Plot twist? Cell phone.

So, yes, we're home! It's a new year! And stuff!

Today was Nerd Brigade Mark 2.5 day, notable in that the female players, for the first time, outnumbered the male ones. They played and sang and ate pizza and cupcakes and generally appeared to be having fun, despite going up against an astral spirit, a giant and a whole bunch of Githyanki.

In other news, V has started a new semester at school, which means I anticipate spending several days a month reading plays to her over the phone. We read the first one, Deathtrap by Ira Levin, a few days ago. I'm familiar with Deathtrap, having seen the film and at least one student production, and I noticed a number of self-referential play-within-a-play conceits that I hadn't seen before, but this time what mostly stood out to me was the way technology has changed since October 1978, the setting of the play. There were no cell phones, there were no fax machines, there was no modern Internet, and there was no way for an upper-middle-class household to access the Internet that existed at the time, since home computers were brand new and fantastically expensive. Instead, everyone uses typewriters. One character mentions having to make a carbon copy of his play, since the Xerox machine is on the fritz (for those not in the know, a carbon copy is a mechanical method of creating an original document and a copy simultaneously, using a typewriter, two sheets of paper and a sheet of carbon paper sandwiched between them. As one types, the typewriter prints the original sheet of text and also presses hard enough to create a secondary text behind it, using the carbon paper to transfer the typed letters onto the second sheet. It's a slow, painstaking, low-resolution process that Microsoft Word and a cheap printer have made happily obsolete).

(There were also a few popular culture references that might confuse people who came of age since 2001. At one point a character dryly describes his potential collaboration with another character as "Rodgers and Heartless." V didn't know about Rodgers and Hart, so that comment went sailing over her head. It's a reference that's aged relatively well, assuming you know your Broadway musical collaborators... of the past century.)

My sister and I were discussing this later, and we came to the conclusion that most of the major plot twists in popular fiction, from the beginning of time all the way into the 1980s, could have been untwisted easily if characters had just had cell phones. The Cask of Amontillado? Cell phone. Robinson Crusoe? Cell phone. Metropolis? Cell phone. Romeo & Juliet? Cell phone. In fact, the cell phone is such a deus ex machina device for plot twistification that it's probably destroyed all sorts of potential tragic romances and castaway novels in embryo, before the writers spin up a single word.

Yes, still alive

I know, it's been a while. My excuse: my sister Jenny's been here. During the day we go out and have adventures, and at night (when I typically do my blogging) she sleeps in the room where my computer lives, so I haven't had much of a chance to write updates. In fact, I don't have much time to write this either, because the Nerd Brigade is coming today and I've got to do some cleaning up. Soooooo... later, skaters!

Skaters gonna skate skate skate skate skate.

Roxy, Nerd Brigade. Nerd Brigade, Roxy.

Fifth Saturday of the month, so the Nerd Brigade is here again. I decided it was time to socialize Roxy a little and gently picked her up to take her out to meet them. As expected, she was nervous, but she didn't actually lose it until I took her back into the bedroom; then she struggled away from me and promptly shot into her hidey-hole under the bed. I'm sure if I look under there right now I will get a baleful eyeshine-filled glare. Such is life with a skittish kitty.

Also, we got snow this morning! Yay! (It's disappearing as we speak, but still... SNOW!)

It's about time to write another Holiday Holler. I need a quiet place to a) think about what actually happened this year, b) find a way to make it humorous or fictional and c) keep it all to one page. Ngh. Wish me luck.

ETA: here's how Roxy is handling the stress today.

Yes, that's our bed. No, I didn't make it today because I'm a bum. Yes, her tail is the only thing showing. She is a silly beast.

Things I've seen recently

Last night, while driving home, I saw an owl hunting (not pictured, because freeway driving speeds and casual camera use don't mix)...

...plus Mama Deer and her fawn wandering along our street (sorry, this blurry pic was the best of three photos).

And today, there are certain subtle clues to indicate the advent of Nerd Brigadery.

(Roxy heads for her hidey-hole under the bed whenever we have guests.)

Efficacy

ef·fi·ca·cy noun \ˈe-fi-kə-sē\

: the power to produce a desired result or effect

--Merriam-Webster online dictionary

f you've been reading this blog a long time (as in "for years now"), you may remember the general request made for prayer on behalf of Devin Munk, who at the time was 14 and in the direst medical trouble after a hiking accident.

