Hannah Rae's Blog, page 16

Trivia Recap: 7/28, Heat Wave Edition

Players: Mary (English Teacher), Darren (Math Professor/ Dean), Brock (A/V Stuff), Alex (Coffee shop owner) & Ben (not a climate scientist)

Clue: Red Bow Tie with a green background

The team is once again handicapped. Hannah is seeing CAAMP and her periodic table t-shirt would have come in handy.

The last-week winner’s choice category was The Andy Griffith Show. The first question asked about a character who was in the military, in which said character led to a spin off show. Darren suggested Gomer Pyle and everyone seemed very comfortable with this and we got it right.

Q2 (2 letter answers; 3 questions): Name the show where George Clooney played a doctor. ✅ Something about the Ego and Superego = Id ✅. The last part tripped us up and led to the first controversy. Name the martial arts weapon blah, blah, blah (don’t remember the wording). Brock and I immediately landed on the “si” which is (after Googling it just now) spelled Sai. The answer was Bo (the hint) and Darren suggested this and didn’t advocate for himself enough (kidding). Q3 (snack terminology): What dessert treat produced by Nabisco and some other company, featuring Ginger, is commonly referred to this term? It was “Snap” and we scored the necessary points. Q4 (Who Wrote this?): Who wrote A Brief History of Time AND what was the subtitle of the title? Darren knew the answer was Stephen Hawking. Like all teams we took a guess at the subtitle and came up short. Q5 (U.S. Geography): What two states does Lake Tahoe border? I knew this to be CA and NV and we got the points.

Round 2- Q6 (This One is Coming in Hot ‘audio question’): Name songs featuring themes in their title about hot stuff. Part one was The Doors’ “Light my Fire.” ✅ Part two was Smash Mouth “Walking on the Sun.” ✅ Part three was “Hot in Here” by Nelly. ✅ Team effort on this one which was important because it was our bonus category. Q7 (MLB Sluggers): This Oakland Athletic was briefly joined by his brother Ozzy in 1990 something. ✅ Jose Canseco. Darren led it off and it was confirmed by Brock and myself as a good answer. Q8 (Artsy Quotes): This artist popularized the quote “everyone will be famous for 15 mins” and for the bonus, what city his museum is located in. I was all over this. Andy Warhol and Pittsburgh. ✅ Q9 (Disney Hodge Podge): Of the Disney Princesses in the “Disney Princess Encyclopedia” (or something like that), what is listed first alphabetically? We said Anna from Frozen and apparently she’s a queen and not a princess. The answer was Ariel. Stupid. Q10 (One for the Soap Opera Fans): This category was derided by all team members because, for sure, it's a dumb category and no one had any faith in our competence. The question was something about the show that featured a big marriage and the bonus asked to name the bride and groom. Some members favored a guess of General Hospital because it's a good guess, but I’ve never seen a member of our team write an answer so quickly ever before which confirmed the show (and he instantly knew the bride and groom). They say Gen-X were latchkey kids and I believe it after he cooked up that answer.

Half time sheet Part A. Name the first and last names of celebrities who share the same initials. This was pretty easy and included picture of celebs like Carlos Santana, Carl Sagan, and Curt Shilling. Part B: Match the mountains to the appropriate U.S. states. We nailed all 20 Points! After half, Educated Friends were sitting in third place.

Round 3- Q11 (mythology): Basically name the characters who killed the Hydra, Medusa, and the Minotaur. We got the first two thanks to Mary (Hercules and Perseus). No memory of the third answer. Q12 (Infamous TV History): Name the book title, authored by James Frey, which was revealed to be heavily fabricated on an episode of Oprah? Darren knew the answer was A Million Little Pieces. No one on my team seemed to see the Southpark episode with Towlie making fun of this moment, just me. Q13 (Fun with Flags): This was an incredibly complex question which asked for the three saints heralded on the UK Union Jack flag. We literally threw out the guess of St. Andrews, St. George, and St. Patrick (Scotland, England, Ireland) and it was correct. Q14 (Name that video Game): What video game introduced in 1993 popularized the phrase “He’s heating up!”? Brock and I knew this to be the wonderful NBA Jam. Q15 (Films of the 2000s): What scientist was featured as a character in the film The Prestige and what actor played him? Darren and I knew this to be Nikolai Tesla and David Bowie (this was also the bonus q). After round 3 the team still sat in third place.

6-4-2: This was a tough miss in that we only got the answer on the third clue. Clues revealed the answer to be the Guinness Book of World Records.

