Hannah Rae's Blog, page 13

I told you it was good.

Today I received an email from Cassandra Alling, the narrator of my audiobook Like A Flip Turn. The subject of the email was "woooohooooowhoooo! review" and the content inside included a short message from Cassandra along with a link. Where did that link take me, you ask? Well... it took me to the website of a magazine called AudioFile.

AudioFile is a website that listens to and reviews audiobooks. According to Cassandra, they typically only review things that come from bigger-name publishers, but because Cassandra has a subscription with them, she was able to request that they listen to and review her book... which is Like A Flip Turn.

And they did!

And AudioFile said the nicest things about Cassandra! Here's the review:

Cassandra Alling was clearly meant to narrate this poetic story bursting with magical realism in a small town in Pennsylvania. Listeners meet elderly, reclusive Ruby; betrayed 20-something Jenny; and troubled 12-year-old Lydia. Each of Alling's characters is distinct and compelling; past and present events seamlessly intermingle. Ruby, Jenny, and Lydia have tragedies to overcome. Vibrant descriptions of locale, food, and endearing friends and family add atmosphere. Alling is movingly convincing and relatable rendering Jenny's, Lydia's, and Ruby's evolving stages of life. Her portrayal of raspy-voiced Ruby, with her questionable memories, is a standout, as is her portrayal of Jenny, whose "talent" is conversing with wildlife. This audiobook exemplifies the power of audio as a feast for the ears.

My favorite line? "A feast for the ears." How great is that?! Because it is a feast for the ears! I mean, I wanted to work with Cassandra as soon as I heard her portrayal of Ruby Gallagher -- she NAILED it. But she nails the delivery of every single character in this book. And I'm soooooooo excited that she'll be bringing Ruby to life again in The One You're With. The audio for that should be out in December at some point; Cassandra is probably in the studio as I type this...

If you haven't yet listened to Like A Flip Turn, you can access it here: Audible Link and iTunes/Apple Link .

Yesterday was (mostly) bad...

...but today was exclusively good!

Maybe it came down to simply waking up on the wrong side of the bed, but yesterday wasn't great. My fuse was pretty short for the majority of the day. In fact, my fuse was nearly nonexistent until about 2:45... which is when my very favorite student of all time, Nate, showed up in my classroom. (Nate is my coworker now, but he is and always will be the greatest of all students; he could probably tell me that my cats are ugly* and I still wouldn't demote him.)

Anyway, Nate showed up and we had good talks and he just generally improves my mood no matter what it is. He made me laugh a LOT because he's funny and kind and just... Nate. He's an awesome person.

Because I was in a good mood when I got home, I decided to work on some art. My new friend James suggested that I make a piece for my upcoming art show (Thursday, 12/7, 6:00-9:00PM at the Garryowen in Gettysburg -- put it on your calendars!) that's Ruby Gallagher's house on top of the hill by the lake. I liked this idea and pondered it for a few days, and then I got to work. Here's a sneak peek at how it's coming along; once I finish this blog, I'm off to work on the rest of the landscape.

Then I went to bed.

I woke up today in a much better mood. Maybe because it's Halloween, but more likely because it wasn't yesterday. However, because it in fact was Halloween (and still is as I write this!), I decided to treat myself to some coffee at Bantam Coffee Roasters on my way to work and guess who I saw there... My former student Ellie! She's great and makes a mean latte. We caught up about life and it was a good little visit.

At school, my students were really a lot of fun! Things started out with Percy, who showed up in my room during advisory to share a ridiculous story about his parents going to Bantam Coffee Roasters on Sunday. (I absolutely adore Percy and he will be providing music on Friday night at Bantam... Read on.) Then the sophomores had so much to say about Ordinary Grace (the second-greatest book ever written) and the freshmen were well-behaved despite it being Halloween and everyone was just really sweet. I think a lot of them might show up at my book-signing on Friday at Bantam Coffee Roasters in Gettysburg from 5:00-8:00PM. (That was a little plug for my book-signing...) Anyway, there will be free hot chocolate and if you are 21 or older, you can add vanilla vodka to your cocoa, so there's that.

Oh! Here's something nice too: My new Christmas novella The One You're With is officially being released tomorrow. I'll be selling and signing copies of it at Bantam on Friday. You can purchase a copy when you stop by to snag some free cocoa!

Speaking of events that are coming up in my life, though... Let's revisit the December art show, shall we?

I had some invitations printed because I wanted to invite my coworkers and today after school I walked around the school delivering them. Here's a wonderful thing: I work with wonderful people. Let me give you some highlights from my travels today:

I saw Juanita at the copier and she has the cutest dog named Winston and even though Winston can't come to my art show, I am hoping Juanita will be able to make an appearance because she is someone who is a constant surprise. I didn't really know her all that well until a couple years ago and do you know what? She's a really cool person. Pam is going to come, I think! Pam who hooks me up with things from the supply closet and donates her own money to the Friday Favorites fund for my freshmen and sophomores! Pam who loves cats as much as I do! Beth, my principal, put it right into her phone calendar and is going to bring her people. Maybe even Olivia! Jared, my new assistant principal, who is insanely kind and humble and genuine and exudes goodness might be there! I hope he shows up; I want to introduce him to my mom. My superintendent is probably going to come! He's an artist and I usually call him by his Dr. name but I only really use first names in my blogs so for this purpose we will call him Dr. Wes. Dr. Wes is going to come and he might bring his younger daughter who loves art! New Kristin! She's so quiet and chill and was just like, "Yeah, I'd love to attend." She'll be there. New Holly! She greeted me on the second floor hallway and said, "What're you doing up here?" And I said, "Looking for you!" She loved that she got an invitation. New Dawn! I told her I do art and that there was a show at the GO and she was like, "I love that place! I'll bring my husband." So I'm gonna meet Dawn's husband on December 7 and so can you. Sharon is likely going to attend! Sharon who is new this year and whom I'd never really spoken to before, but who has a son who graduated with me way back in 1999! (I had a smidge of a crush on him...) Lynn! She's an author herself and is such a savvy dresser. And she's a tall woman, too, so I have real respect for her fashion sense. And Hanna! Talk about savvy dressers... That girl knows how to put together an outfit. Hanna is our college advisor and she is killing it at school. My dear sweet kindred spirit friend Heather will be there and December 7 is her birthday eve so everyone who knows Heather and sees her at my show should buy her a drink. And give her a hug. Heather taught me about the importance of oxytocin so you should actually give her a very long hug. Kathy! I am excited that Kathy will be there. So excited, in fact, that I put an exclamation point on her invitation. I think she was the only one who got an exclamation point, but she's just a joy and an appreciator of art and she boosts my esteem so much when it comes to all my creative endeavors. Maggie was so excited to get an invitation. I love Maggie. Maggie is another one who exudes kindness and calmness. She's just... Well, come to my show and experience her. She's an old soul with a lot to offer. Dee and Michelle will likely attend together. I gave Michelle her invitation and she right away said, "Is Dee invited? I'll get her to go with me." And I said, "She's already got her invitation. I'm sure she's planning to talk to you." Those ladies together are a lot of fun. Stu! I love Stu. His brother is Marc of trivia fame and I am really hoping that Stu will make an appearance because he is a little bit like a celebrity. Plus, he has the BEST voice. I am really hopeful that both Lisas will be there. I told Lisa L about it first and she was like, "Absolutely." And then I told Lisa S about it and she's like, "You know, can you believe I've never been to the Garryowen?" So I think she might experience the GO for the first time on December 7. Terri, I believe, will be there. Terri is always cold and she also always reads my books. Like, ALWAYS. And I love that about her. I hope she knows how much it means to me that she always reads my books. She's a wicked smart lady; one of the smartest ladies I know.

