Badgermama

first day of school
Originally uploaded by Liz Henry

I get so excited at the first day of school! I like new things, and as a kid, I switched schools a lot. If I could have gone to a new school every week, I totally would have. Moomin is not quite like that, I know. But he was excited, a bit nervous, and happy about the new school! I don’t know much about his new teacher, but I’ve met her, she seems nice, AND… she’s the one who has the classroom with a bunny who hops around on the floor during class time.

I hung around for muffins and coffee with Rook, eyeing the other parents who seem to know the landscape; there is a PTA-like-thing which probably goes so far beyond a normal PTA that it has NGO status and a Swiss bank account. Various other parents assured me that Ms. Grommit is “gentle”… in fact “the gentle one”, who does lots of math and science, and has “interesting projects”. How to interpret “interesting projects”?! Interesting as in actually interesting, or interesting like INSANITY where we the parents must know trigonometry and “help” to build room-sized models of famous monuments out of sugar cubes and bits of string?

Moomin will like the routine of a new school. He adapts quickly to the structure of a new environment, if it has structure. He might learn the beautiful part of new schools — that because almost no one knows you, you get to become someone new. It’s his chance to hack his personality and his social position. He seems poised to be “that kid who likes books, comics, and games.” He will not be “that short quiet kid”… as he has picked up so much confidence and ability to express humor socially over this last year.

Like many other parents this morning I long to be a fly on the wall, and to go through just one day of 3rd grade again. The first day, the juciest part of the peach, the tasty newness and strangeness before all has become routine. I don’t get to have it. It’s his experience… he gets to have it… and I will never know what it’s like! Oh, watching him go up the steps purposefully in the line of kids, with his backpack on and pencils sharpened, just as if he knows what he’s doing — it squeezed my heart into a radioactive glowing diamond.

I can’t wait to hear about his day. Fingers crossed that “How was school?” will not be met with “Oh… okay, I guess!”

milo and john in backyard tent
Originally uploaded by Liz Henry

Rook is getting ready to go to Burning Man where I hope he has fantastic adventures and doesn’t get sunburned anywhere too interesting. Oh, the disasters I can imagine and the number of times I think DOOOOM! What if your tent blows away? What if you need extra-large bandaids? What about food and a giant cooler? Are these regular dust masks enough, or do you need the extra filtery kind? Will you remember how to tie your flowered sarong? Will you have to eat the huskies when your sledge’s food runs out?

In preparation, and with the proper respect for a serious expedition, Rook carefully set up his tent tonight in our tiny backyard. He and Moomin are in the tent right now. Hanging the lantern from the loop in the roof of the tent pleased Moomin very much; he was gazing at it with a fond, smug smile and sighing with happiness. I left them in there reading Cartoon HIstory of the Universe volume 13.

Meanwhile I went and stole Jo’s older daughter for a bit. We plotted about this gaming con, got out her elven warrior character in its neat binder, and talked vaguely about plans to make a war strategy board game based on Tamora Pierce’s Tortall series. It occurs to me that the best way to think about designing games is not just trying to do it, but playing other games. So which board games to try first! Up Front? (Too ticky and annoying maybe.) Battlefield Europe? Heroscape, maybe, and we could make our own cards? During the game she is inventing, crucial events or a timeline will trigger a different role-playing mode where time flows differently and we will play individual characters. The game will be set during the war with the Immortals. It might have pieces for squads of knights, and fighters, and monster pieces, and cards to move events along, and dice, and counters or pieces to keep track of points, as well as individual character sheets.

I was very happy that Rook was around to explain the finer points of D & D. And also to be in the tent which I can barely tolerate for 5 minutes; so cramped, so claustrophobic, so hard and floor-ish and uncomfortable! But I remember sleeping in my own backyard with Minnie and our friends sometimes for months, and how much fun it was with our flashlights, stuffed animals, and books. Despite my extreme allergies I loved the smell of the grass… and despite being able to imagine all sorts of disasters or spooky alien or animal encounters (what if I *step on a possum* and it fastens its rabid fangs into my ankle?) I enjoyed the faintly streetlit surburban outdoor night. So I’m glad Rook has the patience to set up this sort of cool experience for Moomin.

