Mom's Guide to the Galaxy

The end of an era.

My father passed away this week, at a mere 91 years old.

Now I realize that to a lot of people, 91 is downright ancient. But Dad didn’t really start showing his age until the last few years, after being hit by a couple strokes. He climbed his last mountain, Pacaya, at 80, with my cousin’s family. He stopped playing racquetball at 72, not because he couldn’t play anymore, but because there weren’t racquetball courts nearby. And at 91, he was still happily traveling at every opportunity – he visited his little sister in England, went to his mother-in-law’s birthday party in Oregon, and was on a cruise in September when he fell ill. As I said, a mere 91.

I can’t tell most of Dad’s story; I’ve only been around for about half of it. But it started in Darlington, England before World War II, included military service just after the war, and was followed by a move to the United States after he completed his Library Science degree. He spend a couple of years in Ohio, followed by some time at the University of Illinois, Penn State University, and Portland State University (yes, he went from one PSU to another), before finishing his career at the University of Miami in Florida. A work trip brought him to Guatemala when I was in elementary school; the next summer, we came to Guatemala to learn Spanish.

Our family has never quite left since then, as we moved here for junior high with visits between here and Miami. By the time Dad retired, they had a house here, which they used as a base to help raise some of the grandchildren while traveling around the world. We are left with a great number of books, including an extensive Jerome K. Jerome collection, whose bibliography Dad worked on for years. Dad was rather excited the day I cracked open one of his English copies of Three Men in a Boat and found a printing mistake he didn’t have cataloged.

He also collected stamps, primarily ones featuring Catholic saints, and was a 50-year member of the American Philatelic Society. In his younger years, he also enjoyed rock climbing; he took us once when I was young. (I enjoyed that adventure far more than my sister did.) When I visited Devil’s Tower a few years ago and saw people climbing the sides of it, I asked him if he had done that. He had visited, but never climbed it.

As a child, I was spoiled not only by living in a house with thousands of books – and free access to all of them – but with access to an incredible research library as well. My sister and I were frequent visitors at the university’s library throughout our childhood, so I was quite familiar with it by the time I started college. I’m sure Dad hadn’t read all of those books, but if you ever played a trivia game with him, you might have thought he had. Even a year ago, I was still losing to him at trivia.

He was fiercely independent, rarely requesting assistance and frequently refusing it outright when offered for something he thought he could still do. He appreciated a fine drink – wine, whiskey, or good beer – but would politely accepted cheaper alternatives, like whatever beer Mom drinks. He took advantage of Miami’s climate to light up the Big Green Egg year round, and grilled a fabulous steak.

He will be missed.

Dorkstock 2018: Mission Accomplished

Dorkstock has always been a labor of love, a mini-convention run by John Kovalic’s fans within a larger convention. This was our third year being hosted by Gamehole Con, and I think the first time that Dorkstock has been a four-day convention. We had an incredible game schedule this year, filled with assorted Munchkin and Chez games, among other favorites from Steve Jackson Games, and both Steve Jackson and Phil Reed were in attendance. We pulled out some classic Out of the Box games and other, more esoteric games like Cthulhu in the House and Knuckle Sammich.

Igor bars, 3-D Dork Frag, 3-D Dork Tower board game, life-sized Warhamster Rally

But one of our gamemasters goes above and beyond, creating 3-D and life-size versions of some of her favorite games. This leads to interesting e-mail conversations like “is an 18-inch hex large enough for a person to stand in”? (Yes, yes it is.) Among other masterpieces were the 3-D Dork Frag (originally published in an issue of Dork Tower), the 3-D Dork Tower board game (a parody of the classic Dark Tower game), the life-sized Escape from Dork Tower (not pictured), and the life-sized (with 18-inch hexes) Warhamster Rally. Those are certainly a labor of love. I’ll content myself with making the occasional Igor bars and running a few games.

Oh, and planning for next year… Gamehole Con announced their dates for 2019: October 31st through November 3rd. Can you say “Dorkstock Costume Party”?

Shaken, not stirred.

As much as I enjoy a fine whiskey, it’s not my go to drink. Good whiskey should be sipped, in small quantities, and sometimes with dessert. Bad whiskey should be ignored. Life’s just too short for lousy drinks.

