Author Archives: kzmclain
Saturday Smile: Welcome to the Mile High City
My niece Jessie was born in Arizona, and lived there for her entire life. Well, until this past May when she and her boyfriend moved to Denver. While she is somewhat familiar with cold weather because she went to school in Flagstaff, her boyfriend Rob has lived his entire life in the Phoenix area.
Since moving here, they have enjoyed the heck out of Colorado. They have hiked, camped, kayaked, bicycled; you name the outdoor activity, they have done it.
Yesterday I got a text message from Jessie. Here is what it said:
What on earth is happening in Denver next week!?
I assume it’s Monday going into Tuesday that’s throwing her off guard. Little does she know that a drastic temperature change such as that is pretty typical of Colorado autumn. Colorado spring, for that matter.
Welcome to Colorado, Jess.
Have a great weekend.
Friday Book Whimsy: The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
Earlier this year when we were really pretty confined to our homes and there was little else to do but read, I read a surprisingly good novel called Daisy Jones & the Six, by Taylor Jenkins Reid. I say surprisingly because the format was very unusual, written as an oral biography. Normally I like more traditional formats. But once I started reading it, I was drawn in completely. I reviewed that book here.
To be completely honest, I didn’t realize that the author of that book was the same as The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo until I was through a couple of chapters. I should have, however, because once again the format was somewhat unusual. While much traditional than Daisy Jones, it still took a bit of getting used to.
Evelyn Hugo was a poor Cuban-American girl who grew up in NYC with an abusive father. She was determined to get out of her situation. She knew it was possible because she was simply beautiful. Movie star beautiful. As soon as she could, she used her beauty to get out of NYC and into movies. This led to that, and she eventually became famous, in fact, a Hollywood institution.
And now she is ready to tell her story. But she will only tell her story to an unknown writer named Monique Grant. Nobody is more confused than Monique herself as to why the Hollywood legend insisted on her writing the biography. Evelyn insists on only one thing: Monique must tell Evelyn’s true story, every bit of it.
We learn about the actress via her interviews with Monique. And she breaks down her story by each husband.
“Who was the love of your life?” Monique asks the actress early on. The truth, in fact, many truths, came as a surprise to this reader. Through the interviews, we learn about the strength of one woman to change her very world. We learn the true meaning of love.
It was a wonderful book.
Here is a link to the book.
Thursday Thoughts
Puzzled
There is not a lot more frustrating than working on a puzzle only to find at the end of the task that one piece is missing. I worked this puzzle over the last few days. Every time I do a puzzle, at some point I tell Bill, “There’s a piece missing. I know there is.” But there never is a piece missing. However, this time it was true; a piece of the puzzle was nowhere to be found upon finishing it. No grandkids have been around. I moved the table around in search of the piece. Though I hate to blame my favorite puzzle maker Springbok, I think perhaps it was sent without a piece. Of course, it could have been thrown away with the plastic wrap…..
Addiction
Day before yesterday when Addie and I had lunch, I told her that I had become addicted to a game that her Aunt Lauren had introduce to me called Happy Color. “I’m talking addicted, as in if I was watching a baby that started to cry, I would let it cry until I finished the game. And maybe start a new game!” I told her. And it’s true. It’s a color by number game, and I play it throughout the day. I do stop long enough for meals and bedtime. Addie informed me that she was addicted to Tic Tok. She, however, is smart enough to put a time on her play so that she doesn’t waste her day. Maybe I’ll do that, say, tomorrow.
Into the Hole
Bill and his friend Randy went to the nearby golf course driving range yesterday morning to practice teeing off. They’ve been talking about golfing together, but neither one seemd very confident in their play as yet. They were gone a long time. When they got back to our house, they were like two little boys. “You’ll never guess what your husband made me do,” Randy said. “We played nine holes of golf! And it was so much fun!” The two of them enjoyed their day. They didn’t keep score, and serious golfers would perhaps have looked askance at the way they sort of ignored some of the rules. Apparently, one of Bill’s drives went into the rough. Randy told him to just pick it up and drop it out of the rough. Bill dropped it alright; more of a toss, really, onto the green. Tiger Woods would frown, but they had a blast. Two senior passes and a golf cart for $30!….