Next year maybe they’ll both go to Burning Man while I stay home in the comfortable house eating cookies in bed and taking lots of hot baths.

DSCN1233
Originally uploaded by artificialignorance

Here I am festooned with kids at BarCampBlock, a geeky unconference that I helped to plan and coordinate. With very little effort or planning, we set up a kids’ room in a central area. It was a kind of kidquarium, actually, with big glass walls the kids could write on in whiteboard marker. Those big windows and central location meant that everyone could have a bit of responsibility for kids, and they weren’t hidden away.

For future unconferences, I’d put the kids’ room on the schedule. And I’d also allocate a baby-friendly room or area that’s blocked off to keep younger kids separated from the older ones. This would be handy to keep choking hazards like tiny Legos away from the babies; and it would keep the older kids happier since they don’t have to deal with tiny kids who don’t share or follow rules and who cry and have (ew) diapers.

But the main consideration is putting the kids on the schedule. Not just talks for parents — parent hacks — but simpler stuff kids will like that are still low-effort for grownups. At BarCampBlock it helped even to have an extra grup look in and play with the toys and pay attention for 15 minutes, or to take the kids out for half an hour to run around and get a cookie.

Some people were probably annoyed by children running around… but they’ll just have to deal with it!

I felt annoyed myself at times, but on the other hand, it was a welcome relief from the intensity of grownups or talking about issues in social media or whatever. I went and laid down on the beanbags and made a dinosaur castle out of blocks, and did some exciting experiments with mirror writing — and came away from the kids’ room feeling really relaxed and happy.

There were also a few rides down the ramps with kids on my lap in the wheelchair!

And on top of all that, I got to feel incredibly proud and happy to know these great little people with creative, active brains. I wonder what they’ll remember of conferences like this? And what it’s like for them to grow up in the thick of all these freaky geek “adults”?

BarCamp donations, and a small donation from me, provided the blocks and legos and K’nex. Your conference could do the same… and could hire an agency, or simply provide the space and a list of trusted local babysitters… for its participants.

I noted many dads as well as moms bringing their kids on Day 2. We didn’t publicize the kids’ room at BarCampBlock all that well, but clearly when people saw it working, they liked the idea and brought their kids along.

This has the extra benefit that your kids get to see you at work, and get a neat glimpse of the grownup world.

Well, that’s if you count BarCamp as “grownup”!

In up and down mirror writing, some letters are the same in the mirror. If you write them, some letters are not. Instead, you have to draw them upside down to make the mirror writing. Letter that have vertical symmetry in mirror writing are C, D, E, H, I, K, O, and X.

In the picture, I put check marks by the letters that have vertical symmetry. I put the pencil behind my ear so I could look like a writer.

– M.

Here is a giant bigass post with links to all the people I met at Blogher. It was often a blur of meeting people who recognized me because I am recognizable with the purple hair and all. But then I would forget their names unless they had badges on or I already knew them from long conversations from previous years. And then people who I sort of know or felt like I should know better than I actually remember knowing. And already it’s been a week since the conference, so I’ve forgotten what were at the time very cool connections. YOU KNOW HOW IT GOES. (Talking to someone 5 minutes secretly thinking omg who are you who are you i totally know who you are but your hair is different now until it clicks, thank god because I often can’t fess up that I don’t know.) Sometimes, I was smart, and made a note on the business card of what we talked about and what I intended to do as a result. “email to her Sondra’s info” or “damn this guy is pushy” or whatever.

What I really want is for all these fabulous geeky women to come to BarCampBlock in Palo Alto, August 18-19. Come! I’m helping to organize it! Sign up on the wiki, on upcoming.org, on the Facebook group, and/or on EventBrite. Also, I’d like to see them all again at She’s Geeky in October, — Oct 22-23 in Mountain View!

