Mom's Guide to the Galaxy

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.

Voting for the Hugo Awards

One of the privileges of a WorldCon membership – whether you’re attending the convention or just supporting the World Science Fiction Society (WSFS) with a membership – is the ability to nominate and vote on the Hugo Awards. After the committee filtered through the nominees to determine the top six in each of fifteen categories, they assembled a Voter Packet that was made available to the membership. That Voter Packet includes a mix of excerpts, entire books, trailers for one movie and a couple movies in their entirety.

In terms of quantity of material to review, it was certainly overwhelming. I made a deliberate effort to read the material provided in the Novels, Short Stories, and Astounding New Writer categories, and was lucky enough to have seen half of the movies already. As I polished off what I was going to make it through in a specific category, I logged into my ballot and updated that section. Pictured below is the Novella category with no votes logged.

Screenshot of 2024 Hugo nominees for the Best Novella category

Each category starts will all items listed as Unranked; you select the numbers one through six for each item you’re voting on. You may also use the No Award option at the bottom, if you think none of the nominated works deserve the award. You don’t have to rank all six items, and you can place the No Award in between rankings if you think some items should earn an award and some shouldn’t.

Oddly, to me at least, there is betting on the Hugo Awards. I only found out about that because there was some fraudulent voting in this year’s process that the committee identified and removed from the counts. Regardless, the entire process of assembling the nominees, and Voter Packet, and tabulating the votes is tremendous effort by a team of volunteers. I applaud them and appreciate the new literature this process has exposed me to.

Rethinking our approach to Bristol

I have mentioned several times that we enjoy attending Bristol Renaissance Faire each year. But in last year’s post, I also mentioned some unpleasant waits… in particular, the hour it took us to get from the highway exit (after driving more than an hour to get to that point) to actually walking through the gates of Faire. That was compounded by arriving after the food lines started getting long – because of the traffic delay – with the perennial problem of finding somewhere to sit, knowing that finding a place with a table is unlikely. So we approached this year a little differently, specifically stopping to eat lunch most of the way there, which allowed us both adequate seating (with a table!) and a minimal delay from the highway into Bristol’s parking.

Cirque du Sewer's last show of the day involves fire. In this case, a cat jumps through a flaming hoop from one stool to another.

Since we had already eaten, it was easy to select snacks at less crowded times, and we even found seating at one point in what used to be the Kid’s Kingdom. As an added bonus, arriving later meant we had energy to stay until almost closing, catching different performances from some of our favorite acts, such as Cirque du Sewer’s Fire Show, which includes a cat jumping through a flaming hoop. In a stroke of luck, we had near perfect weather for opening day (as opposed to the next day, which had storms that shut down some shows for safety and eventually the Faire itself).

Assuming the prices don’t continue to rise astronomically – ticket prices increased last year, and the parking jumped from $10 to $15 this year – we’ll probably follow this approach in future years.

Still searching for creative time

The search for free time is a recurring theme this year, between travel, local excursions, work, conventions… the list seems never-ending. But I have stories to write, fun things to crochet, images that need drawing and coloring! The trick that I’m learning is that no matter how enthusiastic I am about the project, I don’t actually need to do it all in one sitting. The images below are a good example of that.

A black and white image with a patterned cloud in the upper third of the page and raindrops scattered through the bottom two thirds.

I follow a couple artists on Instagram, mainly ones who focus on watercolors, which is a medium I have little experience with. This particular image came from Andrea Nelson’s account. While the basic concept is fairly similar to what she did, hers has a lot more dark space in the cloud, separating the sections more. That’s one of the fun things about working from an inspiration… I’m making my own version, not a copy. Even the drawing part was split across multiple sessions as I had time… those little circles in the cloud take a while to draw!

The same image with a patterned cloud in the upper third of the page and raindrops scattered through the bottom two thirds, now with a blue background and different colors in the raindrops. The cloud itself is still black and white patterns.