There's no way people are still reading... but just know that I invited pretty much the entire staff, and if I forgot someone it's because a student interrupted me while I was going down the phone list and addressing envelopes at my desk, and if you are my coworker and are reading this and thinking, "Where is my invitation?" just come to my room and ask for one because I have them. But I guess the point I was making is this: Walking around the building and talking to my administration and faculty friends was really, really mood-boosting today. I think I should walk around and visit people more often. Also, I am lucky to work where I work because not every school district is as cool as mine.

Okay. That is all. I now need to make art.

*Nate would never call my cats "ugly," for the record.

Trivia Recap: 10/26 (Victoria's Version)

Dear true followers of good writing,

This is your friendly neighborhood Skoogmasta flex coming to you again in the wee hours of Saturday morning (aka 11AM) to bring you a synopsis of our Thursday Night trivia game. Poor Hannah spoke with me personally and let me know that she was very disappointed in Darren’s rendition of the blog this week. He Maths for a living after all. I graciously agreed to re-write it and promised that I would not let Darren (also known as Arthur) know about his colossal fail. Thus, I have temporarily blocked him from the Facepage, so he will likely never see this. Don’t worry, I’m gunna send out a message to “All my friends” telling them I’m temporarily getting off social media in order to make Darren feel like he has not written a massive turd of a blog post.

We had a lot of troubles choosing the bonus categories this week. We landed on ‘This One is Wild’ (Audio), 90’s song lyrics, and then the debates began. Hannah wanted ‘Hop on the Bandwagon’, but Samara (Mary), and I were firmly in the boat of ‘Stems from Latin’. Darren/Arthur made a strong argument for ‘Six-Letter Words’ by saying that there are only twenty-six to the sixth power possibilities and most of these were not actual words. This was the sort of sad attempt at humor one would expect from a Math professor, and we let Darren/Arthur pick this category out of sheer embarrassment for him.

There were four of us at this point- Hannah the Artist, Samara (Mary), Darren (Arthur), and me. We were understandably worried about some of the categories that featured sports questions. Our New New (who knew his name was Landon?) was missing and he knew of the Sports in that weird general way that most dudes do. Hannah mentioned that Educated Friends (the name of our group) were not Educated Athletes. Then, New New showed up, and saved the day. We still didn’t choose any sports categories as the bonus category so that New New would not have to shoulder all the responsibility if he got it wrong.

My food arrived just as the game started. The waitress accidentally laid it in front of New New who passed it to me, and said “Don’t worry, I was gunna give it to you. I wasn’t gunna be like ‘Here’s a fry, Tootz.’” This Dad Joke solidified my faith in New New’s ability to remember Sports Stuff no one truly cares about. We did well in the first round- the first question was on the reason John Brown was executed. The reason was treason (you’re welcome for that amazing rhyme). We also got the classic Hollywood character thanks to the hint of the day- Plumber- the answer was Christopher Plummer and Julie Andrews. Hannah got the bandwagon question, and all the pressure was on Samarah and me for Stems from Latin. The question was something about a Latin term for a condition related to the use of psychedelics. I guessed delusion, but Samarah correctly guessed hallucinogen.

In the background, the song by Chumbawumba started playing, and Hannah told us that Siri regarded this as the best song of all time. Hannah didn’t think so, and New New said he was obsessed with it for a few days, then just got tired of it. I was thinking about how I would rank the song while “PISSING THE NIGHT AWAY” blared in the background. Just when I was about to agree with Hannah, the TV behind her displayed a football player dancing in victory and he matched the beat of the song perfectly. Siri was right. There is sone sort of magic about that song… BOOOOY, JOHNNY BOOY…

The Second round started off a little rough when we only got 1 of 3 Audio clues featuring the word Wild. At this point Hannah started an angry glass tap. New New took this opportunity to tell us how his PapPap was baller at playing the glasses just like in the movie Miss Congeniality. When he finished, New New would always say, “That’s a good one. Thanks Pap Pap.” You’re welcome, dear audience, for that brilliant sprinkling of an anecdote.

We got the MTV question about some sort of odd reality truck show based on the obviously superior show, Pimp my Ride. Then, Mary figured out Ronald Reagan was born in Illinois for the Presidential Potpourri question. We got the baking question which asked about an ingredient called ‘Sweet wood’- it be the Cinnamon, but our knowledge of recent Volcano eruptions in the Phillipines was lackluster.