Mary, Mary Quite Contrary
My garden plants are about played out. I pulled the leggy petunias a week or so ago. My tomatoes are no longer very pretty, but they are still offering their delicious fruit. They get a reprieve for a bit. The nights have been cooler, so it won’t be long before I say bye-bye to those as well.
Ciao!
College Days
I had lunch yesterday with our eldest grandchild Adelaide. She’s 17 and will rule the world some day. I know we all say that about our grandchildren, but with Addie, it’s true. She could, in fact, rule the world right now at age 17.
Anyhoo, over sushi, she shared her thoughts on her high school senior year that she has now entered, and beyond. Despite her intelligence, she too is unable to see into the future and tell us what the next year will be like. COVID-19, donchaknow. She and her siblings are attending school virtually right now, but, fingers crossed, they will enter the school sometime in October. At least, she thinks so, and — see above — she could rule the world.
She has already applied at several colleges recently, including two in AZ and one in Montana. She will be applying to University of Colorado and Colorado State University very soon. Most interesting (at least to me), she is applying to the military academies. I seriously think she will be accepted to all of the schools to which she applies, including the academies.
“Nana,” she said. “There are ups and downs to the military academies. The up side is I’m certain we would be going to real live school. The down side is that should things go south with COVID, I would probably be in lockdown for a long time.”
Wise beyond her years, just as I said.
When I got home from lunch, I began thinking about my life at age 17 regarding my future. There was no talk about me not going to college. Higher education was assumed. I never dreamed of going anywhere but the University of Nebraska, because that’s where my father had gone, and from where my sister graduated. And, well, I was raised on GO BIG RED.
By the summer before entering college, I had purchased my red attire for the football games. However, I didn’t have the slightest idea about what I wanted to be when I grew up. Because at 17 years old, I was certainly not as grown up as is Addie. I was unable to think outside the box. I knew I liked to write, but I thought that I had to become something with a name. A teacher. A lawyer. A nurse. Since lawyer and nurse were out of the question, I reckoned I had to be a teacher. I declared my major to be Human Development, and decided I wanted to be a preschool teacher. I liked little kids.
My freshman year in college. Who knew what was ahead?
So I applied for a work/study job in the university daycare center, where I cared for 3-year-olds. They were very, very cute. But after about three weeks, I knew I was not cut out to be a preschool teacher. I had no other ideas. I dropped out of college after my sophomore year, not the least because I simply couldn’t see into my future.
My story has a decent ending. I eventually returned to college, and received a degree in journalism. Writing is what I loved, and writing is what I did.
Addie isn’t clear on what she wants to be when she grows up either. The difference is, she knows she doesn’t have to have that answer today. Or tomorrow. Or next year. The answer will come.
Bless all of the high school seniors who are facing decisions during this difficult time. Prayers, prayers, prayers.
Let Me Tell You a Story ’bout a Man Named Jed, Er, Bill
Every eight weeks, Denver Waste Management has what they call Large Item Pickup. Large Item Pickup is when you can put anything you want (well, perhaps not appliances and certainly not televisions) out on the curb along with your regular trash, recycling, etc., and they will take it away.
I imagine other municipal waste companies have similar activities; however, I doubt there are many people who get as excited about it as Bill. He doesn’t get much more excited about Christmas, and I think he gets more excited than for his birthday. He marks it on his calendar, and checks each week before trash pickup to make sure it isn’t THE DAY.
A week or so before THE DAY, Bill begins collecting junk to put on the curb. There are some rules. Denver Waste Management prefers to have things in black garbage bags, because black garbage bags matter. Though they might matter, they are not essential. We could put out an old sofa or a mattress, and they will take that as well. Still, those who know Bill understand that the man loves cutting up things and putting them in the trash. Back in 2011, he cut up an old sofa with a bread knife. My one and only bread knife, as a matter of fact. When I figured out what he was doing, my head nearly exploded.
“That’s our only bread knife,” I shouted.
“I’ll buy you another,” he said, nonplussed as he continued to put pieces of the sofa in black garbage bags.
His focus this time was cleaning our back yard shed, which desperately needed cleaning out. Every morning he would hike to the back of our yard where our shed lives. He would pull things out, give them a good look, and then set it aside. Right side stayed, left side would go bye-bye on Large Item Pickup Day.