First and perhaps illogically the people I already know. My amazing roommates at the W, SJ of I, Asshole who I have known online since my first days of blogging. And her friend Shauny whose name I only knew peripherally from years of seeing it in SJ’s sidebar as her web host and I think blog-mother — Shauna who is like a rock of sanity and interestingness and I could just wait for the next hilarious sarcastic thing to come out of her mouth. And I love SJ’s business card: “Generous Lover + Writer + Dope Bitch / Super Jive at your Service”. This year, we refrained from the secret topless photos of last year, but I could not help down-blousing her a couple of times. Someday the world will be properly at her feet. She will be like Molly Ivins, except boozier and dirtier.

Annalee Newitz from Techsploitation and I hung out a lot. We did at SXSWi as well. There’s a funny balance at conferences between hanging out with new people and hanging with people you already know who are from your hometown. You want to be around the people you already know, and connect up with them because you don’t see them enough. But on the other hand if you do that too much you never meet anyone new! And then I’ll go through a process of thinking “Oh well if I want to see Mary then I can just call her the hell up, why don’t I?” and vowing to call her when I get back home. But with Annalee, because we know each other so well, it’s like being in a warm bath. So when I get overwhelmed by conference or need to process it all with someone super safe, you will find me texting the shit out of Annalee with “Where r u” until we meet up and can hang out and relax. I was super happy she came to BlogHer, and so proud to hear her being smart and articulate as hell at the keynote with Esther Dyson and Rashmi Sinha. Anyway, it’s a long way since the days when she would go “Blogging? Why! Full of drama! Just be a professional journalist and get paid!” And she kicks so much ass! And so I was happy to see her see that BlogHer is one of those places you can be all the parts of yourself at once, asskicking, geeky, and human. I really liked what she said about BlogHer; I feel the same way, and this sums it right up.

There were tomboys, mommies, punks, tarts, ladies, bitches, nerds, and girls. There were professional women in suits and perfect hair, and grubby rockabilly gals in tattoos and tight dresses.

Because so many of us were there, we stopped being women and just became humans. This is an incredibly rare experience in the tech industry.

I have three different cards from Mur Lafferty. I am totally going to stick my tentacles into Mur’s brain. We could not talk for more than 30 seconds without shrieking “NO! I must see that! Send me the link!” I vote her Person I Most Want to Be New BFF With. I will let her ride my bike, and chop the hair off all my Barbies, and post in my group blogs, and and and. I will also buy a “Mur’s Bitch” tshirt and wear it with pride. I wish I had spent more time just following Mur around, and especially with laptops open and the links flying, but the hanging out we did do was so nice it felt like we had known each other forever.

Possibly the nicest down time at the conference, me, Annalee, Barb Dybwad, Mur (whose novel thing you can find at Heaven seasons 1, 2 and 3, Gina, Jason from Lulu.tv, Marshall, and then later SJ, Shauna, and Susie. Beer in the sink! Computers at hand (but no good wireless)! Pizza on the floor! Conversation flying! Screaming laughter!

Onwards!

I hung a bit with Beth Kanter, whose blogging I admire and who is just Fun. She laid a whole bunch of stuff on me at my request about blogging and wikis and nonprofits and in fact she has some enormous wiki squirrelled away that explains it ALL. I will link to that and write it up separately when I have spare brain cells. Amusingly… one of her Moo cards was a photo I took of her lying on the floor upskirting me at the FIRST BlogHer. Yes we are very very rowdy when you take 95% of the men away. Women’s tech conferences are like a huge frat party but with more giggling and craft projects and light flirting. Just as you always suspected, guys!

I talked a bit (never enough!) with Dave Coustan and I’m linking to him even if it is a link to his benign corporate overlords. He is “extraface” on twitter if you want his personal life. And surely some of you do!

I hung out with my homie and fellow Woolfcamper Jen Scharpen, who works now for BlogHer Ads and for BlogHer itself!

And ended up with a card for Beth Blecherman who I know from meeting the Silicon Valley Moms Blog folks! Jill Asher was at the conference too I think, but I don’t remember seeing her. OMG maybe she changed her hair and I *did* talk with her and she’s one of the people I should totally know and yet only have met in person twice. I also don’t know Beth super well, but always enjoy talking with her!