Round 4- Q16 (Chemistry): Something about two other elements combining with Sulfur to make some kind of acid. We got the hydrogen part but missed the chlorine part. Q17 (Former SNL Cast members): This was easy, especially because I mentioned her as a little known cast member before the game started. Of the 4 stars of Seinfeld, which star was a former cast member of SNL? Answer: Julia Louis Dreyfus. Q18 (Classic Rock Albums): This was a crossword puzzle type question. The first clue mentioned that it was a 1977 album that was the highest grossing album ever until it was surpassed by Thriller. The second clue was the crossword clue: _ u _ _ u _ _. It was Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours and we did not get it. Q19 (Hockey Hall of Famers): This question asked about Hall of Famer Dad and Son named Bobby and Brett. I knew the shared surname to be Hull. Q20 (three clues / one country): We got this, but not on the bonus. The clues included context about Rastafarians and famous cuisine. The answer was Ethiopia. After round 4 the team sat in, you guessed it, third place. Although, we were only down by 4 points going into the final category dealing with “STAGE NAMES.” Brock and I suggested we wager zero points, but others wanted to wager it all. This came back to haunt the team. The question asked about some Canadian who had to change his name from Kin Kane due to it already being a band name. The answer was The Weekend and no teams got it right. The game was not over though because we were tied for third place. The tiebreaker question asked us to approximate the number of career assists for Brett Hull. Darren, Brock, and I did some sports math stuff and came up with 700. The answer was 650 and we won the tiebreaker to allow us the bronze medal for the night. We’re in the drinking money! Next week’s opening category = Princess Anna from Frozen. Ugh!

Staanding for Caamp

I skipped trivia this week to attend a Caamp concert in Philly with my friend Annie. The venue was the Met (which has seats), but we were right in front of the stage (where there are no seats). While there, I took a quick video of the stage and the area in front of the stage and of the many, many, many seats behind us. And then I sent that video to Phil and Brock, along with the caption "Everyone is staanding!" It was well-received by Phil; Brock didn't respond. He was probably sitting down somewhere, listening to music.

So let's recap the evening a bit, shall we? Here we go:

I picked up Annie around 3:15 and we were making great time on the Turnpike until we reached the Reading area. For whatever reason (either an accident or construction; we're leaning toward the latter) everyone was directed off the Turnpike and taken on this roundabout country drive to get back to the Turnpike... which added about 45 minutes to our trip. It was annoying, but ultimately okay because we saw some very pretty views of the countryside.

Once we got to Philly, Annie used every ounce of her direction skill to navigate me to Lot D, where we parked. From there, we walked to a bar called Prohibition Taproom. I'm not entirely sure of the route we traveled to reach this destination because it too was roundabout. We stopped and talked to three different groups of Philly residents to ask directions, and while only one group was even aware of the Taproom's existence, everyone was exceedingly kind.

We finally made it to Prohibition Taproom and this was great fun because my friend Preston and Annie's friends Jen and Jesse met up with us for drinks and dinner! With the exception of Jesse, everyone in the group had grown up in Gettysburg, and then there was this crazy web of connections that continued to happen between Preston and Jen regarding Gettysburg people, along with a separate web of Philly-related connections among Preston, Jen, and Jesse! Annie and I simply sat back and chuckled for part of this.

So the visit with friends was really good and then Jen and Jesse gave us a ride to the Met. We missed the opener (which was fine; I listened to 'em last night while taking a shower and wasn't a huge fan) and got there in time to see Caamp take the stage. I love watching a band take the stage -- I get such a thrill!

This was my third time seeing Caamp in concert, but it was my first time seeing them in an inside venue and as a headliner. The energy was so different! I mean, here was a sold-out opera house (the Met is an old opera house) just for them! Everyone was staanding! No one sat down!

Caamp is a young, skinny band. Taylor Meier, the lead singer, is sooooo delicate! But his voice? It's deep and gravelly and rich. They put on a phenomenal show and I loved every single second of it. It was totally worth the over-three-hour-drive to see 'em. Plus, I had a new idea for a book while watching the men up there on stage! (I often have new ideas for books while at concerts; many, many books and scenes in my books are a direct result of concerts I've attended.)

The ride home was significantly shorter, but I didn't get to bed until 2:41AM. I remember this because "241" is a Reel Big Fish instrumental song that last two minutes and forty-one seconds.

Here's a video of Caamp performing my favorite Caamp song, "All the Debts I Owe":

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/58cc22_1e6b06d280b548018a4f2b8a307d9a57/1080p/mp4/file.mp4

Summer Sleeps

Summer is a great time for napping and sleeping in. However, this summer has proven to a bit challenging in the sleep department. Why? Because I like to hit the sack with at least one or two fur people and for whatever reason, my boys haven't been interested in cuddling.

Arlo would certainly sleep with me if I asked him to... but he takes up so much of the bed and likes to lick his paws and nibble his tail, which is both noisy and gross. So he stays in the living room with Augusta (who prefers her crate). And that's great because I love my dogs, but my cats are the ones I want in bed with me. Understand?

This summer, I've spent a lot of time getting up in the middle of the night just to fetch a cat. Harvey, as a kitten, was a tremendous snuggler. I don't know what happened! So many nights, I find myself throwing back the covers and walking through the house in order to track him down and carry him back to my bedroom, only to have him leave a few minutes later.

Kip is a morning cuddler. I often find him curled under my arm when I wake up, resting his front paws on my bicep and kneading it gently. He's a sweet, sweet boy... but at night, he'd rather sleep on the cat scratcher in the corner of my bedroom. So annoying!