One of the things that he was set on getting rid of was a tall Rubbermaid cabinet which we bought 28 years ago when we moved into out house. For a while, it contained all of the necessary accoutrements for our hot tub. Our hot tub stopped working a number of years ago, and Bill cut that up and sent it packing a few Large Item Pickup Days ago. I’m happy to say he didn’t use one of my nice Wusthof knives that time. Fearing the wrath of this Nana, he bought a chain saw for just that purpose.
The cabinet was falling apart, and had become entirely useless except as a spot for squirrels to poop. So once he had the cabinet emptied, out came the chainsaw. Every morning I would hear the motor running as he cut up the cabinet into pieces that would fit in black garbage bags. There probably was a reason he didn’t want to just set the whole thing out on the curb. Perhaps he just didn’t want anyone thinking he was Jed Clampett. Neighbors already suspect I’m Granny Clampett.
Beginning yesterday, we (and when I say we, I mean Bill) started taking things to the curb…..
I’m pretty sure on Large Item Pickup Day, trash collectors draw straws, with the one drawing the short straw making his/her way to Olive Street.
The Pioneer Life
Oops. I think talking about pioneers is politically incorrect these days. Never mind, however, because that’s exactly how I’ve felt since Friday. Like Caroline Ingalls of Little House on the Prairie fame.
My time travel began shortly after arriving home Friday following cataract removal surgery. Keep in mind that the surgery — at least from my perspective — is about as high-tech and cool in a 21st century kind of way as it gets. I mean, there’s a doctor using some sort of laser with which he is removing the cloudy lens in my left eye and inserting some sort of new artificial lens. In the course of this high-tech surgery, he also did something that makes me see better than I could when I was 7 years old. Like an eagle, just as he promised.
And while I was apparently awake during the entirely painless procedure, (and it’s true that I was because I remember seeing the light while he worked), the high-tech anesthesia the masked man who was my anesthesiologist gave me made me, well, an amnesiac. Because I have no recollection of a nurse putting a metal eye patch on my eye. All of the sudden, they rolled me out in a wheelchair, and Bill was waiting. It all took a mere 20 minutes from the time they started rolling me into the surgery room.
Anyhoo, I arrive home feeling nearly completely normal (except for the eye patch), though tired. So I took a power nap. A couple of hours later I awoke, and Bill broke the news to me.
We had moved from High Techville to the Last Frontier.
“Oh, just go reset the modem,” I said, as though I knew what the modem was or what it even looked like. All I knew was that generally, when our internet goes down, Bill resets something — either the modem or the router or both. And it always works.
Except this time it didn’t. “I’ve already done that several times,” he said. “I think it’s more than just our modem or router.”
I have never really stopped to think how reliant we have become on the internet. In 1993, when we moved into this house, I remember Bill setting up his computer, and telling me about something called the World Wide Web. It was so farfetched that I simply ignored him, thinking Ray Bradbury had come back to life, and Bill had been reading his newest novel. Somehow that seemed more realistic than the World Wide Web.
Well, in the nearly 30 years since that conversation, my life has become totally and entirely dependent on the World Wide Web. So when our internet has a temporary but serious hiccup, life as I know it changes. For all intents and purposes, it comes to a halt.
I read on Kindle, but in order to read the book, it must be downloaded. So when I finished the book I had been reading on Saturday, I was bookless. Yes friends, I had forgotten to download the e-books that had arrived from the library.
While we could watch our regular television because we have a Dish satellite, remember that it’s summer and there is nothing good on television. We were unable to stream Netflix or Amazon Prime. Detective Sergeant Endeavor Morse would have to wait until our problem was fixed.
Our doorbell wouldn’t work. Our Google Home wouldn’t tell me the temperature outside. I couldn’t Google how long I had to wear the dratted metal eye patch if, say, I didn’t want to believe the doctor who told me I had to wear it every night for a week. I couldn’t check Pinterest for an idea for dinner.
I couldn’t even get on Xfinity’s website to figure out who to call.
Well, all of the above is not exactly true. At some point, my feeble brain recalled that I could use my phone with cell service to do all of the above. My iPhone 7 would have to limp along and pull the wagon (in keeping with my Little House on the Prairie theme).