Deb Roby – I do not have her card on me, but know where to find her! We sat across each other at dinner one night at the W hotel and had a grand old time with the gossip.

Georgia Popplewell from Global Voices and Caribbean Free Radio, someone I’d like to know better, and didn’t get that heart to heart talk with, but at some point I know we’ll do that! Oh, she’s fantastic!

You see the problem with BlogHer. It is full of amazing people to the point to where your head explodes. If you love to talk with smart, clueful geeks and writers, it’s like being a kid in a candy shop.

Laurie White of Laurie Writes. We talked at dinner at the W about education and community college teaching and social class. I was trying to recommend the book “A Framework for Understanding Poverty” by Ruby K. Payne to Laurie. This is my reminder to do that! Or maybe she’ll vanity-technorati and find this and will make a note of it. Also, you should all buy it and read it. It’s a very good explanation of social class and of its hidden rules, and ways to translate culturally between classes.

Karen from Trollbaby/Vodkarella was so much fun at sushi… We and Queen Tureaud aka Erin (whose blog name for her kid is, get this, Queen Peanut Punk as Fuck) and whose writing I also read with interest elsewhere, Anyway my point was we were eating sushi and drinking sake and joking massively about bi-curious mommyblogger dynamics. I know what you are thinking … when do these blogging chicks NOT talk about sex? I’m not sure but not when I’m around that’s for sure. Seriously though, Karen rocks, and I am still very appreciative of the great blog redesign she did for me!

Okay, that is the people I already knew reasonably well, or at least the ones whose cards are right in front of me.

More later of all the other people, but this post is already way too long.

Just one more thing.

SWAG! The best stuff I got at BlogHer was the bags, as usual. The glowing martini glass entertained me for a while. And the AOL memory stick was also nice and made me feel warm and fuzzy, but I left it in a geocache at breakfast yesterday. Tiny hand mirrors and a couple of magnets, also good, and they’ll stick around rather than being thrown away. So I am left with some stickers and flyers, and the main tote bag, and the awesome AOL body (?) laptop bag. I don’t know what AOL body means, and don’t care, but I think kindly of them in a general way now, instead of hating them for the litter of “free online access” CDs that infested the world some years back. The cocktail party food at the Childrens’ Museum party rocked. That stuff was delicious!

Someone’s missing out big time on the geeky-slogan tshirt selling opportunity, and the fact that everyone wants to mod up and decorate their laptops, and have a fancy unique laptop bag. I also agree with Lisa Williams that if they’re going to give us hand lotion, which I like perfectly well by the way, it should have LEDs in it. YES. Just throw some girly shit at us, like laptop bags that look like robotic parts with rivets, AND sparkles, or light up hand lotion with a control panel, or futuristic star trek salt and pepper shakers that also have GPS in them. Ipod cases, etc. We are GEEKS and like gadgets, and little thingies to decorate gadgets, and useful things to put things into, at BlogHer!

I wonder how many tiny cute laptops and iphones Apple would have sold if they had set up something at BlogHer? What do you think?

Tools, also. Tools and gadgets that are cute and portable. I am thinking of how Radio Shack had a table at Maker Faire, and was selling fabulous small toolkits for 10 bucks. I bought one for the trunk of my car. NOW when I am trapped in an earthquake on the highway I will not only have moldering powerbars and boxes of raisins and bandaids! I will also have a full set of wrenches!

Cars were a really good idea too at BlogHer 2006. I bought a car last year, and I hated the process with white hot blinding passion and I had to deal with slobbering sexist jerks at the car dealership.

Part 2 will be the other people I met. Part 3 will be the panels I was on and that I went to! That’s it, peace, out.

