Will you join me in donating to support trans rights in exchange for RPGs?

I have a few things I want to post about – a fabulous movie we watched this week, a book or three I want to share – but this seems more important at the moment. Several states, including Florida, have recently passed bills targeting trans and queer people, including removing books from schools that mention LGBTQIA+ topics. Florida in particular is actively removing topics from their public universities, hampering the education students selected when they chose to pursue a degree there.

I don’t know if the politicians making these decisions honestly believe the bullshit they’re spouting, or if they’re just trying to rile up voters leading into the next (painfully long) presidential election cycle. What really matters is that they are hurting people in the process: LGBTQ youth who are unsupported by family or community as they figure out who they are in life have higher suicide rates.

Back to RPGs, or Role-Playing Games (if you don’t know what I’m talking about, Dungeons & Dragons is probably the most famous of those)… for a $5 (or more) donation, you can buy this bundle with 505 TTRPG-related items. (The TT stands for Table Top, as RPGs are traditionally played sitting around a table.) If you donate $10 or more, there’s an added supplement available to you (woot! 506 items!).

What are you waiting for? The offer is only good through the next 22 days.

A medically-oriented first quarter

I’ve had ongoing pain in one hip (and sometimes leg) for a while now, and finally made it into the Orthopedics office at the beginning of the year to address the issue. Noting that I highly recommend against dealing with pain for “a while”; I should have gone in sooner, so I won’t bother listing excuses.

After eight weekly visits for physical therapy (PT), there was some improvement, but also ongoing stiffness and pain, so my doctor sent me for an MRI. That was an interesting experience in several ways, starting with how I arrived twenty minutes early but checked in fifteen minutes late. (Someone forgot to unlock the main door.)

MRI stands for Magnetic Resonance Imaging, and there’s a fascinating explanation on Wikipedia about how it uses magnetic fields and radio waves to map out soft tissues. I was warned that it’s noisy… a “cacophony” of sound. The office fortunately provided both ear plugs (standard) and a headset (apparently this varies); the operator was able to talk to me via the headset.

I was concerned that I would get bored; I was told walking in that I needed to try to lay still for thirty-five minutes (without a book or cat!). Instead, I found the process interesting. Before each scan, the automated system told me the expected duration, and I almost immediately noticed that the sounds for each scan, and even within some of the scans, were different, and the direction the sound came from varied. After some thumps and murs and hums, I was released back into the world to await my results.

The scan results were sent to me online, followed fairly quickly by my doctor’s assessment, translating medical-ese into, well, slightly less medical-ese: “chronic degenerative changes to your labrum and hip impingement”. That’s about what it sounds like… I scheduled a follow-up appointment for today, and she clarified that it’s essentially wear and tear on my hip joint. We rolled straight into the possibility she had mentioned before scheduling the MRI: a cortisone shot.

Alas, it will be a couple weeks before I really know the impact of the shot, it takes the steroids a bit of time to do their magic to reduce the inflammation in the area. I was impressed with my doctor’s bedside manner, she talked through each part of the injection process as she approached it, from the pinch of the needle going in, to the sensations I’d feel as the different numbing agents were released into my system.

Now I wait and see.

Thoughts on A Killing Moon

I made a mistake at Capricon: I bought A Killing Moon, the first book in Alexis D. Craig’s Winged Guardians series.

I read the first couple chapters at the convention, along with pages 119 through 121 to be sure I’d be comfortable reading them out loud to an audience. The panel’s title was judging a book by page 119; the presenters skipped to 119 or thereabouts and read a couple pages, then the audience gauged whether they’d be interested in reading the book before the title was revealed. As I explained after revealing the cover, the book kicks off (in the prologue) with a sex scene, so I skipped ahead to see if the page selection was going to be appropriate for all ages attending the panel.

I can’t reiterate this enough: when given the opportunity to buy books directly from the author at an event, buy the whole damn series. I had to set A Killing Moon down for a couple review books, then breezed through it and wanted more… you know, those other three books that I failed to buy at the convention.

The book itself is a paranormal romance filled with shapeshifters, along with some assassination attempts and palace intrigue. The protagonists are a werewolf and were-crow, and many other were-species are mentioned in this robust hidden world intertwined with ours. Craig clearly has a knack for writing characters that obviously belong together both in and out of the bedroom (living room, and other places) and showing the character evolution as they reach that realization.

If you’ll excuse me, I have to go place a book order.

Chores as self-care for future me

From dishes to sweeping to cleaning windows, nobody that I know really likes chores. These daily, weekly, or even intermittent tasks are things we do because they need to get done, not because we enjoy them.

I had a revelation the other night as I was preparing for bed. As I approached the end of a toilet paper roll – you know, that single sheet or two left that have you wondering whether you should finish it – I realized that I would either be changing the roll in the low light of bed time prep or no light in the middle of the night. Changing it in that moment was looking after future me.

