Mom's Guide to the Galaxy

The most important step.

“What is the most important step a man can take?”

The first one.

That was my first thought upon reading the question in Oathbringer. As it turns out, that was the character’s initial response too. It made me think about some significant first steps I’ve taken in recent years.

Followed a friend into our graduate program. This was significant because it didn’t match either of our majors, though it was my minor. It was that or law school; I think I picked the right one for me. That was the first step in my career in Information Technology.
Picked up a flyer for a fan-run Chicagoland convention while I was at GenCon. That convention is long since defunct, but the effects linger – I met my gaming group, and ex-husband, because of that convention.
Signed our daughter up for karate. It seemed like something good for her to try, and she was interested in what little she had seen (err… Kung Fu Panda). There is certainly an element of luck that went with finding the right school, especially since we hadn’t been looking for one.
That first year when I decided to clear weeds out of the old garden patch and plant spinach. I’ll admit, I had no idea what I was getting into… vegetable gardening is addictive.

As it turns out, the answer was actually “The next step.” Those were, of course, significant too:

Interviewing with a Chicagoland company when I finished my graduate degree. Having a degree is lovely, finding a company that will hire you to work with it is even better. And it’s the reason I ended up in Chicagoland.
The second fan-run convention I attended in Chicagoland was Capricon. Not only is it a great convention, I’ve made friends for life at it. It was an excellent next step.
The next step at karate was getting me on the mat with her. And again after my accident. That worked out well, I pre-tested for first degree black belt last weekend.
Gardening has turned into a series of next steps for me. When I moved to my current house, I actually moved a raised bed set in before I moved furniture to the house. It was early June, which is already a late start for gardening, and it turned into a fabulous harvest.

According to my cats, my first step should be to feed them. My next step should be to feed them again. They’re about to be disappointed at least once.

Thoughts on Gilded Cage

One of the first book reviews I wrote was for Gilded Cage, almost eighteen months ago now. Despite eagerly anticipating the sequel, I lost sight of it, and just realized today that not only is it out, it’s already available in paperback. Used! Needless to say, I am ordering Tarnished City immediately, and I have a co-worker who will want to borrow it as soon as I’m done.

I thought I’d share the review this week. And eventually, I’m sure I’ll have something to say about the sequel.

REVIEW. First published October 15, 2016 (Booklist).

At first glance, the world seems familiar in Vic James’s novel, but that illusion is quickly dispelled. The monarchy has long since been destroyed; the British aristocracy replaced with Equals, people born with magical gifts who lord over the commoners with their powers. The story starts just before siblings Abi and Luke begin their ten years of slavery, which is mandated for all commoners (i.e., those without magic). Unexpectedly separated, they quickly learn how little they understood of the Equals as their views of the world shift. Luke adapts to life in a factory town by joining a rebellion, while Abi and the rest of the family live together but grow apart while serving a powerful family of Equals. Nobody emerges unscathed from their slavery years, as the Hadley family can attest after mere months of service. The twists and turns make this book hard to set down; a second read may reveal many details that readers might breeze past the first time through. Readers will eagerly await the rest of the trilogy started here.

Capricon 2018

I’ve attended some large conventions – Origins, DragonCon, GenCon – and they’re certainly fun, but when it comes down to it, the smaller conventions, like Capricon, are my favorites. While the large conventions focus more on seeing the big names and meeting many of your fan favorites, the little conventions are about interacting with other geeks and getting to know them. And because geeks are such a diverse mix, there are many different ways of doing that at a convention. For example, here are some of the options from last weekend’s Capricon:

Panels – these are a great way to join topics or activities about esoteric geeky (is that redundant?) topics, such as learning Circular Gallifreyan, discussing computers before computing, or even a coloring workshop for adults.
ConSuite – smaller conventions like to make sure people eat during the weekend, and provide assorted food options, along with space to socialize.
Gaming – an opportunity to meet people in a casual setting, where you can play a short game (Loonacy or Fluxx, for example) or settle in for something longer (like Terraforming Mars). You learn a lot about a person when you play a game or two with them. And you might find some new games you like.
Parties – the effort geeks put into party themes is fairly impressive. One party group was handing out surveys Thursday and Friday nights to prepare for a Saturday night ~~Family~~ Fandom Feud, with questions related to assorted fandoms. Whether you’re interested in drinking, dancing, trivia, books (& beer), or just talking, there’s a party for that.
Faramir, my cute shoulder cat, riding on my (surprise!) shoulder.