And Petey... Well, Petey is often impossible to catch. I don't know what damage was inflicted upon him before he came to live with me, but he is a very skittish creature. He cowers when I go to touch him, and usually darts away before I can pick him up. He does love to be loved up, though, and once he remembers this, he melts against my palm and begins to drool. When I'm able to catch him in the middle of the night, he'll sometimes sleep on my feet, anchoring me to the bed... but he doesn't like to be touched.

So this summer, I've spent a lot of time getting up and out of bed again and again and again -- at all hours of the night/morning! It's no wonder I appreciate a good nap, right? Because my nighttimes have been restless.

Or rather... they were restless until I discovered the magic of string.

Obviously, I know that cats like to chase string. What I did not know is that my cats like to chase string in bed and then, after a rousing game of following it back and forth across the mattress, they then like to settle in for a night-long snuggle. How perfect is that?! These days, the boys and I have been sleeping just fine!

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Trivia Recap: 7/20

The Educated Friends were scattered along the east coast last night, with only a few of us remaining in Gettysburg. Therefore, we added some new (and intelligent!) faces to our lineup:

The Players: Ben (teacher of an undisclosed subject), Hannah (English teacher), Victoria (veterinarian), Danielle (bartender), Marc (social studies teacher), Erin (school nurse)

Opening Category: TV Francises

Hint of the Day: Kidney Beans

Round One:

Even though we chose to begin with TV Francises (an agreement with made with Street Sharks last week), this question had us a little bit stumped. Fortunately, Marc knew the answer and then Danielle came over to confirm it: Chips. A strong start, right? Just wait... Our bonus category was "EGG" On Your Face, with rEGGae and EGGplant being the first two answers, but even though at least three of us grew up playing Sonic the Hedgehog, we could not for the life of us remember that Sonic's nemesis went by the name of Doctor EGGman. Whatever. We got our 5-point bonus, but missed the 2-point bonus. Ben right away knew the answer to Biannual Events (Special Olympics) and he and Marc nailed two of the three countries surrounding Luxembourg. Actually, they knew all three, but we only needed two. And because Ben gave me some information to work with, I was able to come up with the name of Claire Danes and he got My So-Called Life for a 2-point bonus in TV Actresses. And then in Round Two, shit hit the fan...

Round Two:

We always go with the audio clue because we always get it right. I think we've only ever missed the audio clue twice: once, when we wrote down song titles instead of the artists (that was us not following directions), and twice, the other time we didn't get it (I can't remember the theme). Ben asked to see this data because he doesn't believe we do well on the audio clue the majority of the time, but I told him to read the blogs because the data should be recorded in back issues. Sometimes I wonder why we bother to recap our trivia nights. Now I know! Anyway... this week's audio clue involved film clips and I don't like when Pour House does talking clips instead of music clips. We got Elizabeth right, but missed whatever number two was, along with Indiana Jones. That basically ruined our chance of winning because we had made it our bonus AND wagered 9 points because we thought we had at least two of them right. The rest of the round went fine (The Animal Kingdom = koala, Pop Singers = Camila Cabello + Fifth Harmony... courtesy of our MVP Danielle, American History = New Orleans, and Tennis Time = US Open + Australian Open).

Halftime:

We got 18/20, which isn't bad. On the top half, we needed to identify people wearing top hats. On the bottom, we had to match actors to films they appeared in. At least, I think that's what the bottom was... Ben did it so quickly that I didn't really look at it.

Round Three:

The opening category for this round was Start Round 3 With a Craft Beer, which I did when I ordered another Ohh Jeee. The answer to the question was Fat Tire (which Ben and I knew right away), with a 2-point bonus for knowing the brewery is located in Colorado. World History was easy because Marc and possibly another member of our team know a lot about history; Napoleonic Wars earned us twelve points because we went high AND it was our bonus category. We missed Three Clues / One Word because who knew that Little Bunny Foo Foo was threatened by the fairy and told that he would be turned into a goon if he didn't stop bopping field mice on the head? Marc right away knew that Tithe was a Financial Term used by the Catholic Church and we got the Painter we needed (Monet) for the next question, but not where he was buried.

6-4-2:

For the record, I actually got this right for 6 points, but we waited to make sure even though I was pretty certain I was right. I forget exactly how the question was worded, but it was something about Bruce Willis's biggest grossing film and I said The Sixth Sense and Ben said Armageddon and Marc pointed out that The Sixth Sense was available to a wider demographic because of its rating. And it was The Sixth Sense. We got it for four points, which is pretty good, but were still waaaaaaaay down in the standings. Like, after halftime? We were in antepenultimate place. The Educated Friends are never in antepenultimate place.

Round Four:

We missed Foreign Countries because Ben refused to draw a map of the world even though I'd asked him to begin on it way back during Round One. Danielle saved us with 90s Sitcoms, our bonus for that round. Both Marc and Ben could recall everything about the show Hanging With Mr. Cooper except the name of the show. I knew the answer to Classic Singers, which was Richie Valens, and fortunately Ben was paying attention to the bonus question because I didn't hear it but I did know the answer: Lou Diamond Phillips. Mineral Healing was where the hint of the day came into play because the answer was Kidneys and Triple 50/50 (Over/Under) earned us the points but not the 2-point bonus.