Despite the title, I’m not particular about whether my martinis are shaken or stirred. I own a martini shaker, but for expediency (which happens when you make your drink after you’re done cooking and have to worry about defending your food from the kitten), I rarely use it, so stirred is my default. I always make martinis on the rocks. In fact, I rarely use ice cubes for anything else; I don’t like diluting juices.

And I always make martinis with gin. I don’t particularly like vodka (though Whiskey Acres does have delightful sipping vodka), and have never seen the appeal of vodka martinis. What has changed in recent years is the variety of gins I’m trying in my martinis. It started a few years ago when my ex-husband discovered a North Shore Distillery gin. That has an amazingly distinctive flavor, and is probably sippable on its own if you’re so inclined.

Vikre Distillery Boreal Cedar Gin Now I make an effort to try different gins, rather than making the same martini every time. Two Brothers, a local brewing company, recently expanded their selection to include spirits, so I’ve tried theirs. I have some regrets about not picking up a Journeyman Distillery gin while I was in Michigan, but I should be able to pick it up at Binny’s. Some days, I pick my gin based on the bottle design; on others, I take the time to put on my glasses and read the descriptions. The current bottle is from Vikre Distillery in Minnesota; the Boreal Cedar Gin is described as “… infused with the smoky aroma of cedar wood, citrusy wild sumac, and a trace of black currant.” It was actually a tough choice between their cedar, juniper, and spruce gins, and I may have to try the others at some point.

Life’s also too short for boring drinks.

Happy Halloween!

I’ve always loved Halloween. As a kid, it was a great excuse to hit up your neighbors and the next few blocks of people you didn’t actually know for what you hoped was good candy. Or at least candy you could eat with braces.

As an adult, it took on new meaning. Pagans believe that the veil is thinnest between the worlds of the living and the dead this time of year, so Halloween, or Samhain, is a time when we can look to our dead relatives and friends for guidance. We put out food offerings – carved pumpkins now, hollowed out turnips originally (Gods know I don’t want to eat the turnips, I’m all for carving them) – in return for their help and advice.

And it’s a time to let go – of our weaknesses, our bad habits, of the losses from the past year that linger over us. If some losses are too fresh – a friend who recently passed away (this year, unfortunately), an accident the week before Halloween (last year, for me) – those can hold for the next year. Death, however unfortunate, is a natural part of our life cycle.

This is a time of rebirth for Pagans, as we recognize the losses from the past year and look forward to what may come. That next year is unknown, no matter what your plans, the year will probably surprise you. Celebrate these changes. A year ago, I couldn’t have guessed where I am now, yet I am happy with how things have changed.

Jack and Sally from Nightmare before Christmas Jack o'Lanterns — Jack o’Lanterns

Tonight, I will have a giant spider web strung up across my doorway with treats attached, with a giant spider looking on. I will light the jack o’lanterns I carved, and walk from door to door with my daughter as she asks strangers for candy. And I will release things that need to be let go, and hold onto some losses that aren’t quite ready to leave yet.

Stop for a taste at Journeyman Distillery

Last weekend, we drove to Michigan for a karate tournament. Specifically, we drove to Flint… if I only wanted to drive to Michigan, I can do that in two hours. Driving to Flint more than doubles that driving time. It’s a beautiful, scenic drive this time of year, filled with the changing colors of fall and winery billboards. Wait, what? Yes, really, the sheer quantity of winery billboards in the second half of Indiana and the first hour or so of Michigan along I-94 was astounding. For the most part, they weren’t repeating themselves… there really are that many wineries in the region.

And while I like wine, what caught my eye was the billboard for a distillery. In fact, I think it was the only distillery I saw billboards for. And it advertised food, which was perfect, as we needed to stop for lunch. As we left the highway, the next sign said it was 5 miles to the Journeyman Distillery. That’s really not far in a two lane road with no traffic lights until the turn we wanted.

I suppose you would expect a stiff drink at a distillery, but I still had a couple hours of driving to do and was already a bit tired. Rest assured, they had good coffee. That’s not to say I left without buying a drink – I took home a bottle of Sew Your Oats Whiskey as the most interesting possibility.

Pork cracklings, an amazing selection of mostly alcohol in the Journeyman Distillery gift shop, distillery, and hummus — Pork cracklings, selection in the Journeyman Distillery gift shop, distillery, and hummus

And yet, that’s not what I was gushing about when I told my friends about the place. We weren’t terribly hungry when we got there, though it was past a normal lunch time, so we ordered from the appetizer menu. I ordered a Southwestern chicken soup and pork cracklings, and was hooked from the first bite of the cracklings. If you’ve ever bought pre-packaged chicharrones, you have an idea of what these taste like. They are described on a package as “rendered out pork fat with attached skin.” But these… well, these were fresh. When you bite into them, they crackle, somewhat like a salty Pop Rocks. The pork cracklings alone are worth the two hour drive to Michigan.

