Star Trek Beyond -- A Review

Star Trek! 

Let me just start this review with what they did right.

James Tiberius Kirk played by Chris Pine -- a little preachy, a lot earnest -- check.

Spock, Zachary Quinto -- quite attractive, appropriately serious, just a dash of delightful naivete, maybe a shade too much emotion but then he's romantically involved in this film -- I'll give him a Yes!

Uniforms -- also a Yes! A bit Michael Jackson if he'd ever worn denim and I did question those chain-suspendery things. Looked too much like really big, beer can pop tops. But hey, I'm into repurposing as much as anybody.

Makeup -- Excellent. The new girl especially.



Sofia Boutella plays Jaylah, a brash, competent, beautiful alien who has the coolest special effects in the film. She does this hologram-multiplication trick that is spectacular.

  And the bad guy, Idris Elba as Krall. I like the little LEDs along his ridges.

The opening scene gets a Yes! Captain Kirk is presenting what he thinks is a precious symbol of peace, a gift to the gargoyle-ish Teenaxi from their arch enemies the Fenopians. It's a typical Kirk scene. It reminded both my husband and me of our bad cat Kocka.

(For those of you who don't know about Kocka, he's a fluffy grey cat who's more than a little prickly. I have scars.)

And the space station Yorktown is bright and beautiful which is exactly how I imagine the future to be.

I've been a dedicated Star Trek fan since Gene Roddenberry took us on that first five-year mission of the Star Ship Enterprise into Space, the final frontier to explore new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before. (Can't you hear the music welling in the background?)

That was in 1966. The shows were filled with humor and new ideas and people and creatures who didn't look like everybody else on TV.

The wit and wisdom has been replaced by shock and awe. Where we used to have characters with dialogue, they give us explosions and the tinkling of broken glass. So, okay, I like 3D. I like XD. I like flashing lights and loud noises. I mean I've been to a Jefferson Starship concert where I could hold my hands against my chest and FEEL the music. My ears rang for days.

But Good Grief! Enough is enough. And the celebration of modern movie technological marvels should not replace wit and wisdom. I mean the best lines were from Scotty, played by Simon Pegg -- not surprisingly one of the screen writers.

I love science fiction. I write science fiction. Check out Murder on Ceres.

But this is the last Star Trek movie I'll spend my time on. I actually fell asleep watching it. How could it be so boring with all that noise and bother?

Maybe I have entered my curmudgeon-hood. Now "Get off my lawn!"

It's Three-Damn-Thirty -- Flash Nonfiction

See that cute little kitty? As he ignores the fancy cat toy that tweets to play with an aluminum foil ball. (No, we did not buy the tweety cat toy. It was passed down to us from a friend whose cat didn't care for it. We passed it on to our daughter. None of her cats liked it either. And she passed it on to her friend whose cat ignored it, too. Just goes to show, designing toys for cats has more to do with attracting cat-owners than it does with entertaining felines.)

But that's not what this is about. This is about that itty-bitty kitty, so sweetly playing with his simple aluminum foil ball -- one of many toys that would end up under the  kitchen stove.

Our daughter found the very young kitten outside her townhouse on a hot July day. He was suffering from possible heat stroke. Sensible young woman that she is, she called to ask her veterinarian dad what to do. He recommended a cool water bath. And drinking water, free choice.

She couldn't find where the kitten belonged and she couldn't keep it. She already has three of her own. So she called me. I asked her dad what he would recommend. He said "Take it to a shelter."

Well. We were just then experiencing a pet drought. Probably the first time in my life that I had no pets at all. We were contemplating what kind of dog we wanted to get, but he was adamant that he did not want another cat. And the dog should be a smooth coated breed so we wouldn't have to deal with hair everywhere.

Yes, I'd heard that before.

Years ago, when our daughter was in Junior High School and we'd just lost our resident cat, he'd made the pronouncement, "No more cats!"

On that occasion, she waited until he left the room. She had the beginnings of tears in her eyes. "Momma?"

I reassured her that she shouldn't feel bad, we'd soon have another cat.

At that time my husband was working out-of-state. He soon called. "Claudia, I was running at the lake and I heard this noise. I thought it was some kind of bird, but it was a baby kitten. I tried to keep running, but it was trying to keep up with me and kept crying. It's really, really young. Do you think it'll be all right to bring it home?"

So back to this cat -- I told Grace to bring him by before she took him to a shelter.

She handed the raggedy, little gray kitten to her dad and now he's nearly grown. And hairy. Lots of long, gray fur and the biggest fluffiest tail you have ever seen.

We named him Kocka. Pronounced K-long o-ch-k-a. Czech for cat. (My mother's father's family was from Bohemia. (Immigrants! Yes, despite the current behavior of some Americans, we are a nation of immigrants.)

Humans have obviously not bred cats for anything other than appearance. And beyond show cats, non-breed-specific cats are the norm. Cats have not been bred for behaviors like dogs have. No hunting cats. Though they all do it to entertain themselves. No herding cats. Guard cats? Rescue cats? And obedience competitor cats? Are you kidding me?

