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lydamorehouse) wrote2025-10-06 01:47 pm
lydamorehouse) wrote2025-10-06 01:47 pmEntry tags:
Terry Garey
I noted a few days ago how much I wanted to try to go see Terry, maybe try to make it a regular thing again, like I had when she was at the Walker, but I found out today that she's died.
Oof.
We lost another great one, y'all. I hope someone lets Locus know or File 770. Terry was never a big name in terms of her writing, but she (and her husband Denny Lien) were a very big part of fandom.
Oof.
We lost another great one, y'all. I hope someone lets Locus know or File 770. Terry was never a big name in terms of her writing, but she (and her husband Denny Lien) were a very big part of fandom.
lydamorehouse (lydamorehouse) wrote2025-10-06 09:50 am
lydamorehouse) wrote2025-10-06 09:50 amEntry tags:
Gaylaxicon Con Report - Friday
The problem with local cons is, because I don't stay at the hotel, I don't tend to remember to take the time in the morning before the con is open to write-up the day before. But I'll do my best to try to remember the entire weekend. (EDITED TO ADD: My memory is decent enough and this is getting long enough that I think I will break this up and report on it over the next couple of days.)
FRIDAY, October 3, 2025
What I remember most about Friday was how nervous I was. I really wanted Gaylaxicon to be a success and, of course, so many things can go wrong at a convention including, but in no way limited to, people just not showing up. I knew we had a pretty decent pre-reg, but would it be enough to make the con seem lively or would it be "empty hall syndrome"? As I noted, I did managed to break into the mundane press to let people know about the con, but who know if that works? I wish, in a way, that we either had a post con evaluation form with a question like "how did you hear about Gaylaxicon?" on it, but then we'd still be gathering and collecting all that information and I am feeling just as happy to be done for awhile.
naomikritzer and I went back and forth a bunch of times via text and email about when we were headed out and whether or not Eleanor A. needed a ride... (turned out no) and eventually, unable to hold out anymore, I left for the hotel sometime right after lunch. The first panels were at 1:00 pm. One o'clock was possibly too early for programming on a workday, but my thinking had been that the people who took Friday would be happy to have something to do as early as possible. I showed up and discovered that despite my fears, things were already sort of hopping. Of course, I might have mistaken all the high energy for the fact that Adam Stemple was in the hallway chatting with a bunch of the other panelists/attending professionals who'd arrived. Adam is generally a major source of high energy. But, that worked? One thing I will say is that, throughout the weekend, even when people were scattered there was a lot of energy in the place.
I am trying to remember what I did. The program book reminds me that I either went to "Gay YA and Children's Books: Why Representation Matters (or it Doesn't)" or "Tarot in Media," or "GMing in the Age of AI," but I only remember seeing part of the first and peeking in at all three just to make sure everyone seemed happy and had at least a little bit of an audience.
KD Edwards who was on the "Tarot in Media" panel was a consumate GoH. We had many GoHs? Like, six of them, and all of them were great, but he went beyond in terms of getting the word out to his fans. His books are the kinds that inspire a strong following and he worked his butt off and made sure that as many of his loyalest fans made it to the con. I saw him both Saturday and Sunday morning conducting a clearly organized (but not by us!) breakfast gathering. I asked him about it when we passed in the hall because I wondered if these were all local people or...? He said no, there were a whole bunch of his fans who flew out special to be here. This made me suddenly really happy that we'd made space for some of his more specialized panels. He did a special panel where he and two of his colleagues--one an ancient Rome scholar (and professor, I think,) and the other a good writing friend (neither of them local!)--did a kind of "live" world-building session for the audience. I will admit that I was a little suspect that it would be a draw? But, it turned out both of the panelists he recruited to attend also did other panels for us and, as I said, he clearly brought the fans to the yard, as it were.
Impressive.
This is the sort of thing that makes me reconsider things like a newsletter, you know? I suspect that KD has one and that's how he activated the phone tree, as it were.
But, back to Friday. I had a panel at 2:30 pm "Cyberpunk and Bodily Autonomy," with my friend Lee Brontide. It was just the two of us and we were in the smallest (and, as it turned out, most out of the way) programming room. This did not deter our audience, however. The room was by no means full, but they definitely outnumbered the panelists! I should have counted, but I feel like we had more than five? I just remember thinking that it was pretty good for this early in the convention. Because it was just me and Lee, I told the audience that there wouldn't really be a moderator since I hoped it would be more of a conversation, but, then I ended up basically moderating (or at least facilitating,) anyway. Lee is super fascinating, really knowledgable and I highly recommend (if you're interested in bits and bobs of research, etc.) doing what I just did and subscribing to their newsletter: https://buttondown.com/LeeBrontide
Newsletters again. I am telling you, I am seriously reconsidering my allergy to this sort of thing.
It sounded like the other two panels went well? I had really wanted to see the one that Nghi Vo was on about the things writers end up leaving out of their writing, but, obviously, I had to attend my own panel!
After this, I sort of wandered aimlessly trying to suss out what our attendance looked like. At this point, I think we were hovering around 180 and this sort of depressed me (even though it's actually quite a good number for a small con!) and so I ended up following some folks up to the con suite. I dragged along my friendtallgeese and we had a rousing discussion with one of the other GoHs, Emma Torsz (rhymes with dirge), Kelly Barnhill, Adam Stemple, naomikritzer , and three or four people whose names I am spacing on. It was a conversation that ranged through publishing woes, religious upbringing, and life, the universe, and everything. My favorite kind of con conversation, actually. I got in a little trouble because Emma suggested that she was really uncertain she wanted to attend opening ceremonies and I told her that she could, in fact, skip them if she wanted. We aren't the boss of her. But, then she got nabbed by Anton and--I mean, I probably should not have suggested she could go because the opening ceremonies are the chance for con goers to be introduced to the GoHs. But, I stood out in the hallway and sort of fumed about it because my feeling is that, while we do compensate our GoHs to attend, it's not a contract written in blood. If someone is tired and people'd out they should get to make adult choices, even if those choices aren't necessarily the right ones for the con. But apparently a compromise had been struck and so Emma skipped out as soon as her introduction was over. So, that's fine. I just feel badly because Minnesotans (and, particularly women) have been socialized to be terrible at boundary setting/self-care and so when asked, "Are you sure it's okay?" The answer is often, "It's fine," even when it's not.
Anyway, I could go on about that more, but in many ways I recognize that I was wrong to have given Emma a promise of an out. The next thing that was up was the banquet. I ended up sitting at a table way in the back with a bunch of concom folks that I love, James B. (who I accidentally called by the wrong name, twice! UGH. I hate that!),tallgeese , our mutual friend and fellow Star Trek: Adventures player, Erik, and again some other lovely folks whose names are lost to oblivion (which is a bummer as I really rather liked James' friend!) The banquet was hotel food and was fine and... I won the very last raffle prize, so I now have a Star Wars board game?
Speaking of, I ran off around 7 pm to play a Star Trek:Adventures game GM'd by one of our other GoHs, Jim Johnson (of Modiphius.) That was fun! I had to duck out before the time was over, however, because I had a 10 pm panel where, at least, I was able to apologize to Emma because she was on that panel with me and Kyell Gold. I just wanted to say sorry not only for getting her hopes up, but also in case I'd gotten her into any kind of trouble. That panel went well, but we probably needed a moderator who wasn't me? Ten is WAAAAY past my bedtime, so the conversation which was supposed to be about "When Magic is Queer-Coded" veered so far off topic that we talked about whether or not we dreamed in conversations and if birds had language. That can be fun to watch? But, you know, I also feel sort of beholden to stick to the subject at hand, which we decidedly did NOT and my sleep deprived brain could not summon the spoons to keep us on track.
So, oops.
Generally, I'm not sure what I was thinking with such late night paneling. I think I was remembering the Minicons of old when there were enough people still up (and we were ALL so much younger) to make those make sense. Again, I will confess? I thought Teh Gayz partied??? The place this misconception was most noticible was the caberet. Like, I thought that room might end up standing room only, but it was barely at half capacity and that was scheduled for Saturday night at 7:30 pm.
Oh well. Lessons learned. Either I have to actively recruit the youngs or I should just never have programming beyond RPG and board gaming and those sorts of things past the dinner hour. Which, actually, would have been fine.
Speaking of RPGs and such, I should go back and talk a bit more about the Star Trek game. I have watched Jim Johnson play Star Trek before because Modiphius has a YouTube channel where you can watch all sorts of things about their RPGs including interviews withbcholmes . (Sidebar: we had initially wanted BC to come be a GoH, but traveling to the US was very reasonably out of the question. Jim was actually our second choice, but don't tell him.)
Jim was a good GM, I thought. I always push a bit for more than a little bit of roleplay, which I did here, as well. Not too much, though. I knew, of course, that a lot of people game at cons to try out new systems so I try not to push TOO hard for roleplay uber allis at one-shots at cons, because I understand that there are people at the table who are solely there for the mechanics. However, I lucked out in that I came early enough to the game room that I had a chance to pick which character I wanted out of the pre-generated sheets. There was an Andorian chief of security that was the right kind of hothead for me and I think I was able to add a little flare to the game without being too disruptive.
The could-have-been a distaster distruption was to my left, as it turned out. We had a very young, very deep into the spectrum player who was still learning when it was okay to blurt out actions or thoughts. I will say to Jim's credit he handled this person (a high schooler) with grace and kindness. Meanwhile, it may have helped that I FULLY adopted this player, whom I will refer to by their character's name Lt. Hernandez. This wasn't a rescue to be clear. I adored this young person. Yes, Hernadez struggled with volume control (but so do I when I'm excited) and, yes, their insistence in returning to some elements of their character over and over again could have been (and may have been) more than a little annoying to folks who wanted the game to continue at a pace. But, what ended up happening is that we consciously (as in me and Hernandez) chose to decide that in the world of the space utopia of Star Trek, neurodiversity continued to exist and that, if this was a true utopia, things like ADHD would not only exist, they would be accomodated and cherished. The turning point happened when I, as player, announced that I'd like to spend the momentum to retroactively create a trait in which we had regular security check-ins with the USS Challenger. Hernandez joked that sometimes that character would be bad at responding because they were enthusiastically focused on sciencing. I noted that probably given that this seemed to be a character trait, probably even on the ship there was a Hernendez Protocol so that someone periodically checked-in with Hernandez to make sure she had eaten a food and drunk water. This then became a funny, fully accepted running joke with the crew. And Hernandez leaned into that aspect of role-playing much to their obvious pleasure.