(In other news, the tournament was fun, the drive home was just as scenic, and I got the boiler fixed on Tuesday so my house is now properly heated again.)

Let’s play Codenames Disney

Codenames is a fun game where you try to determine which cards belong to your team before the other team does the same. In the original version, the cards show words, which are all codenames for the secret agents. The Disney version shows pictures, with the words (mostly character names) on the back of the cards.

The spymaster (original) or cluemaster (Disney) gives a clue to their team members to direct them to one or more card belonging to the team, as designated by this game’s selected grid. What makes this hard is that you’re only allowed to give a single word clue and the number of cards you’re hinting at. That doesn’t sound too hard, right? But it’s also subject to the other player’s interpretation… the cluemaster isn’t allowed to expand on that word at all during the game. And the more correct guesses your team can get on a turn, the better your odds of winning.

Codenames Disney with 25 cards referencing Disney characters or scenes — Codenames Disney, advanced layout (25 cards versus 16)

On the sample image, you can see a grid in the upper left corner. My color is red, the opposing team is blue, yellow are innocent bystanders… but black is the game-ending troublemaker. In the original, that’s the assassin card; for Disney, it’s “Game-Over.” A possible clue for blue would be “singing,” referring to The Lion King, where they’re clearly singing Hakuna Matata, but it could also refer to Snow White (a red card) and Rapunzel (a yellow card). You must choose your clues carefully.

Thoughts on Anno Dracula

I made a mistake once, giving away books that I would want to re-read in the future. (OK, I’ve made mistakes more than once… I made that particular mistake once.) And then they were out of print, so I couldn’t find them. But the author wrote more books to the series, so they’re back in print, and I found some of them at Powell’s in July.

Anno Dracula books: Anno Dracula, The Bloody Red Baron, Dracula Cha Cha Cha, Johnny Alucard, Anno Dracula 1899, One Thousand Monsters — Six Anno Dracula books

The series is Anno Dracula. Not surprisingly, given the name, the series is about vampires. The first book, Anno Dracula, starts in 1888, as a What If to the original Bram Stoker’s Dracula… what if Dracula had won? By 1888, he has married Queen Victoria and vampires live openly in London. The fascinating thing about all of the Anno Dracula books is how Kim Newman combines vampire and other lore with historical – both real and fictional – figures from the era. Anno Dracula presents readers with a variation on the Jack the Ripper story, where all of the victims are vampire girls, skillfully slaughtered with a silver knife. Interspersed in the stories are glimpses of classics like Sherlock Holmes, Jekyll and Hyde, and Oscar Wilde.

Continuing in chronological, rather than publication order, the next book is Anno Dracula: One Thousand Monsters, which skips across the world to 1899 Japan where a ship of vampire refugees find a temporary home in ghetto for monsters. Newman explores a variety of Asian lore, some more recognizable that others, such as the four kappa (anthropomorphic turtles) with martial arts weapons, along with recognizable vampires from other sources, including a nutty psychic named Drusilla and references to the Theater des Vampires in Paris. Yōkai Town is more of a prison than a refuges, and somebody is pitting the vampires against each other.

The Bloody Red Baron presents terrifying shape-shifting vampires attacking Allied planes mid-air. Edgar Allan Poe, a vampire living in Germany when the United States joins the war, who in our reality died before the American Civil War, is recruited to write about these flying nosferatu.

Dracula Cha Cha Cha is set in Rome, in 1959, as vampires from around the world flock to Dracula’s latest wedding. The alliances that were formed to finish World War II are mentioned, including a treaty between Britain and Dracula. Someone is killing vampire elders across the city, and Kate Reed, a vampire journalist, along with Hamish Bond, the undead British secret agent, get caught up in the mystery.

Lastly – at least for now – is Anno Dracula: Johnny Alucard. Dracula was a prolific parent in his early days, but as his power and fame grew, he let his children turn others rather than making new vampires himself. Near the end of the 20th century, a vampire boy emerges from the shadows, claiming to have been turned by Dracula himself. He makes a name for himself in the United States, both in Manhattan and Hollywood, selling a dangerously addictive drug and raising a cult-like following for himself and the Dracula legend.