Final:

The category for this (I think) was logos. We got it wrong. I don't even remember the clue because by then I wasn't paying a whole lot of attention.

I'd like to point out that last night contained literally ZERO literature questions (lame).

Next week's opening category is The Andy Griffiths Show, and upon hearing this, I said, "That was a category not too long ago, wasn't it?" Ben misheard me, however, and thought I was saying the show was on not too long ago. So he proceeded to inform me that The Andy Griffiths Show stars Andy Griffith and Aunt Bea and Opie and is in black and white, and I was like, "Yeah. I know." Silly Benjamin Charles!

Ben's agreed to write the blog next week because I'm not going to be at trivia because I'm going to Philadelphia to see Caamp perform at the Met. I intend to staand the entire time, unlike Phil and Brock. Also, next Thursday is Mary's birthday eve, so if you'd like to swing by Fourscore and give her a present or buy her a beer, she'll be there to accept your offerings (assuming her son doesn't get pink eye or an ear infection, which he seems to be prone to).

The many good things that happened on Friday!

I meant to write this yesterday, but I was too tired. I think it's because I went running on Saturday morning. It's not like a ran a great distance or anything -- I didn't -- but it was so hot, you know? And I ended up taking a nap instead of writing a blog.

Anyway... here are the many good things that happened to me on Friday:

One: I hung out with my long-lost friend Jori! In reality, Jori wasn't actually lost. This whole entire time, she's been a short distance away in Mechanicsburg, but we don't get to see each other as much as we'd like because of kids (hers) and work (mine) and life (both of us).

Jori and I had a fun-filled day of adventuring. First, she took me to Down to Earth Cafe, which was DELICIOUS and super cool on the inside. The furniture was cool, the art was cool, the menu was cool... the drinks were excellent. I highly recommend it!

After that, we went to Glitz Soap Co. Two years ago for my birthday, my friend Erin gave me a bar of soap that smelled exactly as soap should smell. And I could smell it all through my house! Every time I walked by the bathroom, I wanted to take a shower. That's how good the soap smelled. But I can't for the life of me remember which scent she gave me... so Jori took me to the shop and I bought several that may or may not be the scent (but they all smell good).

From there, we went to Wolf's Brewing Co. This place had really good food and really good beer... and the beer is gluten-free! It was delightful. Our waiter was super attentive, as well. Again, I highly recommend that you check it out if you haven't already.

Then, Jori took me to One Good Woman (my friend Annie once gave me a wine glass that says One Good Woman and it's my favorite wine glass; I use it all the time and have always meant to explore the shop) and a macaron shop called Sweet Velvet. I sampled two macarons (peach and cherry cheesecake) and bought a box of six macarons to bring home (two raspberry, two lemon, and two mocha chip). All of them were delicious; I'm giving a raspberry and a lemon to Mary tomorrow when we meet at Bantam Coffee Roasters to do book-related things.

Jori and I had so much fun together that we decided to do it again in Gettysburg when the weather's a bit cooler. Something to look forward to, woot!

Two: I went out to dinner with Kathy and Erin! Because Kathy hadn't yet seen my parents' renovations to their house, we started by walking down the street and having a visit/tour with my mom. We talked about things like fasting (Kathy had just recently completed a three-day fast) and how hot the weather's been. (Kathy and Erin think this weather is great because they're crazy.)

After visiting with my mom, the three of us walked into town to get some food at Garryowen. Matt was our waiter and I adore that guy, so that made for a very enjoyable experience. In addition to that, the IPA that I drank was quite tasty and my salad was perfect! (I got the walnut-and-blue-cheese salad with grilled chicken and whiskey-walnut dressing in case you're wondering.)

Our next stop was a little touristy shop that sold Civil War-themed things. I forget the name of it, but they seriously sell the BEST-smelling candles. The candles have names like "Old Paper" and "Gettysburg," but they smell AMAZING. (One of them smelled like a clean man's armpit, and that's one of my favorite smells.)

(At this point in the evening, we remembered that we needed a picture and so took one with this Union soldier. After the photograph was taken, however, Erin said, "Hold on. He wasn't looking," so we took another one.)

On our way back to my house, we stopped at Reid's Winery (it's owned by the family of our former classmate Maggie) and literally sampled everything on tap. How'd we get away with this, you ask? Well, we each purchased a beverage (mine was called Apple-Grape Cider, I believe, but should be called "Grandpa's Orchard" because it tasted just exactly how my grandpa's orchard used to smell!) and Shannon was working. Who's Shannon? you ask. A former classmate of ours! It was fun to see her and catch up. We then took our drinks outside and watched some music and that was that.

Three: In between visits with friends, I checked my Instagram account and saw that I had received a response to a message I'd sent to a woman named Crysta who is married to Aaron Barrett! For those of you who either don't know or have forgotten, Aaron Barrett is my favorite rockstar of all time as he is the frontman of Reel Big Fish and he once answered 53 questions that I had about life in a band. Because I still use his answers to this day, I wrote him into my (current) favorite book, Kick It One More Time, and wrote to ask Crysta (Aaron doesn't have social media) if I might be able to send a copy to her husband. I ALSO asked if they'd be willing to listen to Like A Flip Turn and because Crysta has recently gotten into audiobooks, she agreed right away and has already redeemed the free copy I sent her! How fun is that?!