I found the whole thing with Hernandez delightful.
I'm sure there were players at the table who would disagree with me. But, you know, when you're at a con, you get the players at the table. It's not cool to shun or ignore someone unless what their doing is a disruption more akin to the kind of harassment (sexual or bullying or like) where the GM should then really just tell them to leave the table, full stop.
And, you know, us problematic players need to stick together. I'm atypically problematic because I will push to do as much personal interaction as possible which people tend to see as a positive, but like my Andorian had a pastime of poetry and so at one point, in the shuttle craft, I had him randomly recite a poem I'd desperately scribbed into my notes. And I did so without comment. So, later, when a group of us decided to finish off this episode (which is what ST:A likes to call its sessions) one of the returning players was, like, was that in character or just.. you writing spontaneous poetry? I was like, "Oh, I was just so into character that I didn't remember to explain what the hell I was doing!" So, it totally came off like me randomly blurting out poetry, possibly just as a player??? Hilarious.
Anyway, the scenario was what it was and it's a preview of one of Modiphius's mission briefs so I won't say too much about the actual events since it would be a spoiler.
This got long, so I'll end it here.
FRIDAY, October 3, 2025
What I remember most about Friday was how nervous I was. I really wanted Gaylaxicon to be a success and, of course, so many things can go wrong at a convention including, but in no way limited to, people just not showing up. I knew we had a pretty decent pre-reg, but would it be enough to make the con seem lively or would it be "empty hall syndrome"? As I noted, I did managed to break into the mundane press to let people know about the con, but who know if that works? I wish, in a way, that we either had a post con evaluation form with a question like "how did you hear about Gaylaxicon?" on it, but then we'd still be gathering and collecting all that information and I am feeling just as happy to be done for awhile.
naomikritzer and I went back and forth a bunch of times via text and email about when we were headed out and whether or not Eleanor A. needed a ride... (turned out no) and eventually, unable to hold out anymore, I left for the hotel sometime right after lunch. The first panels were at 1:00 pm. One o'clock was possibly too early for programming on a workday, but my thinking had been that the people who took Friday would be happy to have something to do as early as possible. I showed up and discovered that despite my fears, things were already sort of hopping. Of course, I might have mistaken all the high energy for the fact that Adam Stemple was in the hallway chatting with a bunch of the other panelists/attending professionals who'd arrived. Adam is generally a major source of high energy. But, that worked? One thing I will say is that, throughout the weekend, even when people were scattered there was a lot of energy in the place. I am trying to remember what I did. The program book reminds me that I either went to "Gay YA and Children's Books: Why Representation Matters (or it Doesn't)" or "Tarot in Media," or "GMing in the Age of AI," but I only remember seeing part of the first and peeking in at all three just to make sure everyone seemed happy and had at least a little bit of an audience.
KD Edwards who was on the "Tarot in Media" panel was a consumate GoH. We had many GoHs? Like, six of them, and all of them were great, but he went beyond in terms of getting the word out to his fans. His books are the kinds that inspire a strong following and he worked his butt off and made sure that as many of his loyalest fans made it to the con. I saw him both Saturday and Sunday morning conducting a clearly organized (but not by us!) breakfast gathering. I asked him about it when we passed in the hall because I wondered if these were all local people or...? He said no, there were a whole bunch of his fans who flew out special to be here. This made me suddenly really happy that we'd made space for some of his more specialized panels. He did a special panel where he and two of his colleagues--one an ancient Rome scholar (and professor, I think,) and the other a good writing friend (neither of them local!)--did a kind of "live" world-building session for the audience. I will admit that I was a little suspect that it would be a draw? But, it turned out both of the panelists he recruited to attend also did other panels for us and, as I said, he clearly brought the fans to the yard, as it were.
Impressive.
This is the sort of thing that makes me reconsider things like a newsletter, you know? I suspect that KD has one and that's how he activated the phone tree, as it were.
But, back to Friday. I had a panel at 2:30 pm "Cyberpunk and Bodily Autonomy," with my friend Lee Brontide. It was just the two of us and we were in the smallest (and, as it turned out, most out of the way) programming room. This did not deter our audience, however. The room was by no means full, but they definitely outnumbered the panelists! I should have counted, but I feel like we had more than five? I just remember thinking that it was pretty good for this early in the convention. Because it was just me and Lee, I told the audience that there wouldn't really be a moderator since I hoped it would be more of a conversation, but, then I ended up basically moderating (or at least facilitating,) anyway. Lee is super fascinating, really knowledgable and I highly recommend (if you're interested in bits and bobs of research, etc.) doing what I just did and subscribing to their newsletter: https://buttondown.com/LeeBrontide
Newsletters again. I am telling you, I am seriously reconsidering my allergy to this sort of thing.
It sounded like the other two panels went well? I had really wanted to see the one that Nghi Vo was on about the things writers end up leaving out of their writing, but, obviously, I had to attend my own panel!
After this, I sort of wandered aimlessly trying to suss out what our attendance looked like. At this point, I think we were hovering around 180 and this sort of depressed me (even though it's actually quite a good number for a small con!) and so I ended up following some folks up to the con suite. I dragged along my friend
tallgeese and we had a rousing discussion with one of the other GoHs, Emma Torsz (rhymes with dirge), Kelly Barnhill, Adam Stemple, naomikritzer , and three or four people whose names I am spacing on. It was a conversation that ranged through publishing woes, religious upbringing, and life, the universe, and everything. My favorite kind of con conversation, actually. I got in a little trouble because Emma suggested that she was really uncertain she wanted to attend opening ceremonies and I told her that she could, in fact, skip them if she wanted. We aren't the boss of her. But, then she got nabbed by Anton and--I mean, I probably should not have suggested she could go because the opening ceremonies are the chance for con goers to be introduced to the GoHs. But, I stood out in the hallway and sort of fumed about it because my feeling is that, while we do compensate our GoHs to attend, it's not a contract written in blood. If someone is tired and people'd out they should get to make adult choices, even if those choices aren't necessarily the right ones for the con. But apparently a compromise had been struck and so Emma skipped out as soon as her introduction was over. So, that's fine. I just feel badly because Minnesotans (and, particularly women) have been socialized to be terrible at boundary setting/self-care and so when asked, "Are you sure it's okay?" The answer is often, "It's fine," even when it's not.Anyway, I could go on about that more, but in many ways I recognize that I was wrong to have given Emma a promise of an out. The next thing that was up was the banquet. I ended up sitting at a table way in the back with a bunch of concom folks that I love, James B. (who I accidentally called by the wrong name, twice! UGH. I hate that!),
tallgeese , our mutual friend and fellow Star Trek: Adventures player, Erik, and again some other lovely folks whose names are lost to oblivion (which is a bummer as I really rather liked James' friend!) The banquet was hotel food and was fine and... I won the very last raffle prize, so I now have a Star Wars board game?Speaking of, I ran off around 7 pm to play a Star Trek:Adventures game GM'd by one of our other GoHs, Jim Johnson (of Modiphius.) That was fun! I had to duck out before the time was over, however, because I had a 10 pm panel where, at least, I was able to apologize to Emma because she was on that panel with me and Kyell Gold. I just wanted to say sorry not only for getting her hopes up, but also in case I'd gotten her into any kind of trouble. That panel went well, but we probably needed a moderator who wasn't me? Ten is WAAAAY past my bedtime, so the conversation which was supposed to be about "When Magic is Queer-Coded" veered so far off topic that we talked about whether or not we dreamed in conversations and if birds had language. That can be fun to watch? But, you know, I also feel sort of beholden to stick to the subject at hand, which we decidedly did NOT and my sleep deprived brain could not summon the spoons to keep us on track.
So, oops.
Generally, I'm not sure what I was thinking with such late night paneling. I think I was remembering the Minicons of old when there were enough people still up (and we were ALL so much younger) to make those make sense. Again, I will confess? I thought Teh Gayz partied??? The place this misconception was most noticible was the caberet. Like, I thought that room might end up standing room only, but it was barely at half capacity and that was scheduled for Saturday night at 7:30 pm.
Oh well. Lessons learned. Either I have to actively recruit the youngs or I should just never have programming beyond RPG and board gaming and those sorts of things past the dinner hour. Which, actually, would have been fine.
Speaking of RPGs and such, I should go back and talk a bit more about the Star Trek game. I have watched Jim Johnson play Star Trek before because Modiphius has a YouTube channel where you can watch all sorts of things about their RPGs including interviews with
bcholmes . (Sidebar: we had initially wanted BC to come be a GoH, but traveling to the US was very reasonably out of the question. Jim was actually our second choice, but don't tell him.) Jim was a good GM, I thought. I always push a bit for more than a little bit of roleplay, which I did here, as well. Not too much, though. I knew, of course, that a lot of people game at cons to try out new systems so I try not to push TOO hard for roleplay uber allis at one-shots at cons, because I understand that there are people at the table who are solely there for the mechanics. However, I lucked out in that I came early enough to the game room that I had a chance to pick which character I wanted out of the pre-generated sheets. There was an Andorian chief of security that was the right kind of hothead for me and I think I was able to add a little flare to the game without being too disruptive.
The could-have-been a distaster distruption was to my left, as it turned out. We had a very young, very deep into the spectrum player who was still learning when it was okay to blurt out actions or thoughts. I will say to Jim's credit he handled this person (a high schooler) with grace and kindness. Meanwhile, it may have helped that I FULLY adopted this player, whom I will refer to by their character's name Lt. Hernandez. This wasn't a rescue to be clear. I adored this young person. Yes, Hernadez struggled with volume control (but so do I when I'm excited) and, yes, their insistence in returning to some elements of their character over and over again could have been (and may have been) more than a little annoying to folks who wanted the game to continue at a pace. But, what ended up happening is that we consciously (as in me and Hernandez) chose to decide that in the world of the space utopia of Star Trek, neurodiversity continued to exist and that, if this was a true utopia, things like ADHD would not only exist, they would be accomodated and cherished. The turning point happened when I, as player, announced that I'd like to spend the momentum to retroactively create a trait in which we had regular security check-ins with the USS Challenger. Hernandez joked that sometimes that character would be bad at responding because they were enthusiastically focused on sciencing. I noted that probably given that this seemed to be a character trait, probably even on the ship there was a Hernendez Protocol so that someone periodically checked-in with Hernandez to make sure she had eaten a food and drunk water. This then became a funny, fully accepted running joke with the crew. And Hernandez leaned into that aspect of role-playing much to their obvious pleasure.
