Sunday Post @kimbacaffeinate

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted  @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news~ A post to recap the past week on your blog and showcase books and things  received. Share news about what is coming up on our blog for the week ahead. See rules here: Sunday Post Meme

LOOKING FORWARD TO JULY

I had a great week. I got to sit in for an open play through the Twin Cities, Playwright center.  I was the one on the big screen, Google Hangouts, reading the script, while everyone else was sitting at a table in a meeting room.  I'll be adapting my novel to a script so that I'll have my own play read by actors. It's a lot easier to format aplay when you've already got it written down. 

On another note, a lot of people seemed really interested in my work at Grubhub so I thought I'd expand on that.  Like most jobs it's a lot easier after you get through the anxiety of applying and following through with the training.  

My job training specialist was open to all questions I had about the job.  Some of the things he talked about included the driving boundaries.  There are four central cities in Minnesota that Grubhub caters to. There are a lot of restaurants and fast food joints that Grub hub are connected with, hence the reason why there are four cities.  Not a lot of cities are yet connected with the app. (That will change) One of them is in St. Paul.  Since I live near St. Paul, my blocks are assigned strictly to that area. 

 I was given two fancy delivery bags and a hat and a couple of shirts.  Luckily these were free.  The GPS app is connected with the Grubhub app so that makes it easy for driving to customers' homes.  One of the pitfalls is that a few customers' addresses can not be located on the map.  For example one time I got sent to a home- only to find out it was on the other side of the highway. And so a quick call to the customer is all it took to help me locate them.  


Because I absolutely love  discussion, I included a Reddit discussion page of Grubhub.  It includes a lot of unpopular opinion ,and the 'insides' of the job.  Here's the link: https://www.reddit.com/r/couriersofreddit/comments/7ska2o/grubhub_things_you_should_know_that_they_dont/

Overall, I've been having a great experience and hope that continues.

CURRENTLY

Reading:  Before I Find You by Ali Knight, 

The Likeness by Tana French, The Moonlit Garden b Corina Bomann, Attraction by Penny Reid, Dead Certain by Adam Mitzner

Listening:Foul Play by Janet Evanovich

Watching: My Brilliant Friend

ON THE BLOG

What Happened:

Interview with Minnsky Performer

Sunday: The Sunday Post

Up Coming:

 Sunday Post 

Readers if you want to comment, please do so below.

The Sunday Post @kimbacaffeinate @MNChildMuseum #amreading

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted  @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news~ A post to recap the past week on your blog and showcase books and things  received. Share news about what is coming up on our blog for the week ahead. See rules here: Sunday Post Meme

LOOKING FORWARD TO JULY

This week has been a slow one because of the snow we got in Minnesota. I took my little one to the Children's Museum.  And that was a lot of fun.  They have a car wash and several exhibits that have to do with My World.  My lil' one is two and so I've got several people that come to our house and work with him on his development, including one nurse, a therapist and a head start teacher.  It's quite fun to work with so many people.  I like to envision myself like the mom in the Nanny Diaries.  Which if you haven't read the novel, you might like film starring Scarlett Johansson  It's basically about a nanny who comes to work for a very affluent family and their spoiled offspring.  She has to bring the kids to places like Central Park, and Museum of Natural History. 

Although, I'm not nearly as affluent or rude as Mrs. X, I like the concept of organizing your kid's life and exposing them to as much as possible.

CURRENTLY

Reading:  Tell me Three Things by Julie Buxbaum

Listening: The Paris Review Podcast,(has tons of great short stories and poetry and readings by Levar Burton and David Sedaris)Legends by Marie Lu,Clockwork Century (Sci-fi) by Cherie Priest 

Watching: The Fall (a British Thriller) 

ON THE BLOG

What Happened:

(Not a whole lot so I'll talk about last week)

Saturday: Weekend Warriors

Sunday: The Sunday Post

Up Coming:

Sunday:Weekend Warriors and Sunday Post 

Readers if you want to comment, please do so below.

Sunday Post @kimbacaffeinate #amreading #amjoy

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted  @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news~ A post to recap the past week on your blog and showcase books and things  received. Share news about what is coming up on our blog for the week ahead. See rules here: Sunday Post Meme

LOOKING FORWARD TO JULY

Thanksgiving was so-so.  Highlights include:
Playing Perfection with family members
-Eating vegan chicken (yes that's a thing) vegan stuffing, potatoes and gravy-Thanks to my nephew's girlfriend who is all Vegan.
-Driving on quiet, non-traffic streets
-Working on Thanksgiving
-Seeing my kiddo running away from my sister's pet-rescued dog and saying "oh Nooo"
-playing the word game Taboo and totally winning (wink wink, nudge nudge)

CURRENTLY

Reading:  All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders

Listening: Outsiders by S.E. Hinton (classic) The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and The Restaurant at the End of the Universe by Douglas Noel Adams, Fiesta (short story)by Junot Diaz, Foundation by Isaac Asimov.