I tried to make Moomin pick the cherry tomatoes with me. I don’t even like tomatoes, but these were so tiny and cute, and I like the way the leaves smell when you pick them. My mom’s dad used to grow enormous tall gardens full of corn and giant tomato plants and beans and rhubarb and of course the dreaded extremely prolific zucchini. He’d send me in to pick stuff. It was like a forest. The corn and beans towered over me in mysterious rows. Barefoot in the soft beautiful dirt. None of it (except corn) was stuff i liked to eat. Picking it though seemed like a primal harvest time. It was great. In retrospect I wonder how he learned it? Was it a victory garden thing? A thing his family did when he was a kid? I don’t know if I really care to ask but I wonder sometimes anyway. So, you think of the good parts of things and want to pass them down. I know about gardens from my dad and my mom’s dad.

Moomin doesn’t like dirt and as a small child he didn’t like the feel of grass on his feet or legs. He’d refuse completely to walk on grass with bare feet. Also, even at 1 year old he could eat a popsicle without spilling a drop anywhere and ending up with a clean face, finicky and precise like a grown cat licking milk.

So I accepted long ago that I was a mud-wallowing grubby worm-ring-in-the-rain-wearing kid, and he’s just not. That is not one of the joys I get to pass down to him.

Back to the tomatoes! I cajoled him into picking a couple. He didn’t want to stick his hand into the leaves of the itty bitty tomato bush any more than he would stick his hand into a thrashing-around alligator’s mouth. Okay! I get it! No harvest magic for Moomin!

Your kids aren’t going to enjoy everything you enjoy. Or not in the same way.

Oh by the way I absolutely loathed raw tomatoes to the point of phobia until just last year. Now I like really good ones especially with oil and vinegar – as the cherry tomatoes ended up – with oregano in there too. They are no longer slimy and horrible and squashy and reminding me of innumerable grandparently pesterings and tongue-cluckings and shame. Now they are just tasty. Me and Rook and Zizi’s cool mom sat around in her yard, devouring them with fresh mozzerella!

rock star no photo
Originally uploaded by Liz Henry

Moomin strikes a pose! It was crazy hat day, and he decided on the stegosaurus hat.

I really liked Camp Galileo. Instead of having canned-feeling kits, they asked the parents to bring in recyclable things, cardboard, strawberry baskets, tinfoil. Most of their projects were built from that stuff!

Then we’d get a little camp newsletter every day, mostly canned, but with individual bits to that week or that camp. One of the counselors would write a Moomin-flattering note in the corner of the paper almost every day. “Great sense of humor! Moomin was a joy to have in our class!” And stuff like that. Since the counselors were mostly about 14 years old, it was even more impressive. I was just like “Yeah dudes. Flatter my kid. I love you!” But it must have been so tempting to write really bad notes. “Your kid is a nose picker and a bully. Thank god it’s Friday.” You see why I don’t work there.

Best of all he would come home excited, talking about what he’d learned! They built bridges, and learned about the anatomy of fish, and made mosaics.

Today one of the 12 year olds asked wistfully if Moomin was coming back. I love it that the camp counsellors will miss him! What a great place.

So, I never went to camp. There were mysterious kids at the beach I grew up at who went to day camp, where they made craft projects. Other than that I don’t think I even knew anyone who went to camp. It was an exotic thing people did in books, like boarding school or quests for magic swords.

I did notice this camp was super de duper white. The Lego camp in Palo Alto was all white and Asian. I don’t really have an analysis of this; I have an awesome job and can send him to expensive-ass rich kid camp. I was a super bad-mom and didn’t bring in any cardboard or boxes or tinfoil. I didnt’ go to any of the camp activities either, like today’s “closing ceremonies” where they have skits and things.

After camp we cruised through the pet store. I have spent so much time in that pet store… when I worked when Moomin was little, I’d come home from work, pick him up, and take him straight to the pet store where we’d sit in front of the fish or mice for an hour with a decaf latte and a sippy cup of juice. This time, he read almost every sign about animals and fish, as he likes to do in museums. The Red-eared Slider turtle grows from 8-10 inches long! Oh, that’s interesting! Did you know that Mom?

It really bugs him when the tanks don’t have the same fish as on the signs. ” It says neon tetra and black molly. But I only see the black mollys. So, sometimes, the store must forget to put in the neon tetras, or, like that other tank over there, the mushroom anemone….”

