Mom's Guide to the Galaxy

My next great adventure

My next great adventure starts today. (Well, last week by the time you read this.) Two days after my official termination date at my previous job, I accepted a job offer. For my first week of work, I’m flying to San Diego to meet my co-workers at the main office. This is my first visit to California as an adult; I don’t count the couple times I’ve stopped in the San Francisco airport.

One of the important items on my prep list was finding the nearest WTSDA dojang. As it happens, the instructor there was the guest master when I pre-tested for my black belt in February. My karate uniform was actually the first thing I packed. I’m also staying about 10 minutes from a beach, so I packed my bathing suit – and sunscreen! – as well. Other than that, it’s work clothes, pajamas, and toiletries. Oh, and two books – of for each flight. I plan to re-read Anno Dracula on the way out and The Lightning Thief on the return trip.

The work week went well, the extra stuff went almost as planned. I attended a great karate class, and tried an assortment of interesting restaurants while I was in California. I didn’t go swimming, but I did dip my feet in the ocean at sunset my last night there. I resisted going to Legoland after work – theme park prices make more sense as an all day outing. And, except for the transit to and from the airport, I wasn’t near downtown San Diego, so I didn’t get to see any of the excitement surrounding the San Diego Comic-Con.

What did thrill me was the gardenias near the dojang; the nearby shopping center had them planted all around the edges of the parking lot, so getting out of the car, I could smell them immediately. Oh, and I found a game store. (Of course I did.)

Exploring Portland

Powell’s City of Books, Science Fiction & Fantasy section. I looked in other rooms; I shopped in this one.

I moved from Portland when I was five, so I only have vague memories of when I lived there. I have visited enough over the years to have some favorites; when I go back to visit friends and family, I try to do a mix of exploring new places and visiting old, familiar ones. An absolute must is Powell’s City of Books, which is their main location. You can pick between whatever’s available according to your taste, be it paperback, hard cover, new or used, because Powell’s shelves then all together. When I was there in 2015, I had a shopping list of classic science fiction books; I was able to find all of them.

We met friends for dinner a couple blocks away from Powell’s, at McMenamin’s Ringlers Pub. We were so busy having fun, I forgot to take any food photos while we were there. Suffice to say I’d be happy to eat there again.

Not actually in Portland… lava tubes at Ape Caves, Mt. St. Helens, Washington state

The exploration part of this trip was a trip into Washington state to the Mt. St. Helens Lava Tube. I was discussing my upcoming trip to Portland with a (now former) co-worker, who told me about the lava tubes. It was an amazingly scenic drive – as much of the area around Portland is – and we opted for the short, easy walk down the tubes, rather than the extreme

Bridge of the Gods, north of Portland, Oregon

one going up. Our initial plan was to follow this with a trip to Multnomah Falls, but everybody else was already there – the parking was full, and the freeway exit closed. We were quite hungry, so revamped our plan to eat at a restaurant underlooking (it’s like overlooking, but we could see the underside of it) the Bridge of the Gods.

The main purpose of this visit was my grandmother’s birthday party, which was a fabulous reunion of family members and friends. After the party, with only an hour or so before it closed, I went to the Portland Saturday Market and then to the Lan Su Chinese Garden. Sadly, I was still quite full from the amazing food at the party and couldn’t try anymore food at either location.

I did stop at the teahouse in the Chinese Garden, operated by The Tao of Tea, to pick up some Rose Petal Black tea, which is an all-time favorite of mine. I also watched a drawbridge go up, which is one of those fun things to do if you’re not one of the cars stuck waiting on the bridge.

But all good things must come to an end, especially with a houseful of cats waiting at home and a week of organizing before starting my new job. We did find a delightful farm-to-table restaurant at the airport called The Country Cat where we bought a filling lunch. This turned out to be fairly important… we were getting ready for bed after arriving home and realized that because of the time difference and flight time, we never ate dinner. Oops.

