Have you ever traveled to a place found in a book you read?
In the past, I’ve gone to a castle that featured prominently in Here Be Dragons by Sharon Kay Penman.
More recently, over my summer vacation, I traveled to Three Pines from the Louise Penny books. I saw the bistro/cafe they set up in the lower part of LacBrome Books and the Haskell Free Library and Opera House (photos below).
Well, today’s the day! Louise Penny’s new book, Miss Wolcott’s Ghost has been released! It’s a week earlier than what was on my calendar, so I’ve been holding my breath since last night waiting for the opportunity to download it to my Kindle.
Is there anything that you’ve waited what seemed like a very long time for, and then when it finally happened….
What?
Tell us what happened when the anticipation reached a fever pitch and the moment arrived!
For the last several weeks, Minotaur Books has been emailing a special series of thoughts on the gardens of Three Pines. Today is the last one, The Village Green, and I thought I’d share it with you as part of this week’s Penny Prompts.
I have also just discovered that Louise Penny’s newest Armand Gamache book, Miss Wolcott’s Ghost comes out next Tuesday, October 20th! I thought it wouldn’t be out until a week later, so I am very excited, and will now spend the rest of this week finishing the books I’m currently in the middle of!
Prompt:
Write about your garden or any of the gardens in Three Pines or around your neighborhood. Include your sketchbook to doodle the flowers you see and like.
Despite the book coming out a week earlier than I anticipated, I will continue with Penny Prompts through the rest of this month.
Happy Writing and Happy Reading!
In celebration of the upcoming release, at the end of this month, of Louise Penny’s newest Armand Gamache mystery book, Mrs. Wolcott’s Ghost, I invite you to join me each Wednesday from now until October 27th for special writing prompts I’ve devised using excerpts from her books.
While on our summer holiday, we stopped for tea at the Three Pines Cafe, which may have been the impetus for doing this series now.
(c)2026
“…wiped the condensation off the bathroom mirror and a man in his late fifties appeared…”
Armand Gamache, The Black Wolf by Louise Penny
“Though it happened each and every morning, the face that looked back could still surprise him. Away from any reflection, he was in his early forties. But each morning he was reminded that was not actually true.”
I think many of us have had this same moment that Armand is feeling when something comes up that we are no longer able to do or look into the mirror accidentally and wonder who that is looking back at us.
At a conference, and I may have written about this before, I was asked my age, and I replied, “38.” Friends, I was 48, and it took me a full ten minutes or more to realize that. Even now, more than a decade later, I still think I’m 38 give or take a few years.
Today’s prompt is:
How old do you feel? If you could go back to any age in your past (or perhaps a future age), what is it about that age that makes it a happy time for you? What are things you did then that you don’t do now (for whatever reason) that you would like to do again? What about things you did that you don’t necessarily regret, but what would you have thought twice about or not done with the wisdom you now have?
I was born three months after Star Trek premiered in 1966, and today they will celebrate their 60th birthday while mine is still a couple of months off. I don’t imagine that I watched the premiere or the original seasons live, but in my mind I watched it live. I have always had Star Trek in my life, or so it seems. As a child, I have a vague memory of the cartoons, I had Star Trek comic books and a photo-journal episode book for The Trouble with Tribbles that I still have in a box somewhere in my house. I read it over and over again until the cover fell off and some of the pages loosened and slipped away. I always put them back and one day I stopped reading its frail pages, wanting to keep it as intact as it remained, but also having memorized it I could read it in my mind.
As a post-teen/college graduate, I went to many sci-fi conventions, most especially ICON on Long Island, and one or two Creation Cons. I have a vague memory of seeing the big three, but my husband tells me we never did. I would swear though that I saw William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, and DeForrest Kelley in Manhattan. I picture it as if it was yesterday, but the mind is a tricky thing. I did see Leonard Nimoy and Patrick Stewart in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. George Takei at ICON. Did I see Walter Koenig? I’d have to check, it’s fuzzy, but I know I’ve seen Nichelle Nichols and Robin Curtis. Some next generation folks or rather DS9 – Nana Visitor, Alexandar el Siddig, Armin Shimmerman, Rene Auberjenois, writer Harlan Ellison, and others. We would watch Next Gen in my husband’s friend’s basement, eating chicken parm subs for dinner each week for each new episode. We continue that tradition when there is a new Star Trek – DS9, Enterprise, Picard. I don’t have fond memories of Voyager – I was a new mother, and my infant son screamed through every episode – I hear ya; I feel the same way, kid.
Two hours north of the New York state capitol is a small town of Ticonderoga, known for its pencils and Revolutionary era fort. There is also a Star Trek Original Series Set Tour created from the original blueprints with the impetus and creative spirit of James Cawley. It is a must for any STar Trek fan. There is a sweet spot that I talk about where the corridors meet and form a ‘T’, and for a split second, a moment in time, you are on the Enterprise. You can’t see the overhanging set lights, you can’t see the behind the scenes areas, in that one space, you are on the Enterprise. It’s magical.
Sadly, I have not found any merch, no pins, stickers, or anything for my collections to celebrate the big 6-0!
How am I spending today?
Re-watching The Voyage Home in my home with a bucket of popcorn and a Diet Coke. How will you celebrate this once in a lifetime anniversary?
This is the link to the Hollywood Reporter obituary of Randolph Mantooth, who died on Thursday at the age of 80.
A sad day for those of us who grew up with him and Kevin Tighe who played Johnny Gage and Roy DeSoto, respectively on the hit television show, Emergency!.