Anyway, I'll be putting a copy of Kick It into the mail this week so that Aaron can peruse it when he's done with Like A Flip Turn. Oh! And Crysta followed me back! She seems like such a genuinely kind and sweet person. I think she'd have to be, though, seeing as she's with Aaron Barrett!

So that was Friday.

Trivia Recap: 7/13

Players: Darren (Mathemagician), Hannah (novelist extraordinaire), Mary (literary marketing manager), Victoria* (veterinarian), Elliott* (minor league outfielder)

Hint of the Day: Zebra Stripes

Loyal readers, it’s Darren writing this week to report on a fun night of trivia. But before we get to the trivia there is a very important announcement to make. As we may have mentioned in the past, back on St Patrick’s Day 2022 our trivia hosts at Fourscore introduced a special beer, a light stout that they called Irish Wristwatch. (They actually had a second special beer that night, a Lucky Charms IPA that we should never speak of again.) It was a good light stout, but we guess they must have overpredicted its popularity as it stayed on tap for a long time and it became a running joke between us to see when they would actually run out of it, as this special St Patrick’s Day beer made it almost to Halloween. So this year when it showed back up in mid-March we decided to have a pool to predict when they would run out. Several people’s predictions came and went, including my own prediction of July 4th. But today the day came, and it was no longer on the beer list. Danielle confirmed that they had kicked the last of it for the year! I would like to congratulate Alex for correctly predicting the date! We had previously agreed that the prize was just bragging rights and notoriety, but Hannah and I decided that we would also chip in to buy all of Alex’s drinks for the night. The fact that she is out of town on vacation is unfortunate, and purely coincidental.

As you can see from the list at the top of this blog entry, the Educated Friends were pretty shortstaffed tonight as Alex wasn’t the only one out of town. It was mostly just me and Mary and Hannah, although Victoria was there for the second half and we had a special guest appearance from my son Elliott for the first round or so, as he downed a grilled cheese sandwich and a couple of lemonades to get out of the heat.

Last week our nemeses the Street Sharks won and they chose “Ru Paul’s Drag Race” as the opening category. None of us had ever even watched the show, but we had done some research with an assist from Siri (the sometimes teammate, not the artificial intelligence). Unfortunately, we did not research which runners up had an Orioles-themed name, and it turns out that it was not Cal Ripskin, which come to think of it is more of a roller derby name than a drag queen name. Luckily we rebounded pretty quickly by knowing that Texas had more counties than any other state even though I swear that I remember learning that Georgia had the most when I was growing up there. Of course, I also remember learning a trivia fact from that same teacher along the lines that Atlanta would be the most populous city on earth if the oceans raised a certain number of feet. Thank you, Ms. Schwartz!

Look at all 159 counties Georgia has!

The next round was ‘A Cheesy Question’ and asked about a kind of cheese normally found in red wax that sounds like it’s named after a 60’s sitcom but is actually named after a region in France. We almost put down Edam even though we had no idea what sitcom that would be referring to but literally with like ten seconds to go Hannah started naming sitcoms really quickly and hit upon The Munsters and the answer was obvious. We then were able to pin down what year Nelson Mandela was released from jail and Germany reunified because I am old, and while we could not remember what company had the slogan “If you don’t look good, we don’t look good” we did know the palindromic hairstyle that its founder was known for, because how many palindromic hairstyles can you name?

The second round started with relatively easy questions: a music question about songs performed by a trio of Stevies (Ray Vaughn, Wonder, and Nicks), a question about protons and electrons, and one about the stars of A Fish Called Wanda which I was shocked to find out my teammates had never seen. Unfortunately, with Ben absent we did not know our World War II history and we also did not know which NBA team had the most players in the Hall of Fame – we guessed that it was either the Lakers or the Celtics, but our coin flip between the two was wrong. Sometime during this round is when Elliott left us to go back to the gym, because he had only gone two other times today, and Victoria arrived from doing surgery on animals to help us with the much more important task of winning trivia.

The half time sheet started by asking us to name the painters of ten famous works of art. We got nine of them right but could not pull the artist who did American Gothic, and also to match the 90’s #1 Song with its artist. We aced this latter half, and it certainly doesn’t hurt that a few weeks ago Mary and Hannah and I spent an evening singing our way through every top 100 hit from 1994-2000, which I am sure our bartenders really appreciated. After this halftime sheet we felt like we were doing decently but not great, given that we had missed three actual questions and several bonuses . So we were shocked to learn that we were in first place by a comfortable margin.

Not the real American Gothic but Lincoln!

