Friends and Allies

Image: Another upside down bee, this time one that isn't a bumblebee!

Weird thing I am noticing. Bumblees give no craps if a phone camera is hovering over them. They're also slow moving, generally? I even had one curious bumblebee just latch on to my finger and inspect the camera for itself. Honey and other bees? Camera shy! It's much harder to get a picture of them!! So, here is, shockingly, a bee that is not a bumblebee.

Let's see, what's new with me?

Jas and Mason are continuing their whirlwind exploration of the Twin Cities. Yesterday was the "must see" of Minnehaha Falls, with the requiste lunch at Sea Salt. Mason apparently tried fried oysters for the first time, thanks to Jas. The two of them also did the whole walk all the way to the Mississippi River, since I mean, you're nearly there, so why not? Over dinner at Bole (an Ethiopian place here in St. Paul), Jas said that they had never actually seen sandstone in the wild before, as it were, and found it deeply fascinating. This is the sort of thing that I love hearing about because, having grown up surrounded by sandstone bluffs, I forget how uncommon sandstone might be to someone from another biome.

We took Jas to Bole because, while they have heard of Ethiopia restaurants, they have not been because berbere spices are a migraine trigger fro their mother. So, we were able to provide a guilt-free experience, which I think they quite enjoyed. We ended up sitting outside in the patio, despite the mugginess and threat of rain. It's always so much fun to show off the cool stuff in the city, you know? Our food (and our immigrants, damn it!) is always some of the very best parts of it all.

Since I believe I reported about this earlier, I thought I'd also give an update on Rhubarb's inappropriate urination issues? If you don't want to read about cat pee problems (and who would blame you!?), I will put it under the cut.

( Cat bathroom issues, solutions, and theories.... )

tl:dr we're still working on it? I have faith we'll get her fixed without having to restort to drugs.

That's all the news that's fit to print, plus some that had to appear under the cut.

A bee looking directly at the camera

I like this shot a lot, but it's unfortunately a little too blurry for the New York Times. So, here it is for you, my bee loving friends.

Yesterday was our first full day up at our friends' cabin in Siren, Wisconsin. Mason and I went driving on the highway up here. Not 35 E -- no offense to Mason, but that highway is scary even to me, a seasoned driver. Instead, we went on these littler one and two lane highways. He did really well, all things considered. He's still a very timid driver, but obviously practice is the key to gaining confidence.

Ger and Barb took me to Siren's Farmer's market which reminded me very much of the one naomikritzer  and I used to go to regularly, right down to the random musician in the middle of it all. I ended up picking up a couple of fun jams--an onion and garlic jam, which I tried out on sandwiches and really enjoyed. The other one was a mango, peach, and jalapeno one that I THOUGHT Shawn might try, but she won't even taste it. Ah well. Mason and I will use up that one.

I also bought some fun scented soaps. This is one thing that I'm a sucker for--I ADORE handmade soaps of almost any variety, but especially if they have fun essential oils in them.

From there we checked out the Trunk and Trash, which was basically an old-fashioned flea market. I'd been hoping for a swap meet, but those usually require a corresponding car show, since a lot of what is "swapped" are various car components. The flea market was largely as advertised--trash, but it was still fun to see what people had out, sort of like just getting to go to a bunch of rummage sales all at once. I did actually pick something up. One person had a bunch of beading related things for sale, including a watch kit. I have no intention of making the watch they have beads for, but Shawn and I briefly got into beading and so have a bunch of fun (and goddess themed) beads around. I thought I might try using the kit to design my own beaded watch. Even if I don't, the whole thing cost me a dollar. So, it's not a huge waste.

The exciting nature thing that happened was that yesterday morning we saw a FOX. It just came dashing through Gerriann's natural shoreline. We were sitting outside and, ONCE AGAIN, my brain said, "Cat!" No, dog, then finally, "OMG, the fox!" We knew one was around because one of the angler who came by in a boat on Friday night said that he'd seen one along the shoreline. Sure enough! This was by FAR the closest I've been to a fox. I've seen them now and again, but usually from a car and at some distance.

Shawn, who has never seen a fox in her life, missed seeing this one by about five seconds. She'd just gone to the garbage (which Ger and Barb have to keep locked up in the garage because there have also been bears--a mama and three cubs!--sighted recently, and they've had their garbage cans mauled). We have, thankfully, not seen the bears while we were outside.

Otherwise, I've been taking a LOT of bee pictures for the New York Times (which they will never use, but I don't care.) And, for Gerriann, who is always interested to see what her naturalized shoreline attracts, pictures of butterflies. It's been SO LOVELY.

 
Image: a bumble bee on a purple echinaca/coneflower

My wife and I play the New York Times Spelling Bee game together every morning as part of waking up. I recently discovered that they have a way for anyone to submit photos of bees, which they use as lead pictures for their hints page. I have started obsessively trying to get good pictures of bees to see if one of mine might make the cut. There's no pay. You do get a byline as a kind of a thank you, and, since, I'm not actually aiming for a job as a photographer "for the exposure" is actually plenty of payment for me. I'm kind of in it, actually, for the bragging rights. 

They probably get a million of these a day. And, they will likely never pick any of mine.

NONE of this diminishes my enjoyment and obsessiveness. 

Check out this picture of a TINY-ASS bee in flight.


Image: find the tiny bee. Be impressed!

Anyway, this is what I am doing to keep myself sane during these trying times. How about you? 

 What if I tried journaling two whole days in a row? 

I'm willing to risk it, if you are.

I should be working on my novel, but I got out of the writing habit and now I've got to figure out how to claw my way back into a routine. This is going to sound counter intuitive, but luckily we are headed up to a friend's cabin tomorrow morning for a weekend of lakeside bliss. I will not even try to write over the weekend. HOWEVER, Monday will already be very Monday, being post-vacation, so I will just put my head down. I have a writers' Zoom every M-Th, so there's even a time to "show up to work" already scheduled. This should be a very effective restart button.

At least I hope it will be. 

In the meantime, I have been, once again, working far too hard on preparing for the one shot I want to run at Gaylaxicon. I have, in the past, complained about some of the mechanics about Thirsty Sword Lesbians. Some of you may have heard this rant before (and still others may not give a hoot about RPGs,) in either case, feel free to skip the next little bit. I will even been kind to you and put it under a cut. You will miss the photo  of what I've been calling my enrichment program, but them's the breaks, I guess. Your loss.

( Cut for likely disinterest )

But, yeah, so I've been occupying my time making these things for about 18 different pre-generated character sheets (2 choices for each of the nine "playbooks"). I always allow people to make their own characters on the spot, if they really, really prefer that... but in a cyberpunk setting knowing "what's allowed" can be hard. Plus, because the one shot is supposed to be fast and fun, I've pre-loaded all the pre-generated characters with some cool cyberpunk-y extra powers that won't really affect game play but add to the vibe.

Feel free to burst into applause at my effort. 

Thank you, thank you very much!

 Why is it always a Wednsday when I remember to blog? Like, I briefly wasn't even sure what day it was, but I was thinking "Gosh, I have some stuff I want to talk about" and lo and behold it is Wednesday.

Weird.

Anyway, I didn't do much reading since the last time you and I talked. System Collapse by Martha Wells came up on audio book and I nabbed it. Everyone has already read this book, but I will say that I spent the whole time that I was listening to it comparing the way it played out in my head to how it felt watching it. And I have feelings and observations about that, but, as I have said previously, I am going to save those thoughts for spaces, like conventions, where I can ask the room if they are okay with spoilers. I don't want to have to get a good spoiler font for DW or put everything under a cut, though, perhaps, eventually, I will. 

I also read a few random (and I do mean random, as in anything that my library had volume one of) manga. As always, if you would like to read any of my thoughts on those, you can find them over on my manga blog: https://mangakast.wordpress.com/

My latest anime obsession is something I'm coming to (as usual) somewhat late to the game. I've been watching Apothecary's Diaries. Apothecary's Dairies is just my speed. Crimes get solved, life continues in the Forbidden City. I mean, it's sometimes more harrowing than that, but there is a certain satisfaction in this--as in many murder mystery shows--of SOLVING the crime. These days just accomplishing something vaguely positive seems like a huge win, you know?

Which is probably why I've started doing crossword puzzles again. When times are difficult or I'm processing a lot of grief and sadness, I do crossword puzzles. My wife had a subscription for years to Penny Games or whoever it is that does all the crossword puzzle booklets and so we have a huge pile of them around the house. 

Before  you get too concerned, my grief and sadness is existential for the most part. Politics is devestating on the daily. That's MUCH of it But, as I have posted here my brother in law also is dealing with kidney cancer. What you may not know is that one of Shawn's work colleagues recently lost her battle with liver cancer, and TWO of my friends--one so close that we consider her part of our extended family--are dealing with other types of cancers. (Universe? You can stop with the cancer storyline. Also four people is four too many, thank you very much. If we're doing some kind of season finale, let's have a very special episode about why kindness matters instead, okay? You can be as heavy-handed as you like on that one, Universe!)

We are also dealing with a kitty who has been peeing outside of the box. The only good news in that department is that, having been to the vet to rule out a UTI, we discovered that she has some tiny crystals in her urine and this might actually be what is bothering her. Since this is our bitey cat, Rhurbarb, we assumed she was stressed. She and Willow still don't exactly get along and I know that there is some mutual bullying going on. Anyway, it's not EXACTLY good news to have discovered that she has crystals in her urine, but since shifting the cat food to a specially formulated kidney food and putting out several other spots of water, she does (at least according to our new web cam) seem to be using the box appropriately. 

Unfortunately, it's a box we'd rather not have on our first floor as it is in a bathroom that is immediately outside of the dining room. Mason, reasonably, finds it especially gross because it's within feet of his usual chair. So, we are strategizing about other places that might work that wouldn't require a trip to the basement. When we thought this was psychological ONLY, we figured that Rhubarb might be nervous about getting trapped in the coal room, which is where we currently have all of our boxes. We have since positioned one in a more open space and, while watching that spot with the web cam, we did see just how hesitantly she tried that box out. She'd clearly rather not go to the basement to pee. Since the first floor only has the one bathroom, we're still cogitating. We are considering placing a small box on the landing of the stairs to the basement, but that's generally a tricky spot as it's where our sidedoor is and the stairs are already narrow--and are used for hauling laundry up and down. But, we aren't giving up. We're willing to try an fail until we find a solution. 

And it's super encouraging that Rhubarb is already showing more willingness to go in ANY box, even if it's currently in a place we'd really rather not have one.

I also continue to learn about convention running through my work on the Gaylaxicon programming committee. It feels good to volunteer about something I care about, though I am, of course, worried that people won't go and that we'll have done all this for nothing, our GoHs will cry, etc., etc. I asked Bluesky why they go to conventions, if they still do. What's the draw? An award? A particular guest? Nearness? A particular activity (like gaming or crafting or cosplay)? How do you find out about conventions?

If you want to answer that question for me, too, I'd love to hear your answer.

Also, did you read anything good lately?