I still hum the music when I’m backing my car into the driveway.
When the show came out, there were only a handful of paramedics. The show was practically a public service announcement for recruitment. The profession was so unknown when Randy was told his role would be as a paramedic, his question was, “what the hell is a paramedic?”
Decades later, we all know how crucial those paramedics and EMTs are in an emergency and the show was integral in expanding that reach. Mantooth and Tighe continued to support the fire service and the LA Fire Museum over the years.
We introduced my oldest son, then three or four years old, to the show in reruns when he was obsessed with fire trucks and fire fighters. He dressed up as one for Halloween when he was four. He visited fire stations wherever we traveled including his uncle’s fire station on Long Island. He even went to college for fire protection/safety and became a volunteer fire fighter and an EMT during and after college. Emergency was a favorite show of his.
A few years ago, he was in California for a training session for his job, and he visited the Los Angeles Fire Museum, and got himself a Squad 51 t-shirt.
Part of the museum’s statement is below:
From Los Angeles County Fire Museum
Thank you Randy for your friendship! You will be sorely missed.
To Randy’s wife Kristen and Randy’s family. We are here for you all and want to thank you for sharing Randy with us and the world.
We are so very sorry for your loss.
The Museum will be accepting condolence cards for the family. If you would like to send a card please send to the Museum’s shop address at:
LA County Fire Museum
9834 Flora Vista St
Bellflower Calif 90706
KMG 365
It’s been more than six weeks since the final, final chapter of Stranger Things, and I thought I’d think about the discourse surrounding the Stranger Things fandom at that time that’s been bordering on psychosis. According to people on the internet, January 8th was the day that the “real” series finale was supposed to drop – episode 9 because the New Year’s Eve finale didn’t give the fans what they wanted. I hate to break it down into a generational thing but kids today…
I mean dude can you be any more self involved and relishing of your main character syndrome? This show, the entire decade of five seasons was a true love letter to Gen X, those of us who grew up without the internet, dragging the ridiculously long telephone cord into a closet to talk, sneaking in after a showing of Rocky Horror and diner dessert.
Watching the discourse about continuity errors and plotholes that didn’t exist, the theory that the whole thing was a dream – been there, done that thank you very much Bobby Ewing; that it was a failed Dungeons & Dragons game or in someone’s head – again been there done that, thank you very much St. Elsewhere. We’ve lived through it all, and those of us who did, knew the Duffer Brothers wouldn’t do us dirty like that.
Google is free. It wasn’t available in the 80s, but it is available now. Please use it and stop driving those of us who were there crazy. We are becoming impatient with you. We are begging you – get some media literacy.
I can’t believe I need to explain that there was a world of experiences before you were born, before streaming, before reboots, so here’s a rundown that even my kids got:
And another thing do you think if it weren’t actually the finale that the Duffer Brothers and Netflix would have paid Prince’s estate for the use of not one, but two songs?! He licenses nothing – this was a big deal.,
Take your theories and write some fan fiction.
In the immortal words of Ferris, it’s over. Go home.
As I mentioned yesterday, Supernatural is my go-to for mindless background, white-noise when I want sound, but not anything to concentrate on.
I’m reminded of this more this week as Supernatural celebrates its 20th anniversary and I celebrate just over a decade in recovery through depression and anxiety. Mental health wellness is a continuum rather than a cure, and having our coping tools to help us through the rough patches is one of the keys.
We survive.
What are some of your go-to’s for coping?
On Saturday, the fandom celebrated the twentieth anniversary of the premiere of Supernatural. The show ended its run five years ago, and its popularity has only grown with meet & greets, conventions, and the fans following the actors on to new projects, continuing to buy the merch and donating to worthy causes through Stands and Random Acts!
I had toyed with the idea of posting a reflection on Saturday, the day of the anniversary, but I also thought I would actually approach the anniversary the way I approached my watching of the original series: late.
I did not come to the fandom when it premiered in 2005, but during its hiatus on its way to the second half of its seventh season. I had a lot of catching up to do, and I made it, just barely when the show returned with the second half, and I’ve been with them ever since.
I brought my teenage daughter along for the ride and that has also been an exciting dimension to this fandom as well.
I’ve written before how I’ve never been big on horror, and Supernatural felt like horror, so I avoided it. Luckily for me, my friend wrote up a trigger list for each episode so I could go in with my eyes open and make the choices as I went along. I’ve seen every episode except Bugs and I don’t plan on seeing that one even now.
I was also in the middle of a new diagnosis of severe depression, and Supernatural was really one of the things that kept me in a solid place as we adjusted medication, found a therapist, and began writing as therapy. Supernatural was a big part of that recovery, and continued to be a go-to when I need something in the background to keep my mind still. I’ll talk more about this later today when I publish today’s Mental Health Monday, coming this afternoon.
The Pilot episode gives a good introduction to the characters and their journey; however, my first episode was The French Mistake with breaks all of the fourth walls, and really pulled me into the fandom before it pulled me into the series. If you’re already familiar with the actors and their characters, The French Mistake is a fun episode that still moves the story forward.
So, happy birthday Supernatural! Twenty years since the premiere is a milestone, as is the fifteen years on the air! Let’s go: we’ve got work to do.
They all hurt, but this one hurts.
Graham Greene has been a favorite of mine for a very long time. It may hit a bit harder today because of my research into St. Kateri Tekakwitha, a fellow member of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, although she was Mohawk (and Algonquin) and he was Oneida.