The third round began with `Three Clues, One Music Group’ and we were convinced it would be the White Stripes because of the clue of the day. But instead it was The Eagles, which are in many ways the literal opposite of the White Stripes – did you know that they used to be Linda Ronstadt’s backing group? We didn’t, but we still got our wager and our bonus points. Hannah did know that Linda Ronstadt sang a song called “Blue Bayou” which got us the next question, and we also knew about Law & Order, and Zebra Cakes which were the hint of the day. We did not know which three of the seven wonders of the ancient world had been destroyed in Earthquakes, and in hindsight it seems like ‘The Lost City of Atlantis’ might have been a bad answer for several reasons.

Now, the Law & Order question was in the category of TV FRANCHISES, only the fine folks of Pour House made a typo and actually wrote TV FRANCISES. It was around this time that the Street Sharks asked us to make a pact that if either of us won we would chooses TV FRANCISES as our opening category for next week. We thought that was one of the funniest things we could think of so we agreed.

A typo, and also some insights into the mind of Hannah Rae.

The 6-4-2 round was about cities, and we did not know that San Francisco was named after the patron saint of ecologists but we did know that it was where Haight-Asbury is. We knew that the king in Madagascar was a lemur but didn’t know who voiced him, we guessed at the name of the hat in South Park, and we knew where the original LegoLand was as well as which band had a hit with “All For You” back in the late 90s. There was also a question about the company that started by building wagons and then became a car company that went defunct in the 1960s and it had ten letters and the third was a U, and we almost didn’t get this one but at the last second Victoria knew that it was Studebaker!

At the end of regulation we were 12 points in front of the Street Sharks, so we wagered 0 points to force at worst a tie. The question was “Which US President is the first to be born in a state that was not one of the original 13 colonies?” We knew that Lincoln was born outside the colonies and didn’t bother thinking too hard about if he was the first president since we hadn’t wagered any points, but lo and behold that was the correct answer. And Street Sharks did not get it right so we won the game outright!

We lived up to our promise and chose “TV Francises” as our opening category. We can think of Francis Underwood from House of Cards and Francis Gallagher from Shameless. We have already checked and Frankie Muniz is a Francisco but NOT a Francis. If you can think of other famous TV Francises, please let Hannah know in the comments. Until next week…

Until I Write a Book About Him...

...here's a blog about my friend Chad. Today's his birthday!

Chad is one of the owners of my favorite coffee shop, Bantam Coffee Roasters. I frequently swing by for a latte and Chad frequently says, "Have you written a book about me yet?"

The name "Chad" is mentioned in Running Through the Words, I believe, but the character of Chad doesn't appear until my Christmas novella. That's likely going to be released in November 2023, and you'll enjoy it more if you've read Like A Flip Turn (because of Ruby), Just Whistle (because of Jasper), and Kick It One More Time (because of Doc, Jack, and Amelia) ahead of time. Chad is not a major character in my Christmas novella, though, and he wants to be. The real Chad wants this, I mean; the fictional Chad is fine with his current role.

Here is some worthwhile information about Chad:

Favorite Concert:

Alabama. He was five years old and it was his first concert ever. When Alex, Chad's girlfriend, heard him respond with this answer, she said, "Seriously? That was your favorite concert?" But Chad countered with, "It started my love affair with concerts." Since then, he's seen a lot of shows, including Tibetan Freedom in 1998 and a ton of bands when he lived in Washington. I know for a fact that he also saw The Lumineers and Caamp because I was at the same show and we hung out!

Book Recommendation:

The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner. When I asked why, Chad answered, "It's the most genius piece of American literature that's out there." He also shared with me that Faulkner had originally wanted the text to be published in color so the words could appear in different hues, but the publisher pointed out that that would cost way too much. (I have a version of Like A Flip Turn that has some words printed in color and it really jacks up the price, but Jenny has synesthesia and I wanted that to be represented, so...)

Favorite Food:

Cheese. This answer was provided relatively quickly, and then Chad began to worry after saying it, acknowledging, "People are gonna think I'm constipated all the time." Fortunately, he does get some fiber from the consumption of Caesar salads. Chad also appreciates a good Reuben sandwich. Interestingly, the best meal Chad ever had "was in a mall. It was sushi, in a mall, in Luxemburg, which is a double landlocked country." What are the odds, right?

Best Part About Owning a Business:

"I can wear flip-flops." Chad owns the business, he owns the flip-flops, and he owns the look. But he also enjoys problem-solving and being creative.

Favorite Drink on the Menu at Bantam Coffee Roasters:

"Black coffee. We make such a good product, why do I need anything to [improve it]?" Admittedly, Bantam Coffee Roasters' black coffee is really good. I never order black coffee when I'm there, but I do buy their coffee to brew at home and I don't always add cream to it.

Other Worthwhile Things to Know About Chad:

When asked if he had anything else of interest to share, Chad proudly said, "When I was in third grade, I won the pie-eating competition for my age bracket. 1987." Shortly after that, he participated in a dance competition and took first in an "Electric Slide" dance off. He won a belt buckle. "I was the cutest kid," he said, and not in a way that one would perceive as bragging. Alex agreed with the statement, chiming in, "Oh my gosh, Chad was the cutest kid."

And that's Chad in a nutshell. Happy birthday, buddy!

Ho Ho Hold on! A Christmas Novella in July?