Life went on, much to my surprise. Bill and I even, well, TALKED. Imagine that. And yesterday morning, an Xfinity repairman came to our door at 9 a.m. on the dot. I had managed to figure out how to order service online using my phone, and it worked.
And now, so does our internet. See ya. I’m going to watch Tiger King.
Saturday Smile: Mine Eyes Have Seen
I had my cataract surgery yesterday and lived to tell about it. As everyone promised, it was quick and painless. And I can see!
Modern science rocks.
Have a great weekend.
Friday Book Whimsy: Mr. Mercedes
I love mysteries and thrillers, and I thought I knew all of the established authors of books from this genre. So it was with great surprise that I discovered a three-book mystery series that began in 2014, written by Stephen King. I have not read King’s previous novels, because I’m not a fan of horror stories that involve snarling dogs or murderous cars. Give me a good ghost story any day. But I did read and review his memoir/writing textbook called On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, and liked it oh-so-much, despite my dislike in general of most memoirs. The book gave me a flavor of King’s writing, which is amazingly good.
Mr. Mercedes is the first in the trilogy starring retired police detective Bill Hodges. Hodges is bored to death with retirement, and sick of sitting in his chair in front of the television watching Judge Judy. He has, in fact, contemplated taking his own life.
And then he receives a letter from an anonymous person who claims it was he who drove a stolen Mercedes into a crowd of people at a job fair, killing eight and injuring many more. Hodges had worked the case after it happened, but he and his partner were unable to get a handle on the murderer before the police detective retired. The letter contains enough information that was never told to the public to make Hodges believe the sender really is who he claims.
Meanwhile, Brady Hartsfield is jonesing to have another go at murdering a crowd of people, and is waiting for the right time and event. In the meantime, he continues to send letters to Hodges containing information that leads the detective to know he is being watched.
Hodges has renewed energy as he attempts to find the murderer before he kills again.
Friends, I couldn’t put the book down. It is clear that Stephen King could write a book in any genre. I can’t wait to read the second novel in the trilogy.
Thursday Thoughts
See Like an Eagle
Tomorrow is D-Day for Nana Kris. I have a cataract removed from my left eye. Bill is having both eyes done, but not until October. When we sat down with the ophthalmologist to discuss our surgery, he said we had several options. We could just have the cataract removed, or we could have them do something else that would result in us seeing like an eagle. “We’re going for the eagle,” Bill said, without a moment’s hesitation. So after years of wearing glasses (once my lasik that I had done some 15 years ago wore off), I will once again be able to see clearly. I will admit to being a bit apprehensive about the surgery, but I have yet to hear a single person say it was anything but a breeze. Here’s hoping! I may or may not post on Saturday, but I should be good to go by Monday.
Beezness Was Good
Dagny began selling her honey on Saturday at a stand that she set up in front of their house…..
left to right: Joseph (wearing the bee suit), Dagny, and Maggie Faith.
In one day only, our little entrepreneur made nearly $1,000.00. People, I’m in the wrong business. By the way, Dagny explained to me that honey tastes different every year, depending on where the bees gathered the nector. Last year’s honey was delicious, with a bit of a smoky flavor. This year, my friends, it’s even better. No smoke flavor, simply a nice sweet flavor of nector. Yum.
Candyland
Bec left last Saturday morning to return home to Chandler, AZ. She was not looking forward to returning to the heat. While we have had plenty of hot days, at least it cools down some at night. Anyhoo, she was almost to Albuquerque when she realized she had left all of the candy she had purchased in Estes Park for her family. Bill and I finally got that box sent off yesterday. We were distracted, because Heather and her family left on Monday, and she forgot her cell phone. In the scheme of life, that was a bit more important to get sent out than candy. The candy, however, is delicious.
Lunch Dates
We had lunch yesterday with friends. We sat at an actual restaurant and ate our meal. I’m happy to be able to dine in, and we enjoyed catching up with our friends so very much. However, I will admit that dining in is still a bit difficult and cumbersome. It will get better soon, I’m sure. (That is my attempt at being glass-half-full instead of my typical glass-half empty.)
Ciao!
Nana's Whimsies 