August 2025 – Mom's Guide to the Galaxy

The Paramount Theatre presents Come From Away

Come From Away just opened at the Paramount Theatre, and it is, as expected, fabulous. It does, however, need warning labels if you are unfamiliar with the plot, and in some cases, even if you are familiar with the story they’re unfolding on stage, particularly if you’re of an age to remember the foundational event: September 11th, 2001. In that case, it’s likely to bring up memories, shared these so many years, of near misses, such as the friend who was late for work that day or family members who flew out of New York the day before, or of the ones who weren’t so lucky.

Cropped theatre tickets for Come From Away at the Paramount Theatre on August 23, 2025

Come From Away is not fundamentally about the disaster that occurred. Rather, it approaches this historic event from the town of Gander, on an island which is part of Newfoundland in Canada. If you can’t immediately place that on a map without help, don’t worry, neither could I. Or most of the people whose flights were stranded there – 38 planes were rerouted to Gander when US air space closed because of the terrorist attacks.

The story told is primarily about how Gander rallied to host these stranded travelers whose presence almost doubled Gander’s population, and the friendships that were formed in those handful of days. Instead of replaying the disaster details themselves, the horrors of that day are portrayed in the cast members’ reactions, particularly the desperate attempts by the travelers to reach family and friends back in a time when most of us weren’t carrying cell phones everywhere. The creators made a good effort to break up the serious moments with odd bits of appropriate humor, so rest assured, you won’t be crying the entire time.

There is a brief glimpse of the beginnings of the Islamophobia that spawned from September 11th, but the story ends before reaching the infringements on our constitutional rights from the Patriot Act and the blatant imperialism of the wars the United States launched in revenge. Instead, the story manages to end on a high note celebrating the friendships forged in Gander.

Anxiety exists for a reason.

In this particular instance, I’m referring to my anxiety related to nests inhabited by stinging insects, particularly wasps. You may recall a couple years ago, I had a terrible Saturday morning when I accidentally disturbed a yellowjacket nest on the east side of our house, safely tucked between an empty planter and our shed. This past Saturday, I was talking to my neighbor about our plethora of balls in the deck box, specifically in relation to something his puppy could use. (The deck box moved to this house a couple years ago and had not been sorted through in that time.) I had already handed him an old volleyball of mine that was stored under a nearby bench, but flipped up the lid to show him how many other balls we have. As we stood there talking, I noticed movement in my peripheral vision and realized that there was a hornet’s nest on the underside of the lid.

A blurry photo of a wasp or hornet nest (I don't really distinguish between aggressively stinging insects) on the underside of our deck box lid. I wasn't getting closer to get a non-blurry photo.

I swore, and we both immediately moved away from the box, him in response to my action before he noted the nest as well. We both took a few more steps for safety, and he offered to lend me the wasp spray he owned, though we both noted that it should wait until evening – wasps tend to be active during the day and dormant at night, so the ideal time to spray a nest is when most of them are clustered on it, resting. I sent Cassandra a warning to avoid the side patio and after lunch, we wandered off to an Arts & Crafts Fair at Morton Arboretum.

As the afternoon wore on, I noted that the impending thunderstorm might interfere with my plan to spray the nest that evening. Before the rain started – splendid rain, bringing about four inches of water to our yard – we had some high winds that caused me – after it started raining – to pop out the side door and see if the lid to the deck box was still open. Upon discovering that it wasn’t, I stepped out under the overhang and carefully flipped the lip open again, thinking that when the opportunity arose to spray the nest, I didn’t want to disturb them with the motion of opening it again.

A little while later, the rain let up, so I popped outside, grabbed the can, sprayed the nest thoroughly, and promptly ignored it for the rest of the evening as the rain came and went. Come morning, I verified that the nest was empty, noting several corpses in the deck box. I used a plastic bag to grab the nest, tied it off, and dropped it into our garbage can. I then emptied the entire box, organizing as I went… and much to my dismay, discovered a trio of yellowjackets tucked into the palm of a rather wet softball glove. The dismay was augmented when I dumped them into the grass and they began moving! Fortunately, they were the only ones, though I did proceed carefully in case there was another nest buried in the box.

Once the box was empty, I hauled it onto the grass, scrubbed it down, and left it to dry. In the afternoon, we started to refill the box, though we left some damp items drying nearby. We closed the lid… which turned out to be a mistake. When I went back out to put other items into the box, there were a few hornets at the spot where the nest had been, presumably trying to rebuild. I left the lid open again and retreated. When I returned a while later, they were gone, and I sprayed the area again to discourage them from returning.

A couple days later, with no evidence of hornets in the open box, I finally closed the lid again. So far, so good.

Thoughts on Wednesday: Season 1

Yes, I’m late to this game, primarily because we don’t have a Netflix subscription. I’m a bit too young to have been original audience for the first Addams Family TV show in the 1960s and far too young for the debut of the standalone single-panel comics – started in the late 1930s – that inspired that show. My introduction to The Addams Family came through the movie in the early 1990s, when a group of friends walked from campus to a nearby movie theatre in that day or two between the ending of finals and everyone heading home for the holidays. Based on IMDB’s search results, I’ve apparently missed some iterations since then. But I heard of Wednesday when it aired and recently checked the library to see if the DVDs were available.

Wednesday Addams is the quintessential macabre goth girl, both in appearance and her general approach to life, clearly highlighted in the opening scenes where she walks into a normal school in her usual attire and through a quick sequence of events, proceeds to drop piranhas in a pool where the boys who were bullying her brother are swimming. As she proceeds with her family to Nevermore, the boarding school her parents attended, her regret regarding the piranhas is that she will be seen as a failure, having been expelled for attempted murder. (Rumors, of course, are flying regarding the new student, and nobody there realizes she failed in her murder attempt.)