Last night, I hosted a new group of readers (I'm calling them my Bonus Book Club) for a discussion about my to-be-released-in-November novella, The One You're With. This one ties in so very much with Like A Flip Turn (because you've got the magic of Ruby's flowers), Kick It One More Time (because that's where you really get the details regarding Doc, Jack, and Amelia), and Just Whistle (because Jasper's got a house with rooms that shift around, you know?).

Here's the synopsis of The One You're With, so you can get yourself all geared up to purchase it in November:

Everyone lives a day differently… and sometimes the lives of the people living that day intersect.

As Doc Delaney prepares for his annual party on Christmas Eve in Lake Caywood, so do Jack and Amelia Porter, Ruby Gallagher, and Jasper Lane. The season is one that should be full of wonder and merriment, but a specific box on the page of a calendar doesn’t necessarily eliminate the secrets that exist in a town, nor does it prevent unexpected truths from being shared. Over the course of twenty-four hours, the lives of several locals are changed for both the better and the worse—just in time for the holidays.

Just so you know in advance, the size of this novella is smaller than my other books, making it convenient for stuffing stockings. *wink wink*

Anyway, because my Regular Rae Readers have read all of the aforementioned books, I wanted to hear from folks who ,didn't, already have the backgrounds of Jack, Ruby, Jasper, Amelia, and Doc... which proved to be a really smart move because this particular group of readers gave me some phenomenal suggestions! Here's who was involved:

Concert Husband Phil, who typically reads nonfiction but has now read two of my books... and will be reading a third for another discussion next month! He had some really insightful things to contribute too -- I'm so glad he was able to come!

Trivia Darren, who has now ,also, read two of my books and is planning to listen to ,Like A Flip Turn, while traveling in the weeks to come. (He's going to love it.) Darren provided some good commentary about Doc and the placement of information. Like, he posed this really interesting question that involved the ordering of the stories and it made me think a ,lot. ,I liked that.

BFF Kathy, who has read many of my things, but not all of them (yet!) and who feels that as a third-grade teacher, she can't contribute to book discussions as well as those of us who teach English... but she's very wrong because she made a comment about Jack last night that really resonated with me and I'm still chuckling about it today.

Co-worker Kathy, who has read three of my books and is embarking on a Hannah Rae Reading Excursion because ,The One You're With ,left her wanting more. (That comment pretty much made my night because ultimately I just want people to ,want, to read my stuff!)

High School Erin, who's actually a member of my Regular Rae Readers, but who (probably) can't be there for that discussion about ,The One You're With, which will meet later this month. Erin ACED the wine-bottle-label competition and took home an original piece of art that connects to the text. When it comes to making deep connections between wine and texts, that girl knows what she's doing!

Sister Erin, who's the sister of Co-worker Kathy and was in town and so she read my book and came along! Erin talked about her reading ability in much the same way BFF Kathy talked about hers, but she too had some hilarious stuff to say about Jack. Especially the underpants scene!

#1 Fan Nicole, who recently read ,Running Through the Words, (the longest novel she's ever read, I believe) and LOVED it. That title gave her a lot of insight to Doc, and some to Jack as well, so she was coming at ,The One You're With, from a different perspective and that was super fun to hear! She also came ,this close, (my fingers are almost touching) to taking home the wine-bottle-label prize... but then Erin took the lead with her picture of the wine's description. It was a tight competition!

Marketing Manager Mary, who is also a member of my Regular Rae Readers, but who attends both meetings because I need her wisdom and insight and mental notes so that we can dissect everything at Bantam Coffee Roasters on Thursday. That girl's an absolute gem and I need everyone to start buying and reading/listening my books so I can pay her properly for all her hard work.

Before I sign off, wanna hear about the menu? Okay. First of all, I got out my Christmas tablecloth and cocktail napkins. And the menu consisted of:

red peppers and cucumbers with dip (because they're Christmas colors!) little baguettes with spreadable cheese and smoked salmon (they were a hit) quiche (red onion, spinach, mushroom, and four cheese) fancy cheeses, blackberries, grapes, and salt-and-vinegar almonds caprese bites, made with little tomatoes from Twin Springs shrimp and cocktail sauce (which has resulted in my garbage disposal now being clogged, so I'm writing this as I wait for the plumber to arrive) and bite-sized peanut butter cookies that were shaped like snowflakes

Alright. I'm off to work on a new book I'm writing. Later, gators!

Trivia Recap: 7/6

Hi, readers! This is Alex, owner of Bantam Coffee Roasters and designer of many things. (The “A” key on my keyboard is stuck, so if there are a lot of “A”s, thaat is why. I’m getting rather sick of editing them out, so you’ll haave to deal with it like I am dealing with it.) I am the guest blogger for this week’s trivia recap! This week, we had a full team despite Phil not being able to make it. Our team consisted of me, Darren, Ben, (finally) SIRI, Hannah, Mary, and Brock. That’s a lot of players in comparison to some of the more recent weeks.