These books are amazingly well written, which adds to the addictiveness of the series. I highly recommend them.

Democracy works when we vote

In the 2016 United States’ election, only 61.4 percent of eligible voters bothered to vote. (Read about it here.) That means millions of voters who could have had a say in our democratic process chose, for whatever reason, to remain silent.

Voting can be difficult, particularly in the 13 states that still don’t have early voting. In some countries, election day is a national holiday; that hasn’t happened here yet. Some states have laws that require employers to allow time off for voting, but there were voting centers in the 2016 election where the wait was several hours long; the time off allowed is generally less than that. Clearly, this is a flaw in both the distribution and staffing of those locations, and it harms our democratic process.

You can check the voting rules and voter registration deadlines for your state here: https://www.usa.gov/register-to-vote. If you are in any way outraged by recent political events, please remember that the midterm elections are coming up on November 6th. In some places, early voting has already begun. Even if you aren’t outraged, this is one of the few civic duties we have – military service is optional, jury duty is rather random, but elections are regularly scheduled and announced well in advance. At bare minimum, voting is a responsibility you should follow through on.

If you are inclined towards political involvement, take a look at this map and see if there’s a #StandOnEveryCorner protest scheduled near you. (If there isn’t, you can schedule one.) Some of these are daily events until election day. I’ve been combining the occasional night at Naperville’s corner with Pokemon hunting and occasionally exploring local restaurants. (There’s a grilled cheese restaurant! It’s called Everdine’s Grilled Cheese Co. and was quite delicious.)

Local and state elections matter, and in the past couple years, there have been several examples of every vote making a difference.

Be that vote.

Addendum: You can view your ballot choices on this website by entering your address: https://www.ballotready.org/.

Thoughts on A Fading Sun

Every so often, I receive a fabulous book to review that clearly expects a sequel. And, if I’m lucky (which I have been repeatedly, as the editor watches for sequels), I receive the next book to review a while down the line. That’s what happened with A Fading Sun by Stephen Leigh. I reviewed it last year for Booklist, and had noticed it on my list recently and wondered if the sequel had been published.

Lo and behold, the sequel, A Rising Moon, appeared in my mailbox. If you have time before November, I recommend reading the first book before the second one is released. What follows is the review I submitted last year:

The Cateni are a conquered people, hiding their traditions since the Mundoan Empire overran their land three generations ago. This is easier said than done for Voada Paorach, who sees ghosts and helps them follow the sun-path to the afterlife. She successfully hides her ability well into her adult life until the death of someone close forces her to reveal it. Cast out of her home and torn from her family, a ghost, Moonshadow, who fought against the original Mundoan invasion, leads Voada to Onglse, where the Cateni still openly rebel against the Mundoans. Commander Altan Savas has been sent to lead Emperor Pashtuk’s army in Albann; he reluctantly leads the oppressing army to what he expects, at best, to be a Pyrrhic victory on Onglse. Voada and Moonshadow move that battle to mainland Albann, where Altan is forced to follow in an attempt to salvage the Mundoan Empire’s hold over this conquered land. Readers will detect a resemblance to Ireland, Scotland, and England during the Roman era. Adults and teens who enjoy this story will eagerly anticipate the sequel.

My poor confused garden.

It’s now late September, and my garden isn’t quite sure what to do. The temperature has dropped and given us nights in the 50s and 60s, and I have harvested at least a dozen pumpkins, which being changing color when the temperature approximates fall.

One pumpkin ripe and ready to pick, one just formed.

But this week, we’ve had highs in the high-80s, and are expecting a drop to just below 70 by Saturday. There are flowers open on my pumpkin because of the heat, with new fruit having formed in the last week, while other pumpkins are ripe and ready to pick. The newly formed fruit will probably not survive, though it may be that a neighborhood squirrel or raccoon gets to them before the weather does… they’re quite soft at this stage.

My tomatoes are going through similar waves of ripening or over-ripening. On the extremely hot days, they split before they’re fully ripe, which means they go bad before I get to them. If they’ve split and haven’t gone bad, they frequently get eaten in the picking process, to avoid losing them. (Not to be confused with other tomatoes that get eaten in the picking process.)

I can’t really complain, as it extends my harvest. But I was swatting away mosquitoes this week, and I’m fairly sure none of us appreciate them having an extended season.