Tag: gaming

Success @ Work!

YAY! I’ve been feeling pretty bad about work lately, for months if I’m honest, and last week it all started to turn around. I ran a successful program for eight participants, EIGHT! That is the biggest turnout since before Covid19 and I am just absolutely delighted. The presenter who was supposed to run it had to bail on me because she got Covid and has to quarantine and recover. I said “no worries, I got it, I hope you get well very soon.” and then quietly panicked for a bit. We made gnomes and gingerbread men and it went well. ^_^

That was all Friday last week. Saturday I put in my December book order, planned 3 continuing programs for January and beyond, created flyers for the programs and a calendar of events for January, and basically just set myself up for success in the new year as much as I could before taking my upcoming vacation. Well, vacation time, we’re not going anywhere, I’m just going to freaking relax. Anyway, at this point I am feeling pretty good about being able to take the time off and just chill and not worry too much about work.

My son and I are planning the menu for Yule/Christmas and getting ready for some pre-holiday baking. My grown kids and husband put up the tree last night and we’ll be decorating/lighting it soon. I’m planning on games, movies, and other little activities to make the season bright. Here’s hoping we all have a happy holiday season and good health and happiness in the coming year!

I’m Still Here

I have not in fact shuffled off this mortal coil and joined the choir invisible. I’ve been busy with gardening, crafting and gaming…. Probably too much gaming. I think I am down to 3 games per week but there is one in the wings that will be starting up soon, one that’s on a hiatus and another one waiting to replace the one we currently play on Wednesdays so, no shortage of games.

This summer I have had the most successful gardening season of my life! It’s been freaking amazing. I got armfuls of zucchini, cucumbers, kale, beets, onions, and enough mint for pretty much everyone. Behold some of my harvest and be amazed!

I know this is nothing compared to what most people get out of a garden, I promise I know this would be considered pathetic by most people, but I am terrible at growing things. Just … awful and this harvest is off the chart… for me. I shredded over 33 cups of zucchini yesterday and I will be able to make 22 loaves of zucchini bread over the winter. Oh, I can make zucchini bread now! That’s a new thing! I’ve made 3 batches of 2 loaves each so far and it is delicious. I skip the nuts, because of my allergies, and add in all kinds of dried fruit. So good. Between the farmshare and my little gardens it has been an amazing summer for veg eating. Here are the new beds we had put in:

Aren’t they lovely? ^_^

Next update I’ll try to post pics of all the little zombies I’ve been making and maybe the sweaters and other things I’ve been crocheting and knitting. Be well. XXOO

Abandonment & Update

Yep, I have practically abandoned this poor little blog. At first I was too busy posting on on my Pathfinder Pictograph blog but lately we haven’t been gaming much and I haven’t been posting there as a direct result.

So, for the past several months I’ve been working, gaming in other games somewhat, and mostly creating art. My scribbles during the Age of Ashes run are fun and all but that has become so infrequent that it just doesn’t bleed off any of my mad urge to create anymore. In my work as a teen librarian I do a fair bit of creating as I try out potential crafts to see if they are something I can run as an outdoor workshop or a take-home craft for the teens. I have so many ideas right now and I doubt many of them will see the light of day as Covid 19 the Delta variant seems to be gaining momentum. *sigh* Take home crafts will likely be the order of the day again before long.

We did get to hold one craft outdoors in person so far, we made little fish out of felt and stuffing and such. It was fun so I got out a zombie kit someone gave me a long time ago. The zombie design was terrible just… awful. So I used the materials from the kit to make something more appealing. A cuter zombie.

The one in the middle is the first felt zombie I designed using the materials from a kit. I then made the one on the right with my own supplies and a little from the kit. Zombie # 3 on the left is a little construction worker zombie I designed and created and from that point on I went hog-wild and created 12 more zombies over the past week or 2. I’ve just been designing and sewing up a storm. I’m having an absolute blast! Each zombie is unique and as I go I have greatly expanded the kinds of feature I can add. I love this so much. I’ve also been keeping a sketchbook, current pages include a fair number of zombie or zombie-related sketches, but I’m having a lot of fun. I store my horde in a little Estee Lauder … bag/case-thing which I think is hilarious. Super fashionable zombie horde transport for the modern necromancer on the go!