While that sets the mood, Wednesday is about more than just some macabre goth jokes. Clearly intelligent and curious, she immediately becomes embroiled investigating what appear to be serial killings in the area, as well as a long-dormant murder accusation against her father. She notices minute details overlooked by others, assembling the pieces together while adjusting to her new school and the possibility of actual friendships. Ultimately, the first season is just as much about found family as it is about the mysteries she is trying to solve.

I look forward to Season 2… you know, some day, when it reaches DVD or we pick up a Netflix subscription.

It’s been slow growing this year.

It’s been a weird growing season. Yes, I started things like tomatoes late, but the okra, beans, and corn were planted at appropriate times. You wouldn’t know it from looking at them. The okra is the smallest of them, just finally peeking over the edge of the raised bed it’s planted in. There are a few beans on the bushes, and most of the corn is still shorter than me. (And I’m pretty short!) The back vegetable garden has just been growing slowly this year, well, except for the kale and chard, which are huge. The surviving squash, cucumber, and melon plants in the back are just barely showing off flowers. And it’s mostly been outside our control, just the weird range of hot and dry weather we had earlier in the season, with the occasional cool dips. The surviving plants have started to expand – later than usual – as the weather has almost settled into something resembling normal. And our grass has replenished from the intermixed brown that carried into July.

It’s not all bad though… our berries have been amazing this year, from the ever-bearing strawberries (now preparing for a third harvest round), raspberries, and a mulberry tree that would normally have been done a month ago and is still filled with a plethora of red (still ripening to purple) berries. Our grand success for the season, however, sits in the front yard, a placeholder for an area that will acquire more fruit in future years. In fact, the white pumpkins’ vines filled those placeholder spots and sprawled across the new herb garden, eclipsing the basil and cilantro in their beds. With an anticipated two months or more of growth still left, some of the pumpkins are already huge and new ones are still forming. If we’re lucky, at least in terms of the garden, fall will come slowly and we’ll be able to harvest some delicious treats from the back yard.

That was yummy.

Well, mostly. Earlier this week, we attended a snacking adventure at our local library, which consisted of a box of eleven distinct treats from Universal Yums from one of their country boxes – in this case, Taiwan.

Part of the cover for Universal Yums' Welcome to Taiwan selection. The full cover includes a map of Taiwan with some key locations noted; the partial includes the edge of that map with Kaohsiung (a port) and Tainan (Taiwan's oldest city) just showing.

This was our first tasting adventure at the library and our first chance to try Universal Yums, though we’ve been aware of the concept for a while now. The library event was described as “Yum Club”; we didn’t know the theme was Taiwan until we arrived. This was clearly not the first iteration of Yum Club at the library, and many of the attendees were familiar with the process. It was our first, hopefully of many, Yum Club exploration.

The library provided information booklets – from Universal Yums – to each participant. The cover features the theme and a map of Taiwan, highlighting some important places with a tidbit of information about each on the map. The second page has “The Yum Scoreboard,” which includes a spot to rate or record comments about each snack, suggested ratings (essentially Wow, OK, and Yuck), and a spot to guess at which four of the eleven treats will be your favorites. We were warned going in that each person would be asked their top and bottom choices at the end, so I ranked the treats as I went. Of the four that I guessed for my top choices, two made it, and a third treat only missed by one.

The first of three pages with photos of the snack food in its package, a title with an abbreviated description, and detailed description with context for each. The four treats featured on this page are Triko Foods Taro Cookies (Crispy Cream-Filled Cookies), Koloko Crispy Pea Snacks (Lemon & Pink Salt Flavored), Popsmile Popcorn (Milk Bubble-Tea Flavored), and Taiwan Choco Ball (Creamy Peanut Filled Mochi)

The third, fourth, and fifth pages have images, names, an abbreviated description, and then a detailed description and some context for each item. For example, the first item we tried was the Triko Foods Taro Cookies, described briefly as Crispy Cream-Filled Cookies. (Unfortunately, there weren’t enough of these for everyone, so we broke them while still in the package, which resulted in one person trying the center of the cookies – which was cream-filled – and the other person tried the crumbly exterior. I suspect I would have rated these higher if I had gotten some of the cream filling.)

The last page of the booklet is the important one for those of us with food allergies: the ingredient list for all included items. Having arrived a few minutes early, I was able to verify that all of the treats were safe for me before we started snacking.

My guesses at top four were (in no particular order) Taiwan Choco Ball (Creamy Peanut Filled Mochi), Cadina Crunchy Corn Layers Snacks (Butter & Garlic Flavored), Nice Choice Peanut-Brittle Candy (Crunchy Roasted Peanuts), and Triko Foods Taro Cookies (Crispy Cream-Filled Cookies).

My actual top four were (in order, starting at my top choice) Nice Choice Peanut-Brittle Candy (Crunchy Roasted Peanuts), Koloko Crispy Pea Snacks (Lemon & Pink Salt Flavored), Nice Choice Yogurt-Flavored Biscuits (Crispy Animal-Shaped Crackers), and Taiwan Choco Ball (Creamy Peanut Filled Mochi).

I was an odd one out listing the mochi fairly high; several people listed it as their least favorite when we went around the room because of the consistency. That said, more people – myself included – listed the Khong Guan Smoked Candy (Plum Flavored) as the one they liked the least, mainly because of the smoked part of the flavor.

If you’ve tried Universal Yums or something similar, drop a comment and let me know what you thought. I think it’s a neat way to catch glimpses of other cultures.