It’s like he has fishtank OCD! It’s so weird and cool of him!

Blogher
Originally uploaded by Liz Henry

I swear I’m going to write soon about how fabulous BlogHer was! I haven’t caught up with real life yet. Here I am all dressed up with my roommates Shauna and SJ! ( Not Sarcastic Journalist, the other SJ. )

I spent most of BlogHer looking stuff up on the net, being sort of boysick (remarked up on by SJ), and yearning fruitlessly after various cute flirty bloggers who would go ONLY SO FAR. Those mommybloggers who drink a little and then start kissing me! Arrrrrgh!

The panels I went to and the ones I was on were good. I went mostly to very fuzzy idea/conversation/community panels, but the one I enjoyed the most was probably Gina Trapani and Barb Dybwad‘s demo of blogging workflow tools. It had me totally drooling because I do blog in many different places — and I thought about starting a blogging workflow blog a while back with Violet Blue but then abandoned the project when I got two “real jobs”. Plus I have an attention span for new projects of about 2 days and then if I am not really going to do it I don’t; if I’m going to then I spend years on it. The plan was to interview people and videoblog or screencast their blogging workflows. A lot of people reacted to this idea by saying “But doesn’t everyone… JUST BLOG?” No! No they don’t! They all use different tools and have different ideas about how it’s best to do it.

Anyway, the tools that Barb and Gina presented are listed out over here on a very handy wiki! Take a look, and don’t be afraid to download this stuff and experiment with it. I can recommend ecto, especially for working offline, keeping drafts, keeping copies of your old posts, and making it easy to post to multiple blogs on different platforms.

Then! The parties! I think that mommybloggers really add to things by being super party animals. They are busting out! They’ve got 4 kids (well, I don’t) and they’re out on the town on their own in a swanky hotel for the first time in forever! They’re witty, tipsy, slightly wild, they’ve all had pedicures, and they’re super geeks! They have bad attitudes! They are loudmouthed!

Especially my roommates!

The unconference on Sunday was a perfect wrap-up for the conference. I think about a hundred people were there in the morning and early afternoon. For most of it, I talked with small groups in the corner about wiki software and using wikis. We edited the BlogHer entry on Wikipedia a bit (and I invite you to do it too! Add something, create a profile, log in). It was unstructured, or loosely structured, with a lot of space for reflection and deep conversation in small groups. So, that was just perfect.

If you want to get a taste of that sort of thing come to some of the events I’m organizing this month! I’m mixing up my mommyblog and my real job here… forgive me… but I thought you might want to know. Next week is Wiki Wednesday at Citizen Space in San Francisco. And August 18-19 is BarCampBlock in Palo Alto! Maybe the Silicon Valley Moms Blog folks will come — I need to write and invite them! We could have a BlogHer meetup in the midst of BarCamp – that would rock. Take a look at the BarCamp page and write me if you want more details.

rook got his hair braided at a party
Originally uploaded by Liz Henry

OMG, Rook got his hair cut! It was really long and sort of ripply and was almost all the way down his back. He fussed with it and washed it and combed it every day. Now, me, when my hair has been long I just left it scruffy for weeks in ratty ponytails.

Anyway, this morning he announced he had an appointment to chop it off! And he ran to the hairdresser clutching some old copies of KoreAm magazine… I think he wants to look like Rain or something! The shocking part isn’t the back of his neck or the fact that the pretty pony look is gone. It’s that he deliberately set out to get it cut in a scruffy way instead of being sleek! After 10 years of him occasionally commenting to me that he finds neat smoothed down sleek hair to be nicest… and my giant purpley explosion… now he is scruffy on purpose.

A daring leap for Rook!

Oh and also he had already thought to save the hair neatly in order to donate it… which I think is very sweet.

One last thought. I feel less sweaty just being able to see the back of his neck again.

Playground baseball
Originally uploaded by Liz Henry

I’m so behind on my mommyblogging… but things are lovely, Moomin is cute and obsessed with comic books and Godzilla and stories even more so than last I checked, and I’m about to take off tomorrow for BlogHer.