Self-rescuing Princess

It has recently come to my attention that some of my friends, whom I’ve known for years, haven’t heard me sing. This is a far cry from when I was younger, when all of my friends heard me sing, whether they wanted to or not. (It helps that I was in chorus and choir, some of that singing was with other people.)

I started working on this song a few years ago, well before I knew a target date for my black belt test. At the moment, I have somehow misplaced the lyrics for the second verse (and the beginnings of the third), and haven’t written the harmony. But I have my black belt now (though I couldn’t find my bow before the recording; it has since been located), so I wanted to go ahead and share this.

This song is dedicated to all the self-rescuing princesses in my life, and the people who helped us get to that point.

How does my garden grow?

As a project manager, gardening is my second best reminder that I can’t control all of the variables in a project. (Parenting is the first.) I can do all the planning and prep that I want, but I have no control over the weather, and realize that the germination rate for seeds varies. So while I’m sad that the okra didn’t germinate – it did so well the first summer in this garden – the next step is to fill that space. I love being able to say that I picked my salad the morning I’m eating it, so I went ahead and planted some salad greens there.

It’s not like the rest of the garden is struggling. Starting in the top left, there’s my star garden out front, my low beds in the far back, my keyhole bed out back, and the garden tower by the driveway.

Starting in the top level, there's my star garden out front, my low beds in the far back, my keyhole bed out back, and the garden tower by the driveway. — Herbs and sunflowers; tomatoes and flowers; carrots, pumpkins, and peas; tomatoes, marigolds, and salad greens.

The star is mainly an herb bed, with an overwhelming amount of mint and cilantro (they’re both spreading), chives, and some basil, along with a huge number of sunflowers. At this point, the low beds will be all tomatoes and salad greens this year, along with flowers in some corners. The keyhole bed is being overwhelmed by pumpkins – I had to search for the Brussels sprouts this morning – and a couple of the flowers are already forming pie pumpkins. There are also carrots and peas in there, though the pea harvest will be done well before the pumpkins are ready. The garden tower has bite-sized tomatoes at the top, salad greens in the bottom rows, and marigolds filling in the rest.

Plot twist!

I walked into work Monday morning, only to walk back out within the hour carrying about half of my desk’s contents and some paperwork about the layoff process. (I went back later in the week for the other half of my stuff.) This wasn’t a complete surprise – we had been warned by management that layoffs might be happening in the near future due to some business changes – but there’s a huge difference between knowing a layoff might be coming to actually having it happen. I drove home, calling my best friend on the way, and unloaded my lunch bag and the box from my desk. After a quick glance at the paperwork – I knew I wasn’t ready to read the details – I did what felt like the most logical option: I went to a morning karate class. Stress relief seemed like a good idea.

After karate, I came home and polished my resume and copied the updates to LinkedIn, re-read my cover letter, and read through some of the paperwork. The actual job hunt would start Tuesday.

I’ve been at this job for about four years now, and it saw me through a number of significant changes in my personal life, not the least of which were a divorce, buying a new house, the sudden need for a new car, and earning my first degree black belt. That’s a lot in four years, particularly when you take into account that I was working full-time, and for a couple semesters, teaching an evening class on top of that. It takes a pretty incredible company with a good understanding of work/life balance to manage that. Unfortunately, even good companies have rough patches, which leads me to my current predicament. I will miss the amazing people I’ve been working with these past few years, yet I’m curious to see what new opportunities are out there.

Home improvement: windows

I knew when I bought the house that it would need new windows. The existing windows appeared to be from when the house was built, and windows have come a long way since then, both in the glass itself and the way they’re set in the house. New windows – I’m fairly sure they’re all double-paned now – would provide better insulation against the cold and allow less heat in through the glass. In fact, part of the sales demonstration was plugging in a heat lamp in front of a normal window sample and then a new window sample. (The next part was removing a cat from the sample bag so the samples could go back in.) There was also evidence of moisture settling into some of the window frames, which is never good.