We housed on the Bonus Sheet mid-game which featured Blue characters and Blue Songs (Mr. Blue Sky etc.). The only ones we didn’t know were the names of the blue fairy from Sleeping Beauty (Meriweather), and the name of a skinny blue jay. Darren/Arthur led us astray thinking it was a PURPLE lady Toucan in a tank top he saw on some popular adult cartoon. I think a blind person would have known this was incorrect. Again, since Darren is obviously our token Mathlete, we all pretended that a Toucan and a Bluejay were “look-a-likes”. For your reference, in case you were doubtful of my acuity:

At halftime, we were in second place with a lot of game to go. When we got our bonus sheet back, Hannah pointed out that Eeyore had been misspelled as Eyore (a mistake our antagonist Darren had made). Darren was able to redeem himself with the six-letter word question that featured a description of Cookie Monster’s eyes: Googly! The next question was about countries that no longer existed where the Olympics had been held. We got USSR right away, but I thought since Great Britain was renamed England, this might count. The team thought otherwise. Mainly because England is still a country. I brought up Czechoslovakia, and New New came up with Yugoslavia (where did that one go? I had no idea it was no longer a country!). Darren countered with Finland- Girl REALLY? We got the question right except West Germany. We all said “oooohhhh!” in unison cause that was a thing. At this point Samarah noticed Darren really enjoying his beer- a chocolate IPA. Little known fact, Samara hates both chocolate notes and IPAs in general but was still briefly interested in trying this beer. In the end, she decided against it- wise choice. Who knows what Darren might be carrying?

The branches of Science question featured the IRS which I took literally to be an acronym for something science-y. The true answer was taxonomy like taxes which I would definitely have known if Darren had given me just a second to come up with it before blurting it out. We got the question in between the third and fourth round right away for 6 points as Adam listed off siblings of Barbie (the answer).

In the final round, I figured out the country with a military leader whose name started with Guiseppe since I’m from New Jersey and that is an insanely Italian first name (guy might have been my second cousin, who knows?). Hannah got the Disney question on characters named Flotsom and Jetsam from The Little Mermaid. (Hannah here: Darren actually knew this one! The man's a Disney wizard!)

At this point, Darren’s son showed up for a grilled cheese sandwich with the obligation to speak with adults. In normal teenage boy fashion, he stood next to Darren with his eyes transfixed on the TV. I’m pretty sure this is how teenagers charge up (as opposed to being plugged into the wall). Darren peppered Elliott with normal Dad questions like ‘How was your day? How are you doing?’ and many others. Since Elliott had not charged yet, he completely ignored these questions in favor of the TV.

After a few moments, Elliot responded to a question about a project he was working on relating to dystopian society. At this point, the next question rolled out about a college in one of the Carolinas that used to be a fortress. We got this right away- Citadel- but weren’t entirely sure on the mascot. New New squeezed his brain to pop out Bulldogs. The answer was actually Bullfrogs, but since it rhymed, Adam gave us the points. New New pointed out that he had a love for both sports and cats. I thought these to be anachronistic. Maybe New New has more layers than one would think.

Darren’s obsession with Alanis Morissette proved to be useful when he came up with the song title “You Learn” for our 90s Song Lyrics question. The final question of the fourth round was on female authors and with three English teachers at the table, we killed it. Adam announced we were in first place with a majority of the other teams trailing far behind. We decided to wager 2 points on the last question as this would guarantee that we would be in at least 2nd place if we lost. The final question was ‘In 1812, the first man with this title died in battle’. They said something British-y or English-y (see what I did there with that call back). We guessed Prime Minister and got first place! A successful trivia night thanks to a great team effort (obviously minus Darren). With this note, I will leave you with my typical advice fair readers. Don’t eat anything I wouldn’t eat.

FYI, I ate the Rachel tonight at Trivia and it was awesome. I’m not a cannibal; just referring to the sandwich. Welp, I don’t think I’m a cannibal. I mean who really knows for sure, am I right? I’ve made some questionable meat choices in my day.

Best Regards,

Skoogalicious

Trivia Recap: 10/26 (Darren's Version)

Players: Hannah, Victoria, Mary, Darren, Landon

Opening Category: John Brown

Hint of the Day: A Plumber

We forgot to take a picture tonight, so I generated one using AI. Try to guess who is who!

So I’m not really sure how it happened, but somehow Victoria and I both got drafted to write the blogs this week, so we will each write our summary of the night’s events and then maybe you are all going to vote on who you like best or at least do something to drive traffic to Hannah’s blog so that she becomes a famous author someday. Since that will inevitably happen, you should all come to her book signing next Friday evening at Bantam Coffee Roasters from 5:00-8:00. And I will be out of town and have to miss it, but I am hoping that she will sign a book for me later, especially since I brought her homemade fig jam tonight.

Anyways, Victoria’s post will probably be a lot funnier than mine. Or at least a lot more offbeat, since she is after all the one who recently carved a cabbage and left it at Hannah’s doorstep. Tonight we were discussing whether she will change the color of the cabbage every year by dying them different colors, to which Hannah exclaimed “Victoria can’t dye cabbages! She’s a veterinarian!” I was so amused by that logic that I wrote it down, which I think is why Hannah assumed I wanted to write the blog.

Anyways, it was a fairly low energy night at trivia tonight. We had a lot of trouble deciding which category should be our bonus in the first round because we didn’t feel great about any of them. None of us wanted to pick John Brown because we don’t know much about him, although it turns out we did know that he was hanged for treason. Hannah really wanted to choose ‘Classic Hollywood’ because she was utterly convinced that the hint of the day being a plumber would mean the answer was Christopher Plummer, and she was right. But we hadn’t chosen that. Nor did we choose ‘Hop on the “Bandwagon”’ because we had no idea what that category would mean; it was three words whose letters are in the word “Bandwagon” and we quickly knew Donna and Nada and Victoria guessed that the Rolling Stones album was ‘The Even Bigger BANG”. We did choose Latin words and it turns out that Mary knew a lot about psychedelic drugs, or at least that the word ‘hallucinogenic’ comes from a Latin phrase about wandering in the mind. Landon also knew that the Celtics won a lot of NBA titles in the 50’s but didn’t know they were once beaten by the (St Louis) Hawks.

To keep it visually interesting, here is the St Louis Hawks logo.

As always we chose the audio clue as our bonus in the second round, but that did not work out so well for us tonight. They were all two-word song titles including the word ‘Wild’, and we only knew ‘Wild Night’ and not ‘Wild Child’ or the other one. We did know about Pimp My Ride and the fact that Ronald Reagan was born in Illinois and started as a baseball announcer. And we knew about Cinnabon, but we did not know about volcanoes of the world. Luckily, neither did anyone else so we felt like we were in reasonable shape.