Watching:  Noel (ACTORS)(Susan Sarandon),(Penélope Cruz) and Daniel Sunjata (He is a stud muffin.  I remember seeing him in One for the Money, a Janet Evanovich movie.)

ON THE BLOG

What Happened:

(Not a whole lot so I'll talk about last week)

Saturday: Weekend Warriors

Sunday: The Sunday Post

Up Coming:

Sunday:Weekend Warriors and Sunday Post 

Readers if you want to comment, please do so below.

The Sunday post @kimbacaffeinate @StrikeTheater ‏@SandboxTheatre

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted  @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news~ A post to recap the past week on your blog and showcase books and things  received. Share news about what is coming up on our blog for the week ahead. See rules here: Sunday Post Meme

LOOKING FORWARD TO JULY

November has been a busy WRITING month for me. Even though I decided not to participate in Nanowrimo,  I've been average 4,000 words a week.  I also joined a meetup where I had a chance to a write monologue for an actor at Sandbox Theater.  This was so much fun! You wouldn't believe it!

  To see an actor bring your words to life is something every writer should experience.  It's like writing skits for Saturday Night Live.  The adrenaline of having to write a five minute monologue within twenty minutes of time-is intense.  It also felt like a big renunion because I was able to see at least twelve different people from four different writers groups that I had been a part of in the last five years.  I was overjoyed to catch up with them about their writing and just what they've been up to.  I also saw one of them in a different light as they performed as an actor that night.
I'll have a chance later this month to read playwrights with other writers through google hangouts.  The Twin Cities is brimming with theaters.  Wherever you go there's a theater tucked away in some warehouse or storefront and it adds charm to Minnesota.
Strike Theater held a fundraising show on Thursday for the victims of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting victims on Thursday which I thought I'd mention because it was for a good cause.

CURRENTLY

Reading:  Until the Last Star Fades by Jacquelyn Middleton (I've been really loving this British author lately, I've read all three of her books and bonus! Her new book mentions the Minnesota Wild Team. 

If We Were Villians (YA) by M.L. Rio, and Most of All You by Mia Sheridan, Kulti by Mariana Zapata

The Art of Being Normal by Lisa Williamson

Listening: Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy (Victorian) and Finger Lickin' Fifteen by Janet Evanovich (this is my second go-through the series so I'm listening to them at random.  I'm familiar with all the characters, so order doesn't seem to matter)

Watching:  The News, Lots of bad things happening lately. The bad will never become THE Norm.

ON THE BLOG

What Happened:

(Not a whole lot so I'll talk about last week)

Saturday: Weekend Warriors

Sunday: The Sunday Post

Up Coming:

Sunday:Weekend Warriors and Sunday Post 

Readers if you want to comment, please do so below.

Sunday Post @levarburton @kimbacaffeinate #amreading @amjoy

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted  @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news~ A post to recap the past week on your blog and showcase books and things  received. Share news about what is coming up on our blog for the week ahead. See rules here: Sunday Post Meme

LOOKING FORWARD TO OCTOBER

This week I came across a podcast by Levar Burton, the actor from Star Trek.  On his podcast, he has picked all his favorite short stories and reads them for his audience.  One short story entitled What it Means When a Man Falls from the Sky by Lesley Nneka Arimah is basically about people who have developed a mathematical formula to take a person's sorrows away. It was brilliant.
 Levar read the work of Stefani Cox and her short story, Fyrewall, and he analyzed it and made a connection like the one below:

Look- I know there was some kid who watched the original Star Trek and was exposed to those images -week after week of Captain Kirk pulling out his communicator from his secret Velcro place ... and that kid became let's say an engineer, then designed a product that is more prevalent on the planet today than the toaster. We've all seen someone use a flip phone. That is how it works in this realm, that which we can imagine, we can manifest. In science fiction... We literally make up the world as we would have it in our minds first and then we go out and change the world.