I found the whole thing with Hernandez delightful.
I'm sure there were players at the table who would disagree with me. But, you know, when you're at a con, you get the players at the table. It's not cool to shun or ignore someone unless what their doing is a disruption more akin to the kind of harassment (sexual or bullying or like) where the GM should then really just tell them to leave the table, full stop.
And, you know, us problematic players need to stick together. I'm atypically problematic because I will push to do as much personal interaction as possible which people tend to see as a positive, but like my Andorian had a pastime of poetry and so at one point, in the shuttle craft, I had him randomly recite a poem I'd desperately scribbed into my notes. And I did so without comment. So, later, when a group of us decided to finish off this episode (which is what ST:A likes to call its sessions) one of the returning players was, like, was that in character or just.. you writing spontaneous poetry? I was like, "Oh, I was just so into character that I didn't remember to explain what the hell I was doing!" So, it totally came off like me randomly blurting out poetry, possibly just as a player??? Hilarious.
Anyway, the scenario was what it was and it's a preview of one of Modiphius's mission briefs so I won't say too much about the actual events since it would be a spoiler.
This got long, so I'll end it here.
Cimorene (cimorene) wrote2025-10-06 03:47 pm
cimorene) wrote2025-10-06 03:47 pmEntry tags:
New baby bushes
For long-time readers following along at home, you will likely remember our year-long struggle with the open septic tanks in the yard and the conclusion a couple weeks ago when the plumbers (and the digger) finally fixed it! Unfortunately, in the process, as well as digging up a bunch of grass and the gravel of our driveway, they had to dig up
So we bought some clover seed to put where the grass used to be (hoping the headstart will help it outcompete the grass - we hate grass) (it won't grow until next spring though) and where the cement square was. We can't hope to repair the steps until spring thaw because it's too cold to be sure of being able to cure concrete already. And we also bought some baby bushes to replace our lost bushes.
One of the bushes is the extremely common native shrub dasiphora fruticosa, or shrubby cinquefoil (Swedish: Ölandstok, Finnish: pensashanhikki), the Creme Brulee cultivar, which is white. The yellow-flowered one is what you see everywhere, so this will be a little different. In the center are two spiraea betulifolias, birchleaf spireas (björkspirea, koivuangervo), a variety whose leaves turn red early in summer after it finishes blooming. And the last one next to the driveway is forsythia x intermedia Courtalyn, or border forsythia Courtalyn (forsythia, I guess? in Swedish, and komeaonnenpensas in Finnish), which will have yellow flowers. However, now we have to get one or more stakes to put around them to protect them from the snowplows. The old bushes were big enough to warn the plows off, but these guys probably not so much. And they're near the corner of the lot and the street corner at a T intersection which is a big danger zone for snow plows because of the way the street widens a bit at the corners there.
- The horizontal cement square at the base of the cement steps to our door connecting them to the cement steps a couple yards in front of them that led up the retaining-wall hill to the higher level of the yard. Why did they build these two steps with a little square of cement between them? Nobody knows. But because it was connected to both sets of steps, and it had to be dug up, the bottom step of each set of steps is now all crumbled and broken with rebar sticking out and the step down to the ground is now too great. I guess we're gonna get some bricks???
- A row of established bushes marking the edge of the yard on the right of the driveway as you turn in. The broken pipe went under it. So we lost all of them. They were kind of straggly and unhappy anyway and we have tried several times to cut them back and fertilize them, to no avail.
- A lot of the roots of the beautiful birch tree on the corner of the lot, planted by the wife of the builder of the house, so probably sometime around 1950. The city workers who dug up and repaved the street 1 year ago unfortunately cut right up to the base of the trunk at the corner, so it lost a bunch of roots then, and this new excavation went almost as close, but from about 120° off. Two different old people in the neighborhood stopped on their walks to tell us "Hey, that tree's gonna die." Which seems plausible based on how much of its roots it must've lost, but it will be really sad and we are at least SLIGHTLY hoping that maybe it won't? Wax wants to wait and see how it feels next spring before we consider calling an arborist. I looked at the city website, but there is no number for the people in charge of trees (it is on city land since they own the margin next to the road) or any contact information about trees, so I suppose there isn't a municipal "Is This Tree a Danger" number.
You can see the tree on the edge there and all the bare earth where the excavation was...
RIP hideous but previously functional bottom steps :(
So we bought some clover seed to put where the grass used to be (hoping the headstart will help it outcompete the grass - we hate grass) (it won't grow until next spring though) and where the cement square was. We can't hope to repair the steps until spring thaw because it's too cold to be sure of being able to cure concrete already. And we also bought some baby bushes to replace our lost bushes.
One of the bushes is the extremely common native shrub dasiphora fruticosa, or shrubby cinquefoil (Swedish: Ölandstok, Finnish: pensashanhikki), the Creme Brulee cultivar, which is white. The yellow-flowered one is what you see everywhere, so this will be a little different. In the center are two spiraea betulifolias, birchleaf spireas (björkspirea, koivuangervo), a variety whose leaves turn red early in summer after it finishes blooming. And the last one next to the driveway is forsythia x intermedia Courtalyn, or border forsythia Courtalyn (forsythia, I guess? in Swedish, and komeaonnenpensas in Finnish), which will have yellow flowers. However, now we have to get one or more stakes to put around them to protect them from the snowplows. The old bushes were big enough to warn the plows off, but these guys probably not so much. And they're near the corner of the lot and the street corner at a T intersection which is a big danger zone for snow plows because of the way the street widens a bit at the corners there.
lydamorehouse (lydamorehouse) wrote2025-10-05 08:09 pm
lydamorehouse) wrote2025-10-05 08:09 pmEntry tags:
About to Crash
But I will have a lot to report from Gaylaxicon.
My favorite thing, however? Thanks to the rain this morning, we got an honest-to-god rainbow over Gaylaxicon's last day.
Image: photo taken from the hotel by attening professional, Kyell Gold.
My favorite thing, however? Thanks to the rain this morning, we got an honest-to-god rainbow over Gaylaxicon's last day.
Image: photo taken from the hotel by attening professional, Kyell Gold.
lydamorehouse (lydamorehouse) wrote2025-10-03 07:39 am
lydamorehouse) wrote2025-10-03 07:39 amEntry tags:
Should've Invested in a Gaylaxicon Icon
Of course now that things are underway, it only now occurs to me that I could have easily had a Gaylaxicon icon and then those of you who wanted to skim or skip would have been forewarned.
I wavered on whether or not I wanted to go to the GoH dinner last night, especially when I found out thattallgeese was not coming because he didn't feel well. The things that propelled me out the door were 1) Mason had planned to make a fancy curry dish for himself and Shawn.I tend to be the default cook when I'm home and I didn't want to come between that; and 2) I'd just been through one of these in Capclave and... frankly? Without the right people it can be fairly deadly.
We met out at Heather's in Minneapolis, a place I have never been before. They had a lovely, long table for us out on the patio. Turns out that Emma Törzs (rhymes with dirge--so, like terrge,) used to work with the Heather of Heather's, so that's kind of cool. I ended up, by accident, sitting in between KD Edwards and Emma, with Jim Johnson at the end of the table on the other side of KD (Keith.) I should have, as soon as she arrived, switched places with Emma because I was pretty good at keeping the left side of the table entertained and Emma ended up somewhat stuck in conversation with someone who was, shall we say, enthusiastic in a hyperfixated way about a singular subject about which is was unclear that Emma was similarly enthusiastic. I asked her, later, if I should have done more to rescue her, but she said it was enjoyable enough though she did appreciate Bast and my efforts when we were able to pry her back into the larger conversation. To be fair to this person? I do the same thing sometimes? We're all nerds here, So no shade.
After a very lovely dinner, where I got to watch KD Edward's shoulders visibly relax when I explained that Minnesota is a blue state and that Minneapolis/St. Paul is so blue it might as well be navy (he's living in North Carolina), we all trundled over to Dreamhaven for the reading.
I sort of thought that my herding cats portion of the evening was over, but Anton tapped me to do introductions so I jumped up to do that. I probably should have done more "here's a quick bio" of everyone and I managed to stumble over Emma's last name (terrrge! Like dirge!) which sucked, and I think, too, I should have had everyone go in the reverse order that we started with. Ending with Nghi Vo, instead of, like I ended up prompting, starting with her and ending with Jim Johnson. Especially since, unbeknowst to me, despite the fact that Jim is an author of several books, he decided instead to read the introduction to his newest Star Trek: Adventures book--which was... again, let's just say less high energy than spirit cannibals, which is what Nghi started with.
BUT! The event was super well attended. Dreamhaven ran out of chairs and, really, room. (That bookstore is what you find when you look up cramped and byzantine in the dictionary.) I don't have even an unofficial count, but if I had to guess I'd say over 30. We ended up even getting an on the spot sponsor-level membership for the convention out of the deal. It was by almost all measures a success.
So yay!
Now, before I head outside to do a little more painting on the fence, I need to time one of my stories. There's a woman in-town, Cole, who runs SciFi Reading Hour at the Bryant-Lake Bowl and she's looking for an emergency replacement for their November 2nd show. I don't know that she's considering me for that slot, but she did ask me to time one of my stories when read aloud. So, I need to do that for her in case it will work out.
Then, it's off to the convention this afternoon.
I wavered on whether or not I wanted to go to the GoH dinner last night, especially when I found out that
tallgeese was not coming because he didn't feel well. The things that propelled me out the door were 1) Mason had planned to make a fancy curry dish for himself and Shawn.I tend to be the default cook when I'm home and I didn't want to come between that; and 2) I'd just been through one of these in Capclave and... frankly? Without the right people it can be fairly deadly.We met out at Heather's in Minneapolis, a place I have never been before. They had a lovely, long table for us out on the patio. Turns out that Emma Törzs (rhymes with dirge--so, like terrge,) used to work with the Heather of Heather's, so that's kind of cool. I ended up, by accident, sitting in between KD Edwards and Emma, with Jim Johnson at the end of the table on the other side of KD (Keith.) I should have, as soon as she arrived, switched places with Emma because I was pretty good at keeping the left side of the table entertained and Emma ended up somewhat stuck in conversation with someone who was, shall we say, enthusiastic in a hyperfixated way about a singular subject about which is was unclear that Emma was similarly enthusiastic. I asked her, later, if I should have done more to rescue her, but she said it was enjoyable enough though she did appreciate Bast and my efforts when we were able to pry her back into the larger conversation. To be fair to this person? I do the same thing sometimes? We're all nerds here, So no shade.