The next step was painting the image. I started with the background, then moved to colors for the raindrops. It’s been a busy couple weeks, I can’t remember if I actually did the raindrops in a different sitting than the background. I did, of course, have to let the background dry before trying to reach past it to the raindrops. And I had to let the raindrops dry before outlining them with a white gel pen. Like a recipe, I tried to stay true to the original art for the first iteration. The next iteration – still a work in progress – is a little bit more me, and I already have ideas for a third iteration.

In black and white, a patterned cloud with meeple falling below it.

That’s right, it’s raining meeple! I’m not as happy with the cloud on this one – I like the first cloud more, with more subdivisions and the patterns seeming more chaotic. I’ll keep that in mind for the next one.

That said, I definitely like having the meeple there. The drawing was all done in one sitting, and the background paint (not pictured) on its own when I had at most 15 minutes to spare. Next up is painting the meeple.

What do you think the third version will have?

Alaska: Shore Excursions

Our Alaska cruise involved a day at sea, three port days, and another two days at sea – including one passing through Glacier Bay National Park – before ending in Whittier, which is near Anchorage. Most of the movement between the ports was done at night, giving us a reasonable amount of daytime in each port for shore excursions if we wanted.

We wanted. In fact, we managed to schedule four excursions across the three ports, without having to feel like we were rushing from one thing to another. In each port, we had some time to explore the area (mostly shopping) near the ship, including finding lunch twice. The photos below are from our shore excursions, grouped by port: Ketchikan, Juneau, and Skagway.

Ultimate Saxman Experience: Cultural Showcase, Native Crafts & Culinary Tasting

An eagle ornament and paint near the beginning of the painting process.
Alaska Craft Soda from Forty-Ninth State Brewing – a root beer can stacked on a spruce tip soda can
A trio of eagles carved onto branches of a pole
Tlingit dancers displaying the back of their capes, identifying their family affiliations.
The decorated front of the building where we saw the Tlingit dancers.
View of the water from the Saxman Village.
A totem pole in progress.
D&D Mammoth Ivory Dice at the Saxman Village store. It’s a standard set of 7 dice, priced at $1000.

Best of Juneau: Whale Watching, Mendenhall Glacier & Orca Point Lodge Meal (yes, we saw whales, but they don’t show up well on the photos I took)

A mountain view near Mendenhall Glacier.
Mendenhall Glacier across the water.
Mendenhall Glacier across the water with some green between us and the glacier.
Mendenhall Glacier across the water with some people for scale.
Wandering the path near Mendenhall Glacier, alternating between talking and singing because continuous noise alerts bears of your presence.
St. Yakov, the boat we took on our whale watching excursion.
Orca Point Lodge, where we stopped for an early dinner during our whale watching excursion.
A land bridge outside the Orca Point Lodge. We were warned that the land bridge would be underwater by the time we finished dinner. (It was.)
Sea lions lounging on a buoy with raindrops on the windows.
A great view of mountains and water on our whale watching excursion.

Kitchen Science Alaska: Garden-to-Table Skagway and Musher’s Camp & Sled Dog Experience

Alaska Kitchen Science excursion, the science part which involved beakers of mystery liquid and testing for acidity.
Alaska Kitchen Science excursion, where we saw a Big Green Egg and another smoker.
Alaska Kitchen Science excursion, raised garden beds growing mostly salad greens, which don’t travel to remote areas well.
Alaska Kitchen Science excursion, feeding the sourdough.
Alaska Kitchen Science excursion, assembling our own Baked Alaska desserts.
Holland America’s Noordam in Skagway with a mountain in the background.
Mountain views behind the Noordam while docked in Skagway.
Amazing views near Skagway on our way up to the Musher’s Camp to meet sled dogs.
Amazing views near Skagway on our way up to the Musher’s Camp to meet sled dogs.
Me in front of an amazing view on our way up to the Musher’s Camp to meet sled dogs.
A passenger view of the vehicle – a Unimog – we rode at Musher’s Camp to go up the mountain to see the sled dogs.
An action shot of the sled dogs, just starting their run, from the front seat of the wheeled sled at Musher’s Camp near Skagway.
An action shot of the sled dogs from the front seat of the wheeled sled at Musher’s Camp near Skagway.

