Writing Excuses Transcripts

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.

 
Today's bee, captured in flight.

16;9, y'all. It's just landscape instead of portrait. MAN, I feel dumb. But, I don't feel as though any of my previous bee photos are wasted. I can also submit photos to the New York Times Spelling Bee that are square. So, I should be able to do some editing and send them again! (They are gonna love me, there. OTHO, I'm sure they get a lot of dummies like me!)

I found a resource rich (as in chock full of bees) area that is part of my daily routine. The Minnesota Historical Society! They have a huge pollenator garden on their hillside and yesterday it was literally buzzing with activity. 

 Meanwhile, Jas has proved themselves to be an excellent house guest. Their family recently had to trip to Japan (and Taiwan, where Jas has a grandmother,) and they brought us lots of absolutely PERFECT gifts. Shawn loves konpeitou--the Japanese hard candy that looks like little sandburs. Not only did Jas bring a package of the actual sweets for her, but ALSO earrings that are in the shape of konpeitou!  This is especially wonderful because Shawn (who has otherwise very little interest in all of my Japanese stuff) likes the idea of saying "Ganbetta" (do your best!) but can never remember it, so often tells me, "Konpeitou!" when she means to wish me good luck. So konpeitou has been our silly way of wishing each other good luck. 

For me, Jas brought some fun washi tape and post-it notes. Again, perfect for me, if you know my love of letter writing, etc. 

Then, apparently, their mother also just sent along a whole bunch of odds and ends as gifts, too. We're going to have to step up our game? I have not participated in this competative gift giving thing before. Is it a Southern thing? (Jas's folks live in Oklahoma.) I ask because Mason's other friend Gray, also has parents who send Mason home with odd gifts (they're in Missouri.) Thoughts, any Southern State living friends of mine?

Today, I am planning on letting them have the car to do with as they like. Mason loves Saint Paul (and Minneapolis) and delights in showing off all the cool features found therein. I know they are planning on seeing Minnehaha Falls because that is a tourist MUST (and also Mason loves eating at Sea Salt.) Yesterday, they walked to the Creamery formerly known as Izzy's now... somthing else, which I have forgotten. So, Jas is getting the full tour!  

I shall end with a slightly different bug. If anyone on my list of friends is bug-averse, please let me know and I will put these photos under the cut!


Image: grasshopper on bright red lily (in Grantsville, WI. We stopped at an old-fashioned rootbeer stand type place that had these amazing flowers and I spotted this little fellow.)

 
Image: Artsy shadowy shot of a bee on a fleasbane blossom

I think I will try this one on the New York Times. It's awfully artsy. I'm not sure how the New Yorkers could resist something this fancy! Even though, I'm pretty sure that the shadow was caused by my own body. But, they don't need to know just how amateur I am.

Yesterday was our last day up at our friends' cabin. As I've noted, they have a rewilded and naturalized their shoreline. What I may never have mentioned is that maintaining native plantings is constant work. One of the things I like to do for Gerriann is pull whatever non-natives they identify for me. This work is not required. Our friends are extremely generous and would have us up to the cabin even if all we did was laze around in the sun and swim in the lake. We've been friends for decades. Mason doesn't know what summer is without a trip to visit Ger & Barb's cabin. 

But this year I had some fun because Ger identified TWO new plants for me to pull. Mostly, what I'm pulling are trees that are trying to establish themselves in this nice sunny spot on the shore. Some of them are even native trees, but when you do this sort of thing--rewild or naturalize--You do sort of have to decide what kind of look you want and Ger wants sun and sedges and a kind of open prairie (only with lake plants) look. At any rate, I am sore but happy today having dug up a bunch of offending trees!

Even though the wind was cold yesterday, I also spent a huge amount of time in the actual lake. At one point it was just me and the loon. Lovely.

Here's all of us!


Image: Geriann (center), right front (me), right back (Barb), center back (Mason), and left (Shawn)

 
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?