After a very lovely dinner, where I got to watch KD Edward's shoulders visibly relax when I explained that Minnesota is a blue state and that Minneapolis/St. Paul is so blue it might as well be navy (he's living in North Carolina), we all trundled over to Dreamhaven for the reading.
I sort of thought that my herding cats portion of the evening was over, but Anton tapped me to do introductions so I jumped up to do that. I probably should have done more "here's a quick bio" of everyone and I managed to stumble over Emma's last name (terrrge! Like dirge!) which sucked, and I think, too, I should have had everyone go in the reverse order that we started with. Ending with Nghi Vo, instead of, like I ended up prompting, starting with her and ending with Jim Johnson. Especially since, unbeknowst to me, despite the fact that Jim is an author of several books, he decided instead to read the introduction to his newest Star Trek: Adventures book--which was... again, let's just say less high energy than spirit cannibals, which is what Nghi started with.
BUT! The event was super well attended. Dreamhaven ran out of chairs and, really, room. (That bookstore is what you find when you look up cramped and byzantine in the dictionary.) I don't have even an unofficial count, but if I had to guess I'd say over 30. We ended up even getting an on the spot sponsor-level membership for the convention out of the deal. It was by almost all measures a success.
So yay!
Now, before I head outside to do a little more painting on the fence, I need to time one of my stories. There's a woman in-town, Cole, who runs SciFi Reading Hour at the Bryant-Lake Bowl and she's looking for an emergency replacement for their November 2nd show. I don't know that she's considering me for that slot, but she did ask me to time one of my stories when read aloud. So, I need to do that for her in case it will work out.
Then, it's off to the convention this afternoon.
lydamorehouse (lydamorehouse) wrote2025-10-02 08:48 am
lydamorehouse) wrote2025-10-02 08:48 amEntry tags:
It Begins....
Tonight there will be two events for Gaylaxicon. First is the private dinner with the GoHs and the concom who have agreed to come. This will not include Nghi Vo, I presume, since she is very COVID cautious and I don't believe she is eating with others. Which is a shame because, for me, the fun part of the private GoH party is getting to see what people are like when they're not "on." But, I will get to meet her at the reading at Dreamhaven, which follows all of this at 7 pm.
Then, of course, tomorrow things kick off.
I don't know how I'm feeling. Am I ready? Am I ready for this to be over? Am I excited? I think I'm all the things at once, if I'm honest. I'm pretty sure that my family is ready for convention season to be over. Everything around here has been Gaylaxicon, Gaylaxicon, Gaylaxicon.
I had my phone chat with Ashley from AccentCare, the folks I'd be working with if I end up doing hospice volunteering. I almost missed it because my phone continues to be weird, but at about half past the hour she was meant to call I emailed her to tell her that my phone has been flakey and I am still around if she has time. I have been priming our fence to be painted, so I had nothing else going on until it was time to go fetch Shawn from work.
Ashley called less than a minute later. We had a nice chat. I was very clear with Ashley that I'm really uncertain if I have the emotional resiliance for this job as I feel things very deeply, and she had no advice for me other than to acknowledge that the work is hard and not for everyone. However, they are very aware of the emotional strain and so in-person hospice workers are only assigned at MOST two families, whom you see through their entire journey, including following up with the family after the funeral, etc. She seemed excited when I mentioned my wife in passing because they are always looking for under represented/marginalized folks to pair with like, though she did note that a lot of their patients/clients are Hmong. So, I'd be expected to be culturally sensitive, which honestly, made the job more interesting, in a way. (Though suddenly I'm looking at Duolingo wondering if I can learn a more useful language besides Japanese.) Similarly, she brought up that they also serve Jewish families, etc., as I think a lot of their volunteers do it for Jesus. (I was clear on my application that I'm not Christian.) I was glad to hear, too, that they will provide training, though it sounds like it's hours of online videos. Still, I'll take what I can get.
Next steps seems to be meeting in-person and getting started on background checks, etc. We arranged to meet at my favorite coffee shop at 9 am next Thursday. Wish me luck? (I'm still not sure I'm up for this, but I would like to see if I can do it.)
Shawn and I talked about it a bit last night. She noted that, selfishly, she's hoping that if I get some of this training it will help when the time comes for her elder brother Keven. (Who has, by the way, responded really well to treatment. There's noticible shrinkage of his cancer, but it's all, in many ways, just about extending life and quality of life.) I thought about that, too, and I've been thinking, of course, of Terry Garey who I haven't seen since she moved to the Edina place, years ago. I think I'm hoping that learning more about this will make it easier for me to just make time to see Terry. I send cards and think about her a lot, but I feel really badly that I haven't been to see her in so long. I know that Laramie has been hired to care for her, so she's not alone--but Terry was one of my writing mentors.
Ayway, that's my own stuff that I need to work out, certainly before taking on this kind of volunteering for others.
Let's see, other news.
Yeah, so I alluded to the fence above. We had a new fence put in a couple of years ago and we have needed to either seal/stain it or paint it and I am FINALLY getting around to that. It's been good, actually, to have something physical to be doing, given how anxious I get sometimes around whether everything will work out (or not!) with Gaylaxicon.
I'll try to remember to post some pictures when I'm done with it. We are painting it emerald green again. The problem is the posts. When we first got the original verson of this fence the wood was so BLAH and already painted an ugly brown. So we painted it a cheery green to spruce things up. Now that we could have a plain wooden fence, the posts are all dark green. We're sort of stuck with green unless we wanted to paint the whole thing a different color. And, part of me wants to keep the memory of our old neighbor, from 1990-whenever we were first painting it--looking across at it, not knowing I was in the yard, and muttering, "Those Micks will paint ANYTHING green!" Which. Do people still use that slur? Also, I'm Polish, Czech and English? (That last one being the direct opposite of Irish.) Shawn's family is pretty green--though, despite the whole Shawn Patricia, Keven Kerry, and Gregory Bryce (and her father being Kerry Patrick) the Rounds seem to mostly consider themselves Germans from Russia, at least in terms of the food they eat. Anyway, I still think that whole interaction was kind of funny, so I'm going to keep painting ANYTHING green. :-)
Hope you're all doing well, and maybe I'll see some of you local folks at Gaylaxicon this weekend!
I will, of course, try to do a con report, though given my schedule it may happen after the fact. I'll take copious notes, however!
Then, of course, tomorrow things kick off.
I don't know how I'm feeling. Am I ready? Am I ready for this to be over? Am I excited? I think I'm all the things at once, if I'm honest. I'm pretty sure that my family is ready for convention season to be over. Everything around here has been Gaylaxicon, Gaylaxicon, Gaylaxicon.
I had my phone chat with Ashley from AccentCare, the folks I'd be working with if I end up doing hospice volunteering. I almost missed it because my phone continues to be weird, but at about half past the hour she was meant to call I emailed her to tell her that my phone has been flakey and I am still around if she has time. I have been priming our fence to be painted, so I had nothing else going on until it was time to go fetch Shawn from work.
Ashley called less than a minute later. We had a nice chat. I was very clear with Ashley that I'm really uncertain if I have the emotional resiliance for this job as I feel things very deeply, and she had no advice for me other than to acknowledge that the work is hard and not for everyone. However, they are very aware of the emotional strain and so in-person hospice workers are only assigned at MOST two families, whom you see through their entire journey, including following up with the family after the funeral, etc. She seemed excited when I mentioned my wife in passing because they are always looking for under represented/marginalized folks to pair with like, though she did note that a lot of their patients/clients are Hmong. So, I'd be expected to be culturally sensitive, which honestly, made the job more interesting, in a way. (Though suddenly I'm looking at Duolingo wondering if I can learn a more useful language besides Japanese.) Similarly, she brought up that they also serve Jewish families, etc., as I think a lot of their volunteers do it for Jesus. (I was clear on my application that I'm not Christian.) I was glad to hear, too, that they will provide training, though it sounds like it's hours of online videos. Still, I'll take what I can get.
Next steps seems to be meeting in-person and getting started on background checks, etc. We arranged to meet at my favorite coffee shop at 9 am next Thursday. Wish me luck? (I'm still not sure I'm up for this, but I would like to see if I can do it.)
Shawn and I talked about it a bit last night. She noted that, selfishly, she's hoping that if I get some of this training it will help when the time comes for her elder brother Keven. (Who has, by the way, responded really well to treatment. There's noticible shrinkage of his cancer, but it's all, in many ways, just about extending life and quality of life.) I thought about that, too, and I've been thinking, of course, of Terry Garey who I haven't seen since she moved to the Edina place, years ago. I think I'm hoping that learning more about this will make it easier for me to just make time to see Terry. I send cards and think about her a lot, but I feel really badly that I haven't been to see her in so long. I know that Laramie has been hired to care for her, so she's not alone--but Terry was one of my writing mentors.
Ayway, that's my own stuff that I need to work out, certainly before taking on this kind of volunteering for others.
Let's see, other news.
Yeah, so I alluded to the fence above. We had a new fence put in a couple of years ago and we have needed to either seal/stain it or paint it and I am FINALLY getting around to that. It's been good, actually, to have something physical to be doing, given how anxious I get sometimes around whether everything will work out (or not!) with Gaylaxicon.
I'll try to remember to post some pictures when I'm done with it. We are painting it emerald green again. The problem is the posts. When we first got the original verson of this fence the wood was so BLAH and already painted an ugly brown. So we painted it a cheery green to spruce things up. Now that we could have a plain wooden fence, the posts are all dark green. We're sort of stuck with green unless we wanted to paint the whole thing a different color. And, part of me wants to keep the memory of our old neighbor, from 1990-whenever we were first painting it--looking across at it, not knowing I was in the yard, and muttering, "Those Micks will paint ANYTHING green!" Which. Do people still use that slur? Also, I'm Polish, Czech and English? (That last one being the direct opposite of Irish.) Shawn's family is pretty green--though, despite the whole Shawn Patricia, Keven Kerry, and Gregory Bryce (and her father being Kerry Patrick) the Rounds seem to mostly consider themselves Germans from Russia, at least in terms of the food they eat. Anyway, I still think that whole interaction was kind of funny, so I'm going to keep painting ANYTHING green. :-)
Hope you're all doing well, and maybe I'll see some of you local folks at Gaylaxicon this weekend!