I thought about other chores that I do and how I space them out, realizing that I frequently look out for my future self. I start most mornings by emptying the dish drainer (after feeding the cats, of course), so that I have space after breakfast when I wash dishes. I wash some dishes as I’m cooking, reducing the clutter on the counter and in the sink. Since we have a policy that the person who didn’t cook washes dishes at shared meals, this also lightens the other cook’s workload.

I still don’t really like chores, but future me always appreciates the effort when she finds only one chore to do instead of two. Or toilet paper that doesn’t need changing in the middle of the night.

The Paramount Theatre presents Into the Woods

The third show of the Paramount Theatre’s 2022/2023 season is Into the Woods, which starts off with familiar fairy tales: Cinderella, Jack and the Beanstalk, Little Red Ridinghood, and Rapunzel, with a bonus story about Rapunzel’s brother, The Baker. The basic premise to the first half of the show has each of the main characters working towards their happily ever after. The second half covers the ramifications of those happily ever afters, including two princes in Agony (it’s a song), and the giant’s wife searching for Jack to avenge her husband’s death. There are, as always, a plethora of terrible character decisions needed to make a good story.

As a longtime Paramount subscriber, I am completely in awe of their ability to stun me with their set design. As we walked into the theatre, I paused to gape at the forest on stage. Wow.

During the show, the forest moves, so you feel the difference as the actors run through the forest or pause in clearings. When Rapunzel lets down her hair from the tower, it continues down into the forest for the prince to climb, ascending among those trees. And when the giant – who is never actually on stage (size different, you know?) – comes stomping through, you hear the splintering of the trees.

Into the Woods is playing at the Paramount through March 19th, so you have plenty of time to go see it.

Another delightful Capricon

What makes a delightful convention? Seeing as how I’m not on staff for Capricon, it’s mostly about seeing friends, making some new friends, and since 2019, helping to host a Box Fort-themed party.

An archway made of shipping boxes as the entrance to a hotel suite.

The Box Fort parties are always hosted at Capricon; our first two were at a hotel in Wheeling. I built a box fort in my living room in 2021, when the convention went virtual because of the pandemic, and we built our box forts in a downtown Chicago hotel this year and last. Our space this year was humongous: a Presidential Suite, which has about 2,400 square feet (almost twice the size of my house!). We didn’t use all that space, the bedroom and master bathroom were reserved for the group members staying in the room. That still left us with four distinct areas: the entry from the hall (which is where the arch appeared), the bar area (placed by the attached kitchen), the center area (with a low table, perfect for coloring or drawing), and the lounge side where we ran movies.

Assorted boxes and cat cutouts along the walk and window. In the distance, the Ferris wheel at Chicago's Navy Pier is just visible.

The convention theme was the afterlife, so our party theme was Schrödinger’s Box Fort, which meant there were cat cutouts (paper and cardboard) spread throughout the boxes. By the end of the weekend, some of them had been colored by attendees.

In addition to the parties, I volunteered to be on some panels, managed to attend a couple panels and a concert, and did a little bit of shopping. And a decent amount of walking – only about 3 miles a day, down from the Chicon average of 5 miles a day. (To be fair, the hotel layouts were different.)

I have made myself a mental note to take the Monday after Capricon off next year to recover. We estimate it took about 9 hours to build the box fort; disassembling all of the boxes on Sunday morning took about 3. (That doesn’t even include the other clean-up.) All in all, I had a great time and look forward to next year’s Box Fort, when we celebrate our 5th anniversary. (We’re not counting the virtual one, OK?)

Exploring something new through Restaurant Week

First, let me explain what Restaurant Week is: a joint marketing effort between a city and several local restaurants, presenting a fixed price menu – typically lower than regular prices – to attract new customers. I learned of this winter’s Restaurant Week from the Facebook page of nearby Geneva, and thought it would be a fine opportunity to explore something new. We were originally going to try a different restaurant on a different day, but postponed due to incoming snow. When I checked the next day, as we were getting ready to leave, our original choice was completely booked, we decided to wing it by driving to a part of Geneva that featured several restaurants, hoping that our first choice there would have space.

They did have space, so we ended up having a lovely lunch at Barrel + Rye. You’ll be shocked, I’m sure, that a restaurant with an extensive whiskey menu was already on my radar. I had walked past it one morning, over a year ago, after shopping at Geneva’s farmers’ market.

What appears to be a bland white soup garnished with snippets of something green was a delightfully tasty celery root and coconut soup.

Their Restaurant Week lunch menu had two courses with two choices to choose from: Celery Root + Coconut Milk Soup or Citrus Salad, then Italian Roasted Pork Sandwich or Chicken Shawarma. (Dinner had different entree options, plus a dessert course.) We both selected the soup. (This was also their Soup of the Day, so it’s not listed on the normal menu.)