I wanted to leave a quick note in case anyone didn’t notice already to say,

I use a wheelchair, please try to control your surprise or dismay or pity or curiosity! It is very boring to talk about it endlessly at a conference where I’d rather talk about blogging and tech and feminism! Sooooo if you are madly curious, look on my other blogs and find out what is up, I’m fine, I’m okay, I have been disabled before for long periods of time. I am happy to play poster child and pop a wheelie for your camera or even let you play in my chair a little bit if I am settled somewhere comfortable.

I just want to avoid the barrage of questions and intrusion and hijacking of my brain! I am used to the chair… I use a cane sometimes too… I do not want to know about your acupuncturist, your chiropractor, your back surgery really… REALLY… nor how “brave” i am… and usually I do not want a push, or a door opened, or anything…. I will ask if I need things.

JUST DEAL WITH IT

LET IT GO

WE HAVE OTHER THINGS TO TALK ABOUT

Unless you are in bed with me you just dont need to know my medical history!

And you can find it all out on teh Internetz if you stalk me properly, anyway!

That is all!

Disability poster child blogger mom signing out!

burned scroll
Originally uploaded by Liz Henry

Today was so beautiful for me because for the first time since late March I was able to get up, make breakfast, and be mentally and emotionally present. I could not only take care of myself, I had some oomph left over.

Jo Spanglemonkey and her kids came over along with Nukie from next door and for a while, young Peanut.

The younger kids played without fighting, very peacefully, while 11-year old Eliz. and I read a book I had in the mid-70s, How to Write Codes and Send Secret Messages. It is just right for a 7 year old — or any smart younger kid who can read an early chapter book. Moomin and I had been reading it in the morning!

We made clues for a treasure hunt in “Greek code” which is a message written on a long strip of paper spiralled around a dowel; in lemon juice invisible ink then heated up with candles; in long messages full of nonsense that became clear when you hold a “mask” over it that shows only a few key words — and others — It was a fine project that took hours and that I enjoyed a lot.

At some point we played around with making a cool-looking scroll. We tore all the edges of the paper. Then I wrote a message in runes with a Sharpie, but you could do this much better by writing with a real ink pen. We soaked the paper in coffee, dabbing balsamic vinegar and ketchup on it in places for a blotchy darkened effect, and put the paper in the toaster oven straight on the rack. I think it baked for a minute or so, and came out beautifully brittle and old-looking. Eliz. was very happy to use a candle to scorch the edges.

When I did this before, I rolled up the scroll before baking it. So when it was unrolled it fell apart and had to be pieced together! The longer you bake it, the more brittle it will be, though this also depends on what kind of paper you use.

I think a very nice effect could be achieved with “vellum” semi-transparent paper! Oh, also, lemon juice ink with a toothpick pen looks just like writing in blood.

After all this I laid down for a while and then cleaned up (mostly). I didn’t do anything else with my day, but this was enough, don’t you think?

I can walk around the house now and out in the yard, pretty well, without a cane but still limping. After about an hour “up” I have to lie down. I’m unsure of myself still in public places especially unfamiliar ones, or crowded ones, or ones where I have to be for a long time without lying down, so for now I am still in the wheelchair a fair amount.

Milo’s Pledge
Originally uploaded by byronium

In the car the other day Moomin chirped up, “I know why my skin is dark.”

“Oh yeah? Why is that?” *kind of wondering what he’s gonna say*

“Because I have lots of good melanin that comes to help me not get a sunburn!”

Rock on!

We had a good weekend. He watched a Godzilla vs. Space Godzilla movie, I went to the Dyke March. We both went to the best comic book store, Comix Experience on Divisadero in SF, and Gamescape to buy a board game.

THEN THE MAYHEM BEGAN… we joined a group of totally crazy silly people in Golden Gate Park for the Ultimate Team Cardboard Box Fortress Battle. The forts were piles of cardboard boxes taped together. Before the battle, the Generals of the Wizard and Robot teams made rousing speeches to taunt their enemies. “Robots rust!” “Wizards bleed!” Beautiful siliness! During the battle, people were doing full on body tackles and takedowns, throwing themselves onto the piles of boxes, screaming like crazy! The kids darted in and out of the battle with water guns!

