October 2018 – Mom's Guide to the Galaxy

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/.