Future plans obviously involve a zombie workshop or take-home craft. Yeah. It’s hot and muggy here, well, the temp has dropped to reasonable but the humidity is still murderous. Anyway, I am still alive and keeping busy. Be safe.

Happy Spring!

Disclaimer: My keyboard is still broken so please excuse anything that should be capitalized and isn’t it only responds to the shift keys when it wants to.

It’s March, late March, and it’s Spring. This is what’s going on in my world.

I am working on a few goals this year;

1. getting a garden going for real this time,

2. becoming a “Fuck Yeah!” friend,

3. getting more movement into my days, (as I sit here blogging like a slug…)

4. eating more veg,

5. becoming more competent at my job, and

6. Decluttering!

There is some progress in all areas, however slight. The beds are in as of last Fall and I hope to get planting (with guidance) soonish. I am saying “Fuck Yeah!” as much as seems safe to friends asking if I want to do stuff. I am on my feet more for sure even if my phone isn’t showing the steps. It, like my little laptop, has issues and it dies a lot. I am eating slightly more veg and focusing on just making sure it happens every day. Tougher than I thought it would be. At work I am taking on some new responsibility, nothing huge, just helping cover while my boss is out on maternity leave. I am practicing to get better at commcat, trouble-shooting when there are issues with computers and printers, planning for Summer Reading as best I can. I also keep signing up for webinars but I have been missing most of them. I am just so burnt out on zoom and all that. I have a few coming up that I plan to actually attend and I intend to view the recordings of the ones I’ve missed. Decluttering is still stupid and complicated because my usual drop off places are still not taking things. meh. I do have some stuff ready to go and I will do more when it makes sense to.

One of my niece’s just got married! ^_^ YAY! So nice to have something to celebrate. She and her new husband looked gorgeous and I was so glad that we could at least be there remotely. My eldest daughter is taking a couple of online classes and doing well. My middlest is getting a little money in with a kind of online gig type thing and took over dish washing and it really helping me out. My youngest is in the final stretch of his senior year and is doing well, sticking with it, getting ready to ease into the future. My husband is still working remotely but is finally scheduled for his first vaccine. (YAY!) We will be celebrating 24 years together later this week. WOW.

Gaming is still the main source of entertainment around here, I think we are in and/or running about… 6-7 games. I am using Pathfinder 2e to run my husband in a one-on-one game. We used to run one-on-one a LOT when we lived far from anyone and had a young child. I’ve missed it like crazy and apparently he has too. ^_^ So I am still struggling with constructing encounters that won’t kill him. LOL. Even with all the charts and whatnot encounters are so brutal. I think I have been thinking about it wrong, like my math is somehow backward or twisted. I’ll get it sorted out. One-on-one is not a thing Pathfinder is super designed for so I am pretty much making my own “adventure path.” It’s fun and challenging and I am enjoying all the prep work. I have part one pretty well finished and have started part two. I’m not sure how many parts it will have. I was thinking two, taking the PC from level one to… 8? 9? 10? But I might keep it going. Have the main quest die down for a while, let him “Witcher” it up monster hunting all over Golarion and then bring the main quest back later. I don’t know, we’ll see how he likes the main quest as he hasn’t even started on it yet. He’s travelling to investigate a rumored event and I’ll have to see if he likes it or if it’s too weird for him. I can do grim and gritty just fine but it’s always leavened with chaos and whimsy which he doesn’t always “get.” If he doesn’t like it I know some people who will so I’ll just save it and rework it for them later and cook something else up for him. I love him so much.

Anyway, I need to get ready for work.