The halftime sheet was all about the color blue, with the top half asking us to identify blue cartoon characters (like the Blue Beetle, Captain Planet, and…well, Bluey) and the bottom half asking us to match songs with blue in the title to the artists, like ELO’s “Mr. Blue Sky” and U2’s “Bullet in the Blue Sky”. We aced the music half and got eight of the cartoon characters – even though we knew what the last two were from, we did not remember the fairy’s name in Sleeping Beauty or the blue jay from The Regular Show. At this point, we were in second by a couple of points.

This is also around the time that I ordered my second beer of the night, which was a new special Halloween beer they had called ‘Real Monsters’. Just to give you a sense of the beer, I quote from their own description: “It’s a black milkshake IPA brewed with tons of midnight wheat and hopped with calypso, mosaic, and aaaroma hops. After fermentation we then blended it with blackberries, chocolate and vanilla to give you a fruity, hoppy, chocolatey and vanilla IPA all in one.” I have to say that not all of their specialty beers work for me, but I did like this one so I wanted to give it a shout out.

The third round went well. I immediately guessed that Julia Louis Dreyfus was the woman cast member of SNL from 1982-1985 but decided to forego the bonus points to be sure and it, in fact, was. We knew that the six letter cricket term was ‘Googly’, probably in large part because it was also a word to describe Cookie Monster’s eyes. Hannah and Mary assumed we would bomb Olympics Geography, but we were in fact able to name two of the three countries that hosted an Olympics but no longer exist – we came up with USSR and Yugoslavia, but not with West Germany. Despite Mary’s knowledge of psychedelic drugs, it turns out that she does not know her vodka brands and led us astray but that only cost us one point. We made it up by recognizing that Barbie is the character who has seven siblings named Skipper, Tootie, Todd, and some other things I don’t remember and were still in second going into the final round.

That Barbie picture gives me a good reason to repost this photo of 60% of our team on Barbie Day at their high school spirit week.

I was worried about the final round, but we did quite well. While none of us knew that Italy had been unified we did guess that if there was a country whose unification was led by someone named Giuseppe Garibaldi then it was probably Italy. Somehow I knew that Flotsam and Jetsam were characters in The Little Mermaid and we knew that the Citadel was the university in South Carolina named after a fortress. When asked about the mascot of the Citadel, Landon thought it was the Bulldogs which seemed reasonable but in fact it was the Bullfrogs. Or at least that’s what Adam said and so we were pleased when he gave us the points anyways. But looking it up now I see that it actually was Bulldogs. Way to go, Landon! Because I listened to Jagged Little Pill (now a YA novel and a Broadway musical !) basically nonstop in 1995 we got the next question about 90’s song lyrics, and our combined literary knowledge let us recognize Jane Austen, Colleen Hoover, and Toni Morrison from the names of their novels.

Going into the final question we were in first place by one point but also 15 points ahead of the third place team, so we had to decide whether to guarantee ourselves second place at worst or go for first. We wimped out and bet low, which extra sucked when we correctly deduced the answer to the final question: “In 1812, Spencer Perceval became the only person ever holding this office to be assassinated.” (Note that this is the second question that we got right tonight based largely on our stereotyping of people’s nationalities based on their names. Hmm.)

Anyways, I guess that Smartacus also bet low because despite everything we still won the night! There was much rejoicing!

Here is what happened when I asked the AI overlords to show the team celebrating their victory. You can tell they are celebrating because their mouths are open, I guess? Also, how many fingers does that guy in the back have, anyways?

Dear readers, I hope you enjoyed my version of the events of the evening. I am sure that Victoria will tell a very different tale, Rashomon style, and perhaps we will get a second set of gift cards for that one.

There's Much To Be Done With A Cabbage, Eh?

I like cabbage. In fact, I made up this great recipe one time that involves sauteing cabbage, shrimp, some olive oil, a bit of soy sauce, and a hearty helping of red pepper flakes. I go through phases where I make this a lot; I'm currently in a phase where I never make it. When my mom learned of this recipe, she wrinkled her nose and insisted that it sounded "weird and disgusting," but then she tried it one time and now she likes it.

Anyway. This blog is not about that recipe... (even though you now have it and are encouraged to give it a try). This blog is actually about the carving of cabbages.

Some of you may remember a trivia blog that appeared on my webpage back in October 2022 . In said blog, found within the recap of the fourth round, one will learn that the Irish used to carve turnips for Halloween instead of pumpkins, and while I believed the answer to the question to be "turnip," my teammates on The Educated Friends opted for the answer of "cabbage." And that answer, my friends, was incorrect.

Flash forward to a blog published three days after the aforementioned trivia recap, which (poetically) recounts my surprise upon finding a carved cabbage on my doorstep when I returned home from work.

Now, with all that background sufficiently in place, I do believe that it's possible for you to understand and appreciate the enthusiasm I experienced upon arriving home from a bachelorette brunch earlier this afternoon only to find the following on my doorstep:

Victoria struck again! And although I took this picture while the sun was still shining, I think you'll be able to see that she did in fact provide a little battery-operated candle inside to illuminate his ghoulish expression. She's a gem of friend, folks, and her cabbage-carving skills improve each year! Maybe next year there will be a totem of cabbage jack-o-lanterns...

Trivia Recap: 10/19

The Educated Friends operated as a 4-person team on Thursday night, and it showed in our results. While it was not one of our more impressive showings, we still had a fun night of trivia. Thursday featured myself (Landon), Hannah, Mary, and Marc and Victoria tag-teaming it. Darren, if you’re reading this, Hannah and Mary want you to know that your presence was sorely missed.

Marc left before we snapped the team picture, so I (Hannah) asked him to send a selfie.

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This picture is great, is it not? I (Hannah) have zoomed in on the best part.

In the first quarter, we started out the night with a question about The Jetsons. It’s always a great start to test our knowledge of 50+ year old animated shows. Alas, we did not know the schools in which the Jetson children attended. However, we quickly recovered from there with a question about who was the all-time NFL leader in wins by a quarterback. Marc and I knew that #1 had to be Tom Brady, but we would get a bonus if we got #2 and #3. Only one of our bonuses was correct, as we guessed Peyton Manning and Dan Marino rather than the correct Manning and Jets legend Brett Favre. From there, question 3 asked several nicknames such as “the klink,” which we quickly answered as slang for jail or prison. Next came a 3-part US Geography, where we were asked 1) What is the only state south of the Tropic of Cancer (Hawaii), 2) Which state borders the most Great Lakes (Michigan), and 3) Which state borders the Canadian province of Alberta (Montana). We missed that last one. And finally, our clue of the night in 50 Cent came to pass with question 5: Which rapper’s real name is Curtis Jackson, and for the bonus, what is his best-selling album? From the memories of bumping “In Da Club” and “Many Men” on my way to ride the bench in basketball, I knew the album was “Get Rich or Die Tryin’.”