I do love these podcasts, but there are two things that happen when I read them. One is that the ads somehow make you believe that you have come to the end of the story, even when you haven't and the other thing is that the short story has to come to an end, as with all short stories and you can’t help thinking why is this story so short? And what can I do to extend this pleasurable reading experience? Then I end up looking to see if there's more to it this piece like if the author has wrote a longer piece or other short stories, etc

Readers, if you have had any great Halloween experiences let me know in the comments below.

CURRENTLY

Reading: A Man Walks into the Room by Nicole Krauss, S.T.A.G.S. by M.A. Bennett

Listening:Denton Little's Deathdate by Lance Rubin, After Dark by Haruki Murakami

Watching: Japanese Movies

Weekend Writing Warriors #8sunday

Welcome to Weekend Writing Warriors, the weekly hop for everyone who loves to write!  Sign up on the website:Wewriwa.com and share an 8 to 10 sentence snippet of your writing on Sunday.

No one likes it when their family life changes.  This is particularly hard for the Radtke's.  A troublesome girl named Tracey enters their lives and the children are an endless journey to make sure this girl doesn't get into any further trouble or cause their parents to lose their fostering license.  These are snippets from my second novella in the series, "Oh Tracey."

Last week's entry
I’m too young to have an ID, I had joked with at him at the time and threw him one of my dazzling smiles. “Or, or or..” I said to Zion,"maybe her Mom used to work at a liquor store. Yeah, that’s it, maybe her Mom took the ID’s instead of giving them back."
“Do you think that her mother is really that malicious that she wouldn’t try and return them?”
"Who knows. People have their collections. Don’t you have a collection of Cracker Jack prices in a box in your dresser?

This Week's entry
Zion looked at me with this face that said, And what have you been doing looking in my dresser? As if he had something more incriminating to hide in there. He was thirteen not thirty.
“Sorry,” I said. After the silence between us had been mounting.
“Don’t ever go in my drawers again, Amelia."
I felt for a second that our long lasting sibling friendship may have been coming to a grinding halt, but then he just bent down and picked up a pile of leaves and ran over and dumped them on me. I didn’t even move. I wanted him to have his little revenge if it meant we could still be detectives together. I laughed and pushed him instead.




Readers, please comment below.

Weekend Writing Warriors #amwriting #amjoy

Welcome to Weekend Writing Warriors, the weekly hop for everyone who loves to write!  Sign up on the website:Wewriwa.com and share an 8 to 10 sentence snippet of your writing on Sunday.

No one likes it when their family life changes.  This is particularly hard for the Radtke's.  A troublesome girl named Tracey enters their lives and the children are an endless journey to make sure this girl doesn't get into any further trouble or cause their parents to lose their fostering license.  These are snippets from my second novella in the series, "Oh Tracey."

Last week's entry

"In what scenario would Tracey have had that could lead her to having that many ID’s?" Zion asked.

"I don’t know, maybe her mom used to work at a Drivers license station."

"Yeah, that’s it, " said Zion.  It said in Tracey’s journal that her mom had several odd jobs. Even it said she worked at the YMCA, you know how people are always handing over their ID’s and then forgetting them. She had probably collected a dozen or so of them from the lost and found."

I thought about my own dad taking us to the Civic center and taking out his ID. The attendant looking down on us from his place at the counter and saying to me, And where’s your ID missy?

This week's entry
I’m too young to have an ID, I had joked with at him at the time and threw him one of my dazzling smiles. “Or, or or..” I said to Zion,"maybe her Mom used to work at a liquor store. Yeah, that’s it, maybe her Mom took the ID’s instead of giving them back."
“Do you think that her mother is really that malicious that she wouldn’t try and return them?”
"Who knows. People have their collections. Don’t you have a collection of Cracker Jack prizes in a box in your dresser?

Readers, please comment below.

Sunday Post #amwriting #amjoy

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted  @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news~ A post to recap the past week on your blog and showcase books and things  received. Share news about what is coming up on our blog for the week ahead. See rules here: Sunday Post Meme

LOOKING FORWARD TO OCTOBER

This Thursday I had a great time at Nautilus Theater.  There was a Halloween Performance and the actors were sneaking behind the audience and marching and making loud noises.  The performance was basically about a giant who snatches humans and attaches them to his back to make them servants-FOREVER!

How scary! And the sounds effects, along with busting balloons and flying benches was quite frightening.  In fact, I've been to many theaters across Minnesota- but this is the first time I've been scared.  It's a rare treat because I don't know if I'll make it to a haunted house this year on account that October is nearly over and a family member has to have ACL surgery.

Readers, if you want to comment-do so at the bottom of this post.

