Lock Pick?

Last night my son was cleaning out the car and this morning, as we were leaving for work, realized that he had locked the keys in the car. Luckily, the passenger window was down just a tad... maybe a half inch. So we looked around the house for something to use to unlock the door.

My son has a small collection of decorative swords. I brought one downstairs and was told "That's way too short!" So, I grabbed the next largest, Sting.



Again, I was told it wouldn't work. Now, mind you I had suggested half a dozen things before getting to the swords so was quite frustrated with the negativity. I took the sword outside and shocked a family friend who was at our house (she drives my son to school each day, Thank you, Jen!). She asked if I was gearing up for a bad day at work, walking around with a sword! But, then I used it to unlock the car, yay! The boys were all thoroughly impressed and the girls cheered me on.

Gray might have said I'm amazing or I might have just imagined that. I felt great when my family thought it wouldn't work (and so weren't even willing to try) and I made it work.

So, what could have been a bad way to start a Friday turned out to give me a boost!

Playing Again

I started going to board game night at X-9 Games in Hadley again. I went with a co-worker last week and again last night. I forgot how much I enjoy playing board games.

Last week I played Colosseum. My first thought was that it was a bit Traumfabrik except that vertrags DON'T count as points and the scoring was not clear to me until half-way through the game.



You start with a small stadium and there is an auction for different lots of resources needed to put on shows. There are only 5 turns in the game so us nubs were told we need to be doing something every turn to boost our show scores. The odd scoring I mentioned is that your scores are not cumulative. You only score for your largest show. So, during your first 4 turns, you should be building toward having a fab last show. Your first 4 could be crap as long as your last is worth more then anyone else.

For Heather and I, the two nubs, we came to this realization at the beginning of the 5th round. I look forward to playing this again, now that I understand the rules :o)

Last night we played Dixit. It's a pseudo-party-game with funky art. It's like Apples to Apples with images. Quite enjoyable though I could see there was a definite benefit to knowing your opponents.



The last game we played last night was Small World.



This I also quite enjoyed. But again, there was an important rule that I didn't know about until about half-way through the game. Apparently you can pick up your entire army and restart it anywhere on the edge of the board! So, when I had my Amazons spread across 12 zones, I could have picked them up and not been so spread out! If only I had known! Ah well. I look forward to playing again :o) This might even be a game I buy!

At what point do you stop being nice in life?

Last night a friend and I were playing boardgames at a local game store. It was about 10:45 when we left and as we got to the car, a woman started yelling to us from across the parking lot. She said she had missed the last bus and needed a ride to a local shelter. I asked if she had been drinking and was stupid enough to believe her when we said No.

So, I agreed to give her a ride to the shelter and what does she do? Mumbles about all her medical problems and tells us why she's homeless and about all the things she's lost. And then she passes out in my backseat. We rouse her again for directions and get to the shelter where she's staying. She could barely get out of the car, she then asked us for money and then what does she do? Walks in the opposite direction of the shelter!

It's very frustrating. I've been homeless before and blamed no one but me. I didn't drink away my sorrows. I looked for a job and apartment every day. I understand that her addiction is likely what pushed her to be homeless but just don't say anything! Why spew out your life history to the person who has already kindly agreed to give you a ride somewhere?!

But on the other hand, would knowing she was drunk have prevented me from giving her a ride? I don't know. Having my friend with me certainly made me more willing but her condition wasn't likely a factor.

Measuring is for Sissies!

I came home from work last Thursday and found this on my kitchen counter.



And notice the attempted cookies around the edges. This is the result of my son making some no-bake cookies. Growing up they were jokingly called cat-shit cookies by my family. It is said, that one evening my grandmother was out for some drinks with friends. While she was out my mom and her siblings made some of these cookies and left them on the counter to set. When my less-then-sober grandmother saw them in the dimly light kitchen she loudly exclaimed to everyone that "the cat's shit on the counter".

Anyway, this is not how they should look. My son's been making these cookies for no less then 7 years and he gets a good batch about 50% of the time. He is often confused why they don't turn out and I always chalked it up to him being a child. This time he was exasperated because he signed up to donate cookies for the GSA bake sale. He couldn't very well turn up without any baked goods. So, being the good mommy I am, I told him I'd make some cookies.

As I was pulling the ingredients together, it became painfully clear why his cookies didn't turn out. There are only 6 ingredients and since you're boiling sugar, you can't really wing it... well, we can't but I'm sure some people could. In the end, he only measured the sugar and the milk correctly. Instead of 6 tablespoons of cocoa he used 1/4 cup. Why, pray tell, would he do that? Because he didn't have the 1/3 cup measure cup.

Where was it you ask? He had used it to measure out the 1/4 cup of butter for the recipe so it was dirty (and obviously couldn't be washed... soap is deadly to the average 15-year-old).

There is no flour in this recipe so you need something to help hold it all together. We use oatmeal. 3 cups of it. Except that Zach didn't realize when I make oatmeal for breakfast I use the 2/3 cup measure cup and leave it in the oatmeal. So he carefully measured out 3 scoops of oatmeal.... or 2 cups. And why dirty the 1 teaspoon measure spoon when he could just pour some vanilla in?

So, in then end, he measured 1/3 of the ingredients correctly. And he couldn't figure out why they were runny. Though we did get a good laugh as we were finding out how many things he didn't measure right. And in the end the cookies were loved by all :o)

PL 175

Here's my take on Pencil Lines sketch 175.



It really morphed for me this time but it was still my inspiration :o)


Zach and Julia at the Relay for Life in Northampton last year. This is at about 9 a.m. on day two. I think they had slept for about an hour or two and were back up walking. This is one of the best photos I have of the two of them so I had to use it... even if Zach looks about to fall asleep :o)

Dreaming rambles

I've been having some very vivid dreams of late. I had a dream within a dream the other day... in the embedded dream my son was as he is now, a 15-year-old learning how to read bus schedules. Then I woke from that dream, while still dreaming. I was in my car, parked in the street near Smith College. There was a police car parked next to me so I pulled in front of it and parked. When I looked in the rear-view mirror, I saw the right, back side of my car smashed in. I got out to look at it. There was an ambulance behind my car, next to it was my son and he was about 7. His 7-year old avatar was on a gurney, with traction gear all over, strapped down, his right knee swollen... the knee he cut really bad when he was about 7.

I'm usually more inclined to guide my dreams and let them continue but when I saw my son in this state I woke with a start to see if he was OK. I know there are skeptics out there but I have dreamed the future too many times to take dreams lightly. My son also dreams the future. I'm glad I had as well when he first asked me about it. I'm not sure how I would have harmed him if I were a skeptic and told him it wasn't real. Would he just close his mind and lose that gift?

Have you ever dreamed the future? Have you ever dreamed the same dream over and over? Knowing who you'll see? Knowing what you'll say? Until you reach the end of the story? Until you reach a place of peace?

Holy Huge Giveaway from Prima!!

Here's what they say on the Prima blog:

That's Right! Prima is giving away two more AMAZING prize packages in conjunction with our BIG SECRET!

We want EVERYONE to have a chance to win so we are changing the rules a bit.

• Please copy this write-up and link us on your blog, Facebook, or any other site that you frequent (please follow their TOU).
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• One US and one International winner will be chosen on Thursday, March 4th, 2010.

And we are getting closer and closer to revealing our secret-it won't be long now!

Just a couple more days of suspense!