Perhaps you might be interested in a follow-up. Devin is now 20 years old, an alumnus of the Nerd Brigade, properly addressed as Elder Munk, and serving as an LDS missionary in Ogden, Utah. On September 1 he posted the following to Facebook:

6 years ago today my life ended. Literally, the earth came out from under my feet and took me over the edge. A 100 foot free-fall, 17 or so broken, but mostly shattered bones, internal lacerations, paralysis from the waist down and so on. I was not dead but life as I knew it was over. The doctors predicted death, or at least severe crippling (amputation of my legs, permanent paralysis below the waist and possibly other things.) However, my father, Steve Munk, administered to me a priesthood blessing, through the priesthood of God that he holds as a worthy member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. As directed by the Holy Ghost he commanded my body, in the name of Jesus Christ, to be healed. I am not dead, I am not paralyzed, I have both of my feet, I can walk for hours every day and you cannot even tell by looking at me that I have ever been injured in my life.

The recovery took half the time the doctors predicted, or less, for almost everything mending. This time was a blessing, in retrospect, because though it was faster than predicted it still took months to get out of the hospital bed and years to feel normal. It was a blessing because I learned how important the gospel of Jesus Christ was to me. Before it was important in my life and to my family, but now it was real. My angel mother, KayLyn Munk, despite her distress and exhaustion, would read to me, upon my request, from the Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ. It brought me peace and comfort, lying there in agonizing pain in the hospital. The Spirit testified then to me of the reality of our Savior, Jesus Christ and His sacrifice and suffering for our sins. Contemplating this, in context of the pain I was then experiencing, I turned my head to my mom, and asked her, "how did He do it, how did Christ do it?" But I know that He did!

Because of Him I am healed. Because of Him, though my life ended, it started anew. Because of Him I can be forgiven of my sins and mistakes and every day become a better person. Because of Him I am happy, and can be eternally so as I enter back into His presence, and into the presence of our Father after this life. I so testify in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

In this life, you are free to believe in anything you choose, or to believe in nothing at all. You can believe in the goodness of God, in the power of science, in the whimsy of flying spaghetti monsters and invisible pink unicorns. You can believe only in yourself. Or you can just believe you'll have another drink. It's your call.

As for me, I believe that Devin was healed by the power and inspiration of God, as a response to his faith, his family's faith, and the many, many prayers that were made on his behalf. I believe each of us has a specific job to do on this earth, and that Devin's broken body responded so well to treatment -- and his physicians were inspired to perform to the best of their abilities -- in part because he still has a critical role to play. For those watching carefully, time may reveal the nature of that role.

Is Devin scarred from the experience? Yes, absolutely. Is he completely healed of his injuries? No. But he is a visible manifestation of miraculous healing, he has a powerful testimony of what faith and prayer can do, both to save lives and to save souls, and he's not afraid to share it. And that's part of what he's doing on his mission.

I believe that faith and prayers are both efficacious. Go back and read the definition of efficacy again carefully before you scoff; these acts do not always have the power to produce an expected result, but they have the power to produce a desired result. Very often I've seen prayers answered in an unexpected way, and these unexpected-but-still-desired answers produced results far superior to what people had originally asked for. (Besides, what do we expect God to be? Some kind of celestial vending machine? Honestly.)

Sattiday!

Well, the Nerd Brigade Mark 2 is here again, attempting to Virtually Beat Stuff Up. It's interesting listening to them -- week by week, they're starting to mature. Already the noise level, which was wholly out of control a few months ago, is down to a tolerable level (Miss V has not yet fled the house at their approach, though I think she's still going out shopping tout de suite), they're working with each other, rather than at cross purposes, and actually listening to Captain Midnight when he makes suggestions.

Me, I think I'll go out with V today. And then pay a visit to the Seelie Court Laundromat again (bleah). At least I've got a good book to keep me company while the whites and colors oscillate.

So far this has been fascinating reading, but then Neil Gaiman rarely disappoints me. It's probably about time to review a few more books from the Teetering Pile... but I've got a backlog of stuff to write at the moment, so it'll have to wait for bits and pieces of time I shamelessly steal from other projects.