XXXOOO

i am a gemini=full of contradiction

note; please excuse lack of capitals and a partial lack of proper punctuation. my laptop is being a beast.

i aspire to live in a tiny home. it’s insane how drawn i have been to this idea since the very first time i came across it and yet it may not be something i could actually live with. on the one hand, i can see paring down on many, many possessions. i can see getting by with minimal kitchen gear that all nests together as much as possible, minimal dishes and cutlery/utensils, no problem. minimal wardrobe wouldn’t be an issue for me, i could digitize the movies and shows i ‘need,’ i already use a little laptop not a big desktop, i can totally see minimizing down to essential towels, bedding etc, i can see one day living with just a single cat or smallish dog instead of constantly cohabitating with a minimum of 3 furry fellow-travellers. shoes are not an issue. i can get by with a single pair for each function; snow boots, hiking boots, sandals, work shoes, and one dressy pair. i don’t even need a bunch of make-up i wear it maybe a few times a year. i’m sure there are other areas i could easily pare down as well, but…

it all falls down when i consider;

  • books. i have lots and i am forever acquiring more despite my best intentions. i have a nook, and there are many books i could handle having only digitally… but i ‘need’ a shocking number of books as physical objects. i love them so completely. books.
  • art supplies. paints, canvases, sketch books, colored pencils, bags crammed with odds and end i intend to use in some nebulous future project, adhesives, brushes, etc etc etc. it is hard to imagine paring it all down enough to keep in a tiny home.
  • crochet and knitting gear. holy crap. i have lots. lots. i can honestly see paring this particular hobby down a fair bit, getting rid of items i don’t really need, of which there are many. this one might be doable; a single bin of yarn, a basket for scraps and all the hooks and needles.
  • also sewing stuff. i have a sewing machine, a serger, and tons of fabric and hand sewing items too. just the basics of this one is fairly bulky.
  • games and gaming books, minis etc. we have a lot. we have several game platforms and tvs for video games, multiple bookshelves of rpg books, endless, boundless bins and bins of minis, etc. plus board games, card games and on and on. we could probably halve the amount without pain but it would be awfully difficult to divest ourselves of much more than that.
  • fandom stuff. yeah….. i do not, we do not, have a vast epic collection of museum worthy, collectable amazing fandom stuff, but we do have more than it seems at first glance. i have made tons of cool harry potter/hogwarts stuff for wearing, decoration etc. i have tardis string lights and a dalek pepper pot. in brief we have; marvel stuff, star wars stuff, doctor who stuff, game of thrones stuff, star trek stuff, fruits basket stuff, ruroni kenshin stuff… and many, many more. how would i even begin to pare that stuff down…

plus, i keep a lot of food on hand in case of emergency/illness/etc. i am not sure how low i could manage and not induce anxiety in myself. i tend to have at least a few months worth of food on hand. they wouldn’t be the best months we ever got through but we damn sure wouldn’t starve.

oh, and stuffed animals, using the term very loosely, i have more than would likely be great in a tiny house. henry, rocket, cap, and yix all live in the bedroom and i have a doll crib overflowing in the hall with more. i have pared down in that area, wildly. my remaining collection is ‘bare-bones’… for me.

so i want to live a minimalist lifestyle in a tiny house …but… i will also need another tiny house for my books, another for arts and crafts, and we’ll need a dedicated gaming tiny house as well.

yeah.

sigh.

i think that many tiny houses probably equals pretty much a regular house.

disappointing.

quiet

I went quiet for a while.

Life was so stressful after the attempted overthrow of our Democracy, I was so worried all the time, then things moved ahead mostly as they should and I was weird and jittery for a bit. But I am still here. I couldn’t write, I wasn’t feeling it, I read instead but also did a lot of other things.

  • I am upping my Game Master game, trying to get better at running combats, better at Roll20.
  • I’ve been gaming a lot. I average about 3 or 4 RPGs per week including the one I am currently running.
  • I learned how to crochet a Magic Circle so now I can crochet amigurumi better, and mittens, etc.
  • Mastered the “half double crochet” stitch. You’d think that would be a single stitch but no… anyway, I finally got that one!
  • I have been making amigurumi stars, bees, etc
  • I am attempting my first sweater, I think it’s my first sweater, I forget a lot of stuff these days. LOL
  • I’ve been doing my usual stuff too and working.