Before Alaska: Vancouver

I’ll let the photos do most of the work this week. One key thing to keep in mind about the Vancouver airport is that our flight was delayed by three hours, so we landed shortly after midnight in that time zone – 2am in our home time – on little sleep. Despite that, the airport was distinctive enough that we stopped repeatedly to admire it and take photos. On top of that, when we stumbled into the Pinnacle Hotel Harbourfront at wee hours of the morning, they moved us to a port view room with a stunning view.

A pair of woven hangings featuring native designs hanging in the Vancouver airport.
A native wood carving hanging in the Vancouver airport.
Two wood carved people at the Vancouver airport.
The view of the Port of Vancouver from our hotel room, including a gas station in the middle of the water and a line of sea planes.
The view of nearby buildings from our hotel room, with many trees around and on the buildings.
A giant crab in a fountain outside the Museum of Vancouver, with our visiting plush: a light green bear with brown spots and a blue-footed booby.
An awesome tree that we passed after visiting the Museum of Vancouver.
A duck that approached us as we left the Museum of Vancouver.
A colorful Canada Post box that we saw near the Museum of Vancouver.
A sea plane landing in the water at the Port of Vancouver.

Yes, we took photos in the Museum of Vancouver, but I feel most of those would require extensive explanations as to the lovely exhibits we visited. The plush are named Menta and Henrique (I’ve been told that the H is sometimes silent).

Alaska: the cruise overview

At the end of May, we took a cruise past a small part of Alaska on Holland America. This was our third cruise together, and only our second since the cruise that helped launch this blog. This ship is significantly larger than our last cruise was, with 11 levels and the capacity for almost 2,000 passengers. I’ll have follow-up posts about the amazing excursions we selected and the sights we saw.

If you plan a cruise, there are certainly budgeting items you need to consider. We live nowhere near Alaska, which meant in addition to the cruise price (per passenger) and taxes, we needed to account for flights into one airport (Vancouver, BC) and out of another (Anchorage). (I met a retired couple who realized it was cheaper to stay on the ship for the return journey instead of taking a longer flight home from Anchorage to southern California.)

We opted out of the Have-It-All package, which includes most beverages, Wi-Fi, and “crew appreciation”. Crew Appreciation refers to built-in tips, itemized on a daily basis, which is a nice way to account for the variety of cultures – and different tipping practices – that guests may be coming from. On this cruise, that was $17 per day per passenger, which can add up quickly, so it’s worth doing the calculations to see if the upgraded ticket is offset just by that. The shore excursions can add up pretty quickly too. We added a hotel room for a couple nights before the cruise, partially to offset the risk of flight delays (which turned out to be an excellent plan) and for the opportunity to briefly explore Vancouver.

The photos below are all of, on, or from the ship, showing off our tiny inside cabin, some highlights that stand out (like elevator rugs with the day of the week that get changed daily), and a lovely sunrise photo on the one day when I was up and moving for the 4am sunrise.

A subsection of the Noordam in port, showing some of the floors, an elevator shaft, some lifeboats, and a gangplank for exiting the ship.
Artwork depicting the style of cruise ship.
Two twin beds in an inside cabin. There’s a curtain behind the beds hiding a wall. There’s a stuffed bear on the left bed and a stuffed blue footed booby on the right bed. Each nightstand has a water bottle.
An early morning view of the outside pool on the Noordam. There are no people visible on the deck due to the early hour the photo was taken. (Not that there were many people using that pool when it was open, it was a bit cold outside.)
Sunrise in Alaska from a cruise ship
A rug in the elevator that reads “Wednesday”. The rug was updated daily.
Decorated glass doors to an elevator with windows out to the deck, water is visible through the windows.
A view of most of the Noordam in port, with a smaller boat, Bravest, in front.