In unrelated news, a human interest piece about the fictional hamlet of Agloe, NY merged in my head with a completely different piece extolling the virtues of the best food trucks in the USA... now I'm pondering the possibility of a food truck selling "authentic" ethnic food from a country that doesn't, strictly speaking, exist. Captain Midnight suggested offering authentic Freedonian food, with a menu featuring duck soup, swordfish and a dessert trifle made with animal crackers. (If we did this, we'd require everyone working on the truck to wear Groucho glasses.)

It's just another day

So: quotidian adventures in the life of Soozcat.

6 a.m.: half woke up when Captain Midnight left for work, giving me kisses as he went. Mmm, amazing Captain Midnight. Plus he works hard for the money, so you better treat him right.

about 8:45: REALLY woke up thanks to the funky scent of asphalt coming through the open window (my landlord is making improvements to the property). Slid out of bed and plodded around the house aimlessly for a while, checked social media, took morning meds. "Take with food?" Huh. Maybe I should do that. Ate salami for breakfast... and I actually wonder why I'm not losing weight. Doi.

9:15: the idea wandered into my head that I should write a "my day" thing. Opened Notepad and started typing this. So far my day is bleary-eyed and riveting, no?

9:30: Put white strips on my teeth (thought it over and decided I'd rather pay $30 for over-the-counter white than $300 for dentist white).

9:35: STOP. Shower time!

9:53: out of shower. (For this Mormon girl, showers fill the need that coffee fills for everyone else: they help wake you up, and they're a quality experience that is not to be rushed.) Pulled off white strips. Um. I think I might have flipped the upper and lower strips by mistake. Oh well. Meditated on the white strips box. What is this "3D WHITE" thing? Are my teeth gonna be so dazzlingly gleaming that the whiteness projects a foot from my mouth? Will people duck when I smile? Next up, no doubt, "4D WHITE" that improves your enamel's appearance in SPACE and TIME. Heh.

9:56: oh, right. Probably time to get dressed.

9:59: about halfway through getting dressed, noticed wall clock was not keeping proper time any more. Dug through junk drawer for functional AA battery, popped out the old one, put the new one in, tweaked the time, hung it back on the wall. Then remembered I was still wandering around half-clad.

10:05: finally fully dressed (jeans and T-shirt, the nerd uniform), though I should probably whip this towel off my head at some point. Also, old red T-shirt has holes at the neck and shoulders. Meh, I'll wear it today and then retire it for good.

10:08: briefly sucked into social media again. Giggled at Chaucer Doth Tweet's attempt to conjugate, in Middle English, the verb "yolo." Noticed I was burning daylight. Ran away! Ran away!

10:12: turned on YouTube, found The Knack's "My Sharona" and turned it up. Time to put dishes away. Repeat to fill the dishwasher up again.

10:22: started dishwasher. Danced around the kitchen. My-my-my-ay-ay-WOO! So glad the NSA can't see this. At least not as far as I know. Paranoia Moment. Wondered briefly whether they have "American Idol: NSA Edition" at spytastic HQ. Tempted to moon the NSA just for kicks.

10:25: finally whipped that towel offa my head because I gots me a doctor's appointment.

10:30: found purse and dragged a brush through my hair. I'm just gonna go to this appointment with wet hair today. It's not like the doctor's going to care one way or the other.

10:35: all right, into the Hyundai, flyboy! VROOM. Slalomed through traffic, singing along to Peter Hollens' version of "Not Over You" on the thumb drive. The last mile of road to the doctor's office was getting torn up, so I waited a while for a flagger to wave me through.

10:55: in the waiting room. I skimmed a People article on Oprah Winfrey, then watched a young dad with an adorable toddler daughter (dark curly hair, yellow top, little voice like a bell) playing together with Duplo blocks.

11:10: the doctor must be running late. A lady in a dark green salwar kameez, presumably the little girl's mom, came out into the waiting room and had a brief conversation with her husband in a subcontinental language (I'm not sure what it was; it didn't sound like Hindi) before disappearing down the hall. A delivery man came in with a package, dropped it off and departed. The lady returned and asked for a glass of water.