It made me think of our Godzilla party last year. Cardboard boxes improve nearly any game! Here is part of the yard-sized city that the kids built, before they turned into Godzilla monsters and stomped it flat:

And here is the evil Mechagodzilla attacking the undersea volcano lair the Godzilla monsters called home:

With all this in his early childhood I really wonder what kinds of funny things Moomin will dream up to do when he’s older. I could picture him wanting to make elaborate stage sets and make movies as a teenager, or else get involved in some Burningman-ish art project or happening.

Anyway, I loved the dorky coolness of the UTCBFB, because it reminded me of my own family and the funny games we used to invent. Everything doesn’t have to be slick and perfect. Just a suggestion of a fort or a mountain is really enough to make a game way more silly and fun!

the longest word you’ve ever heard, and this is how it goes…
Originally uploaded by Alicia Y

Moomin’s been joking around with his dad about “bad words” for months now. They giggle about “the A word”. Which, as I mentioned before, is “antidisestablishmentatianism”. And if you forget what that means it is being against taking down some established institution.

Now we have the “O word”, which they try to trick each other into saying.

“Hey, dad, I was just thinking about how there are some words that sound like what they are, I mean, uh, hmm…”

‘You mean onomatopoeia?”

“HAHAHA you said the o word! You said onomatopoeia!”

So this week with help from my coworkers I picked out some new ones. We have an H word:

hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia.

SCORE!!! The best word ever! It means “the fear of long words”!

It is not that hard to remember.

Hippopoto — picture a hippo, obviously
monstro – a really monstrously big one
sesqui – I can’t help you, just remember it
pedalio – Kind of like “pedal”
phobia – obvious

Hey presto, you can remember it. Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia.

Next we’ll work on the F word. Are you ready for the F word?

Floccinaucinihilipilification.

Hard, but really not so bad.

Flocci (say it with a hard c)
nauci (now-c, or naw-c)
nihili (like nihilist; but accent the middle syllable)
pili (easy)
fication (also easy)

It means “making something sound worthless”.

There you go. Now you have two incredibly fabulous words. Teach them to every child you know.

r2d2 and friends
Originally uploaded by Liz Henry

Robogames was great as usual! Moomin first went to it when it was Battlebots or something like that, in 2001. He was in a front carrier and it was just at the cusp of when loud noises and crowds began to upset him. So while he slept happily through loud action movies as a tiny infant, and I had expected him to sleep through Battlebots, instead he fussed and protested and maybe even screamed a little bit.

Now he’s taller than R2D2! And can scream with delight during the battles, to egg on Sewer Snake and Megabite!

No wait, if you’re going to watch one of those, check out The Judge. It gets really exciting about minute 1:00. Somehow it is incredibly satisfying when the brutal hammer comes down to gouge holes in the steel floor!

So, I love the idea that Moomin will grow up remembering this sort of thing as a primal sporting event, much like I was taken to baseball games! At some point this summer Moomin will be going to Lego spybot day camp to build tiny robots, so I figured also that Robogames would inspire him.

A lot of times I felt like a funny little robot myself as I wheeled myself about. I got overtired, and was in pain, and cranky, but then the giant robot Buddha recharged my batteries with its peaceful beauty.

I sat in front of it and just stared as it went through its color changes. A nice counterpart to the scenes of strength and aggression, and also it was a slightly quieter section of the hall, less crowded, where I could chill out.

On the way home I realized I had completely overdone it. But I don’t care because I need to go out and especially to go out with my family and to still be able to share cool stuff with Moomin. I swear I’m going to figure out how to go to the beach with him in the next couple of weeks.

Also, very soon now I’ll figure out how to do what I’m doing without all the bitterness and anger, fear and grief I’m feeling. So this is a good image for me to keep in mind, the Abhya & Varada mudras, though I’m not particularly Buddhist, it’s still very comforting to think of: