August 2024 – Mom's Guide to the Galaxy

My Thoughts on Politics

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that I’m following the upcoming United States presidential election with great interest. I commented on the Republican candidate during the last election cycle, which thankfully he lost. That said, poetry is not my usual medium, so it was a bit of a surprise Saturday morning when this got stuck in my brain and insisted on being written.

The energy is good, the message is better:
we must save our democracy together. 
Talk to your neighbor, talk to your friends, 
let it not be how this government ends. 

We will not go quietly into the night
while those men, mostly white, cancel our rights.
Forty-some years of these trickle-down tricks
have made the rich even richer and the middle class sick.

When the middle class struggles, the country does too.
Watch your officials, see what they do.
If they try to divide us with a message of hate - 
stop and think, how does that really make America great?  

Do they want you to vote or want you to hide?
Are you too different from them, so not on their side?
Or do they truly believe that each voice should matter?
I can’t choose the former, thus I must choose the latter. 

Every person that chooses to call the United States “mine”
must now make a choice, they must draw that line.
If you value each person for their friendly face,
regardless of religion, gender, or race,
Harris and Walz are the choice you must make,
for your brother, your sister, for everyone’s sake.

This was followed by posting a recording of it to TikTok on Sunday.

Check your voter registration, check your early voting dates (where applicable), and research the candidates before our November 5th deadline. While this poem is specifically about the presidential race, your local races are equally, if not more, important.

Traveling with a giraffe

When our dear friend Marinda travelled, she took her plush giraffe, Russell, with her. When she passed away, she had booked a Christmas-time cruise with her partner and had already purchased a membership to this year’s WorldCon, hosted in Glasgow. Russell collected several bracelets (necklaces for a smallish plush) during the cruise Marinda missed, and filled almost a page of his plush passport when he travelled with Cassandra and me to Glasgow’s WorldCon. These are some of the photos capturing his adventure in the UK.

The plush trio on the way to the Heath Robinson Museum: Menta (a bear), Francis (a macaw), and Russell (a giraffe).
The plush trio exploring the Heath Robinson Museum: Menta (a bear), Francis (a macaw), and Russell (a giraffe).
Russell (a giraffe) sitting on a wooden chair as several plush (owned by the Story Museum) sit on log pillows watching him. Well, except the wolf, he’s looking at the alligator.
Russell (a giraffe) by a thought bubble that reads “No-one must know… no-one must ever suspect… my shocking secret!”
Russell (a giraffe) hangs on the lampost in the Narnia story room at the Story Museum.
Russell (a giraffe) on a replicate Iron Throne (Game of Thrones) in an Oxford shop.
Russell (a giraffe) near a full-sized giraffe at the Kelvingrove Museum in Glasgow, Scotland.
Russell (a giraffe) near the Falkirk Wheel in Scotland.
Russell (a giraffe) near the Kelpies in Scotland.
Russell (a giraffe) watches the Opening Ceremonies of Glasgow’s 2024 WorldCon.
Russell (a giraffe) watches the Hugos awards ceremony on a phone.
Russell’s passport page with his adventures from this trip recorded.

If you’re wondering about the blue bag that Russell appears in most of the time, that’s his crocheted travel pouch, which includes an inside pocket for his passport.

Garden update: summer 2024

This gardening season has been… strange. You may recall I started the season with sixteen eggplant seedlings. We have no eggplants. Early summer saw an unusually high number of rabbits in our garden; I’m guessing they enjoyed the seedlings. That or the burst of exceedingly warm weather around the same time, followed by a temperature drop, and fairly sparse rain throughout the season killed them off. Given those choices, I’d prefer if the rabbits ate them.

A sunflower plant past the flowering stage surrounded by the lush green of tomato, cucumber, and pumpkin plants.

Fortunately, some of our other plants thrived. Not surprisingly, we have tomatoes again – all volunteers from seeds dropped in previous years – along with small pumpkins (a volunteer from the composter in the keyhole bed), and three varieties of cucumbers that I planted. The strangest of those are the lemon cucumbers, a round yellow variety that have a delightful crunch to them.

A mix of cucumbers and cherry tomatoes from an early harvest. Two of the oblong cucumbers are a mix of orange and green, just barely overripe, while the others are green. The one round lemon cucumber is yellow, just ripe.