11:15: a new patient -- a tall man in a green T and jeans -- checked in for his 11:15 appointment. Now I've had a policy the last few years about waiting for doctor appointments. If I'm kept waiting anywhere between 15 and 20 minutes in the waiting room, I reschedule. The way I see it, if a doctor is running a quarter of an hour or more late, she's so harried by running from patient to patient that she's probably not going to be able to give the best possible care anyway -- and if I break today's appointment to reschedule for a less hectic time, it makes her day and mine easier at once. The receptionist was very apologetic, but it wasn't her fault. So, I'm set up for next Tuesday at 10. (Don't let me forget.)

11:30: home again, home again, jiggity-jig. Singing all the way. Thanks for the vocal workout, Peter Hollens!

11:35: turned on Skype to talk to Captain Midnight. We discussed a potential carpool situation for tonight's festivities (on which, more later).

11:45: well, enough of this gay banter; let's do some writing. Shuttled back and forth between WordPerfect (still the best word processor EVAR) and Skype chat with Captain Midnight (still the most awesome husband EVAR).

12:16: hungry. Spooned up some of the leftover green soup from last night and had that, cold, for lunch. This soup is full of pureed new peas, so it might not be that good for my blood sugar. Guess we'll find out in an hour or so.

12:45: found I was bumping around between writing and social media, with stronger emphasis on social media. Turned it off.

1:05 p.m.: looked over today's writing, and... meh. Meh! I call myself a writer? ...meh. Time to switch tasks, then. Emptied the dishwasher. Started a laundry load. At least I'll get something done today.

1:15: butt back in chair. No, wait, time to check my blood.

1:17: blood sugar reading was 116. Acceptable. OK, NOW butt back in chair.

1:20: duh. MY NAME R SOOZ N I R A RITER. pthpbh.

1:38: phone call from Mom.

2:09: off the phone. Yes, we have lengthy phone conversations thanks to super-cheap rates! More Butt In Chair work. Still not happy with work quality today.

3:14: GAAAH SERIOUSLY CRAPTACULAR WORK I HAVE GOT TO DO SOMETHING ELSE RIGHT NOW. Took a laundry break.

3:35: with laundry busy oscillating, decided it was time for a snack (ham and the last of the rye crackers). Omnomnomnom.

3:43: more conversation with Captain Midnight. Because he's cute.

4:01: hmm, these bills don't seem to be paying themselves. Logged on to bank website and paid them.

4:10: had a quick visit from a former neighbor asking about a carpool to a music venue tonight. Verified we would be leaving at 6:00.

4:15-4:40: zoned out on social media. I know... bad writer, bad, no biscuit.

4:42: ten-minute(ish) write.

4:55: off to pick up Captain Midnight from work.

5:05: got Captain Midnight, fought traffic, successfully found our cache o' the day, headed back to the house.

5:30: sat around yakking about this and that with CM, until our neighbor showed up for a ride.

6ish: headed into Seattle. Traffic jams ho!

6:40: made it to Studio 7, wandered in, talked to various members of Happy Leviathan and related family members. Eventually got kicked back out to the curb.

7:00: allowed back in after we showed our tickets.

7:45: MUSIC, PROFESSOR!
The evening's lineup included a folk-ish duo named Erika and Rachel, an alt-rock band called Beneath the Spin Light, and of course, our nerd-rock buddies from Happy Leviathan as pictured above (all three are alumni of the Nerd Brigade). We evilly scampered away after HL had their set, because we're old farts who need to be home before midnight. (Captain Midnight was out the door by 6 a.m. today, you will recall.)
Dropped off our rider and spent the rest of the way home talking about former child stars and whether Hollywood has a responsibility to "debrief" its child stars to prepare them for real life, so they don't become hapless hot messes the minute they turn 18.

10:10: home sweet home. And thanks to earplugs helpfully provided by Anika, my ears are not ringing tonight.

That brings us up to now. Captain Midnight is settling down for bed, and I've taken my evening meds and am now scrounging around for an evening nosh. If I have some sort of incredible brainwave, I'll stay up another hour or two and write (for some reason I get more ideas and write better at night than I do at any other time); otherwise, I'll hit the sack.

So how was your day?