CURRENTLY

Reading: One Small Thing by Erin Watt, Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty,

Listening:Lost for Words by St. Aubyn, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami, The Emperor of Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee, 

Watching: Japanese Movies

Weekend Writing Warriors #8Sunday

Welcome to Weekend Writing Warriors, the weekly hop for everyone who loves to write!  Sign up on the website:Wewriwa.com and share an 8 to 10 sentence snippet of your writing on Sunday.

No one likes it when their family life changes.  This is particularly hard for the Radtke's.  A troublesome girl named Tracey enters their lives and the children are an endless journey to make sure this girl doesn't get into any further trouble or cause their parents to lose their fostering license.  These are snippets from my second novella in the series, "Oh Tracey."

Previous entry

After reading what I had.  I came to the decision that Zion and I would just have to explore Tracey's purse, the one we received from the owner of Shinder's hobby store who said Tracey left it at the mall by mistake.

I went to get the purse where I hid it in my backpack and flipped the purse over.  I didn’t regret it. Out poured about twenty ID’s, all with faces of strangers looking back at me as if to say, 'yes, you found us, now what?'

Later in the evening, Zion and I had to do some mission work at the church.  I picked up a rake and raked as fast I could while talking to Zion. "Look, those Id’s could have came from anywhere. They may have just been a sort of collection."

This week's entry

"In what scenario would Tracey have had that could lead her to having that many ID’s?" Zion asked.

"I don’t know, maybe her mom used to work at a Drivers license station."

"Yeah, that’s it, " said Zion.  It said in Tracey’s journal that her mom had several odd jobs. Even it said she worked at the YMCA, you know how people are always handing over their ID’s and then forgetting them. She had probably collected a dozen or so of them from the lost and found."

I thought about my own dad taking us to the Civic center and taking out his ID. The attendant looking down on us from his place at the counter and saying to me, 'And where’s your ID missy?'

Come see Impossible Salt's Heartless @NautilusMT

Impossible Salt's Heartless

Public

 · Hosted by Impossible Salt

Details

Nautilus Music-Theater

308 Prince St, Ste 190, Saint Paul, Minnesota 55101 

Tickets app.arts-people.com

Oct 20,26,27 8pm-9pm

What could cause a creature as fearsome as a giant to remove his own heart from his body?
What becomes of him without his heart? And what becomes of his heart without him?

These questions inspire Impossible Salt’s beautiful and haunting exploration of this ancient tale, known as “The Troll With No Heart in His Body” in Norway, “Koschei the Immortal” in Russia, “Punchkin the Magician” in India, and by still other names in Scotland, Hungary, and elsewhere. Even (or perhaps especially) in the United States in 2018, the specter of a monster made invulnerable by his own unthinkable actions continues to captivate us, and demands our attention.

Revived for the Halloween season, HEARTLESS is Impossible Salt’s 

• 
  

Sunday Post #amwriting #amjoy

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted  @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news~ A post to recap the past week on your blog and showcase books and things  received. Share news about what is coming up on our blog for the week ahead. See rules here: Sunday Post Meme

LOOKING FORWARD TO October

This week I've been on this audio book binge, searching and listening like crazy.  It was my birthday last Sunday so I guess I deserve to binge a bit.  It started all started with Haruki Murakami's, Sputnik Sweetheart and then Janet Evanovich.  Then I perused my library for humorous audio books and came across Lorrie Moore and Timothy Hallinan's work.  I listened to this one book, Act of God, by Jill Ciment and it that had to do with this character who was an actress and she lost her apartment to mushrooms and mold and people wearing Hazmat suits had to come and clear it out.  She also had a homeless woman sleeping in her tiny closet and the concept for the novel was quite intriguing.  
Finally, yesterday I started listening to The Ocean at the End of the Land by Neil Gaiman. Now, I've tried to read a lot of Gaiman's work but this is the first one I really liked. His work is poetic and it's got this rhythm and tone that no one could ever mimic.

Readers, if you want to comment-do so at the bottom of this post.

CURRENTLY

Reading: Every Story is a Ghost story: The Life of David Foster Wallace, Bark by Lorrie Moore, King Maybe by Timothy Hallinan, Consumed by David Cronenberg, Fishbowl by Bradley Somer, This is going to Hurt by

Adam Kay

Watching:  Chinese Movie:Them and Us

ON THE BLOG

Up Coming: Lots of interviews with screenwriters and musicians in October.  Stay tuned.

Hoping to also start a podcast.