So it would not be unusual for Kocka to be unusual. BUT this unusual?

To call this cat, the standard can opener or food-pouring sounds don't work. He comes when my husband whistles or when Celtic Woman is performing on our public television station during their fund raising drives. He loves television in general and my smart phone in particular. He's learned that he can touch the screen on my phone and make the lights come on. Which leads to him knocking it off whatever surface it's on and batting it around.

He climbs. He jumps. He disregards any prohibitions we set. The dining table, the kitchen counters, the shelves where my plants are, the shelves in the linen closet. No place is off-limits for him.

And the whole world is a cat toy. The pictures on my walls hang skewed this way and that. My visitors' tree of origami cranes has been dismantled and the cranes spend most of the time piled in a plate on the entry table. It's a pretty plate, made by my potter son, but it's not the same as seeing all the signed and dated cranes dancing in the breeze. Though they are too often scattered across the floor. He apparently likes to see them fly.

He knows he can get me up in the morning if he knocks over the lamp on my bedside table. Or plays with the Venetian blinds on the bedroom window. Or rattles the papers on my desk. Or walks on the dresser threatening to knock things off. Or gets behind the bed and reaching through the crack between the headboard and the mattress -- right where my head is.

We use water to correct his behavior. He reacts appropriately when he's being bad and sees or hears us grab the spray bottle. Otherwise he gives it kitty kisses. We have masking tape, sticky-side up, everywhere. It looks a little odd, but seems to work pretty well to keep him off surfaces we don't want him on.

Until this morning, I had never gone to bed armed. Usually he wakes me around 4:30 in the morning, which is okay with me. That gives me quiet time while my husband sleeps.

But this morning . . . . He would not leave me alone.

Three-damn-thirty?! Enough is enough and this morning it was too much.

From now on I will go to bed armed. So take care entering my bedroom while I sleep. You may just be shot. A spray bottle of corrective water will be within my reach at all times.

As a Baker . . . Nonfiction and Personal

Bad Kocka!

I know I always say I won't have cooking or crafting on my blog. This blog is about writing. But writing is story-telling. This is my story and I'm sticking to it.

With the probability of next year inaugurating reduced circumstances in our house, we decided to make Christmas gifts for the family. My husband has prepared various and sundry smoked and spiced pecans. Give that man a grill and he can do anything. (Including a beef loin roast that he's preparing for our close-family Christmas dinner.)

Because we're having our Christmas dinner Monday evening; my husband is leaving for Christmas in Oklahoma early Tuesday morning; and I'm a world-class procrastinator, I did the baking Sunday. He's had the pecans done for days.

First I put away all the items cluttering the kitchen counters. This goes down to the basement. That goes out into our so-called pantry in the garage. To the linen closet at the end of the hall. Into the office. And voila, I've got a place to work.

The butter and sugar are in the mixer, creaming nicely.

CRASH! Something bad in the entryway. KOCKA! Bad cat! He'd knocked a plant off its perch. There the cat-demon sat obviously amazed and pleased at the freshly watered soil spread across the floor.

I'm ranting and raving. My husband is ranting and raving. "That's why I don't want a cat," he says waving his arms at the cat trying to shoo him out of the dirt. "Cats belong in the barn." (We don't have a barn.)

I was planning to repot the plant anyway. Just not on baking day.

I brought the broom and dust pan in from the garage and went to get a proper pot from the back porch -- preferably one that wouldn't tip easily.

Kocka closely watched the whole plant-repotting and soil-sweeping process, staying just beyond my reach. When I finished, he fled down the hall and hid in the bathroom. Perhaps I look dangerous when I'm not actively cleaning up after him.

Back to baking. Add eggs and vanilla to the sugar and butter. I couldn't open the vanilla without using my handy-dandy bottle opener. I'd been fighting that bottle's lid for months and I was tired of it. I used to use the vanilla lid to measure out a teaspoonful. Approximately. And I knew the vanilla dried and effectively glued the lid in place so I'd started using a measuring spoon and wiping the mouth of the vanilla bottle. It still stuck.

So I decided to transfer the vanilla into a bottle with a lid I might more easily twist off. Found a bottle . . . a mead bottle. A not quite empty mead bottle. But it was after 8 in the morning here and 5 in the afternoon somewhere, so I poured it into a glass and drank it.

              

Perhaps, you noticed my fancy funnel. Couldn't find my regular one so my husband re-purposed a plastic wine glass by cutting off its stem. It worked very well, so it is freshly washed and living in the drawer where the AWOL funnel should be.

Four Cookies shy of a full sheet.

And where, you might ask are those four cookies? That was the second sheet of cookies to come out of the oven. I only recently learned the benefits of parchment paper when baking. From my beautiful daughter-in-law. (Who is also a good blogger. Click here.)

However, parchment paper has side effects. One of which is that it slides easily. And the cookies slide easily. Those four cookies slid off the cookie sheet. Onto the floor. Into the bottom of the oven. Through that crack at the bottom of the open oven door into the drawer at the bottom of the stove.