Fun and games with 1000 Blank White Cards

If you've read about our ongoing adventures with the Nerd Brigade, you may have discerned that we like games around here, and you'd be right.  One of our favorites for some time has been 1000 Blank White Cards (it's like Calvinball: The Card Game... or the DIY forerunner of Fluxx).  The basic rules: start with some blank white cards.  Everybody draws up some playing cards -- each one usually has a title, a picture (though this isn't strictly necessary, it is part of the fun), and instructions about what happens when the card is played.  Gameplay is simple: draw a card, play a card.  See who can get the most points (or, depending on how the game goes, the least points, or maybe some completely different objective, depending on how the cards are made and played).

Part of the fun for me is seeing all the looniness people come up with for their cards.  Some of them give points or take them away, some require you to perform some forfeit, some arbitrarily change the game rules, some force you to get rid of cards, and some are purely silly (such as The Ace of Nitwits, which has no instructions of any kind, or And Now For The Halftime Show!, which requires all players to run around the table clucking like chickens).

I took a look at our current deck tonight and found a few that make me grin.

This one was made by my sister Julie, so of course it features Bert and Ernie.

Miss V made this one quite a few years ago.  Rockin' that white leisure suit.

And I made this one.  (He's supposed to have gleaming teeth as befits a career politician, but it didn't turn out quite right.)

Do you have a favorite card game or other game to play with family or friends?  Do tell!

It's what we do

Another weekend, another evening hanging with the Nerd Brigade.

The requisite pile o' shoes beside our front door.

Today's contingent of the Nerd Brigade. Note that CM is not in the Seat of Power today. Yes, they have a Guest DM holding the reins. Today they are going through a tesseract dungeon, courtesy of our Guest DM's fertile brain.

As I've pointed out elsewhere, being a dungeon master is a lot like the way the ancient Greeks thought of their gods: all the power of a deity, with little or no concern for or sense of responsibility over lesser beings.

Earlier, for reasons I didn't quite catch, they were having a vociferous argument in French about whether one of their members was, or was not, in fact, a croissant.

Hey, I don't explain 'em, I just report 'em.

Nerd Brigadery

The Nerd Brigade will not be meeting today, due to their dungeon master being temporarily imprisoned in Cap'n Bill's Wide World o' Nerds, and I've been cleaning up some of the flotsam left behind on our kitchen table.

To help his little party of adventurers keep track of the important stuff on a quest, Captain Midnight draws up index cards with pictures of weapons, armor, potions and other quest items.

Some of them are rather amusing.

Not to mention vaguely familiar.

I hope they call this one The Burninator.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man engulfed in flames cannot be accosted by ninjas.
Here's the origin of this one.

After a while, the guys decided to get into the act and drew up a few of their own.
I can't tell whether this is a weapon or a disposable razor.

...OK, I got nothin'.

Part of this unbalanced breakfast

Captain Midnight woke up this morning to find breakfast on the table.

From left to right: gummy fried eggs, sour grapefruit slices, sour candy strips (bacon).

He found it amusing, but didn't actually eat it, which is probably just as well. I suspect the Nerd Brigade, which should be showing up very shortly, will polish it off.

ETA: oh yeah. Called that one.

The Nerd Brigade: now with... girls?

That's right, as of this Saturday the Nerd Brigade has gone co-ed.

Don't believe me? I have PROOF.

Behold: an exceptionally neat and tidy shoe rack...

...and the ladies and gentlemen themselves.

I don't know, does this mean we'll have to change their name?

The return of the Nerd Brigade

After many weeks of hiatus, CM and the Nerd Brigade are up to their usual hijinks again. The house is alive with the sound of teen boys debating how to enter a room chock full of bugbears, the crunch of homemade popcorn and the scent of boiling hot dogs.

Back in the early '80s, when it seems a lot of parents didn't have anything more pressing to worry about, there was a sizable hue and cry about D&D and other tabletop role-playing games being a sort of gateway drug to Satanism. Such worries seem almost quaint these days -- witness the Nerd Brigade, a group of teenage boys from our church, none of whose parents seem to have batted an eye over their participation in this group -- but nearly 30 years ago parents really worried about the state of their D&D-playing kids' souls. It was enough of a concern that numerous articles were written in the attempt to pacify parents -- "no, your kids aren't going to become trenchcoat-wearing violent cultists just by playing D&D." (Some things never change; now it seems concerned parents get their panties in a twist about the occult effects of runaway bestsellers their kids want to read, such as the Harry Potter series. Uh, right. The minute I can holler "Wingardium leviosa!" and actually make something fly, you folks will have a leg to stand on, m'kay?)