Round 2 kicked off with a 3-part audio question where we needed to identify the famous person speaking in each clip. The first voice was Stephen Hawking communicating through his computer voice device. Number 2 was picked up by Mary, as it was the late Queen Elizabeth II speaking, and #3 was former President Lyndon B. Johnson announcing that he would not accept the Democratic Party nomination for President in 1968. Question #2 addressed one of my least favorite advertising campaigns ever, asking which company used the slogan “Can you hear me now?” which we quickly answered as Verizon Wireless. Question 3’s category was “From Page to Screen,” which was again all Mary. She knew that the book Killers of the Flower Moon was made into a movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio, and set in the 1920s. (I may teach English, but I’m still not much help with these types of questions!) Next came the category “Pardon My Latin,” where we came up with the correct answer of “Advent” when asked what calendar Christians follow leading up to Christmas. Closing out Round 2 was “Name that Comedienne,” where we were conflicted between Joan Rivers and Carol Burnett as the first woman to host a late night talk show. We decided on Joan Rivers, which was correct!

Halftime was the usual “Name the Celebrity” in the top half, where we had to name the celebrity who died in 2023. We got all but 2 answers in this half, and the bottom half was MLB Teams with more than 5 World Series titles, with the clue of their division and most recent title. This is right in my wheelhouse of useless sports knowledge. Marc and I got all 10 answers correct, bringing us to an 18-point halftime score.

We entered into the second half of trivia with a “Chemical Hodge Podge” question. I guess a little bit of my church confirmation process stuck with me from years ago because I somehow remembered that Sulfur was mentioned in the Bible. 1/1 in round 3! Question 2 was yet another that I should be well-versed in as an English teacher, but, alas, Mary and Hannah saved the day with the correct answer of “article,” from the topic “Parts of Speech.” Next up was “Three Clues, One Famous Person,” where we were given the clue that the person got his law degree from Duke University, and appeared on Rowan & Martin’s Laugh In just 2 years prior to becoming POTUS. We were off by a few presidents, as we guessed Ronald Reagan when the answer was Richard Nixon, the 30th President of Earth. (Futurama reference!) Our final question of round 3 was an athlete who competed at the 1912 Olympics, and was called the greatest athlete of his time. For bonus, we needed which city the 1912 Olympics were in. We came to the correct conclusion of Jim Thorpe as the athlete, but incorrectly guessed Athens instead of Stockholm.

Entering the 4th quarter, we knew we had a lot of ground to make up. Round 4 started with asking which singer sang “Flowers,” which we knew was Miley Cyrus, but we could not get the bonus as to the title of her newest album. Question #2 asked which 1990s sitcom that Joseph Gordon-Levitt got his start on - the correct answer escapes me as I was either not born or still going to the bathroom on myself when the show came out, but nonetheless we did not get this correct. Question #3 asked which two Canadian provinces that the St. Lawrence River runs through. I knew that the river was towards the northeast, so I got a lucky correct guess on Quebec and Ontario. Next came US History, where we could not come up with the first Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court. I threw out a Hail Mary guess of James Madison, when the real answer was John Jay. Our final question of round 4 was “Will you be my GF,” where every answer had the initials of G.F. Good Friday was our first answer to the holiday celebrated 2 days prior to Easter. Next came the first woman to be the Vice President on a Presidential ticket, where I stumbled into the correct answer of “Geraldine Ferraro.” Lastly, we couldn’t think of the box office bomb Gone Fishin’ featuring Danny Glover and Joe Pesci, so we went 2 for 3 here.

Wrapping up the night was “Fun With Flags,” where we had to figure out which Caribbean nation was the only one featuring a Bible on the flag. While we were of course thinking of countries/islands with “Saint” or “San” in the name, we missed the correct answer of the Dominican Republic.

Another fun week of trivia in the books despite the results!

Trivia Recap: 10/12

The Players: Hannah (English teacher), Siri (English teacher), Kristin (English teacher), Marc (Social Studies teacher), Victoria (veterinarian), Kate (marine-life lawyer who represents dolphins and whales in court)

Opening Category: Martin Luther

Hint of the Day: Light

Round One:

Thank goodness for Marc. Even though Mary promised that she'd send a fact about Martin Luther every single day between last Thursday and today, she didn't send even ONE and so we entered the evening completely unprepared. But Marc knew the answer was Wittenburg. He also knew that a sandy river borders West Virginia and Kentucky. We recognized "Blue Moon" as a song by the Marcels only after we got an extra clue, but we got the points. We also knew that Instagram is owned by Facebook but we did not know the two networks that aired Scrubs. We got one of them but not the other. Overall, the first round was fine.

Round Two:

The audio round was our bonus, as it always is, and we got the points but missed the two-point bonus because none of us really enjoys U2 and therefore didn't recognize the song that has a form of the word MAD in the title. Some dude named Jim yelled out the answer to Units of Measurement as soon as Adam finished delivering the clue so the whole entire restaurant got that one right. Thanks, Jim! We remembered the Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin (R.I.P.) and Siri knew that his daughter was on Dancing With the Stars. Even though NHL stuff isn't really our jam, Kate and Ben put their brains together, with a little help from Kristin too, and went with the answer of Hartford, which was right. And then pretty much everybody but me knew the leads (Anne Hathaway and Kate Hudson) from some romantic comedy I've never seen. It might've been Bridesmaids, but I've never seen that film, and people have told me for years that I need to watch that film -- and Marc told me to watch it tonight -- but I just have zero interest in watching that movie because I don't think it looks all that funny. I'm not a big comedy watcher to begin with, and the previews for that film just seemed overly stupid, and so I have never watched it. But I have watched three movies in the past month and that's approximately three movies more than I watched last year, total. The movies I've watched are Knives Out, Black Hawk Down, and Stand By Me.

Halftime:

The top of this was kind of fun. We had to identify things that begin with K. I knew kiwi (the bird) and kumquat and some other things. Marc and Siri knew someone named Kane who might be a wrestler...? The bottom was a little harder and we had to identify franchises based on founders and dates. Overall, we got 17/20. Not terrible, but not our best.