Cheese curds are a Midwest staple. Brie cheese curds, however, are something I had never encountered before. They were tasty with the raspberry jalapeño jam.

But wait! The Shareables section of their normal menu has Brie cheese curds with a raspberry habanero jam. Since we both love cheese curds, and had never tried brie ones, we opted to include an appetizer as well. (There are also white cheddar cheese curds available as part of another appetizer.)

Italian Roasted Pork Sandwich (including broccoli) with a dipping sauce and a side of tasty seasoned fries.
Chicken shawarma and vegetables tucked into naan bread, with a side of tasty seasoned fries

After all that deliciousness, we made it to our entrees: an Italian Roasted Pork Sandwich (listed as Philly Italian Pork on the normal menu, which explains the dipping sauce) and Chicken Shawarma, both with sides of tasty seasons fries. And yes, I tried a new (to me) whiskey: Rabbit Hole Dareringer.

Given the tasty food and fabulous service, I suspect we’ll be returning to Barrel + Rye before the next Restaurant Week.

What’s your recipe’s secret ingredient?

One of the fun things about cooking is learning a recipe and then adding just a touch of something to make it uniquely your own. Your secret ingredient, per se. It’s the crunch of celery in the family potato salad recipe and swapping homegrown chives in for the green onions.

Why am I thinking of secret ingredients? I made guacamole the other day. The traditional guacamole recipe is mashed avocado with lime juice (both for flavor and to slow down the browning), salt and perhaps cilantro, often including onion and tomato. I may have included cilantro when it’s in season (it’s snowing at the moment, so definitely not in season), though I’m more likely to put the cilantro into a homemade salsa. I also tend to skip the tomato. What I do include without fail – my secret ingredient – is curry powder.

Similarly, I add Italian seasoning to my pizza dough. It’s a minor addition to the recipe, so it doesn’t change the consistency of the dough, just adds a little spike of flavor that can be smelled as the dough starts rising and even more when it bakes.

What “secret” ingredient have you added to a recipe?

A busy week brings cat photos

Despite being a short work, it’s been crazily busy, so I’m sharing some cat photos.

Zuko, our youngest cat, perched on the fridge with his paws solidly resting on the door, with a look that says "Don't you dare open it, peasant."

Don’t you just love Zuko’s look, like he’ll be outraged if I open the fridge door? (Why no, he’s not supposed to sit on the fridge, but the new fridge is taller and I’d have to grab a step stool if he sits anywhere other than the very front.)

Zuko and Diane on an unmade bed with a combination of Doctor Who sheets, comforter, and a snow leopard blanket. Zuko has his front paws stretched out to the edge of the bed.

You can’t tell in most of the photos of him, but Zuko is super long and he likes stretching out… though not usually on the sofa. (He also likes chewing on the leopard print blanket in this photo while pawing at it and purring.)

From left to right: Diane, a black and white cat, curled up on a Princess Bridge blanket, leaning against a crocheted Totoro pillow with a crocheted Settlers of Catan pillow above it; June, a tortoiseshell cat and Arwen, a white and black cat, curled up together on one side of a crocheted Captain America shield blank with a TARDIS pillow behind them; Zuko curled up on the other side of the same blanket and partially resting on a fluffy whitish blanket.

In the mornings, the cats tend to spread out across the house to different napping spots. In the afternoons though, they gradually make their way to the sofa with careful placement. Diane will growl at Arwen if she’s not fully settled yet, and Arwen is careful not to curl up by Zuko unless that’s the only remaining spot.

Inventing Spanglish terminology

We have a strangely multilingual household, since Cassandra and I both speak English (obviously) and Spanish (at different levels) and are both using Duolingo to pick up at least tidbits of other languages. When she tells a cat to get off the counter, she usually says it in Hawaiian; I frequently say it in Spanish. If I’m trying to say something in German (which is not the language I’m currently focused on) and don’t know a word, I’m more likely to fill in with the Spanish equivalent instead of the English.

It’s probably not surprising that sometimes we invent words to fill in some of the gaps. Having spent a decent amount of time in fandom, I’ve been familiar with the term “glomp” for well over a decade, but Dictionary.com and Google Translate don’t recognize the word. Since cats are frequently glomped (carefully) in this house, knowing the Spanish equivalent seemed useful. So Cassandra invented one when she said “estoy glompeando a Zuko.” Or was it “estoy glompando a Zuko“?

After some consideration, I believe the root verb should be glompear, and it’s treated as a regular verb for conjugation: yo glompeo, tu glompeas, nosotros glompeamos, etc. But it could also be a root verb of glompar, conjugated to yo glompo, tu glompas, nosotros glompamos, etc. Which do you think is the most appropriate translation?

If you don’t like it, que-ever, don’t use it. For my part, necesito glompear un gato antes de trabajar.