All of the bedrooms had casement windows, which were a bit of a pain. In order to open the window, I had to open the screen on the inside, then unlatch and push the window open, and finish by clicking the screen shut again. The window by the kitchen sink was similar, but inexplicably, had no screen or anywhere to attach one, so that one never got opened. (I don’t want to let insects in or cats out.) The living room and large kitchen windows were floor to ceiling, with a casement window at the top of each. While planning the new windows, one of the company’s representatives noted that the kitchen sink and the guest bedroom windows were actually the same casement windows, just turned on their side. Apparently somebody had spare windows in that particular style when the house was built. Old living room windows - floor to ceiling, with casement windows opening at the top

The biggest decision when replacing windows seems to be whether to do it room-by-room or all at once. Since my reason for wanting new windows was for better temperature control (among other things, I don’t have A/C), it made sense to do them all at once and finance the change, knowing that the company I chose could almost certainly complete the change in a single day. That meant spending only one of my elusive vacation days, rather than needing to spread it out over several. As with any big purchase, I had estimates from multiple companies. The deciding factor was really that this company, Power Home Remodeling, could replace my three living room windows with one huge bay window.

New bay window in the living room My timing was just about perfect – the installation was on what had been the hottest day so far this year, the Friday before Memorial Day. Last weekend beat that day with temperatures in the mid- to high-90s all weekend, and I was delighted to have the new windows filtering out some of that heat.

Planning a trip to Niagara Falls

I may post more about our trip to Niagara Falls on later days, but here are some of the thoughts that went into planning it.

Transit

Selecting an airline isn’t usually difficult; Southwest is my preferred airline if it services an airport in the right area. Even when we fly carry-on only, like we did for our Philadelphia trip, I like the option of checking bags for free. The pricing is almost always comparable to the other airlines, so it comes down to selecting times I like for direct flights. (Chicago to Buffalo is just over an hour, an indirect flight doesn’t really make sense.)

I researched options for getting from the Buffalo airport to the Canadian side of Niagara Falls. Quickly dismissed was the Greyhound option; that’s from downtown Buffalo, and only at set times, so it would have required too many transfers. The airport shuttle was more appealing until I realized that I could rent a car for less than it would cost for both our fares one-way. Our lodging included free parking, so renting a car turned out to be a no-brainer.

On the other hand, I didn’t want to drive around all weekend, or bother to pay for parking multiple times in the Fallsview area. We picked up 48-hour WeGo passes, parked the rental car by our cabin, and rode the bus into the downtown area multiple times. When I returned the rental car, they thought I had filled the gas tank because I had driven it so little.

Lodging

I’ve had a KOA (Kampgrounds of America) membership since 2013, when we went on a 13-day road trip; two-thirds of our nights were at KOA sites. On a whim, I checked to see if there was a KOA in the Niagara Falls area. As it turns out, there’s one on each side of the Falls. Having never visited Canada before, I was set at staying on the Canadian side. I didn’t really want to pack a tent (even with free baggage), so I booked a cabin… well, a Kamping Kabin. Because it’s at a Kampground.

KOA Kamping Kabin - outside and inside views — KOA Kamping Kabin – outside and inside views

Camping cabins are minimalist in nature. There’s a roof over your head, a door that locks, beds (one double and a bunk bed), and a table with a chair. There’s also a picnic table and seating on the deck. You bring your own linens or sleeping bags, which was most of our luggage needs for this trip. You also have to walk outside to get to the bathroom and the shower stalls. (Pack your own towels too.) In good weather, this works out nicely… and we had amazing weather at Niagara Falls last weekend.

Activities

Niagara Falls - Horseshoe Falls at night, when the falls are lit up with multicolor lights — Niagara Falls – Horseshoe Falls at night

Other than “see the Falls,” I had no idea what we would be doing in the area for two and a half days. I reached out to a friend in Toronto who mentioned that there’s a wax museum with movie stars in the area. Actually, there are two. And a rock stars one. While researching the museum, I discovered that they offered a Fun Pass that combined the museum, the SkyWheel (2 rides if you buy online!), some virtual rides, and a choice of indoor (wizards) or outdoor (dinosaurs) mini-golf. The pass allows you to do each activitiy once, any time within a year from when you activate it. Since we have no immediate plans to return to the area, we did them all Friday and Saturday.