The night started out with an audio clue with Hall & Oaats, thanks to last week’s winners (not us). We all sang along aand came up with “You Make My Dreaaams Come True”. We got the points even though the real answer waaas “You Maaake My Dreams”. (Y’aall, I’m laughing at aall these “A”s. I really need to get my keyboard fixed.) We got the points aand the bonus for the Navaal History question. I don’t remember the question, but the answer waaaas John Paaul Jones & Led Zepplin. Our bonus category for round one was Fun with Prime Numbers which was very easily answered by Darren, of course. Such a math wizard, that one. The final category waaas 2000’s Movie Quotes which Brock thought waas Superbad (correct) and Jonah Hill (incorrect). That’ss okay, we still got a point for thaat.

Round two consisted of TV Theme Songs, US Cities, Zoological Lingo (where is Victoria when you need her?!), Sporty Lore, and Brit Lit. The theme songs question was an audio question. We very easily got those three. Luckily, this was our bonus question so we got mega points for that one, 16 to be exaact. The clue for this week waas “Salt” which applied to the US Cities question. The answer waaas Salt Lake City. Even without Victoria, we still got the animal question! Pretty sure it waaass aa mixture of Hannah aand Mary (?). I have a terrible memory.

We had great success with the bonus sheet. Again, with my terrible memory, I can’t quite remember what it waas about. Usually, we keep the bonus sheet, but I caan’t seem to find it.

The third round didn’t go so hot. I think this is why we got second place. I believe Siri got the birthstone question correct, which was Alexandrite and Ruby. I had gone to the bathroom during this question, but Mary still found me in the bathroom to ask me for the answer. I waaas wrong, so I’m glad they didn’t go with my answer. Our bonus question was about bands thaat have the word “kid” in them. We got this entire question wrong, unfortunately. We leaned heavily on Mary for the country music question, which she nailed.

The 6-4-2 question was something about planets (again, baad memory) and the answer was Earth aand we got the full 6 points!

Round four was equally unsuccessful even though we did get our bonus question aaabout the Wizard of Oz (one of my absolute favorite movies). Pretty sure the question about footwear haad something to do with the shoes thaat eskimos wear. We got the right answer, Mukluks. Even though we tend to hate sports questions, we did get the Football Hall of Famers question. I think Brock haad something to do with it, possibly Ben.

After trivia, we all went to ABC for another beer. It waas a fun and joyous night. I am truly blessed for all of my trivia friends.

I hope my run-on sentences and broken “A” key didn’t drive Hannaah too crazy when she goes to edit this. Anyway! It waas very nice recapping such a great evening.

Thank you, dear readers, for excusing my keyboard situation and my terrible memory.

All the best <3

Alex

Back-to-Back Reads!

Yesterday, my marketing manager Mary and I met at Bantam Coffee Roasters to edit a novel called Time Jumps that I intend to release next year. Originally, I had Uptempo, Down slated for this particular time period... but I think Time Jumps is the way to go because there's a fun little tie-in with Kick It One More Time.

Anyhow.

I got to Bantam a few minutes before Mary and walked in to claim a table. When I sat down, one of my favorite readers, Sarah, got my attention and said, "Hannah. When you say there's a new book coming out this summer... when this summer? Because I can't wait."

And do you know what I said? I said, "Oh! Today! Kick It One More Time is available today! I just got an email from Amazon saying it's published."

Sarah was pretty amped up! She told me that she'd recently taken Just Whistle and Running Through the Words to the beach with her and reread them, back-to-back, and loved them every bit as much as she did the first time through. (I asked her to write reviews online; those are the BEST reviews to get!) I assured her that Kick It would eventually be available at the coffee shop in the near future, but that it would probably be faster to get it from Amazon. If you're interested, here's the link: KICK IT ONE MORE TIME!!!

Of the things I've published so far, Kick It is probably my favorite. I love the characters, you know? And Kick It is the center of my Hannah Rae Literary Universe. Literally EVERYTHING else branches off of it -- including a Christmas novella that will be released this November. That one has MAJOR tie-ins to Kick It, Just Whistle, and Like A Flip Turn.

Speaking of Like A Flip Turn... the audiobook is amazing and if you haven't checked it out yet, you really should. Here's a link for that as well: LIKE A FLIP TURN!!!

Alright. I actually have several additional exciting things in the works right now, but I don't want to bombard you with exclamation points... so I'll space things out.

Oh, oh, oh! Want to know what else was great that happened yesterday? While Mary and I were editing Time Jumps, Steve came into Bantam to use the bathroom and get a cup of tea. When Mary and I are at Bantam, we are there for HOURS, and Steve stops in several times to rehydrate, catch up with Chad and Alex, and talk books with Mary and me. Yesterday, Steve was teasing us about needing to start paying rent to Alex and Chad. I pointed out that we had ordered three rounds of caffeine (actually, two: our third round of beverages consisted of peach smoothies ) and the next thing we knew, we were being given a $10 gift card from Steve for next time! (Which coincidentally will be Friday... in case you're reading this, Steve!)

All in all, yesterday was pretty stellar. And tomorrow, if all things go according to play, Mary and I will finish working our way through Time Jumps, talk about some potential tweaks to the ending, and make the magic happen.