Dealers’ Hall – oh, the shopping! Blissfully smaller than the dealers’ areas at big conventions (you really need at least a day to get through GenCon’s), the dealers’ hall at local conventions tends to showcase a good variety of fandom wares without being overwhelming. That’s not to say there aren’t too many choices, there’s always more options than I have space or money to bring home. This time, I brought home a cute shoulder cat from the fabulous ladies at Bast’s Garden. And because I like crossing my fandoms, I named him Faramir. The vendors are friendly and outgoing, and you’re likely to join random conversations with people about what you see.

While the large conventions are good fun, the little ones – this was just over 1,100 people – are the place to go to see friends and generally appreciate your own geekiness.

Our kitten, Arwen

I mentioned at the end of November that we had adopted a kitten, who we named Arwen. She was a resident at the local animal shelter, and her online bio warned people that “did nip her previous owner, so she needs a new family who can handle a playful kitten.” Given that she’s a kitten, I couldn’t understand why somebody would be worried about nipping.

In fact, she’s barely nipped me in the couple months since she moved in. She’s clawed me repeatedly, mostly on my hands, but barely touched me with her teeth. She’s also attacked my feet in bed enough that I added a thick blanket down at my feet for protection. In other words, she’s a fairly typical kitten, at least in that respect.

She’s also a climber. She will dash across the living room to leap onto the climbing tower, or jump on the counter, only to be pushed down and jump on the opposite counter almost immediately. She seems to think the best route to the bedroom window is to cross under the bed, then over the person in bed, onto the nightstand, leaping onto the dresser and stepping onto the jewelry box.

She is immensely curious about our food. The older two cats aren’t that interested in what we eat unless it’s chicken, but Arwen investigates everything, and wants to lick every dish and every serving spoon… even if we’re not done with them. I’ve taken to washing the serving spoons immediately, and re-washing if we go back for more, rather than leaving them out on the counter for her… there’s only so many times I can get up to remove her while I’m eating. And really, some of that food is spicier than a cat should be licking.

More importantly, what her online bio didn’t say is that her purring can be heard across the room. She’ll curl up on an arm and just start purring, or more amusingly, purr while I’m serving her food as she runs laps around the food container, and as she starts to eat. Yeah, that offsets any nipping or clawing. Cuteness wins.

Crafting Confusion

Some days, I have trouble deciding what craft project to work on, and it’s largely because I have too many in progress at any time. At the moment, I can count three that are started, none of which have deadlines, and one more that has a deadline near the end of this month.

And yet, I’m having trouble deciding which one to work on next. That’s not even counting bits of the mending pile, like the large plush dog sitting on my couch because he has a minute seam tear.

“Crafting?,” you may say. ” That’s not on your list of goals.”

True enough, yet here I am, looking at my craft projects. I bought fabric last weekend to make a caftan. I thought I’d be buying blue fabric, but what jumped out at me was a brown fabric with embroidered patterns.

I have a crocheted Cthulhu barely started from before my accident; I had to take a break from crocheting after it for a bit because my shoulder was hurting. Instead of going back to it when I was ready to crochet again, I started a blanket. Ideally, I’ll finish that blanket before it gets too warm; it’s a fairly thick yarn, and I don’t want to be working with it during the summer.

I’m also working on a painting, which is really outside my realm of expertise; I’m far better at crocheting. But I’m enjoying painting as an artistic outlet, and have an idea for the one that will come after this one. I only have one spot where I store a painting in progress, so I do actually have to finish that one before starting the next.

Do websites count as craft projects? I have a couple of those that I need to work on too. Plus all my goals… it’s going to be a busy year.

It was a super blood blue moon!

Some mornings, I feel like I’m using a cattle prod to force a sloth into motion. “Get dressed! Come to breakfast! Finish eating!”

And then there are mornings like this Wednesday, when it was in an astronomy geek’s best interest to be up and moving. In this case, it was to see an eclipse, when we were lucky enough to catch a glimpse of the super blue blood moon.

I first heard of blue moons in elementary school… “once in a blue moon, a new smurf is born.” Yes, really, I remember that episode, though their blue moons seem to be a bit too close together. Not surprisingly, my actual understanding of a blue moon – the second full moon in a calendar month (since 1946) or the “extra” full moon in a year with 13 – came much later.

Super blue blood moon — The super blue moon before the eclipse started.

What made it stunning was the “super” part – the moon looked larger than normal because of it’s proximity to the Earth. Amusingly, I just saw the technical name for a supermoon (perigee syzygy of the Earth-Moon-Sun system) as part of a trivia question earlier this week.

“Blood Moon” refers to the moon during a total lunar eclipse, so named because it can look red. I don’t think it look particularly red here. Unfortunately, it was also sinking in the horizon as the sun was rising, so most of my attempts to photograph the eclipse part are obscured by trees. It was awfully pretty, but not particularly photogenic, at least not on my point & click camera.

