Dexcon and tea

I'm enjoying dipping my toes back into blog-reading.  I like the slower, more thoughtful feel to blog posts.  FB feels like going to a loud, bustling marketplace, with vendors shouting about their wares, folks sharing recipes and gossip on the street corner with half their attention on the crowd going by, paperboys shouting the headlines, and preachers and reformers up on their soapboxes, working hard to rile up their listeners.  I wouldn't want to cut myself off from it completely, but it's not somewhere I can spend more than a few minutes without feeling jangly and aggravated and disconnected.

Blogs feel more like being invited to sit on a friend's front porch, rocking and knitting and sipping tea or lemonade, taking the time to share a little more of our lives.  It's more my speed right now.

We just got back from our annual summer vacation to Dexcon, a gaming convention in Morristown.  Every year we triangulate a little closer to...  I don't want to say the *perfect* plan for the weekend, but to a really good, satisfying, resilient plan.  We schedule a nice number of games that we're all playing together, and a little time when we've all got down time together, and then Sarah and I schedule a retreat in the middle of one of the center days of the weekend (it's a 4 1/2 day con, starting Wednesday night and finishing up Sunday of the weekend of July 4th) because playing a new game with a bunch of strangers every 2 hours gets exhausting after a coupla days.  We try to pack enough food for the weekend but it's tricky with such a tiny fridge, so the last two years I've run home on Friday or Saturday afternoon to grab some additional supplies.  Next year I'm hoping not to have to do that.

The games I played this year were:
DC Comics Deck Building game
(This was my very first experience with a deck-building game.  Even so, it was fairly easy to learn -- by halfway through my first game I felt as if I had a handle on the general strategy.  You start by choosing a hero to play (there was only one female hero, as far as I could tell) and work to build your powers and collection of equipment in order to defeat villains and score points.  Fun, a little challenging (at least for someone new to deck building), recommended)

Love Letter
(Lighthearted, easy to learn, quick to play, good for an icebreaker and gateway drug for folks who don't think of themselves as gamers.  A little strategy, a little deception, a lot of luck.  Recommended.)

Tsuro
(We own this and enjoy it.  A tile-laying game.   You're attempting to create a path that will keep you from running off the board or into other players before the final tile, the Dragon, gets played.  I love that its subtitle is "The Game of the Path".   There is a very meditative and almost fatalistic quality to its play -- at any one time you have at most 3 tiles to choose from (each tile can be laid down in 4 different ways) and you have no control over whether the other players will head toward you or what tiles they will play if they do.  You can only put one foot in front of the other and hope that the other players find themselves going off the edge of the board before you do.  Easy to learn, a little strategy, a little luck.  Recommended.)

Gothic Doctor
(We played this for the first time at last year's Dexcon, and liked it so much that we backed the kickstarter and now have a Gothic Doctor game of our own.  You're a doctor aiming to cure characters from Gothic literature -- competing with other doctors to make the most money in one night.  It's a set-collecting game and the theme, art, and mechanics combine really nicely.  You gain money by successfully treating vampires, werewolves, the insane, demons, etc, and you can also gain money by specializing (curing 4 or more of a particular type) or generalizing (curing one of each type).  A lot of fun, and easy to learn.  Highly recommended.)

Elementalists
(this game is still in development - it's an absorbing game and a lot of fun -- but he won't be doing a kickstarter, he's shopping it around to board game companies, so it's got no online presence that I've been able to find.  You roll dice and manage tokens to buy abilities, hoping to master more elements than any other player.  A little luck, a moderate amount of strategy.  Highly recommended.)

Legends and Lies
(Complicated to describe, easy to play, lots of fun.  You're cryptozoologists looking to prove the existence of a variety of weird and wacky creatures before the tabloids get the scoop.  A set-building game.   Recommended (note: it's the only game we bought, this weekend).)

