that well, because we go through eggs at a pretty good rate; I would think I would come across them more often.

Of course, when I’m writing this, I’m not feeling particularly lucky but last Saturday it felt like a good thing.  It was a pretty day.  I made a nice dish using up the last of the tortillas and a jar of my homemade tomato sauce from the freezer – you all know how much I like using up stuff.  And I had a concert on Saturday night (Cantus at Westminster downtown) that was spectacular.

Wish the good luck from those yolks could have lasted longer, but I’ll take any good day I can get!

Tortilla Omelette
3 eggs, whisked together with salt & pepper
Add 4 tortillas, rolled up and cut into strips
Add 2 vegetarian brats, chopped up (Webspoon used ham, rolled up and cut into strips)
Add a cup or so of shredded cheese (I used some mozzarella & some Mexican shred)
Pat is all down in a springform pan
Add a cup or so of tomato sauce and spread evenly over top
Add a bit more cheese if you so desire
25 minutes in a 350° oven.
Let it sit for at least 15 minutes to firm up before cutting.
Yum-O

What makes a lucky day for you?  Any double yolks recently?

2026, Business, Fantasy, Food, Gatherings, Movies

Conversations in the Dark

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I couldn’t resist.  Got up early on Sunday morning and headed to SunStreet Breads for their last day.  Got there a little after 6; there was one fellow already standing outside the door but since I didn’t have a coat on, I stayed in the car listening to my book on CD.  When the next two guys joined the little line at 6:10, I got out and joined them.

We had a great time, first talking about bakeries and donuts and rustic breads. Everybody had other bakeries that they sometimes frequent but it was clear that Sunstreet had a place in all our hearts.  I can’t remember why somebody in the line behind me highly commended the movie The Hail Mary Project.  I mentioned that I wasn’t sure I wanted to see that – another favorite book of mine that I don’t want “sullied” by some movie producer’s vision.  This led to a lively bit of talk about science fiction movies.  The first guy in line and I convinced to the two younger men between us that they needed to see Forbidden Planet with Leslie Nielsen and Walter Pidgeon.  I mentioned John Scalzi, but apparently any science fiction written after 1985 was a non-starter for my new friend in the front of the line.  The topic then returned to the bakery with all of us listing what we were planning on purchasing. 

At 6:30, opening time, the line was all the way back to the Caribou Coffee – probably 40 folks.  There were signs up about no espresso (I’m guessing that’s a time suck you can’t afford when you have lines out the door) and only six pastries per person.  All three of my guys did the six pastries bit but since I was just there for the experience, I just got three – a raspberry cream scone, a laugen croissant (kind of a pretzel crust) and a blueberry turnover for YA.  Oh and one last tray of outrageously expensive (but yummy) animal cookies.  

The line was even longer when I left.  I headed on home with my treasures, realizing that I’d had a great time – not so much because I’d gotten pastries on the last day of my favorite bakery but because it had been a blast to talk about donuts, bakeries and science friction in the wee hours of the morning.

Any really good conversations recently?

2026, books, Fantasy, History, Mysteries, Uncategorized

Surfing Queen

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Halfway through my BritBox “gift”, I have not yet developed a British accent, but wouldn’t be that surprised; the majority of the voices I’m hearing these days are British (or Australian).

As you can imagine, I’m getting my fill of Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie.  It’s been years since I saw all of the Jeremy Brett/David Burke episodes.  I do think they are my favorite.  No offense to Benedict Cumberbatch/Martin Freeman or Basil Rathbone/Nigel Bruce but the Brett/Burke are more accurate to the original stories.

I’m a little hit and miss with Agatha Christie.  Some of her stuff I can’t get to because it’s “Premium” and some of the stuff I’m finding is just dreck.  But I’m getting enough.  “Why Didn’t  They Ask Evans” was excellent and I’ve watched a lot of David Suchet as Poirot.  One of the most fun things was a documentary that followed the Christies on a worldwide trade mission trip around the world in 1922-23.  Archie Christie was on the trip as an assistant to the British envoy and the Agatha was part of the mission to support the support.  Although her first book (The Mysterious Affair at Styles) had been published two years earlier and was a huge success, she still wasn’t the wildly famous author she was later to become.

The best tidbit in the documentary was that Agatha Christie learned to surf in Muizenberg, South Africa during that trip.  In fact, she is believed to be the first Western woman to stand up on a surf board.  She apparently adored surfing.  This is an excerpt from a letter to her mother:

“Oh, it was heaven! Nothing like it. Nothing like that rushing through the water at what seemed to you a speed of about two hundred miles an hour.  All the way in from the far distant raft until you arrived, gently slowing down, on the beach, and foundered among the soft flowing waves.”

There were also trips in her life to Hawaii, where she again spent time riding the waves.  It’s wonderful to think of Agatha as young and vigorous, since most of her fame came after this and most of the photos we see of her are from her older years.

Makes me hope that some of my favorite authors have a secret life that we don’t know about.  Maybe John Scalzi has swum with dolphins.  Maybe Andy Weir has time traveled to another planet and back.  Maybe Naomi Novik has flown dragonback.

What fun facts would you love to know about your favorite authors?

 

2026, Automotive, Fantasy, Mysteries, Weather

Mystery Car

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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, Fantasy, Mysteries, Technology, TV

Keeping Track

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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

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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, books, Fantasy, Mysteries, Uncategorized

Let’s Speculate!

36 Comments

The first bookstore that I worked in was teeny.  Teeny tiny.  Because we were so small, we did not have any subsections of Fiction.  Romance and science fiction and mystery were all filed together by author with the “regular fiction”.  I don’t ever remember this being a problem.  My next store was larger; Romance and Science Fiction got their own shelves but Mystery was still mixed in with Fiction.  By the time I got the store #1 at Southdale, even Mystery had a neighborhood of its own.

I remember when Fantasy started being differentiated from SciFic (although it never had its own section when I was in stores).  And I also remember when I first started hearing folks use Literary Fiction as a subgenre.  (This one always bothers me because it sounds kind of snooty.)  And although I’ve never seen it listed anywhere officially (although I’m sure it’s out there), I’ve used Dystopian Fiction myself for books like Station Eleven and Red Rising.

Last week when I was in Barnes & Noble I turned a corner and found two big tables of “Speculative Fiction”.  This is a new one on me.  The signs said “the perfect mash-up of your supernatural, fantastical, magical and futuristic dreams.”  Doesn’t this encompass fantasy and science fiction and maybe even dystopian?  Fellowship of the Ring was on the table – I would clearly call that Fantasy.   Both of Andy Weir’s books (The Martian and The Hail Mary Project (both excellent by the way)) were piled up.  I would absolutely call both of those Science Fiction.  Station Eleven was on the other table.  I would put that in Dystopian since it’s not supernatural, fantastical or magical.  Wouldn’t Mystery fall into Speculative?  I was thinking that just about every fiction title might qualify for Speculative.  Except the romances – as they pretty much always end the way we think they will.

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m not actually against putting books together by fairly specific genres; it does help folks find books they might like.  But Speculative seems to be a more expansive genre rather than a whittled down category.  Not sure it will help, but it was a nice sign.

Do you have a title that you think qualifies for the Speculative Fiction section?

2025, books, Fantasy, History, Mysteries, Uncategorized

Alternative Histories

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The holidays brought me a nice cache of giftcards so yesterday I had a “gift card day”.  Dunkin for breakfast on the way to knee therapy.  Blicks Art Supply.  Barnes & Noble.  Taco Bell.  A great day.

I spent about an hour wandering around Barnes & Noble.  As a dedicated library patron, I have to admit that I haven’t been inside a bookstore since last year when Jacque’s sister was signing her latest book at Once Upon a Crime.  Nothing against bookstores but my pocketbook prefers the library system.

Anyway…  as I was checking everything out, I found two tables that had various history books piled up.  I’m assuming that B&N stores get table recommendations from headquarters with a few title suggestions but that most of the books are picked for display by store employees.  (That’s how it was back in my day in the bookstore.)  The history tables had the look of employees having a bunch of fun.  History of the World in Twelve Shipwrecks, History of America in Ten Expeditions, History of the World in Six Glasses.   Clearly this is a trend and it reminded me of a couple of titles I’ve read – A History of the World in 100 Objects and Orchid Muse: History of Obsession in Fifteen Flowers.  100 Objects started as a BBC radio series – I stumbled upon in once it was published in book form.  It looks at objects from all over the world, from as long ago as 2 million years.  It was absolutely fascinating.  Orchid Muse was a book I read last year as part of my Rivers & Ridges Book Festival experience.  The author was at the festival so I got to hear her speak – a lot of extra little details that weren’t in the book. 

I didn’t realize that history in a set number of lessons was a thing but if you do a quick internet search, you can find a glut of these books.  47 Borders, 50 Books, 50 Failures, 12 Maps, 500 Walks, 50 Lies.  I could go on but this is enough and it makes me wonder if authors are starting out to do a “number of things” or if they have an area of interest and publishers/agents push them in that direction?

Any other suggestions for “History of the World in”…….?