Women’s March 2018: March to the Polls

Last Saturday was the second annual Women’s March, held in cities across the country and around the world. There really isn’t a single cause to march for; there’s a plethora of causes, all meaningful to some of the people attending.

Last year’s march was a direct response to the election of a man who brags, not confesses – as that would imply remorse – about sexually assaulting women because he is rich and can get away with it, as well as responding to a political movement that seeks to reduce choice and equality for anybody outside their core support base, which is typically white men. And so we march for equality and choice, and the right to fight back against sexual assault and harassment.

Our political system is a mess of contradictions. In the Gettysburg Address, President Lincoln described our government as “of the people, by the people, for the people,” but the people elected at the federal level are increasingly out of touch with the average person. The base congressional salary is $174,000 a year; assuming a standard 40-hour work week for 52 weeks, that calculates out to over $83 per hour. Yet the federal minimum wage is $7.25 – an annual salary of $15,080, assuming it’s a full-time job, and the highest state-level minimum wage is only $11. There are no specific set skills required to run for Congress… what exactly is it that makes them worth $83 an hour compared to people we rely on daily in every aspect of our lives, from restaurant employees to retail workers to teachers and more? At best, to run for Congress you need enough money to start the process – it’s not an appealing process to the average person who is struggling to put food on their tables. As so we march for a living wage.

Our federal representatives have affordable health care provided by our government as one of their many benefits, yet debate whether the rest of us should. Most are college educated, yet again, seem too willing to pull federal money from education at all levels. And we march for education and health care, which are key to being one of the great nations of the world.

There’s a declining number of veterans in Congress – at one point, the House and Senate included significant percentages (see here), and has moved away from that – which is perhaps how the support for our active military and veterans has declined. I don’t mean supporting the wars – that’s a different political discussion – but the people who are willing to put themselves in danger to protect our country’s interests. Congress, having shut down (again) specifically declined to fund our active military salaries, yet continue to fund their own salaries. Our active military make far less money than our federal representatives; they live on those funds. As so we march for the people who have and are putting their lives on the line for us, only to be forgotten by our government whenever they become inconvenient.

Over the years, the laws have evolved to ban slavery, extend voting rights to women and minorities, and more, recognizing in particular that we are a secular nation and as such, our laws should reflect that separation of church and state in order to allow diversity to feed into our system and improve our country. We know the United States can do better, because we have repeatedly improved ourselves. To paraphrase The Last Jedi, we’re not fighting what we hate, we’re marching for what we love.

And we vote.

Setting goals for 2018

We are taught at karate that goals we set are goals we get, and are encouraged to set goals for the year. These are some of the goals I have set for myself this year:

Test for my Tang Soo Do black belt – this is a no-brainer, it’s what I expected to do in October. The tests are held at our regional tournaments, which happen twice a year, so I expect to test in April.
Renew my Project Management Professional (PMP) certfication – actually, I completed this since I wrote it down. Yay! One down! Time to start on the next cycle. It’s a continuous learning opportunity, requiring 60 credits of training every 3 years, so as soon as I finish, I start towards the next cycle.
Add a new garden bed – this has slightly changed since I wrote it down. I entered a sweepstakes and won a discount towards a Garden Tower, so I’m adding that instead of a more traditional raised bed. It will be my first foray into vermicomposting, which involves worms.
The garage door lets in a little bit of light… and leaves… and air.

Garage door projects – this is actually two projects in one. The door from the kitchen to the garage is an interior door; it allows a bit of light and air in. It’s not terrible, but combined with the need to replace or improve the garage door seal, I’m paying more for heat than I should be.
Duolingo recently added Korean as a language option. Since we learn snippets of Korean at karate, I thought I’d try picking up a bit more. I don’t have time for daily lessons at the moment, my current goal is at least once a week.

I’ll come back to these later in the year with updates.

Thoughts on Words of Radiance

Two months late, I have finished re-reading Words of Radiance, and am finally starting Oathbringer. Once again, we follow the stories of Kaladin, Dalinar, and Shallan, among others, as they strive to rebuilt the Knights Radiant with minimal knowledge on what the Knights could actually do. As far as the overall plot goes, that’s all I have to say… go read it, it’s fabulous.

As far as individual plot lines go, I found myself drawn to Shallan Davar. All of the point of view characters are well-developed with riveting plot lines. In The Way of Kings, Shallan was introduced as a young lady forced out of her comfort zone. In Words of Radiance, she stretches past that, arriving in the Shattered Plains, meeting her betrothed, and more to her surprise than anybody else’s, develops into a leader.

