Tehachapi's Online Community News & Entertainment Guide
Tehachapi's Online Community News & Entertainment Guide
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Do you dream? Do you have a dream? These are actually two separate things. Some nights we have dreams and wake to remember them. They can be happy, sad, scary and dark or full of light and love. Consciously, awake, we can also dream. We can dream of a better life, dream of finding love and happiness, dream of winning the lottery or an Olympic gold medal. Those dreams are purposeful hopes, building our desires like Lego bricks with layers of possibilities. The more plausible the hope, the more...
Letter writing, once the optimal form of communication across the miles, from street to street, city to city, state to state, and country to country around the world, has been diminished to short texts, quick emails and TikTok antics. Such a shame really, as letter writing was quite the accomplished art in its time. When I was a child, I faithfully wrote letters and thank yous to my grandparents who sent birthday cards with a dollar bill slipped inside. When I turned 8 or so, my letters changed...
You are probably too busy to sit down and read at the moment, but I like to call the days between Christmas and New Years "the lull," where one can take a breath, slow down and enjoy some goodies with a good book or two. Maybe not too serious a book, full of dark motives and deep contemplation. But rather books with a lighter mood and happy endings. I found a few mushy romances and mysteries for your reading pleasure. To qualify, the cover needs to have snow, perhaps with a sprig of holly or...
Are you in the mood for another festive holiday season? Trees and stars, candles lit, presents and tasty goodies? Some people easily embrace the holiday and all its trimmings. Others would rather retreat into a Scrooge stupor and plod along until well into the new year. Most of those people can be given a jump start by thoughts of Christmas Past (memories), Christmas Future (hopes) or Christmas Present (loved ones around them), and music, movies and books can add inspiration. Like charging dead...
Have you ever read a story and when it ended, you wanted more? And then imagined more yourself? Some people do that and then they actually write it down. It's called fan fiction. Fans of certain genres, authors and adventures go on to write the characters past the last chapter of their favorite book. Then they find outlets to publish them. Some publish in blogs or on various websites. Some publish in print. James Lovegrove is a British writer of what is termed, speculative fiction. Speculative f...
Sometimes we read a book that we can see so clearly in our mind's eye, it seems to be showing up on a big screen in our head as the story pans out. Sometimes we meet and enjoy characters so much that we want to see those characters over and over again and we don't want to let them go. They have become our friends. Sometimes the imagination of the writer is so unique or so big and all encompassing, that we yearn to see it fleshed out in real life. The closest we experience this is when a book is...
Are you disaster ready? During the last few years, movies and shows have had us fleeing from Jurassic dinosaurs, playing Battleship for real against alien attacks and trying to outrun the ravages of earthquakes up and down California, as well as across the globe. The earth has actually opened up at the tar pits in the current TV show "La Brea," swallowing a bunch of people into an upside down world. We are offered a variety of books and shows that promise to scare the living daylights out of...
What activities did you use to wile away the long days of pandemic seclusion? I heard about a lot of bread making. Families dusted off board games and caught up on G-rated movies. Some people indulged in binge watching cable series they hadn’t had time for during busier schedules. Others got out their knitting needles and finally used their accumulated yarn stashes, making stacks of sweaters for their families, friends, pets and strangers. For singles, books were taken from the “someday I will r...
For this review I have chosen two books that revolve around water, one a lake and one a river. In some respects they are very alike. Both contain mysteries. Both reflect life and death. In both the water holds secrets. The secrets draw groups of people into working together. The stories are both terrifying and tender. That is what they share on the surface. Yet, there are also so many differences. The first book, “The Big Dark Sky,” written by Dean Koontz takes the reader on a ride where adv...
The sunflower, a native of North America, immigrated to Europe in 1510 in the cloth bags of Spaniards. Over 300 years later, sunflowers were immortalized in the paintings of Vincent Van Gogh. Van Gogh saw the brilliant yellow flower as a beacon of hope and gratitude. In the late 1800s a group of unknown artists painted and sculpted with passion, while living very frugal and sometimes meager lives to fund their muse. They were passionate men, Matisse, Monet, Goupil, Seurat, Degas, Gauguin and...
Do they sing “Hello mother, hello father” in summer camp anymore? The song made popular by Allan Sherman the summer of 1963 highlighted a list of terrible circumstances one camper was having at summer camp. In the end the rain stopped, the sun came out and the fun began. Never mind, said the kid in the song to his parents. He decided to stay. Summer camp usually involves some adjustments. In the graphic novel “Camp” by Kayla Miller, you get a pretty typical idea about camp life and the trials...
A gumshoe, a sleuthhound, a hawkshaw, a snoop are all nicknames for a private eye, an investigator usually hired by someone needing confidential information. What is a gumshoe? It originally was a name for a sneaky thief. It referred to the quiet rubber soled shoes a thief would wear so his steps were not heard as he snuck around in the dark. Later it became a name used for certain private investigators who moved as quietly as a thief while gathering information for clients. Sherlock Holmes is...