I will, of course, try to do a con report, though given my schedule it may happen after the fact. I'll take copious notes, however!
lydamorehouse (lydamorehouse) wrote2025-10-01 08:22 am
lydamorehouse) wrote2025-10-01 08:22 amEntry tags:
Wednesday Updatery
Last night was a comedy of errors.
I had really wanted to go to the badge party for Gaylaxicon because I had made a whole bunch of stickers for program participants to have their schedules on the back of their badges. I figured that since I made them, I could help put them on. But, I could not figure out what the plan was supposed to be. The information I got was "we will me back at Don's place after the hotel walk-through, oh, and here's a link to the concom Zoom meeting at 6 pm." Upon reading this, my brain went through these steps. Imagine this as one of those decision trees.
Okay, they aren't likely to have the Zoom meeting at the hotel, will they? (Yes/No. I choose the No path). So then, probably the plan is to have the people meet in-person that can and Zoom in the rest. (Yes/No. I choose the Yes path) So best guess is that the tour will be done by 6 pm and so meeting everyone at Don's house will work out.
I still dont' know the right answer to some of these questions, but at some point I definitely went down the wrong tree, as it were.
Because I showed up at Don's at 6 pm and found no one there. Hopping on to Discord showed that Andrew didn't know where to meet people at the hotel and so then it dawned on me that, oh, okay, maybe the tour is at 6 pm despite the fact that's when the Zoom meeting is? But, since Andrew was also confused, I decided to download Zoom onto my phone so that I could jump on to the meeting at 6 pm. That seemed like a smart bet since the Zoom meeting was DEFINITELY scheduled for 6 pm. Only, when I finally got online, I discovered only two other people there, neither of them were Don and neither of them knew anything about where people were supposed to be or even WHEN we were supposed to be there.
Then, I thought, I'm being dumb. I'll just text Don directly. He confirmed that the tour was happening at six. Now, here's where I could have solved this by driving to the hotel and trying to meet everyone there. Instead, I thought, "Well, by the time I get there, the tour will be over and they'll be headed back here." So, I let Don know that I was going to hangout at a Starbucks and, if he could be so kind, I'd wait for a text on when to come over.
Then the true comedy hit.
Randomly and quite suddenly, my phone decided it didn't want to accept any data, including messages.
At least I managed to hear fromtallgeese who noted that I could come hang out at his place until the text came through. At this point, since I got his message, I was unaware that my phone had decided to temporarily bork itself. So we hung out and chatted about life, the universe, and everything. That was quite lovely. I finally got to meet his two dogs in person, having seen them a bunch on Zoom during our Star Trek: Adventures games. No text came, however. I was, for reasons known only to my phone, able to go to Discord and noticed that someone was franically posting on all channels that "the Zoom meeting has started!" so, I hung out a tiny bit longer, and made my way back to Don's... only to still find no one at home. So, who knows where they were Zooming from?
At this point, I gave up.
I left the badge stickers underneath a FedEx package outside Don's door. Then, I left him a message on Discord explaining what I'd done, and headed home. It was 8 pm by the time I got home.
What a night!
I am only a little concerned that the stickers are going to remain AWOL. But, worst case scenario (and one I am planning on) I will bring a second set to the convention early and stick them on badges myself.
In other news, there are a couple of previous items I wanted to update you all on. Remember how I speculated that people might be filming the exhibits at the National Africian-American History & Cultural Museum (Smithsonian) in order to preserve them? Well, my friend John spotted this: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/citizen-historians-document-smithsonian-exhibits-under-white-house-scrutiny It turns out, I was right!
Likewise, remember when I was talking about how stressful it was to leave a voice mail "tip" for The Racket? Well, they ran a story about us, which I found out about thanks tomagenta : https://racketmn.com/gaylaxicon-wits-returns-oktoberfests-this-weeks-best-events !!!! They got some of the information wrong? Dungeons, Dragons & Drinks isn't running our D&D one-shots (though they will be one of our community tablers), Tower Games is doing our games. But, hey, The Racket listed us as one of this week's best events, so I'LL TAKE IT. I have zero idea if this will actually result in people signing up, but, you know, I feel like I gave this whole publicity thing a real try and 'nothing ventured, nothing gained.'
I honestly kind of enjoyed the stress of the voice mail? I've been thinking about offering my services to other geek venues. (Personally, I think they should hire me to be their geek on the street!) THIS would be a fun job for me. Instead, today I applied to work as an impound lot customer service attendant. Fun times.
Today, too, at 2 pm, I'm going to be getting a call about volunteering to be a hospice worker. I will have to be honest that I'm currently looking for work and so might not be able to be as available as I normally would be. And, I know they're going to ask me why I want to do this work, and I don't have a very good answer for them. No one really likes the job of sitting with people at a time like that, but (and this is the part I have to work out how to articulate) the world is spiralling into chaos thanks to the current presidental administration and I don't know what I can DO to stop it. However, one thing I can do is sit with someone, talk about the weather, hold a hand, read a book, or otherwise offer comfort. Fascism wants us to devalue certain lives and this is one way for me to say NO.
Can I say that in an interview? I don't know, but it's the truth.
I had really wanted to go to the badge party for Gaylaxicon because I had made a whole bunch of stickers for program participants to have their schedules on the back of their badges. I figured that since I made them, I could help put them on. But, I could not figure out what the plan was supposed to be. The information I got was "we will me back at Don's place after the hotel walk-through, oh, and here's a link to the concom Zoom meeting at 6 pm." Upon reading this, my brain went through these steps. Imagine this as one of those decision trees.
Okay, they aren't likely to have the Zoom meeting at the hotel, will they? (Yes/No. I choose the No path). So then, probably the plan is to have the people meet in-person that can and Zoom in the rest. (Yes/No. I choose the Yes path) So best guess is that the tour will be done by 6 pm and so meeting everyone at Don's house will work out.
I still dont' know the right answer to some of these questions, but at some point I definitely went down the wrong tree, as it were.
Because I showed up at Don's at 6 pm and found no one there. Hopping on to Discord showed that Andrew didn't know where to meet people at the hotel and so then it dawned on me that, oh, okay, maybe the tour is at 6 pm despite the fact that's when the Zoom meeting is? But, since Andrew was also confused, I decided to download Zoom onto my phone so that I could jump on to the meeting at 6 pm. That seemed like a smart bet since the Zoom meeting was DEFINITELY scheduled for 6 pm. Only, when I finally got online, I discovered only two other people there, neither of them were Don and neither of them knew anything about where people were supposed to be or even WHEN we were supposed to be there.
Then, I thought, I'm being dumb. I'll just text Don directly. He confirmed that the tour was happening at six. Now, here's where I could have solved this by driving to the hotel and trying to meet everyone there. Instead, I thought, "Well, by the time I get there, the tour will be over and they'll be headed back here." So, I let Don know that I was going to hangout at a Starbucks and, if he could be so kind, I'd wait for a text on when to come over.
Then the true comedy hit.
Randomly and quite suddenly, my phone decided it didn't want to accept any data, including messages.
At least I managed to hear from
tallgeese who noted that I could come hang out at his place until the text came through. At this point, since I got his message, I was unaware that my phone had decided to temporarily bork itself. So we hung out and chatted about life, the universe, and everything. That was quite lovely. I finally got to meet his two dogs in person, having seen them a bunch on Zoom during our Star Trek: Adventures games. No text came, however. I was, for reasons known only to my phone, able to go to Discord and noticed that someone was franically posting on all channels that "the Zoom meeting has started!" so, I hung out a tiny bit longer, and made my way back to Don's... only to still find no one at home. So, who knows where they were Zooming from? At this point, I gave up.
I left the badge stickers underneath a FedEx package outside Don's door. Then, I left him a message on Discord explaining what I'd done, and headed home. It was 8 pm by the time I got home.
What a night!
I am only a little concerned that the stickers are going to remain AWOL. But, worst case scenario (and one I am planning on) I will bring a second set to the convention early and stick them on badges myself.
In other news, there are a couple of previous items I wanted to update you all on. Remember how I speculated that people might be filming the exhibits at the National Africian-American History & Cultural Museum (Smithsonian) in order to preserve them? Well, my friend John spotted this: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/citizen-historians-document-smithsonian-exhibits-under-white-house-scrutiny It turns out, I was right!
Likewise, remember when I was talking about how stressful it was to leave a voice mail "tip" for The Racket? Well, they ran a story about us, which I found out about thanks to
magenta : https://racketmn.com/gaylaxicon-wits-returns-oktoberfests-this-weeks-best-events !!!! They got some of the information wrong? Dungeons, Dragons & Drinks isn't running our D&D one-shots (though they will be one of our community tablers), Tower Games is doing our games. But, hey, The Racket listed us as one of this week's best events, so I'LL TAKE IT. I have zero idea if this will actually result in people signing up, but, you know, I feel like I gave this whole publicity thing a real try and 'nothing ventured, nothing gained.' I honestly kind of enjoyed the stress of the voice mail? I've been thinking about offering my services to other geek venues. (Personally, I think they should hire me to be their geek on the street!) THIS would be a fun job for me. Instead, today I applied to work as an impound lot customer service attendant. Fun times.
Today, too, at 2 pm, I'm going to be getting a call about volunteering to be a hospice worker. I will have to be honest that I'm currently looking for work and so might not be able to be as available as I normally would be. And, I know they're going to ask me why I want to do this work, and I don't have a very good answer for them. No one really likes the job of sitting with people at a time like that, but (and this is the part I have to work out how to articulate) the world is spiralling into chaos thanks to the current presidental administration and I don't know what I can DO to stop it. However, one thing I can do is sit with someone, talk about the weather, hold a hand, read a book, or otherwise offer comfort. Fascism wants us to devalue certain lives and this is one way for me to say NO.
Can I say that in an interview? I don't know, but it's the truth.