RPG enthusiast Kismet has written a good article on some of the benefits of RPGs (they increase the exercise of imagination, improve reading and math skills, and encourage teamwork and camaraderie), and has also written an article on the pitfalls of such games (condensed into one phrase: they're time-wasters). In my opinion, though, D&D is like a lot of other hobbies: what you bring with you has a lot more influence on you than anything in the nature of the hobby. If Jhaymes has an unhealthy interest in gore and he bakes cakes for fun, you shouldn't be all that surprised if he comes up with a gray brain cake that bleeds realistically when you cut into it. It has little or nothing to do with the shady or occult nature of cake-baking, and everything to do with the inclination of the individual.

Mmm, cut me a piece of cerebellum, Jhaymes!

Variations on a theme

Nerd Brigade Part II: Electric Boogaloo is currently in progress. The guys are happily fighting kobolds, attempting to throw off a case of the plague, and eating pizza like there's no tomorrow. Many of their comments are highly amusing, but I'm not sharing them here.

My mother is coming to visit very soon (hi Mom!). I've managed to procure some tickets so that she can go see the national touring production of Wicked at the Paramount while she's here. Mom's never seen Wicked... this will be my third time, because I'm kind of an addict, and I'm wondering how it will compare to the others (the first at the Gershwin in New York in 2005, the second at the Pantages in L.A. in 2008).

One of the most interesting things -- for me, anyway -- about seeing multiple stagings of the same play or musical is being able to observe the way a particular role is interpreted by different actors. Though Glinda and Fiyero can be interesting roles, I'm always most curious to see what actresses will do with Elphaba. By the time I saw Wicked at the Gershwin, Idina Menzel had already left the role, so I never got to see her perform -- but those who did have described her interpretation of the character as restrained and aloof, but capable of great passion. The first time I saw the show, Elphaba was being performed by Shoshana Bean, and her interpretation was completely different. Her Elphaba was an optimist -- someone who, despite being mistreated and shunned her entire life, seems to regard each new opportunity as a chance to start fresh; someone who uses self-deprecating humor in an attempt to hide it when she is wounded by a cruel word or action; someone who sees the humor in a lot of life's absurdities; someone who is still doing her best to be authentically herself even though she is continually being made to pay for it. Bean's voice is energetic and expressive, and she sold "Defying Gravity" so thoroughly that it gave me delighted chills. I can't hear anyone perform the song now without comparing it to hers.

At the Pantages, we saw Teal Wicks as Elphaba. Her interpretation focused on the angry, exercised side of the character; she moved with plenty of energy, bristled easily, and sang with passion and fire. The "Defying Gravity" point of the show, where she decides to live by her own rules for good and all, was not a great leap because she portrayed the character as already being three-quarters of the way there from her very first day at Shiz. Her Elphaba was a much less sympathetic character, but she didn't take any guff from anyone.

I know next to nothing about Donna Vivino, who's slated to play Elphaba when we attend the show on the 19th. Looking forward to seeing her do her thing, though, and to see her particular variation.

CM and the Nerd Brigade!

No, it's not the name of a new band. Captain Midnight, my charming and talented hubby, has donned his Dungeon Master hat and is busy introducing the joys of Dungeons & Dragons to maybe a half-dozen teenage boys from the ward. At the moment they're having long discussions about the differences between intelligence and wisdom, what constitutes constitution, and whether it's better to be a ranger or a paladin. They might actually be ready to start a campaign by the time the pizza is finished baking, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

I didn't get very far into tabletop RPGs when they first became a craze in the late '70s and early '80s. At least part of the problem was the way early D&D games were run -- it was all about battles, and they seemed to be never-ending, as the DM would roll, and roll, and roll again, and then roll some more. You could easily fall asleep in the middle of combat. Streamlined rules have probably improved the experience since I was in eighth grade, but I never really got back into it. And then I married a man with his own First Edition copy of the Fiend Folio.