Did you know Helen Keller dedicated her book, “The Story of my Life,” to the inventor of the telephone? She wrote: “To Alexander Graham Bell who taught the deaf to speak and enabled the listening ear to hear speech from the Atlantic to the Rockies.” She was remarkable and she herself had remarkable and memorable friends. Born with sight and hearing, she lost both to illness during a high fever at the age of two. Many deemed her journey would end there, but instead, Helen reached out to life wi...
I like the way sagas were written in the olden days. Not needing to buy three or six or nine books to finish a series, the original saga came in one large heavy book. It could have over 600 pages, maybe up to 1,000. A book so heavy your hand cramps when holding it. A book so enthralling that you read hours at a time without caring. The world went by unnoticed with a pitcher of iced tea on a side table, while lying in a hammock or stretched out on a comfy lounge chair. My goodness, those were...
What if at certain points in history, mankind decided to turn left instead of right? The weather blew exploration ships east or south but never west. What if Hitler had been ignored, Einstein had never been born? That John and Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. had not been assassinated and they and their ideas had been alive to serve the nation another 50 years? At every turn of the road and tick of the clock there are so many possibilities that form our world, our nation and our lives....
Have you found your way to “Bluey” yet? Do you know the game Keepy Uppy? Shadowlands? Asparagus? The Claw? Featherwand can be very challenging! “Bluey” is an Australian animated series that has made its way around the world with a sensational following of both children and their parents, and even grandparents. The Heeler family (of the blue heeler dog variety) lives in a comfortable home in Australia. Bluey and her sister Bingo are the main characters. The participation of their parents in thei...
I remember traveling with my family on a 1,200-mile vacation, holding a big road map unfolded in my lap. I used a crayon to trace our progress and would mark off each town we passed. Then, I would look for the name of the next town ahead. Sometimes I would calculate how many miles we had left to drive for the day and how many miles left to finally reach our destination. It took several days to get there and I enjoyed the process. My love of maps started long before we ever took a vacation. I stu...
As the weather becomes more moderate, many people are itching to get out and enjoy wide open spaces and big skies. Hikers are challenged on mountain trails, picnics are enjoyed under towering trees, walks through meadows of wildflowers soothes the soul. All are possible in Tehachapi, throughout California and beyond. I decided to look beyond when choosing books for this review. I came across a nice little story that took place on an island off the coast of Washington State. Jonathan Edward Durha...
May is the month we honor mothers, celebrating being a mother, or honoring the mother that birthed us. This mother may have been loving and strong, nurturing and wise. Or maybe not. Because mothers are people living their own lives as well as ours. Mothers are people who love and people who hurt and bleed. Maybe they hold secrets they take to their graves, or maybe they break down and tell their story. This is one such story… “A Letter from Nana Rose” by Kristin Harper starts at a beach cotta...
A pooka (or puca) is a shape changer from Celtic folklore. In the form of animals, from horses, goats, cats and dogs, to hares and even human form with animal features, they are considered for the most part benevolent pranksters. My favorite pooka is found in the movie “Harvey” with Jimmy Stewart playing the eccentric Elwood P. Dowd and Harvey is played by an invisible 6-foot, 8-inch white rabbit. The movie is a lot of fun. And as the doctor and Elwood’s sister actually start to believe they...
In the “land of four seasons,” as the sign driving into Tehachapi once hailed, it is hard waiting to plant our vegetable and flower gardens when we can drive less than half an hour west or south and find gardens happily enjoying an early spring. But, if you have lived in Tehachapi for a full season or two, you will have learned that planting early, when we have a series of spring-like days, can be dangerous for your gardens and dash your hopes for early produce and blooms. Tehachapi gar...
Recently there was a kerfuffle on the show “Wheel of Fortune,” when contestants stumbled over the phrase, “Another feather in your cap.” Eventually the puzzle was solved, after a series of wrong guesses. This made me wonder about the phrase. Where did it come from? What does it mean? Why had it been so hard to figure out? Of course, I had to do some research! Apparently this term arose in several cultures independently. In the 1550s, the noblewoman and Duchess of Florence, Eleanor Toledo,...
It is not surprising that many young girls look for a Prince Charming in their lives. Growing up with all the Disney princesses, heads are filled with romantic dreams including all the perks…music, flowing dresses, dancing and magic kisses. From now until June, wedding bells are in the air. For it takes many months to create the wedding of one’s dreams. Once the groom is determined, and the date set, the fun begins. Venues are researched and themes are discussed. Theme weddings are very big the...
At 19 years old, dual citizen of both Belgium and the United Kingdom, Zara Rutherford is the youngest woman to fly solo around the world and the first to circumnavigate the world in a microlight aircraft. COVID restrictions denied her the ability to explore at stops in places like Costa Rica, Egypt and Singapore and she says it was bitter cold flying over Siberia. The fires in California forced her to change flight plans and make an unscheduled stop in Seattle. China refused to let her fly over...
There are all kinds of love in this world. Valentine's Day celebrates romantic love but again, I choose to mix it up a bit. We will start with dogs... "Alice Louise's Silver Linings" by Sarah Kathryn Frey, takes you into the world of service dog training, and in this case, from the very beginning with a rambunctious Double Doodle pup and a girl willing to give a silly dog a chance to serve. Sarah Kate lives with serious illness but also with optimism, giving this dog she names Alice Louise a...