Cimorene (cimorene) wrote2025-09-30 02:11 pm
cimorene) wrote2025-09-30 02:11 pmEntry tags:
I had restless leg syndrome as a symptom during Covid
I had covid once, in April 2022 I think, and I had restless leg syndrome for the first time in my life during that infection. It was EXTREMELY uncomfortable - I couldn't sleep properly, and I mostly couldn't feel comfortable at all sitting up, but I also could not stop moving my legs almost constantly. I think I settled on weakly bicycling them. But since the rest of my symptoms approximated a severe flu, it also sort of blended into the background nightmare and I don't remember it very clearly.
That was the first time I ever had RLS, and I only know the name because I was googling the symptom at the time. Apparently it was a known symptom of that variant, or that's what the net told me at the time.
Well, I just had it for the SECOND time ever last night!
I fell asleep at midnight, and I guess I was awake with physical discomfort, verging on actual pain, from about 2 am to 7 am when I got up to give the cats their breakfast. It was a bit like the discomfort of a limb that's going to cramp or go to sleep in a bad position, but moving only eased it for a moment, so I was tossing and turning and only managed to sleep fitfully once during that, dreaming that I had RLS. After I fed the cats at 7 I microwaved a wheat pillow and when I went back to bed I put it on my thighs, which enabled me to fall asleep finally. Then, of course, I overslept.
Wax says that she gets RLS sometimes, but a mild version that doesn't bother her as much, and that it's apparently a known symptom of menopause?! Wow, I hate that.
And like so many problems, unfortunately, the most effective recommendations for managing it are all stuff like regular good sleep hygiene and good exercise habits, and it's like yeah I know, I'm TRYING! That, and maybe iron might help.
That was the first time I ever had RLS, and I only know the name because I was googling the symptom at the time. Apparently it was a known symptom of that variant, or that's what the net told me at the time.
Well, I just had it for the SECOND time ever last night!
I fell asleep at midnight, and I guess I was awake with physical discomfort, verging on actual pain, from about 2 am to 7 am when I got up to give the cats their breakfast. It was a bit like the discomfort of a limb that's going to cramp or go to sleep in a bad position, but moving only eased it for a moment, so I was tossing and turning and only managed to sleep fitfully once during that, dreaming that I had RLS. After I fed the cats at 7 I microwaved a wheat pillow and when I went back to bed I put it on my thighs, which enabled me to fall asleep finally. Then, of course, I overslept.
Wax says that she gets RLS sometimes, but a mild version that doesn't bother her as much, and that it's apparently a known symptom of menopause?! Wow, I hate that.
And like so many problems, unfortunately, the most effective recommendations for managing it are all stuff like regular good sleep hygiene and good exercise habits, and it's like yeah I know, I'm TRYING! That, and maybe iron might help.
Nonesensed (nonesensed) wrote2025-09-29 11:07 pm
nonesensed) wrote2025-09-29 11:07 pm
Quick update
Injured my shoulder, so my writing is going slowly right now. Have a good massage therapist though, so I'll be right as rain in no time. Just extra slow re: my sysiphean catch-up on posts and comments on here - thank you for your patience 💗
Btw, I've been listening to Florence + The Machine's new single on repeat since it came out about a month ago and I still enjoy it greatly:
Btw, I've been listening to Florence + The Machine's new single on repeat since it came out about a month ago and I still enjoy it greatly:
lydamorehouse (lydamorehouse) wrote2025-09-29 09:03 am
lydamorehouse) wrote2025-09-29 09:03 amEntry tags:
Crafty Monday
Actually, I worked on crafting things this weekend. Here's my current quilting project.
Image: very obviously amateur quilt with whale sharks and other sea patterns.
I kind of hate that I have to tell social media when I post pictures like this that yes, I know my lines are crooked. I am an amteur not looking for advice. Or the kind of fake encouragement of "you'll get better some day! Just keep practicing!" which, of course, intended or not, implies that I currently suck. I used to love to post these on Facebook, but the number of folks who will come on to my comments just to tell me about how I could improve it or to tell me that "practice makes perfect" really wore me down. Like, no, this is me after years of work, thanks. I like my fucked up lines, actually? They go to the character of the piece.
It never used to bother me.
One of the defining moments of my childhood (and one of my clearest earliest memories) must have been from second or maybe even first grade because I was still at Jefferson Elementary. We used to have a principal there in the 1970s who was maybe named Mrs. Olsen or some other very Minnesotan name like that. She would come into classrooms to check on teachers and students and it was always very stressful for both. The memory I have is that I'm coloring away at some project or other, realy enjoying myself, and she stops to watch me and says, "Some day, dear, you'll learn to color in between the lines." I nodded enthusiastically and said, "Yep! SOMEDAY!" clearly implying at my tender age NOT TODAY, SATAN, NOT TODAY.
I have been stubbornly coloring wherever the f*ck I want ever since.
So, yeah, my lines are crooked and my stitches suck, but you know what? This is for me and I'm having fun.
Image: close-up on some of the fabrics.
Image: very obviously amateur quilt with whale sharks and other sea patterns.
I kind of hate that I have to tell social media when I post pictures like this that yes, I know my lines are crooked. I am an amteur not looking for advice. Or the kind of fake encouragement of "you'll get better some day! Just keep practicing!" which, of course, intended or not, implies that I currently suck. I used to love to post these on Facebook, but the number of folks who will come on to my comments just to tell me about how I could improve it or to tell me that "practice makes perfect" really wore me down. Like, no, this is me after years of work, thanks. I like my fucked up lines, actually? They go to the character of the piece.
It never used to bother me.
One of the defining moments of my childhood (and one of my clearest earliest memories) must have been from second or maybe even first grade because I was still at Jefferson Elementary. We used to have a principal there in the 1970s who was maybe named Mrs. Olsen or some other very Minnesotan name like that. She would come into classrooms to check on teachers and students and it was always very stressful for both. The memory I have is that I'm coloring away at some project or other, realy enjoying myself, and she stops to watch me and says, "Some day, dear, you'll learn to color in between the lines." I nodded enthusiastically and said, "Yep! SOMEDAY!" clearly implying at my tender age NOT TODAY, SATAN, NOT TODAY.
I have been stubbornly coloring wherever the f*ck I want ever since.
So, yeah, my lines are crooked and my stitches suck, but you know what? This is for me and I'm having fun.
Image: close-up on some of the fabrics.
lydamorehouse (lydamorehouse) wrote2025-09-26 10:11 am
lydamorehouse) wrote2025-09-26 10:11 amEntry tags:
I Did a Thing or Two Today
In my continual shilling for Gaylaxicon 2025, I actually wrote myself a script and called in a tip to Racket for Nghi Vo's early release at Dreamhaven. That was nerve-wracking, and, of course, I forgot to mention that it's free and open to the public, so I called them back and did a second take. (I'm sure half their tip line is people stopping halfway through and saying, "Fuck. Let me do that again.") I'm now trying to come up with a way to sell mundanes on the idea of science fiction conventions generally, and ours, specifically. WISH ME LUCK.
I did, at least, manage to get us a featured story in Twin Cities Gay Scene: https://www.twincitiesgayscene.com/editorial/scene-stories- which is basically my press release with a few changes.
Will the mundanes want to come? I have no idea. But, you can't say I didn't try.
The other thing I've been doing is looking for a job. It's very likely that the latest School District referrendum seeking revenue will pass here in St. Paul in November which will substantially raise our property taxes AGAIN. It's hard to say no to schools that need funding, you know? But, if we don't want to become unhoused ourselves, I need to start contributing more than my paltry royalty checks and fairly sad (but DEEPLY APPRECIATED) Patreon money. So, I've been applying to various secretarial and library clerk positions--most of them parttime, but that will help us be able to afford our property taxes (which, in our case, because we escrow this stuff, increases our mortgage.) Wish me luck. I have very little hope because so many of my secretarial skills have proficiency in programs that... no longer exist. I'm a whiz at Word Perfect, y'all! And, Paradox databases! I'm perfect for your job here in 2025--a century I swear I still exist in!
I don't know how vampires do this. I mean, I guess the presumption is that all vampires invested a penny in 1776, suffered no market crashes, and are all rich now and living off some kind of endowment. I pity the vampire who started out life without a penny, was terrible at market speculation, and/or lost what little they did invest in the stockmarket crash of 1929 or the 90s or... recently. I once actually considered writing a novel about this called Account Dracula, in which the story follows the financial advisor to the vampires. It was one of those that was a cool idea but had no plot to hang the idea on. If I were Eleanor Arnason, I would have made the plot some kind of financial mystery, you know, like forensic accounting or something. But I *am* the vampire who does not understand the stock market, budgeting, or how to make any money whatsoever (see above.)
Yeah, so that's mostly me. In a little while, I'm taking Mason to go get his annual flu shot. As a family we signed up for Docket, which is supposed to help people track their vaccines. Of course, Wisconsin my home state is not on the list of participating areas so it looks like I never got ANY of my childhood vaccinations. I should ask my parents if there is any written documents about my vaccines from the late-1960s. After that, the plan is to pick up Shawn early from work so that we can go to St. Mark's annual rummage sale... and, with any luck, maybe hit a few early estate sales, too.
What about you all? Any weekend plans?
I did, at least, manage to get us a featured story in Twin Cities Gay Scene: https://www.twincitiesgayscene.com/editorial/scene-stories- which is basically my press release with a few changes.
Will the mundanes want to come? I have no idea. But, you can't say I didn't try.
The other thing I've been doing is looking for a job. It's very likely that the latest School District referrendum seeking revenue will pass here in St. Paul in November which will substantially raise our property taxes AGAIN. It's hard to say no to schools that need funding, you know? But, if we don't want to become unhoused ourselves, I need to start contributing more than my paltry royalty checks and fairly sad (but DEEPLY APPRECIATED) Patreon money. So, I've been applying to various secretarial and library clerk positions--most of them parttime, but that will help us be able to afford our property taxes (which, in our case, because we escrow this stuff, increases our mortgage.) Wish me luck. I have very little hope because so many of my secretarial skills have proficiency in programs that... no longer exist. I'm a whiz at Word Perfect, y'all! And, Paradox databases! I'm perfect for your job here in 2025--a century I swear I still exist in!
I don't know how vampires do this. I mean, I guess the presumption is that all vampires invested a penny in 1776, suffered no market crashes, and are all rich now and living off some kind of endowment. I pity the vampire who started out life without a penny, was terrible at market speculation, and/or lost what little they did invest in the stockmarket crash of 1929 or the 90s or... recently. I once actually considered writing a novel about this called Account Dracula, in which the story follows the financial advisor to the vampires. It was one of those that was a cool idea but had no plot to hang the idea on. If I were Eleanor Arnason, I would have made the plot some kind of financial mystery, you know, like forensic accounting or something. But I *am* the vampire who does not understand the stock market, budgeting, or how to make any money whatsoever (see above.)