So yeah, still trying to level up and become a more competent human!

A Few of my Favorite Things

2020 has been a tough year. We’re not quite to the end of it yet but it’ll be wrapping up shortly. While I have a moment, before my last, desperate dash to get projects done before Xmas, here is a list of some of the things that brought a little light to a dark and terrible year.

BOOKS:

  • Mexican Gothic; by Silvia Moreno Garcia
  • In the Shadow of Spindrift House; by Mira Grant (audiobook)
  • The Year of Less; How I Stopped Shopping, Gave Away my Belongings and Discovered that Life is Worth More than Anything You Can Buy in a Store; by Cait Flanders
  • Girls of Paper and Fire; by Natasha Ngan
  • The Hunger; by Alma Katsu

They were a delightful distraction.

GAMES:

  • Pathfinder 2ed. (We have 3 weekly games and a few others that meet sporadically.)
  • Minecraft. (Many hours, with the monsters turned off, building farms, fortresses, mazes etc.)
  • Red Flags. (Hilarious, uncomfortable, and hilariously uncomfortable. So much laughter.)
  • Dragon Age Origins. Still delightful as it ages.
  • Skyrim. I will never not want to build my houses and fight monsters to get money so I can build my houses.
  • Harry Potter Wizards Unite! It got me to go outside and walk, masked and distant, around my neighborhood.

HOBBIES:

  • Knitting
  • Crocheting
  • Sewing
  • Painting
  • Writing
  • Drawing
  • Bird Watching/Feeding

TV SHOWS:

  • Community. Light, funny, excellent.
  • Sherlock. Diverting and Distracting, completely delightful.
  • The Rookie. I keep rewatching the ones that are available.
  • The Mandalorion. Baby Yoda is a gift to all of us.
  • The West Wing. Here’s hoping President Biden will be a compassionate and decent leader to us all.
  • Vera. Freaking Awesome. Love this show.
  • Shetland. Same as above. Top notch.

VIDEOS:

  • Liziqi. A capable young woman in rural China growing, foraging and cooking food as well as making all manner of useful or beautiful things. This is my drug of choice to soothe my anxiety. Also my life goals. I have probably spent more hours watching this than anything else.
  • Tier Zoo. Real life treated as a video game. Weirdly calming and very entertaining.
  • Julie Nolke. Her future self talking to her past self during 2020 is comedy GOLD.
  • Ozzy Man Reviews. I like his animal videos the best particularly the Otter vs. Orca and Honey Badger vs. Python. His Destination F*cked videos are hilarious too. Great stuff.
  • Your Daily Dose of Internet. Amusing, amazing, weird and funny clips put together for our amusement.
  • Binging with Babish. Cooking show, very cool, entertaining and educational.
  • Bardcore. Modern songs played on medieval instruments with words altered like this: “Thee and me could write a bad romance….” Awesome.

FOOD & DRINK:

  • Local Beer. Brewery about a 10 minute walk from the house. Not my favorite beer in the world but good AND they do pay online curbside pick up… and they now recognize our car.
  • Local Bakery. Way too close to my house. Apple Galettes, donuts, bread, all manner of delicious carbs + Soup!
  • Local Pizza. Quite close to the house. I am in constant danger of deciding not to cook dinner and just order pizza for everyone.
  • Yorkshire Gold Tea. Every morning a sweet cup of comfort.
  • Cookies, home made, all of them.
  • Birthday cake. 2 in the Spring, 8 days apart, 3 in the Fall within about 2- 2 1/2 weeks. Ideally they’d be more spread out but I will take birthday cake whenever I can get it.

About all the local businesses: I live in a town of 1200 people and I have 2 excellent pizza places, a decent brewery, a fantastic bakery, a seasonal ice cream stand, and a fancy restaurant all within easy walking distance. We also have a little market with groceries, wine and beer and a deli, another okay restaurant, a coffee and donut chain store, and a few other businesses besides. It’s a quiet little town that could use a few more businesses to cover some basic needs but crime sprees around here consist of mailbox baseball, kids stealing change out of unlocked cars, occasional packages stolen off porches and speeding. I mean, you know, mostly. Sometimes someone the police pull over will have like a pound of cocaine in their car or whatever but we are between a few places where there is a fair bit of illicit drug use.

PLACES:

  • Home. The vast bulk of the year has been spent here and it really is a cute little house. It keeps us cozy and safe and has enough places to store food so we can withstand short periods of not being able to get all the food we need.
  • The Hippie Fort/Shed/Studio. Our own little getaway several yards from the house. Seasonal but excellent. Could use insulation, heat and plumbing. A great place for date night with music and candle light, a lovely place to read, write, paint etc.
  • The Library where I work. A terrific little library that has provided us with a wide array of reading materials as well as access to movies and TV shows on DVD. Also, the only place I hang out with anyone other than my immediate family for any length of time at all.
  • The Park down the street. Just a green space with some trees and a couple of benches but also a little hub for the Wizards Unite! game. Lovely trees.
  • My yard. I now have 3 little garden spots set up and ready to be planted in the Spring. The place is loaded with ticks but it’s really cute. I need to find a way to kill all the ticks. (I hate them more than almost anything.)

MVPs of 2020:

  • The Pantry. Excellent work holding lots of pasta, canned goods, tea, cocoa, cereal, crackers, snacks, peanut butter and so on.
  • Chest Freezer. Ours may be small but it has worked it’s butt off all year storing meat, veg, & breads ready to tide us over when such became hard to find during parts of the pandemic.
  • Wood Stove. Keeping us warm is a piece of cake for this little beauty. It also assists in the drying of foods and can be used as a stove top for cooking if the power goes out in winter.
  • XBox 360. Still working like a champ keeping my Skyrim and Dragon Age games ready for me to go hide in.
  • Playstation 4. My Minecraft machine that also has a Pirate Game, Witcher games, etc that everyone else uses. Also has a little game of Fallout Vault in there that I occasionally like to mess around with. Many, many hours of entertainment for the entire family.
  • CD Player. Currently providing Xmas music, often used to play audiobooks as well as music of all types. Makes life better for all of us.
  • Book Shelves. Loaded up with something under 5,000 books, 50-100 board, card, and dice games, as well as RPGs and an abundance of DVDs, they provide storage for many things that keep us entertained and distracted through this long, long crisis.

Thankful

I’m sitting here with my tea, planning my day, watching my husband doggedly keep trying to secure a PS5 for Christmas, and I feel deeply grateful that if he lucks out and bags one of those things we can afford it. We are both somehow still employed during a nightmare scenario for this country. We still have food, shelter, warmth, (thank you wood stove)and the plausibility of a new gaming platform. A whole lot had to go right for us to get here.

23 years ago we were living in subsidised housing, with food stamps, WIC, and assistance with heating. We worked hard to get out of poverty, no doubt, I thrifted like a master, he educated himself one certificate at a time to make the move from retail to tech. Yes, we worked hard, but our biggest help was connections, no question about it, connections to people in a position to help us were 100% critical. The first big jump was helped along by a dear friend who highly recommended him as an addition to an IT department for a little nonprofit she worked at. He had a fistful of certificates and some natural talent with computers and he walked into a department in chaos from long neglect. It wasn’t long before he was in charge. Another friend fiercely fought for him to get into the organization he’s in now. Again, he ended up in charge of that department in fairly short order because he worked hard and kept learning but he wouldn’t have gotten either of these breaks without the help of friends.

We’ve also received monetary help at times in the form of loans and gifts. We’ve had relatives buy us major furniture, pitch in on home repairs, buy clothes for our kids, lend us cars when our car was in the shop, hook us up with a friends and family discount on a new car! These are all important things, substantial things, that helped us get here. Our many connections, along with our advantages, made a pretty strong ladder for us to climb up out of poverty on and I am thankful that we could take advantage of all of it. People without well placed, decently well off friends and relatives, who didn’t go through well funded, well maintained schools, who lived in food deserts, have to work much harder than we did to make a fraction of our progress, or even just to avoid winding up on the streets. I don’t think we should rest until we, as a country, fix this unequal, broken system so that all folks can live with dignity and have their biggest holiday worry be that they won’t get the new gaming platform and their kids will be marginally disappointed. That’s the dream.

Banner credit: “Traditional Cornucopia — Leanne and David Kesler, Floral Design Institute, Inc., in Portland, Ore.” by Flower Factor is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

just forget the world…

I’ve done all I can and I need a break from stress and worry so I’m here to talk about things that are bringing me joy in some way, things that take me out of myself and distract me, all that sort of stuff. So, onto that! First things first: Books. They are my sanctuary, my education, my consolation, and my many, many other lives.

Current/Recent Reads:

  • The Ballad of Black Tom; by Victor LaValle (fantastic mythos-related story)
  • Adventures in Opting Out; by Cait Flanders
  • Disfigured; On Fairy Tales, Disability, and Making Space; by Amanda LeDuc
  • The Library of the Unwritten; by A.J. Hackwith
  • The Only Good Indians; by Stephen Graham Jones
  • Dirt to Soil; by Gabe Brown
  • A Deadly Education; by Naomi Novik (The latest Fantastic Stangelings Bookclub read)
  • Beowulf; by Maria Dahvana Headley
  • A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet; by Becky Chambers

There are other books, of course, but these are all the ones seriously in the flow at the moment. Other wonderful things I like to fill up my senses with: Shows!

  • Community. (Hulu & Netflix) My current comfort watch. Brilliant show with a ton of laughs and lots of heart.
  • The Haunting of Bly Manor. (Netflix) Pure gold so far. Atmospheric, subtle horror, perfect storytelling. I think I’m on episode #5 and I am having such fun. As always, my brain is whirring on ahead of the story making guesses and trying to expose the whole picture. I spotted a few things before they were revealed but, wow, there is so much here to unpack and it is glorious.
  • Liziqi. (YouTube) My ultimate escape from my own reality mixed with my ultimate life goals. Somehow relaxing and inspiring at the same time.
  • Good Omens. (Amazon Prime) We’re on our own side. Perfect.
  • Vienna Blood. (Dvd from the library) Very cool, entertaining, a bit like a Sherlock Holmes homage. Victorian Vienna. Hitting a bit close to reality with the superior race nonsense but a good crime procedural with interesting characters. Some absolutely stunning voices among the cast; loads of deep gravel in varying flavors. Particularly the lead detective and his rival. (I’m a sucker for a really good voice)
  • Shetland. (Dvds from library) Love, love, love this. I love the way this show is paced, the slow unraveling of the clues, the deep sense of Place. The landscape as another ever-present character. I have sadly finished all the available seasons of this and…
  • Vera. (Dvds) The same author wrote the books this series and the series Shetland are based on. Brilliant TV, just brilliant.
  • Videos of babies laughing hysterically, goofy pets, etc.

There are many more shows I could list that are excellent distractions but these are the ones I’m currently living inside. I’m also playing RPGs, of course. I am currently playing in; Hell’s Rebels (Pathfinder) on most Tuesdays, Azartia (a friend’s homebrew D&D) on Thursdays, and Age of Ashes, (Pathfinder) on Sundays. I am also running; Extinction Curse, (Pathfinder) on Saturdays and The Slithering, (Pathfinder) randomly, and my hubby is running the teens from the library through Age of Ashes as well. I’m playing 2 Human Druids and one Gnome Bard multi-classing into Druid and experiencing whiplash between characters. My bard is level… 12? 14? Something, and in Pathfinder which is designed for characters to be heroic. She is a blast to play, and absolutely good time. My Pathfinder Druid is low level, fun but kind of a letdown after playing the high level bard. The D&D Druid is… fine. She has a few pretty great spells that are fun/effective but… D&D 5e is just, well, it’s awful. Simple to play? Try; Over simplified, broken, frustrating. Cat, my druid, is level 9 with a 15 AC… The champion in our party has only a 20 AC. We get hit constantly, just absolutely constantly. The game is just not on a heroic scale at all. It’s dumbed down to the point of, why am I playing this? But yeah, it’s a distraction for a a few hours a week and time spent with friends. There are a lot of laughs as we play. Many laughs come from failed saving throws.

Other:

  • Knitting: one big project for a present, over half done now. ^_^
  • Work: 2-3 shifts a week, busy, on my feet, frustrating with Covid restrictions but, hey, I love it anyway and I’m lucky to have a job at all.
  • Baking/cooking: my daily chore and sometimes creative outlet.
  • Macrame’. I just got supplies to start doing this. I’ve been wanting to try it for ages, since like the 70s. Just getting around to it!
  • Holiday planning: well underway, constantly on my mind, so much to do!
  • De-cluttering. On the back burner but always on my mind. I want to get the excess out of here and have a semi-orderly, uncrowded, welcoming home.
  • Writing. Blogging here, jotting down ideas that keep coming to me, writing for work, which is fun and cool that I get to write for work at all. It’s mostly instructions for craft kits I make up or promotional writing for said craft kits, but still.

Sigh, and now the world is calling, I’m afraid, and I must answer. Stay well, be safe, see you soon.

Banner photo credit: “Contemplation – Dartmoor, Devon” by Faborsky Photography is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Hello Darkness

No matter how I try I just can’t seem to drum up much enthusiasm for Halloween this year. I don’t have the mental energy to come up with the wonderful ideas to salvage this one. Or so it seems today, with only 3 days left to pull a rabbit out of my hat. Normally I would be busily working on costumes, making zombie sugar cookies, decorating with our Halloween stuff, and ordering some scary movies from the library or planning a one-shot horror run for the family. I’m tired. I’m drained right now. I know my sweet husband feels the same.

We started this year with the horrifying wildfires in Australia and California. Gods, those seemed like the worst thing, didn’t they? I have loved ones in Australia and CA and I was so worried about them and about all the animals and other people caught in such shockingly bad situations. Obviously the year had to get better from there but it so Did Not. The fires in Australia were brought under control eventually, and even CA had something of a respite but the world situation just got worse. CA is on fire again, has been for what feels like ages and that is almost the least of my worries, not really, it’s still a big worry. Most of my worry time is used for the newest rise in Covid-19 cases and the political unrest in the US. Watching a sitting president fan the flames of hate and violence is not something I ever thought I’d see. My son came of age watching it, and hearing how the climate is collapsing, and now a global pandemic… and people wonder at the nihilistic sense of humor Gen-Z has. My son literally turned 18 in quarantine. So did a lot of kids.

This year horror is all too real and it’s everywhere. I feel like I can’t turn on my computer without finding out yet another unarmed POC has been blatantly murdered by police. The protests over police violence continue but get less and less coverage even as the police use tear gas on peaceful, unarmed pregnant women, small children, and everyone else who dares ask that POC be treated as human beings. I can’t open my computer without seeing yet another highest cases per day report as thousands die and other thousands flock to the President’s super spreader events and refuse to wear masks and scream their approval of the continued denial of science. And there is so much more. So much hate and violence, so much despotism and inhumanity. Even my dreams are filled with stress.

So, I don’t even know why I want to salvage Halloween. Horror is the new normal. 2020 is such a shitshow. And yet, whatever distractions we can manage should be managed. My son, a freshly minted adult, needs me to find the good, to focus on the brightest hopes I can, to provide whatever structure I can in this, the upside-down I never thought we’d live in. Things are crazy enough for him without mom abandoning the rhythms of the seasons and all the celebrations that mark the passage of time. So I keep fighting to stay as positive as I can. I cook our meals, plan and run RPGs, provide the little luxuries of favorite foods when I can, and talk about the future as if everything will be alright because he, and my girls, need to believe the future is worth showing up for.

So I guess I have a Halloween feast to plan, some zombie cookies to bake, and I’ll need some pumpkins to carve into Jack O’Lanterns too. The bridge to the future will lit by candles and guarded by leering pumpkins.