Everything else we did was based on what we found when we got there. We ate at a mix of local (Tim Horton’s, Queen Victoria Place Restaurant) and speciality chain restaurants (Margaritaville and Hard
Rock), watched the nightly fireworks over the Falls, spent some time at the local Ripley’s Believe It or Not museum, and spent Sunday morning at Bird Kingdom. We did some shopping, and then visited the Falls from the U.S. side Sunday afternoon before flying home.

I have a black belt!

I actually had a different post in mind relating to earning my black belt, until I saw what Google did with the photos that were taken on my phone in the last few days. When you take several photos in quick succession, Google takes the liberty of making an animated GIF out of some of them. This amused me, so I thought I’d share a couple of them.

After receiving our belts, we performed Sip Soo, one of the open hand forms we needed to learn before testing for the 1st degree black belt. This is a fairly small part of it, just what Google decided to clip together.

Part of Sip Soo ("Ten Hands"), the latest open hand form I had to learn to test for my 1st degree black belt — Part of Sip Soo (“Ten Hands”), the latest open hand form I had to learn to test for my 1st degree black belt

In addition to the excitement of earning my black belt, I received a sword as a gift. I started learning the first sword form a while ago, and practice it infrequently… it’s a black belt form. Now that I’m a black belt, I need to work on remembering it. I carried my sword to class the other night to show my instructor, and took some time after class to test it out on the mat.

Exciting times! I’ve already started learning the next open hand form I need for when I test for second degree black belt.

Once, a Broadway musical

The movie Once, which I had never heard of until the Paramount Theatre announced their 2017-18 Broadway season, won an Oscar; the Broadway production won eight Tony Awards. This final show in the Paramount’s season is both heart-wrenching and inspiring.

Guy and Girl (they are never given names) meet on the streets of Dublin and quickly bond over a joint love of music. In less than a week, they share regrets about their past relationships, Girl pushes Guy into taking out a loan for a recording session, and they fall in love. But the unresolved issues of their past relationships loom over them, or as Girl puts it “You can not walk through your life leaving unfinished love behind you!” To find out what happens with their relationship and past ones, you’ll have to see the show.

They make beautiful music, both individually and together, and manage to draw Girl’s family and flatmates into their recording session, along with the banker who approves Guy’s loan. This is a show that will certainly inspire you to pursue your dreams. Much like the opening show of Paramount’s 2017-18 season, Million Dollar Quartet, the orchestra pit is empty – all of the music is produced on stage, showcasing once again an amazing amount of talent. Unusually for us, we saw it almost at the end of its run… this weekend will be the last at the Paramount. I highly recommend seeing it on stage if you have the chance.

Thoughts on Oathbringer

My thoughts on Brandon Sanderson’s Oathbringer are long overdue, I actually finished reading the book in February. It’s been a busy three months. I will try to avoid spoilers for this book, but spoilers for the first two are inevitable at this point.

Most of the story follows the same primary characters encountered in Way of Kings and Words of Radiance, who have developed into Radiants. Sanderson does a fabulous job again of bouncing between their current situations and how their histories moved them to this point. Dalinar, in particular, is forced to explore the memories he had blocked of his deceased wife, and Shallan, her conflicted family history. Each of the characters has unsettling experiences, and each in some way challenges society’s rules. Discoveries are made that shake society to its core.

Shallan, still one of my favorite characters, develops unique personalities for each of the faces she draws herself. Among other problems, two of her personalities are attracted to different people; she has to determine which part is the real her and which heart to follow.

Szeth, the Assassin in White, rediscovers his passion for Truth, and reappears, along with Lift, who we met briefly in Words of Radiance, and more thoroughly in her own book, Edgedancer. And Venli, one of the remaining Parshendi, evolves in her understanding of the war between the Voidbringers and humanity.

In a couple years, I’ll re-read all of the books again, to prepare for the release of the next one.