Just found this while packing:
Addendum: I found a photo of meeting Peter Jackson at the screening. My costume doesn’t exactly fit the Braveheart look—I should have been sporting leather and body paint.
Barbarian Guy
santa cruz boardwalk predicts the future
One of the joys of moving for me is going through old boxes of sentimental things I’ve saved over the years. Today, I came across a printout from a dot matrix printer, complete with the holes in the sides, that reads across the top: “Prepared at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk Especially for: Andrew & Sarah.” We are guessing we did this the year before we got married, in 2007, when we invited friends and family to meet each other in Santa Cruz, California, before our wedding the upcoming summer. For those who aren’t familiar, Santa Cruz has a famous seaside boardwalk amusement park, complete with a rickety white wood roller coaster and massive arcade. We must have done one of these sideshow games where we pushed buttons and got a print out. I think I saved it because of how accurate it was! Read for yourself and see how Santa Cruz predicted our future:
For those who can’t read the picture, here’s the text:
ROMANCE
Him: When you wake up, and the champagne looks like stale beer, then you consider cutting out and seeking new action.
Her: You possess a remarkable sense of realism. You have deeper emotional needs than most people. When you fall in love, it is it.
PERSONALITY
Him: The need for action and activity is directly related to your personality. It seems you are born with certain frustrations.
Her: You are a very determined and practical person. Maturity is one of your most strongest points. Your[sic] very responsible.
FINANCE
Him: You find non-productive ways of earning money. You can be very self-indulgent about your expenditures.
Her: When it comes to money, you are hardheaded, realistic, and you are willing to work hard for it. You tend to be stingy and cheap.
WORK
Him: You make the most of every minute and force the people around you to move at your own pace. You love being the boss.
Her: You react in a positive way to mental challenges in your work. You constantly need mental stimulation.
FRIENDSHIP
Him: You like to surround yourself with the more successful inhabitants of society than with the average person.
Her: Your sense of realism, your no-nonsense approach and your organization assure that you’ll always be a person in demand.
COMMUNICATIONS
Him: Your restlessness can keep you in hot water. Impatience over any delays makes you investigate anything new that comes up.
Her: Your slightest conversation will inspire someone else to live up to ideals. Your words will give insights to many problems.
HOME LIFE
Him: You are in touch with your own emotional pain. You are able to show a nurturing and sympathetic concern for others.
Her: Since you tend to be traditional in your tastes, you love nineteenth-centurey[sic] chandeliers and marble fireplaces.
MARRIAGE
Him: You need constant excitement far more than you need a mate, but sometimes you take both just to try them out.
Her: Your relationship will be very exciting. You will want to take care of your mate and your mate will want to take care of you.
YOUR OVERALL COMPATIBILITY
On the surface, she is cool and steady, while on all lvels[sic] you are a crazed madman who means well. You think he is nice but know he is from another planet. You excite her with the way you get enghusiastic[sic] over a flavor of ice cream. If you want a mate that is real, then this one is it! You both are to[sic] sensitive to live with only a facade. She doesn’t believe in love at first sight, however, she’s flexible.
YOUR COMPATIBILITY PARTNER
Him: Rachael Ward
Her: Roger Moore
Barricade Day
One of my students is an ardent fan of Les Misérables. For the past few weeks, she has repeatedly asked if we can celebrate Barricade Day by building a barricade in our classroom. I laughed. But she was serious. I had never heard of Barricade Day. She was happy to fill me in. I hemmed and hawed. Finally, at our last class, it became apparent that this particular group would finish their video projects early. (They’re a pretty sharp, dedicated bunch.) I told my student that if she came up with a lesson plan that would teach the class about Barricade Day, I would give her 45 minutes to run the show today.
Sure enough, last night she emailed me a lesson plan with a 350-word mini-lecture about the June Rebellion of 1832, including images to share with the class and a short video. I honored my end of the bargain. at 1:45 sharp, we ended our regular social studies class and went to Paris to learn about the unrest there. At 2:00, filled with revolutionary zeal, we tore apart the classroom and built a barricade. (I did have two recommendations: don’t break anything and don’t get hurt.)
Here are the pictures my student shared followed by a picture of our 8th-grade version.
Mad
Oliver, how’d you make Maggie so mad?
No! Maggie made me mad! … then I made her mad.
Discovery
First Box
April Updates
Life was a whirlwind in April with spring break, the long-awaited start of in-person school for Griffin and Maggie, three birthdays (plus Piper’s), a cabin visit, and much that I’m forgetting. Lacking the time to write everything up in detail, here’s a selection of photos to remind us of these many events.
Bonus! Two videos.
Oliver’s Dungeon
In the late 1970s and early ’80s, maps for Dungeons and Dragons adventures were often printed in blue ink, ostensibly to prevent easy photocopying. (Photocopier technology has evolved since then.) A cartographer that I follow on social media, Tim Hartin, sometimes produces “old school blue” maps, hearkening back to the early days of the hobby.
I follow a thread where Tim posts a free map every week. It’s called Turgenev’s Friday Freebie Maps. I’ve been following it for years, enjoying his retro map style. (Tim Hartin, incidentally, is a big name in the industry, often producing maps for D&D adventures, such as CandleKeep Mysteries, published this past March.) A few months ago, Oliver saw me looking at one of these maps on my phone. He asked me about it, so I started explaining the symbols and whatnot. We got in the habit of looking at one or more of these maps every night as part of our bedtime ritual. We would read a book and then look at a map together. Oliver became very good at reading the maps, pointing out secret rooms, traps, statues, and even the occasional sarcophagus or other exotic, multisyllabic feature.
I recently saw that Tim posted a map that he was also offering as a print on mugs, t-shirts, and the like. I thought it was fun, so I bought a version printed on a tote bag. (We can’t have too many totes in this house.) Here’s the original post:
After receiving the bag, Oliver was astounded that one of the maps from my phone had appeared on something in real life. Maggie, nearby, didn’t immediately understand how to read the map, so Oliver excitedly sat down on the kitchen floor and gave her a lesson on old-school D&D cartographic symbols. I snapped a photo and posted it back on Tim’s thread. Here’s the shot:
Tim then sent me a direct message telling me that the post made his day and asking if he could produce a custom map as a “thank you” to Oliver. Um… Yes, of course! I mentioned that Oliver especially loved secret rooms. A few hours later, I received this fantastic map, replete with numerous secret chambers (the “S” symbols are secret doors):
This brought a lot of joy to our family, and I know that Tim Hartin was also warmed by the experience. The internet, for all its ills, is definitely capable of adding some light to our lives.
Piper’s Frenemy
The newest member of our family is a robot vacuum cleaner. Piper has kept her distance until this morning when she realized that she might be able to play with the interloper.
I would be remiss not to mention how infatuated we are with the new cleaner—known as “Robo 3000” in our house. (The number changes depending who is saying it.) It is actually a “eufy” RoboVac 11S by Anker. It was one of the cheapest we could find but it has been a household revolution.
Beetling Crags
A highly unusual event occurred last night while reading Treasure Island aloud with Griffin and Maggie. We came across this passage:
Among the fallen rocks the breakers spouted and bellowed; loud reverberations, heavy sprays flying and falling, succeeded one another from second to second; and I saw myself, if I ventured nearer, dashed to death upon the rough shore or spending my strength in vain to scale the beetling crags.
Like many other passages, there were some words here that the kids didn’t know, but I was also perplexed by the adjective, beetling. We guessed from the context that it might mean steep or slippery or only climbable by beetles. I pulled out my phone and looked it up on my trusty Merriam-Webster app:
The example sentence is the very sentence we had read! We were all quite astonished by the coincidence.