Yeah, so that's mostly me. In a little while, I'm taking Mason to go get his annual flu shot. As a family we signed up for Docket, which is supposed to help people track their vaccines. Of course, Wisconsin my home state is not on the list of participating areas so it looks like I never got ANY of my childhood vaccinations. I should ask my parents if there is any written documents about my vaccines from the late-1960s. After that, the plan is to pick up Shawn early from work so that we can go to St. Mark's annual rummage sale... and, with any luck, maybe hit a few early estate sales, too.
What about you all? Any weekend plans?
Cimorene (cimorene) wrote2025-09-26 05:33 pm
cimorene) wrote2025-09-26 05:33 pmEntry tags:
I've started clicker training Sipuli
Sipuli has had three days of short sessions, 5-10 minutes, of clicker training, and it's adorable. She's possibly the cleverest cat we've ever met, and she's very food-motivated.
Our rewards are the little cubes of freeze dried chicken, which are much more expensive than most cat treats but also healthier because, unlike most cat treats, they don't contain anything but meat; and they were the only kind Snookums could have because he was diabetic, and as a result Tristana is used to getting them at bedtime and after Procedures like claw trimming and ear cleaning.
Sipuli has not fully mastered "touch the target", but she's so engaged, and you can see her thinking.
The idea behind this suggestion from the cat behaviorist was, I think, being able to ultimately train them simultaneously in parallel, and maybe get them to act differently at the gate. This seems possible, but we haven't started training Tristana or introduced Wax making the requests yet, so it's early.
On the minus side, yesterday Sipuli got out and chased Tristana across the room for about thirty seconds. You'd have thought they were both dying, but actually it seems like they did not in fact touch each other at all - Tristana was screaming under the chair while Sipuli was yelling back. That's good, that nobody was hurt and they didn't physically fight. But obviously still a setback. Tristana had to go hide in the turtle bed on the heated upstairs bathroom floor for a few hours.
Our rewards are the little cubes of freeze dried chicken, which are much more expensive than most cat treats but also healthier because, unlike most cat treats, they don't contain anything but meat; and they were the only kind Snookums could have because he was diabetic, and as a result Tristana is used to getting them at bedtime and after Procedures like claw trimming and ear cleaning.
Sipuli has not fully mastered "touch the target", but she's so engaged, and you can see her thinking.
The idea behind this suggestion from the cat behaviorist was, I think, being able to ultimately train them simultaneously in parallel, and maybe get them to act differently at the gate. This seems possible, but we haven't started training Tristana or introduced Wax making the requests yet, so it's early.
On the minus side, yesterday Sipuli got out and chased Tristana across the room for about thirty seconds. You'd have thought they were both dying, but actually it seems like they did not in fact touch each other at all - Tristana was screaming under the chair while Sipuli was yelling back. That's good, that nobody was hurt and they didn't physically fight. But obviously still a setback. Tristana had to go hide in the turtle bed on the heated upstairs bathroom floor for a few hours.
lydamorehouse (lydamorehouse) wrote2025-09-25 07:39 am
lydamorehouse) wrote2025-09-25 07:39 amEntry tags:
Further Adventures and Home...
I don't know what it is about traveling, but it wears me out.
I've been home since Tuesday (a.k.a. failed rapture day), but today is the first day that I sort of vaguely feel human again. I'm up early, so it seems like a good time to recount the last days in DC for you all.
Speaking of up early,naomikritzer rarely is. To be fair to her and all the other crepuscular folks out there, I am an unusually early riser. Every day of the convention I popped out of bed without an alarm somewhere around 6:30 am CT/7:30 am ET. The fact that it was an hour later in DC than at home worked to my advantage because by 7:30 am a lot of coffee shops are actually open. So, just like every day of the convention, I wandered across Rockville Pike to get us both a nice espresso drink. But, on Monday, I was in no hurry to get back because I very wisely made us no plans until noon.
First of all, I figured that after GoHing at a convention, Naomi would appreciate a slow morning. Secondly, both she and I walked a little too far the night before and woke up feeling it. On occassion, I plan fantasy trips for myself and I'm now going to be giving any directions that include "a twenty minute walk" a bit of a side-eye. I can walk for 20 minutes, but I do start to drag if there are lots of those! I mean, it does kind of matter whether or not the view is interesting. Some 20 minute walks feel faster than others. I had, at least, taped up my arches. My arches have been giving me trouble lately (I've been seeing a PT) so I was prepared and had been doing my exercises, but, man.
DC is funny because a lot of touristy stuff in it is both really centrally located AND really spread out. As that ad reminded us last night, the Smithsonian Mall is big!
My plan for us that morning was to check out the DC fish market. Maine Avenue Fish Market is the oldest continually-operating open air fish market in the United States. It was founded almost two decades earlier than the one in New York City, believe it or not. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maine_Avenue_Fish_Market). I will say? It doesn't look like much.
Image: fish market, with a haze of... my fingers? Not sure. Pretend it's an old-timey photo, since this was the best one I took.
The market is just off the L'Enfant Plaza metro stop (also on the red line!) Enough people were headed to the market for lunch that we just sort of followed the crowd down to the wharf area. It is, in fact, little more than you see in the picture (minus my fingers). There's this set of stalls and another set of equal size directly behind. It's one of those places, though, where you can buy your fish or seafood on one side and bring it in a bucket over to the other and they will cook it for you fresh. Naomi bought a handful of shrimp for us to have this way and they were amazing. I ended up wanting something more like a full lunch, so I stopped at the little shop at the end which had prepared (but fresh!) sandwiches.
Image: crab cake with sweet potato fries.
I got the crab cake because crab cake is something I used to try to make at home without ever having experienced the "real thing." This was really very good and I will admit that I fed the pigeons, seagulls, and little brown ones (sparrows) bits of fries and hamburger bun.
We could see the tip of the Washington Monument from the market and so Naomi convinced me (only slightly against my better judgement) that it was an easy "20 minute walk" (now my code word for any walk that I later come to regret) to the Smithsonian Mall. It wasn't bad, really. Washington, DC has a whole lot of really lovely parks along the river. This one had clearly been planted with a ton of cherry trees, many of which had been trained to droop and arch their branches over the walkway. I bet that in the spring, during cherry blossom season, the walk we took would have been absolutely stunning. In late September, it was a little muggy and kind of hot.
We once again ran into a clot of Naitonal Guard, whom Naomi asked where they were from. Once again, it was West Virginia. She also asked them all what they did when they weren't serving in the Guard and it ranged from "just out of college" to "IT manager." Again, the group was largely white, though at least one person could have qualified as a PoC in my estimation. We wished them a good day, which, I know, was probably a wasted opportunity to yell at them about the current presidential administration, but, frankly, I don't see how being deployed here is their choice. For all I know, the whole lot of them voted for Kamala Harris. I kind of have to wonder at the fact that we rarely saw National Guard anywhere but touristy places (and subway/metro stops) if this wasn't a kind of quiet quitting on their or their commander's part. Like, they weren't actually marching in the streets. They were just boredly wandering the Mall or chatting amongst themselves at metro stops.
I dunno. I will say, they were carrying guns, so just standing around did also feel threatening? If they were in Minneapolis/St. Paul doing this, I might feel really differently, that's for sure.
These days a lot of the popular Smithsonian museums require that you sign up for timed entrances. Naomi and I debated a lot the night before about how long we thought it would take to get from here to there, and what time would be most conveinent so that we could connect up with our friendmrissa . We had settled on 3:00 PM for the National Musuem of Africian Amerian History & Culture, which nearly worked out? With our slow wander up from the wharf, it was close to 2:00 PM when we got to the Smithsonian. We sat for a while in the shade, having bought cold water from the gift shop near the Washington Monument. Even though it was a crap shoot as to whether or not we'd've needed timed tickets, I convinced Naomi to consider wandering the National Museum of Asian Arts as it was directly across the mall, or thereabouts. We lucked out and were able to waste a bit of time in air-conditioning wandering the exhibits. I feel like the National Museum of Asian Arts is one of those museums that could be called "stuff a rich guy brought back from Asia in the late 1800s/early 1900s." Not unlike the Walker's Asian Arts section, honestly? But, it was nice not to have to be sitting in the surprisingly bright sun.
My feet, at this point, were kind of killing me, but I had a secret plan to solve that once we were inside the Africian American History & Culture museum. Neither Naomi and Marissa like to sit and watch movies at museums, but my plan was to sit through all of them in the back row and massage life back into my feet. Which, once we got in, I totally did.
I actually came out of that museum feeling almost kind of human again, though when another "20 minute walk" was proposed to get us to the restaurant, I will admit, I baulked and ended up hailing us a taxi cab.
But, I get ahead of myself.
The museum is huge. One of the reasons, of course, that the three of us wanted to go (or at least, I wanted to go) is because it is my darkest suspicion that if Trump gets a chance, he will destroy the collection as much as possible. I noticed a lot of people--mostly Black--actually filming everything they saw on their phones. I wonder if there is some kind of community or grassroots effort to collect and preserve the exhibit, particularly the history of enslavement, given just how many people I saw filming. The musuem as it is set up now has its lower levels devoted to history. Very cleverly, you literally rise up out of slavery, as the story of kdinapping and enslavement starts at the lowest level, C, and you work your way up through the Civil War and Emancipation, B, and end in the Civil Rights to present level, A. Luckily for me and my feet, there was a nice 10 minute movie at the crux of each level (you go up these long ramps to move between eras) and so I watched each of those.
I suspect I was supposed to do the opposite with the culture sections, ie, start at the top and work my way down? Because the top floor has a lot of physical art, like painting and such; the next level down has what I'd call the art of revolution--so like a lot of art that came out of the sixties and the Civil Rights movement, like this....
Image: statue of the famous moment at the 1968 Olympics when medalists Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised their fists in the symbol for Black Power during the National Anthem.
...and then the next level down encouraged people to interact with art by doing a dance-dance revolution type thing to hip hop, etc. It didn't diminish my experience to do it the "wrong" way, but, because the museum closed at 5:30 pm, I sort of wish I'd had more time to explore the art at the very top. Ah well.