At this point, Marc had to leave because he had to attend open gym. But just as he was preparing to leave, Benjamin Charles appeared and said, "Hey." So he took Marc's seat and I asked Spencer from Risky Quizness to take a second team picture for us and then we got right back into the game...

The Players: Hannah (English teacher), Siri (English teacher), Kristin (English teacher), Ben (wannabe Phillies teammate), Victoria (veterinarian), Kate (marine-life lawyer who represents dolphins and whales in court)

Round Three:

Both Marc and Ben were around to hear the clues for Triple 50/50 (World Capitals) and they agreed on the answers so we went with Yes, No, No and that was correct, thus earning us a two-point bonus. Last Word/First Word Music Edition was hard because who the hell are The Brothers Osborne? Tasty Brand Names was fine because Peter Pan is a children's book character and it's also peanut butter and that's the answer we needed. (My mom's favorite peanut butter, coincidentally, is Peter Pan -- always creamy, never chunky.) Unfortunately, we didn't know that Post produced Peter Pan Peanut Butter. Victoria got the answer to Scientific Experiments. Fitting, right? She's a scientist. The answer was the speed of light and that was the hint of the day as well. I forget the clue but it had something to do with mountains and possibly California. Football Hall of Famers is never a category of interest to me, but Ben said we should write down Unitas and he even spelled it upside-down. What I mean by this is that he literally got up, did a handstand in the middle of the restaurant, and proceeded to whisper up to me "U-N-I-T-A-S." Nah... just kidding. He took a piece of paper and the pen I had been using and wrote U-N-I-T-A-S upside-down on the paper so it was rightside-up for me. Make sense? Yeah.

6-4-2:

Did you know that the comicstrip character inside Bazooka gum wrappers wears an eye patch? We did, but not until the second clue, so we got this for four points.

Round Four:

Even though we were all expecting Kate to know the answer to Biblical Figures, Siri beat her to it and knew the answer was Methuselah. We almost got a two-point bonus for spelling it right, but instead of an E we went with an A and that isn't the right spelling. Oh well. A Show Within A Show was something Siri was really looking forward to and she knew it. Ben and maybe Kate also knew it. Itchy and Scratchy was the show and the show it was in was The Simpsons. Ben the history buff knew the Monroe Doctrine was the answer to the U.S. History question even before Adam finished reading it and then he got us the two-point bonus as well. He's good at dates. The answer to Biographical Films was Andy Kaufman and even I knew that answer but Siri knew it faster and already had it written down by the time I came up with it. And Going Out On TOP was fine because the words had to include TOP in them somewhere and the answers were OcTOPus, auTOPsy, and uTOPia.

Final Round:

The category was Authors and we were tied for third place going into this round (Darren, you'll be proud to know that I went up and voiced an error in points because Adam had us down three points and my math was mostly correct tonight) and so we wagered all twelve points and got it right. The question was something about a title character named James and the author who wrote the book and also wrote some James Bond stuff and the answer was Roald Dahl.

Shortly after the final round, a man sitting at a neighboring table complimented my sweatshirt and said he told his brother (maybe brother-in-law?) about Trampled By Turtles after last week's opening category. His brother(-in-law?) apparently loves bluegrass but had never heard of Trampled By Turtles. The man said I could have great talks with his brother(-in-law?) about music, and I would be happy to do that, but I don't know who the brother(-in-law?) is.

Interesting, that was the second compliment I got on my sweatshirt because as soon as I got to Fourscore, Diane complimented my hoodie as well! It's become my favorite hoodie, with my Dispatch hoodie only slightly behind.

Next week's opening category is The Jetsons and I'm hoping someone else is going to want to write a blog about it because I just get so tired of writing this trivia blog... Victoria, if you're able to attend next week, you're up. This is your notice!

Dear Pip,

I've been thinking about you today. It's been four years, you know? Four years of not celebrating my birthday with you, and not buying Christmas presents for you, and not going to concerts with you, and not having three- (sometimes four-) hour phone conversations with you about anything and everything going on in our lives. I'd go to school on days following those lengthy brother-sister talks and tell Baustie about some of what was discussed and he'd always say, "Hannah, you and your brother are closer than any brother and sister I've ever heard of." Because we were.

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If I was able to call you up right now and tell you about my day, you'd do that deep-in-your-chest rumble-chuckle (my favorite character Sebastian does that deep-in-his-chest rumble-chuckle, and it's because of you) and call me "silly." Or maybe "goofy." Or maybe, depending upon your mood, "a fuckin' weirdo." No matter the words, they'd be spoken with affection... but you will find the things that brought pleasure to me today to be on the absurd side... so brace yourself.

The first great thing that happened today was waking up to a bed full of cats. Kip was by my left hand, Harvey was at my feet, and Petey was tight against my right calf. I took the day off work so I was able to hit snooze approximately eight times before finally telling the boys it was time to get up... and when that monumental event eventually occurred, it was largely because of Arlo. He'd positioned himself outside my bedroom door and was whining.

I'm sure you remember that Arlo and I have a love-hate relationship. It's definitely more love-heavy than hate-heavy, but he does have a unique ability to drive me bonkers. Today, though, he was supremely sweet. He even tried to climb onto my lap while I peed! I guess he needed some extra hugs and attention today as well.

My next order of business, after readying myself for the day, was coffee. I stopped by your old place of employment, Bantam Coffee Roasters (they've changed the name since you worked there) and saw both Alex and Chad... and their new puppy. Her name is River and she is every bit as cute as my dogs and she was especially cute today because she was dressed as a United States Postal Worker. I know this means something to you because of the game we used to play in the car: United States Postal Worker. You'll be happy to know that I wrote that into a book. I forget which one, but Bas and Bert play it sometimes, and Bas and Bert love each other exactly the same amount that you and I love(d) each other.

Anyway, back to my day. Armed with caffeine (hazelnut lattes, obviously), I picked up Mom for a day of shopping. We went to Belk's, which is a store that would interest you not at all, and I got Christmas presents for Annie, Mary, my new coworker Landon, and Kathy. (I know you remember Kathy: she once tricked you into eating a cupcake wrapper...)