Dungeon Dwellers
(A co-operative-ish dungeon crawl. You work together to defeat monsters, and if any of you bite the dust in the process you all lose, but if you succeed then the one with the most gold is the super duper winner.  You each choose a classic fantasy character to play (I had a lot of fun as the barbarian, who comes as an expansion set) and do a little deck building before setting out to explore the dungeon, fight the monsters, and take their treasure.  I really enjoyed seeing how each player could make their character their own and each character could explore their own strengths.  A little luck, a little strategy, a lot of fun.  Highly recommended.)

Legendary Encounters
(A co-operative deck building game set in the world of the Alien movies.  The art work was a little too creepy for Sarah, so she opted out of the game, which turned out to be a good choice because with the particular option our game-runner went with (I don't recall if it was an expansion or just an option within the original game) the first person killed by a facehugger gets turned into an alien and starts working against the rest of the players which made the game much more fraught and frustrating than we were expecting.    Each turn you're recruiting new talent to your team and/or attacking aliens and it's got the same sort of slow build that most deck building games do, but with one of our party turning into an alien on the second round we never stood a chance.  I was the last one standing, but eventually we all succumbed to the aliens.  I wouldn't mind trying it again without the optional turncoat, but it was a little stressful for me.)

Sentinels of the Multiverse
(A co-operative card game set in a kitschy comic book universe.  You choose a hero to play, and you all work together using your powers and equipment to fight both a villain and the environment.  The different characters are, I think, half the fun.  I played the Chrono Ranger and it took me approximately 80% of the way through the game to figure out how on earth I was supposed to be playing him (the bounty cards don't seem particularly useful on their own, but if you have enough of them in play there are other cards that give quite a few bonuses in connection with the bounty cards).  But I think it's a mark of what a fun game this is that even having very little useful to do with my own character, I really enjoyed the game anyway.  Highly recommended.)

Joe and Sarah also played a game that sounded so appealing I've got them on my wishlist sight unseen:
Hanabi

And this week's episode of Tabletop happened to be on Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game, which has identical mechanics to Legendary Encounters, but is much more lighthearted, and is definitely going on the wishlist!

What I'm doing this week:

Reading: Borrowing Sarah's copy of George O'Connor's _Zeus_

Listening to: Halestorm:

Watching:  Lots and lots of comfort food -- Twister, Ghost Protocol, old seasons of Top Chef Masters

Doing:  Sinking into summer vacation and filling in our summer schedule.  Having friends over for board games and pizza.  Tonight we had a potluck dinner with friends and then saw "Love's Labours Lost" at the outdoor stage of the NJ.  

Eating/Cooking:  Really good mediterranean chickpea salad.  Lots of chopped salad.

Something that went particularly well this week: staff wrap up -- we had 3 really productive days, and I feel good about our plan for handling the summer and next year.

Something that went less well: no hot water, no internect connection for most of the week.   

Something I'm grateful for: Sarah's utterly sweet, lovely friends.

Something I'm thinking about: getting off FB.  Or, at least, finding other ways to stay connected with folks online, to be less dependent on FB for that connection.


Something I'm looking forward to: seeing family and celebrating a wedding!

What I'm doing this week:

Reading: I'm between books, for once -- I've got a bunch on my TBR pile but nothing has jumped out at me to pick up, so I'm waiting

Listening to: Jim Croce

Watching: The Weekenders! (we picked up the entire series, last week, after stumbling across the info that Disney had *finally* made it available on DVD. It was one of our favorite cartoons for years, one we regularly quote) 

Doing: Doing staff wrap up for this past school year. Going to Sarah's annual art show. A dear friend's 40th birthday. Going to the North Jersey Pride Dance. Catching up on sleep.

Eating/Cooking: Lots and lots of chopped salad. This heat and humidity do not invite much time spent in the kitchen.

Something that went particularly well this week: A phenomenal conversation with an insightful Life Coach and my co-workers.

Something I struggled with: water heater still isn't working. It's a real pain in the ass.

Something I'm looking forward to: Having nowhere to go on Friday.

What I'm doing this week:

Reading: Rat Queens (a fun, feminist dungeon-crawl-themed comic)

Listening to: my "Copacabana" station on Pandora

Watching:  Going back through early seasons of Top Chef and Top Chef Masters on Hulu

Doing: Finishing up the school year with 2 weeks of End of Year Awesomeness -- a contraptions day, an afternoon feast (cheese tasting and make your own nachos), a field trip to the lake, a glee club concert, an end of year party complete with loads of messy outdoor play (elephant toothpaste, face painting, tie dye, foaming dough, oobleck, water pistols).  And now, in this moment, transitioning into summer vacation.  *aaaahhhhh*

Eating/Cooking: An afternoon tea party for Sarah's family birthday party -- botterhammen (just a fancy word for open faced sandwiches) with hummus, egg salad, cream cheese, and soy-onion-lentil pate as the choices for sandwich spread and loads of accessories (tomato, cucumber, scallions, radishes, arugula, olives, avocado, pickles), vanilla cake, scones, pastry cream, caramel sauce.  We've still never gotten around to lemon curd.  

Something that went particularly well this week:  Glee Club concert.  We rocked.  We sang Me and Bobby McGee, Thinking Outloud, and Take Me To Church.

Something I struggled with: I wasn't nearly as organized as I'd wanted to be, for the messy outdoor play and the rest of the End of Year Celebration.  Or for Sarah's birthday tea party.  Also, my water heater stopped working, which has been making cleaning up at home much more complicated.  I feel like a prairie denizen, heating water on the stove in order to do the dishes.  Not a great combination with the tea party.  

Something I'm looking forward to: Summer Vacation!  

I was pretty pleased with how this went last week.  I can't seem to find a way to do rambly lowkey domestic posts on FB in a way that works for me, and it seems as if this might be a good fit.  I think I'd like to reacquaint myself with how to include photos and videos before starting to post here and then just share it to FB.

What I'm doing this week:

Reading: Hawkeye vs. Deadpool.  I absolutely loved it.  It made me laugh out loud at least a dozen times.  

Listening to: Sweet and The Ramones.  A little Jim Croce.  

Watching:  Avengers Age of Ultron (which I loved, if possible, even more than the first.  I most especially loved the hints of team history we got (it really did feel as if they'd been fighting and snarking together since the last movie), and the luxury of having more time to get to know the characters (instead of just being busy introducing them and then tossing them into a fight), and getting to watch them having downtime together -- first right before the main conflict of the film began, and then during an interlude when they retreated a bit in order to regroup)

Doing: Played in our RPG this weekend (very pleased about how I've finally settled into my character, and into the Fate system)

Eating/Cooking:  leftovers.  Best part about having company all weekend!  Well, no, the company of friends was the best part.  But starting the week with a fridge full of leftovers is a close second.  :)

Something that went particularly well this week:  Our Free Comic Book Day after-party.  People sat all over the place  -- reading comics, talking about comics, exchanging recommendations, talking about the Avengers, eating and laughing and just hanging out.  It was exactly what I'd hoped it would be.

Something I struggled with: Ugh.  The traffic this morning.  I sat in traffic, then got off the highway to try to get around it, drove around getting further and further lost for 20 minutes, found my way back to the highway in order to get right back into the traffic.  Wound up being half an hour late for work.  

Something I'm looking forward to: a quiet homeschooling week.  Maybe a little gardening.  

Hmm.  Let's try this again.  Last time I was here I was just taking my first steps out of a rough Autumn and into what turned out to be a not-much-easier Winter.  The Spring, though, has been much gentler and more energized.  Everything's feeling a little less weighed down and exhausting.

I'm decluttering this week, and was thinking about letting go of some of my online accounts.  I'm not quite ready to let go of this one, however.  (Especially since several folks have commented on how much they appreciate being able to stay connected via Facebook, which I'm seriously considering limiting my use of)  Instead I'm experimenting with different possibilities for how to use this.

What I'm doing this week:

Reading: comics, mostly.  Rereading Matt Fraction's Hawkeye run, reading all the Lumberjanes up to this point (with the exception of #10 which we put in an order for at the comic shop, this morning), rereading Secret Avengers.  Rereading _The Second Greatest Invention_.

Listening to: my roadtrip playlist.  Lots of AC/DC, George Thoroughgood, a bit of Indigo Girls.

Watching:  Joe and Sarah are introducing me to RWBY, which I'm thoroughly enjoying.  Also watching lots of Rosemary and Thyme.

Doing:  Decluttering.  The diningroom is nearly decluttered, for the first time in years.  Today we're letting go of the desktop that was the only Windows box in the house.  I used to watch Netflix on it (when that was only possible via Windows or Mac) and IM with friends late at night and occasionally save homeschool curricula or unit studies or educational games, but I haven't used it for anything but itunes in years (it's the only thing in the house that plays CDs).  The room isn't the prettiest thing, but it feels indescribably good to have so much free space.

Eating/Cooking:  Blackbean meatballs over spaghetti and herbed focaccia.  Last week we triangulated in toward a pretty decent baked pakora.

Something that went particularly well this week:  Having finished processing and decluttering 5 years worth of old papers.

Something I struggled with: how to hear and process some not-so-constructive criticism at work.  Sticking to my exercise plan (I got in 3 solid days, and then skipped 4 in a row onaccounta exhaustion, minor congestion, busyness).  Sticking to only one thing for this category.  :)

Something I'm looking forward to: our comic book party next week; planting seeds; continuing with the decluttering

Re-entry

Wow, it's been a long time since I last wrote, here. The fall was mostly about grief, in one way or another. The first month was just grief, and rawness, and rediscovering how to be in the world with part of my foundation missing. And then there were weeks of slowly getting back on track, trying to catch up on all the things that fell by the wayside during that first month. And then it was Thanksgiving, all wrong, because so many things were different. And then it was Christmas, all wrong, because so many things were different, and we did hardly any caroling at all (normally the center of our Christmas visit) because 3/4 of the songs had landmines in them.

And then January was going to be about crawling out into a new year, and focusing on new things. But on January 3rd the CO detector went off, which led to needing to replace the boiler, and needing to remove some asbestos we didn't know we had, and having no heat for a week while the overnight lows were in the 6-15 degree range, all of which led to burst pipes and holing up in the bedroom with an electric heater for a week, putting on our jackets to come downstairs and make food twice a day. And spending $3000 in repairs, ignoring the $8K boiler which we financed with PSE&G. So we're spending the rest of the month eating beans and rice and hoping no one suddenly needs new shoes or a dentist visit.

And so 4 months go by (I know I was sort of here 3 months ago, but not really. I wasn't really anywhere, that first month).

I've been doing a terrible job of keeping up with my friends' journals, although I did finally unsubscribe from most of the communities that were clogging up my feed.

I'm thinking about what I want this journal to be, and whether it makes sense to pick it back up.

I'm also looking to find out where more fannish conversation is going on, these days, as my old online community seems to have dried up/moved. I know there's some on tumblr, but the site doesn't much appeal to me (although I'll adjust if I need to). I often read fanfic while drinking my tea in the morning (because bite sized, lighthearted stories are exactly what I'm looking for in the morning) and I came to the end of every available story on AO3 in a particular fandom, this week, and found myself having no idea where fans might gather to say things like "okay, I've been immersing myself in this fandom for the last two years. This is what I love about it. Sell me on a different fandom, and some of your favorite stories in it". I've started writing again, and I have an AO3 account for when I start posting, but I'd also like to be connecting conversationally.

I'm also looking to connect with more pagany folks, locally, because I'm missing the community I'd been part of, but they're centered in MA and between the cost of attending their events and the resources involved in having to travel that far, it's not gonna happen. I could start back up with the various gatherings I'd been hosting but most of my friends are more pagan-friendly than actually pagan, and that's not really what I'm looking for right now.