I will say, it was one of the better museums I've been to in a long time. No surprise, I suppose, given that it is a Smithsonian, but I really could have spent the whole day there exploring.
Marissa wanted to return to a place she'd had dinner at the night before, Oyamel. There is apparently also one of these in New York, but, obviously, we were at the DC location. I was not feeling nearly as adventurous as I normally am, and so I ended up just having a lovely chicken tamale. I absolutely ADORED the atmosphere of the place, however. The three of us sat outside and the evening was fully magical in terms of temperature, the company, and that sense you get when you're traveling that you are having An Experience, you know? 10/10 would again and the next time I would order the cricket tacos.
The metro was quite close, so we all hopped on and returned to our hotel.
All and all, it didn't necessarily feel like we did All The Things, but I think we did enough of the things. Oh, and I got to use my superpower of being able to summon a taxi in a world filled with Uber and Lyft in order to get the three of us to the restaurant. It is a superpower that is normally very useless, given that I live in a town where taxis must be called on the phone and appointments made. But, I have rarely failed to catch a taxi any time I'm visiting a large enough city. I've hailed them in Chicago, Los Angeles, and DC. (I was too young to use this superpower when I was last in NYC.) And by hail? I mean, literally, I will be in a street and an available taxi will come by and I will stick my hand out and yell, "TAXI!" and they stop for us.
Naomi thinks I had a past life as a New Yorker. Because this skill is clearly fairly useless in the modern era. But it is the reason I do not have a Lyft or Uber app on my phone.
So, yeah, there's very little to say about Tuesday other than Naomi and I did discuss the possiblity our pilot getting raptured. Luckily, that did not happen.
Now, I'm home, returned to the "real world" where dishes must be washed and food prepared. Alas, down to earth once again.
I've been home since Tuesday (a.k.a. failed rapture day), but today is the first day that I sort of vaguely feel human again. I'm up early, so it seems like a good time to recount the last days in DC for you all.
Speaking of up early,
naomikritzer rarely is. To be fair to her and all the other crepuscular folks out there, I am an unusually early riser. Every day of the convention I popped out of bed without an alarm somewhere around 6:30 am CT/7:30 am ET. The fact that it was an hour later in DC than at home worked to my advantage because by 7:30 am a lot of coffee shops are actually open. So, just like every day of the convention, I wandered across Rockville Pike to get us both a nice espresso drink. But, on Monday, I was in no hurry to get back because I very wisely made us no plans until noon. First of all, I figured that after GoHing at a convention, Naomi would appreciate a slow morning. Secondly, both she and I walked a little too far the night before and woke up feeling it. On occassion, I plan fantasy trips for myself and I'm now going to be giving any directions that include "a twenty minute walk" a bit of a side-eye. I can walk for 20 minutes, but I do start to drag if there are lots of those! I mean, it does kind of matter whether or not the view is interesting. Some 20 minute walks feel faster than others. I had, at least, taped up my arches. My arches have been giving me trouble lately (I've been seeing a PT) so I was prepared and had been doing my exercises, but, man.
DC is funny because a lot of touristy stuff in it is both really centrally located AND really spread out. As that ad reminded us last night, the Smithsonian Mall is big!
My plan for us that morning was to check out the DC fish market. Maine Avenue Fish Market is the oldest continually-operating open air fish market in the United States. It was founded almost two decades earlier than the one in New York City, believe it or not. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maine_Avenue_Fish_Market). I will say? It doesn't look like much.
Image: fish market, with a haze of... my fingers? Not sure. Pretend it's an old-timey photo, since this was the best one I took.
The market is just off the L'Enfant Plaza metro stop (also on the red line!) Enough people were headed to the market for lunch that we just sort of followed the crowd down to the wharf area. It is, in fact, little more than you see in the picture (minus my fingers). There's this set of stalls and another set of equal size directly behind. It's one of those places, though, where you can buy your fish or seafood on one side and bring it in a bucket over to the other and they will cook it for you fresh. Naomi bought a handful of shrimp for us to have this way and they were amazing. I ended up wanting something more like a full lunch, so I stopped at the little shop at the end which had prepared (but fresh!) sandwiches.
Image: crab cake with sweet potato fries.
I got the crab cake because crab cake is something I used to try to make at home without ever having experienced the "real thing." This was really very good and I will admit that I fed the pigeons, seagulls, and little brown ones (sparrows) bits of fries and hamburger bun.
We could see the tip of the Washington Monument from the market and so Naomi convinced me (only slightly against my better judgement) that it was an easy "20 minute walk" (now my code word for any walk that I later come to regret) to the Smithsonian Mall. It wasn't bad, really. Washington, DC has a whole lot of really lovely parks along the river. This one had clearly been planted with a ton of cherry trees, many of which had been trained to droop and arch their branches over the walkway. I bet that in the spring, during cherry blossom season, the walk we took would have been absolutely stunning. In late September, it was a little muggy and kind of hot.
We once again ran into a clot of Naitonal Guard, whom Naomi asked where they were from. Once again, it was West Virginia. She also asked them all what they did when they weren't serving in the Guard and it ranged from "just out of college" to "IT manager." Again, the group was largely white, though at least one person could have qualified as a PoC in my estimation. We wished them a good day, which, I know, was probably a wasted opportunity to yell at them about the current presidential administration, but, frankly, I don't see how being deployed here is their choice. For all I know, the whole lot of them voted for Kamala Harris. I kind of have to wonder at the fact that we rarely saw National Guard anywhere but touristy places (and subway/metro stops) if this wasn't a kind of quiet quitting on their or their commander's part. Like, they weren't actually marching in the streets. They were just boredly wandering the Mall or chatting amongst themselves at metro stops.
I dunno. I will say, they were carrying guns, so just standing around did also feel threatening? If they were in Minneapolis/St. Paul doing this, I might feel really differently, that's for sure.
These days a lot of the popular Smithsonian museums require that you sign up for timed entrances. Naomi and I debated a lot the night before about how long we thought it would take to get from here to there, and what time would be most conveinent so that we could connect up with our friend
mrissa . We had settled on 3:00 PM for the National Musuem of Africian Amerian History & Culture, which nearly worked out? With our slow wander up from the wharf, it was close to 2:00 PM when we got to the Smithsonian. We sat for a while in the shade, having bought cold water from the gift shop near the Washington Monument. Even though it was a crap shoot as to whether or not we'd've needed timed tickets, I convinced Naomi to consider wandering the National Museum of Asian Arts as it was directly across the mall, or thereabouts. We lucked out and were able to waste a bit of time in air-conditioning wandering the exhibits. I feel like the National Museum of Asian Arts is one of those museums that could be called "stuff a rich guy brought back from Asia in the late 1800s/early 1900s." Not unlike the Walker's Asian Arts section, honestly? But, it was nice not to have to be sitting in the surprisingly bright sun. My feet, at this point, were kind of killing me, but I had a secret plan to solve that once we were inside the Africian American History & Culture museum. Neither Naomi and Marissa like to sit and watch movies at museums, but my plan was to sit through all of them in the back row and massage life back into my feet. Which, once we got in, I totally did.
I actually came out of that museum feeling almost kind of human again, though when another "20 minute walk" was proposed to get us to the restaurant, I will admit, I baulked and ended up hailing us a taxi cab.
But, I get ahead of myself.
The museum is huge. One of the reasons, of course, that the three of us wanted to go (or at least, I wanted to go) is because it is my darkest suspicion that if Trump gets a chance, he will destroy the collection as much as possible. I noticed a lot of people--mostly Black--actually filming everything they saw on their phones. I wonder if there is some kind of community or grassroots effort to collect and preserve the exhibit, particularly the history of enslavement, given just how many people I saw filming. The musuem as it is set up now has its lower levels devoted to history. Very cleverly, you literally rise up out of slavery, as the story of kdinapping and enslavement starts at the lowest level, C, and you work your way up through the Civil War and Emancipation, B, and end in the Civil Rights to present level, A. Luckily for me and my feet, there was a nice 10 minute movie at the crux of each level (you go up these long ramps to move between eras) and so I watched each of those.
I suspect I was supposed to do the opposite with the culture sections, ie, start at the top and work my way down? Because the top floor has a lot of physical art, like painting and such; the next level down has what I'd call the art of revolution--so like a lot of art that came out of the sixties and the Civil Rights movement, like this....
Image: statue of the famous moment at the 1968 Olympics when medalists Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised their fists in the symbol for Black Power during the National Anthem.
...and then the next level down encouraged people to interact with art by doing a dance-dance revolution type thing to hip hop, etc. It didn't diminish my experience to do it the "wrong" way, but, because the museum closed at 5:30 pm, I sort of wish I'd had more time to explore the art at the very top. Ah well.
I will say, it was one of the better museums I've been to in a long time. No surprise, I suppose, given that it is a Smithsonian, but I really could have spent the whole day there exploring.
Marissa wanted to return to a place she'd had dinner at the night before, Oyamel. There is apparently also one of these in New York, but, obviously, we were at the DC location. I was not feeling nearly as adventurous as I normally am, and so I ended up just having a lovely chicken tamale. I absolutely ADORED the atmosphere of the place, however. The three of us sat outside and the evening was fully magical in terms of temperature, the company, and that sense you get when you're traveling that you are having An Experience, you know? 10/10 would again and the next time I would order the cricket tacos.
The metro was quite close, so we all hopped on and returned to our hotel.
All and all, it didn't necessarily feel like we did All The Things, but I think we did enough of the things. Oh, and I got to use my superpower of being able to summon a taxi in a world filled with Uber and Lyft in order to get the three of us to the restaurant. It is a superpower that is normally very useless, given that I live in a town where taxis must be called on the phone and appointments made. But, I have rarely failed to catch a taxi any time I'm visiting a large enough city. I've hailed them in Chicago, Los Angeles, and DC. (I was too young to use this superpower when I was last in NYC.) And by hail? I mean, literally, I will be in a street and an available taxi will come by and I will stick my hand out and yell, "TAXI!" and they stop for us.
Naomi thinks I had a past life as a New Yorker. Because this skill is clearly fairly useless in the modern era. But it is the reason I do not have a Lyft or Uber app on my phone.
So, yeah, there's very little to say about Tuesday other than Naomi and I did discuss the possiblity our pilot getting raptured. Luckily, that did not happen.
Now, I'm home, returned to the "real world" where dishes must be washed and food prepared. Alas, down to earth once again.