After Belk's, we hit up Olive Garden for some mozzarella sticks, salad, and pasta, and from there we headed over to Home Goods. This is where you'll no doubt start rolling your eyes because my adulting was hardcore. I got:

a shower curtain rod hooks for the above-mentioned shower curtain rod bathroom towels (they're grey) storage baskets for my laundry room a laundry hamper a new cat dish for Harvey because I've somehow managed to lose a cat dish... pillows for my couch (they're teal and really nice) a soft table cloth (it's orange and grey)

Mom and I were pretty tired after that and I was (more eye rolling -- go ahead) super excited to get home and organize my basement, so we drove home. And guess what was waiting for me on my front stoop. The upholstery steamer I ordered from Amazon! So in addition to organizing my laundry room and doing several loads of laundry and using my downstairs shower for the very first time (it's AMAZING!), I also steam-cleaned my couch and the IKEA chair that Augusta likes to both sit on and occasionally chew on. My house is so clean right now! I love it!

So, yeah. That was my day. And if I was able to call you up on the phone and tell you about it, I'm sure I would've made the saga span at least thirty minutes because there'd be a bunch of asides. And I'd share other little anecdotes, of course, because that's how I do. Like the fact that I learned about steam cleaners from Kristin several years ago and then Beth recently told me that as a person with pets, it is an "eye-opening experience" to steam-clean a sofa. And how I have a new friend James who appreciates my interest in imagining myself as miniature and swimming in oddly-shaped vessels (some of which I saw today at Home Goods!). And how Chris from Bella's Bartok -- the one who built an invisible brick wall at Garryowen and then unbuilt it to ask if I'd yet made my decision about taking the band home with me -- is not only recording The Way Back for Audible, but he's also writing music for the Flannel Lobster lyrics that appear in my books. And how my other new friend Marc is going to hook me up with pistachio ice cream just because I mentioned it to him when I couldn't find any at the grocery store. And how the woman who read Like A Flip Turn for Audible is now recording my Christmas novella and the first fifteen minutes could be arriving in my inbox at any moment. And how Annie and I have plans to get together on a Wednesday in the near future and we're each going to make a dish and I don't yet know what I want to make. And how Amy is coming over tomorrow night for dinner and wine and a tour of my basement. And just... boring life things that are somehow really exciting. And somehow both happy and sad because I can't share them with you.

I miss you, Pip. And I love you. And wherever you are these days, I hope you can sometimes peek into my world and keep tabs on what I'm up to. I'm not saying that you need to spy when Arlo's attempting to sit on my lap while I pee -- that would be super inappropriate -- but I do like to think that you might sometimes catch me dancing in my kitchen. Or belting out song lyrics really, really loudly while vacuuming. Just silly stuff like that. And I hope, too, that wherever you are, you're able to laugh deep-in-your-chest rumble-chuckles on a regular basis... because mostly I hope that you're happy.

Trivia Recap: 10/5

Players: Ben, Hannah, Darren, Mary

Blogger: Darren

Opening Category: Trampled by Turtles

Hint of the Day: an orchestra conductor.

Spoiler Alert: I’ll cut to the chase. We had one of the worst outings I think we have ever had as Educated Friends. Maybe it’s because we were shorthanded, or because people feel tired, or just the stars were not aligned, but it was not pretty. I’m saying this so that you feel comfortable scrolling on to something else on your Facebook feeds – go find a fun cat video or something! -- even though I know that me saying this means you will want to keep reading.

Not very happy Educated Friends

You may recall that last week we won! And Hannah chose Trampled by Turtles as the opening round for this week. And to make sure we were prepared, every morning this week she texted me and Mary a link to a Trampled by Turtles song. And then, because I am a smartass who can’t give up a joke, I would text both of them a picture of a turtle, probably trampling something. I think Mary and I agreed that Alone was our favorite of the songs. Their favorite picture was one that was actually of my son helping a turtle across a highway so it didn’t get trampled, but I’m not sure he would want that on the blog so here was the runner up:

Wheeeeee!

Anyways, obviously Hannah will easily get the question about her favorite band, right? Au contraire, my friends. The question was an audio clue that played a clip and asked what 19th century poet the song was named for. And Hannah had no idea. It really seemed like this would be another situation like when I chose Algebraic Geometry as the category and botched it , but we just kept naming poets and eventually Hannah said that she thought Walt Whitman was the best guess, and luckily we were right !

The rest of round one was pretty straightforward – we all knew that Sesame Street started on PBS and figured out that the hint of the day was referring to electrical conductors and we could name two of the three countries from the name of their female leaders, but we did not get the Scandinavian country correct which was fine since it was the bonus but foreshadowed things to come. Somewhere around here, Ben and Mary and Hannah started talking about which world leaders they wanted to “have adult time with” and picked up on a comment that I had made earlier about “sometimes hard things can be fun”. Being pure and innocent I wasn’t really sure what they were referring to, especially since I think several of us have moms who read this blog.

Sanna Marin was the Prime Minister of Finland that Ben would most like to join our trivia team. The first round can be on our team tab, Sanna!

The second round is when things started to really fall apart. The audio category was, as always, our bonus, but it did not go well this week. They played the karaoke versions of songs and we had to name the song. I immediately knew that the first one was Walk This Way but the second one caused a divide with the men on our team thinking it was “ that Snoop song ” and the women thinking it was Oops I Did It Again . Unfortunately, the men couldn’t actually come up with the name of the Snoop song so even though we were split 2-2 we had to go with Britney and it was, in fact, Snoop. Ben and I also originally thought the third song was Wonderwall, but then Ben and Hannah thought it was a Third Eye Blind song and I didn’t push hard enough so we switched to a wrong answer.

Since we should have trusted Ben’s first instincts on two of these we went along with him on the next question when he said that Teddy Roosevelt was definitely the president on the right on Mount Rushmore. But he isn’t. Abe Lincoln is. The rest of the round was decent as we knew the Pistons used to be in Pontiac (but not the name of their current arena – I went with Dominos but Hannah’s guess of Little Caesars was correct) and we knew that Crème de Menthe is the liquor in both a Grasshopper and an Irish Flag, and we knew that Wendy’s serves square burgers but not where its headquarters is located.

The top half of the halftime round went quite well – you had to recognize celebrities who had an X in their name, like Courtney Cox or Max Scherzer or Annie Lennox. And other than thinking that Rex Harrison was Max von Sydow we got them all. But the bottom half was “Norway, Sweden, or Finland?” Readers, can you tell me which of those countries meets each of the following criteria:

Gave us the video game Angry Birds Uses the Euro as its currency Won the 1994 gold medal in Olympic men’s ice hockey Its mainland extends the farthest north

If you know this kind of thing, let Mary know and she might invite you to join us next week. In any event, we only got six out of ten, despite this really intricate map that Ben drew.