This was our first sizable harvest, a few days before we left on a trip to England and Scotland. Cucumbers, like other plants in the squash family, have a tendency to spread their vines under (or over!) other plants, resulting in what I refer to as stealth fruit, which are ones I don’t find until they’re either larger than usual or otherwise overripe. The two cucumbers pictured above with yellowing (orange-ing?) skin are examples of stealth fruit. We made an effort to finish our early harvest before leaving on vacation, knowing that we would likely be coming home to more ripened fruit.

A basket of cucumbers. All of them have yellow or orange skin indicating that they are overripe. Most of the cucumbers are round, about the size of a tennis ball.

We were not wrong. There are a handful of green, of varying shades, cucumbers on the vine; we picked every one that looked ripe or overripe, including a couple lemon cucumbers that had been partially eaten. The eaten ones were left in a garden bed, so someone can finish eating them or the seeds can have a chance of germinating next year. We did find that the skin becomes less edible at this stage, so the lemon cucumbers will likely be peeled before eating. Unfortunately, it didn’t rain much while we were away, so many of the cucumber vines have dried out, which means they’re not likely to produce more flowers or fruit.

A collection of bite-sized tomatoes. Most are red, a mix of round and pear-shaped, with a round yellow tomato sitting in the center.

Of course, we also have an abundance of tomatoes! Amongst the traditional red cherry and yellow pear tomatoes, I found the occasional batch of yellow cherry and red pear, a consequence of growing the two varieties side by side for so many years. We have the usual sprawl of tomato plants, refusing to be contained in their beds and cages, so I expect we’ll miss some during the harvest process and have volunteers again next year. Fortunately, the rain has arrived, which should keep the tomato plants happy for the next few weeks. At some break in the rain, we need to harvest raspberries and strawberries too.

Thoughts on Peter and the Starcatcher at the Copley Theatre

If the title Peter and the Starcatcher brings to mind Peter Pan, you are on the right track. This was my second time seeing it, and while I recall enjoying it the first time, I didn’t recall just how… Ren Faire it was. Or maybe that’s just the Paramount’s presentation, with ladders on the stage, model ships representing The Wasp and The Neverland, and a general air of snarkiness from the characters. On the other hand, according to Wikipedia, it’s based on a book by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson, so maybe I just wasn’t in the right frame of mind when I first saw it nearly a decade ago.

Peter and the Starcatcher is a prequel to the classic Peter Pan, exploring how Peter came to Neverland and received both parts of his name. He teams up with Molly when pirates – lead by Captain Black Stache – seize The Wasp, the ship her father is sailing on with a bounty of “starstuff” to dispose of for the Queen. Except the captain of the Neverland switched the trunks, so the starstuff, which grants some magical abilities, is actually on Molly’s ship, and when both ships face off in a storm, the Neverland’s wreck and leaking starstuff result in magical hijinks.

This is a delightful story and a truly enchanting performance. Be prepared to laugh for an extended period.

Dungeons & Shakespeare at Bristol

I may have mentioned my tendency towards gaming in past posts. OK, that’s an understatement, of course I have. And while I’m not currently involved in a Dungeons and Dragons (or D&D to those of us in the fandom) game, it was one of the role-playing games I started with in college, way back in 2nd Edition. (It’s on 5th Edition now.) Not surprisingly, that means I enjoyed the Dungeons & Shakespeare show that appeared on the Bristol schedule this year.

Dungeons and Shakespeare cards, presenting items from Shakespeare's plays with Dungeons & Dragons abilities, such as Prospero's Staff (from The Tempest) which has the ability to once a day, cast the spell Control Weather.

Some shows are carefully scripted – and followed. I can quote significant portions of The Swordsmen show, and Cirque du Sewer follows a basic pattern, with variances for the animals’ behavior. Dungeons & Shakespeare is a combination of improvisation and luck. The Stage Master selects volunteers from the audience who draw cards from various decks (characters, goals, encounters) to determine what will be included in that performance’s adventure. Additional volunteers are selected as needed to fill the cast, and ultimately the outcome depends on all of their decisions and, of course, the results of a 20-sided die.

If you have the opportunity to experience this show, at Bristol or location, I highly recommend it.