Kocka thought the cookie-mishap clean-up was pretty interesting, too. But he doesn't eat cookie crumbs. Where's a Dachshund when you need one?

By 10:30 a.m. I had achieved a repotted plant, a clean entryway floor, a clean kitchen floor, clean stove drawer, and some oatmeal cookies. Rice Krispie Treats, Spritz cookies, peppermint cookies, two apple pies, and some kolaches were yet to be baked. I know. You don't bake Rice Krispie Treats. Thank goodness for tiny mercies.

And I'd learned so much. Cats belong in barns and they don't eat cookie crumbs. Be extra careful with parchment paper. And as a baker, I'm a pretty good writer.

The Art of Misdirection

image from  ite.org

"The cat made a mess on the floor," my husband announces in disgust.

I am half asleep and, truth be told, I don't want to wake up. The bed is warm and I am snuggled into that perfect place where the pillow fits your head just right, the blankets are swaddled close so there are no drafts anywhere. And nothing aches. This early in the morning, any morning, having no aches is a miracle and I don't want to tempt fate by moving.

As you may know, I write murder mysteries -- Murder on Ceres. To begin the mystery, there must be a murder, or at least a dastardly deed. In this case a catastrophe. So I, the reader, am on the hook wondering exactly what has happened. And the misdirection is a simple lack of information. I'm allowed, nay encouraged, to imagine my own misdirections.

A mess? Without moving a muscle, my mind races through the possibilities -- in descending order the worst possibilities first.

Diarrhea. Cat diarrhea would surely be the worst. Kocka has never had diarrhea. (Kocka, pronounced kotch-ka with a long o. It means cat in Czech.) I know he hasn't had access to anything unusual to eat. Though I did see him toying with a small jumping spider. Would that upset his digestive system?

A hairball. The damned cat has long hair. Ooooh, I hate stepping on a fresh hairball, barefooted. No wonder my husband sounded disgusted.

I don't open my eyes. I don't ask what kind of mess. I just hope my dear, sweet, kind husband will clean it up and let me go back to sleep.

I read murder mysteries -- John Lescroart is my favorite. I watch murder mysteries on television -- Midsomer Murders, which my husband refers to as the Gilligan's Island of cop shows. Mysteries use misdirection.

To make a good story, misdirection must be done properly. Like the picture at the top of this post. The misdirections must let the reader imagine several directions, gradually moving through the possibilities.

The best misdirections do not seem contrived. They don't flash like neon No Vacancy signs. They just offer a nod toward the husband as the killer. If the misdirection were too obvious, we Americans would be convinced it was a red herring.

(Having been raised on Oklahoma Prairie and now living at the foot of the Rocky Mountain foothills, I don't have a clue what a herring is -- red or otherwise. I do know it's a fish of some kind. Not a trout or a farm-raised catfish, both of which are tasty, tasty.)

Maybe I should write a murder mystery involving a husband who not only is the most obvious killer -- BUT who, in fact, done the dirty deed. Oooooh. Then the misdirections would have to be tasty, tasty. He'd be so aggrieved -- mostly. And solicitous of his poor, dead wife's family -- maybe a little too solicitous of his wife's younger, blonder sister.

"He's shredded paper," my husband declares, merely disapproving.

That's not so bad, I think.

Maybe this is the most devious misdirection of all. A possibility that it's not a crime. Maybe an accident. Suicide. I can relax a bit. Have some sympathy for the poor widower -- errrr, cat.

And then the mystery writer drops the hammer. Our hero is about to be bludgeoned in the dark, dank basement.

Did I leave one of those checks from the insurance company where Kocka could get it? Or is it the latest iteration of  my last short story. Have I backed that up? What changes had I made? God, I hope it's not really my "last" short story. Surely I can write more.

In the end, the solution to the mystery must be congruent with the general direction of the story. Nothing out of the blue.

"It's toilet paper," my husband says.

Toilet paper? But my husband is discussing a mess the cat made at the door into the hall. Our bathroom is all the way across the bedroom. Kocka is famous for unrolling the toilet paper beside the toilet, but how could he get toilet paper from the bathroom unrolled all the way to the hallway door?

I can't lay in bed any longer.

Indeed, my husband is standing over a mostly shredded, one-quarter-full roll of mangled, only slightly damp, toilet paper.

Oh, I see.

A couple of days before I'd discovered that same partial roll of toilet paper in the toilet in the main bathroom. No doubt knocked into the toilet by a certain long haired cat. I'd fished it out (the toilet paper not the cat) and dropped it into a plastic basin on the counter beside the sink, intending to return soon and dispose of it properly. (What is it they say about the road to hell?)

The main bathroom door is a scant two feet down the hall from our bedroom door. Figure maybe four more feet to where the basin in question -- now empty -- rested upside down on the floor. Kocka carries things in his mouth. (Maybe he was a dog in one of his last lives.)

No more misdirection. Mystery solved. In fact, two mysteries. We'd heard a muted crash in the night, my husband and I. We both said, "The cat." Rolled over and went back to sleep.