Not only does this map lack detail, but it’s also wrong and cost us points. Can you tell why?

We were out of the money at halftime and a good 20 points behind the leader. Not good. The third round went much better, which is not normal. We knew that Don Quixote was the one who tilted at windmills, and that Mozilla is the company that created Firefox and Thunderbird. We also got the opera question about librettos and a question about the fact that there have been two Rices as National Security advisor. The one question we got wrong was about which celestial body has Styx as a moon. When they told us the answer was Pluto, Mary and I both exclaimed “that’s not a planet!” and Hannah pointed out that they didn’t say planet but said ‘celestial body’ and we got annoyed that she hadn’t pointed that out earlier.

In the 6-4-2 round, the first hint was that it was the toy featured in the movie The Hudsucker Proxy so I immediately knew it and turned it in. I remember really liking that movie but haven’t rewatched it in many years, which is weird as I rewatch lots of other Coen Brothers films. Anyways, I didn’t really pay attention to the other clues.

You know, for kids!

At this point we had inched into third place, but were still twenty points behind the leader. And the worst was yet to come. Another geography question asked us which direction you go to get between certain cities, and it turns out that Sao Paulo is basically due West of Rio de Janierio and that Brisbane is due North of Sydney and that we got the question wrong. And then I got outvoted about which movie has Marilyn Monroe’s famous white dress. So even though we knew Dan Marino had a lot of touchdowns but no Super Bowl rings and that Rastafarianism comes from Jamaica (but was not popularized by Idi Amin) we did not have a good round. We did get a lot of points for the ‘Last Word/First Word TV Edition’ clue asking us about the mashed up tv-show “Bear in the Big Blue House of Cards”, despite Ben and Mary getting way too confused about the structure of the question.

In theory, we were still in it at the final question but the question asked us to name all three African countries with four letter names. We quickly came up with Chad and Mali, but not the third. (Can you name it? Maybe this is a way of getting more reader engagement). So we did not end up in the money. Even worse, a bunch of seminarians won so the opening category next week is “Martin Luther.” I think Mary agreed that she would text me and Hannah one of the 99 theses each morning, and in return maybe I’ll send clips from Martin and Luther.

Full Disclosure: For those who don’t know, Ben is a diehard Phillies fan and I am a diehard Braves fan. Depending on how the next couple of weeks go, one or both of us may miss trivia to watch baseball and/or we may have a blood feud between us. Stay tuned!

A Tuesday Tutorial About Monday Melodies

Last year, I had an idea. And that idea was to create something I like to refer to as "Monday Melodies."

Do you know how cool it is for me to hear my students come into my classroom each Monday having the following conversation?

(Side note: Things like the above confuse me. Do I put a question mark after the word "conversation," like I did? Or do I use a colon and then conclude what I'm about to write with a question mark? It's very confusing. These are things that make me rewrite entire sections of novels... simply because I don't know what to do about the punctuation.)

Anyway. Here's the conversation that was had in first period yesterday:

Squirrelly Bird: Ugh. Today's a Monday Melody, isn't it?

Lover of Noah Kahan: It is Monday, isn't it?

Squirrelly Bird: Yes...

Fashionista: How do you know it'll be bad? The song might be great.

Squirrelly Bird: Doubt it.

Fashionista: But you don't know. Give it a chance. Sometimes they're fun.

Lover of Noah Kahan: Oh my gosh I love this song!

So what's a Monday Melody, you're wondering? Well, let me tell you! It's an idea I came up with last year to get my students ready for the Keystone Exam.

Truth: I hate data.

Truth: I hate standardized testing. (I am HORRIBLE at multiple choice exams -- except for the ASVAB, which was insanely fun and which I did really well on and which caused the military to call me regularly and request my services. I declined.)

Truth: I love Monday Melodies.

In a nutshell, this is what my students do every Monday: They enter my room, someone passes out highlighters, and then I distribute the papers. Mary and I (Mary and I both use Monday Melodies to the chagrin/enjoyment of our students) have also made a playlist for Spotify that is updated each week and which is posted in Google Classroom) go over the instructions, explaining the close-read activity that accompanies the song lyrics (a poem, essentially), and a close-read activity that accompanies the nonfiction text (it somehow ties in to the poem/song lyrics), and the multiple-choice questions (three test-prep-esque questions to prep our students for the Keystone). Once the directions are understood and the students have highlighted their tasks, the song is played. Sometimes kids sing along (this would not be allowed on the Keystone). They never complain, even if they hate the artist. Sometimes they immediately ask what next week's song will be because they're excited/hopeful/dreading the artist. Lately, a lot of kids have been requesting Zach Bryan. Good news, kiddos! Zach Bryan is coming up!

Bad news, kiddos. Zach Bryan is at least two weeks away.

Yesterday we listened to Noah Kahan's "Part of Me" and read a very factual publication about teenage breakups.

Last week we listened to Trampled By Turtles sing "I Went to Hollywood" and read an article about Hollywood. Did you know the sign used to read Hollywoodland? Now you do.

The week before that we listened to Tyler Childers' "Universal Sound" and learned about the Cranberry Glades. There's a lot of stuff going on at the Cranberry Glades that's great for the environment.

Before that, we listened to Taylor Swift's "Shake It Off" (that was Mary's pick) and learned about an earthquake in California that was caused by Taylor Swift's concert. It was called a "Swiftquake."

Anyway... this idea that I had brings music into the classroom and enables me to share my love of songs and concerts with my students. And they're getting better at annotating and multiple-choice questions at the same time! Seriously, though: their annotations have gotten SO MUCH BETTER in just four or five weeks. It's crazy-impressive. I'm proud of them.

Oh! And those students who earn perfect scores on their Monday Melodies are entered into a drawing that happens each week. Winners get to choose a full-size candy bar from our stash, so that's incentive, is it not?

Next week's song is going to be a surprise for everyone... I am SO IMPRESSED with myself for coming up with this next Monday Melody! I'm not saying the kiddos are going to love it, but they're going to be introduced to some new music (to them) that's got a very powerful message. And the nonfiction text I've paired it with? Brilliant. I mean, when Mary read it, she all but flopped around on the floor like a fish -- she was THAT excited.