Her betrothed has a history of failed romances; Shallan has a history of one, which turned out to be with an assassin who almost killed her. (In his defense, she wasn’t the target.) Shallan arrives at the Shattered Plains, establishing her own place in the mess of the war camps, seeks out the group that was responsible for the failed assassination attempt, and is generally more snarky than society allows. In other words, she’s an awesome character that clearly develops across the books. So do the other characters, I just happen to like Shallan’s snarkiness.

Accident details

It’s been a couple months now since my car accident, and I realized that the details get fuzzy the further past it I get. While part of me would love to forget it, I’m still dealing with some of the aftermath and do want to preserve the details somewhere.

There’s not much I can say about the commute that day. It was a Tuesday, and it was raining, so there was stop and go traffic on I-355. I was in the middle lane, because there’s a pot hole in the right lane a little bit after the toll, and you feel it more when you’re moving slow, so I try to switch back to my normal lane after that point. It was a little chilly, I had switched to my winter coat instead of a sweatshirt, but I wasn’t wearing a hat, and my gloves were in the pockets.

I was in the open road tolling lanes, very solidly stopped in traffic around 7am, when I happened to look in my rear view mirror and saw a pickup truck barreling towards me. I had just enough time to swear (and believe me, the word was not “fudge”) and glance at the distance to the car in front of me before the pickup slammed into me and pushed me into the next car. My steering wheel airbag deployed and caught my face, I could feel it on my lips. My foot airbag also deployed – I didn’t realize that existed – but it pushed my foot off the brake. After a stunned moment, I realized I was moving again as I slid into the back doors of two cars, one in my lane and one in the right lane. I swore again (still not “fudge”) and slammed my foot onto the brake.

When I was sure I was done moving, I shifted my car into park and turned off the engine. I think I glanced behind me and registered that the pickup was attached to my car. I’m not sure of the order immediately after that. At some point, the pickup driver came up to the trio of cars stuck together and called out, asking if everybody was OK. I remember turning the engine back on, so I could lower my window and respond – it hadn’t registered yet that the back window was gone, shattered across the back seat. I texted my co-worker to let her know I’d been rear-ended and would be late, called and left my boss a voicemail (as it turns out, he was behind me in traffic – he passed after the accident, but didn’t recognize my car because “the truck was still on [my] trunk”), then called my mother-in-law a couple minutes before my daughter left for school. This is, as it turns out, a way to panic your child; by the time I next looked at my phone, I had a text message asking for details. I declined the offer of a ride from my mother-in-law, since I had no clue what the process or timing would be, saying I’d call back later if I needed one.

That done, and with my front doors wedged against two other cars, I used my phone to take photos – of the pickup sitting on my trunk, and of the two cars I was wedged between. At some point, the pickup driver told me he was going to try backing up off my trunk, so I made sure my foot was solidly on the brake again, just in case. Once that was done, I sat waiting until emergency personnel came through checking on everybody. When asked if I was OK, I said I was, but was feeling a bit trapped. (I’m not claustrophobic, I just don’t like sitting idle.) Traffic had been passing in the left lane and on the shoulder; the firefighters closed off the shoulder so the accident vehicles could gradually move into that space.

Once the cars in front of me had moved, I turned the engine on again and eased over to the shoulder, and finally got out of the car. I walked around to the trunk, checked my work laptop (survived!), and took a couple photos. I sent a photo of my trunk to my co-workers and my daughter, and posted it to Facebook. And then I began the arduous task of gathering everything in the car into reusable shopping bags from the trunk before the tow truck picked up my poor car. I did fairly well – I missed my sunglasses and a chocolate in a back door pocket, and the tow truck driver later reminded me to grab my iPass. It was about an hour after the accident when I finally sat down in the tow truck; it was almost another hour before the police officer finished writing up the report with the details on all six cars involved.

I received the first copy of the accident report and permission to leave the scene, so I rode to the tow yard and called my insurance from their entry hall. If you’ve never had to do this, it is a tedious process, as the insurance needs all of the details from the accident report – details on all of the drivers and vehicles. Once that was done, we moved to the next step of arranging a rental vehicle through the insurance, and having the rental company pick me up from the tow yard. I ended up driving a lovely Kia minivan for most of a week.

I’d love to say that I then went about my day as normal. I did go to work, but only for a couple hours, as several coworkers were urging me to go to Immediate Care, particularly once a bruise started appearing on the bridge of my nose. As it turns out, I had a mild concussion and was told to take a few days off of work… and in no uncertain terms, not to participate in the black belt test three days later.