Maura's Illuminated Manuscript

For the impending Anomaly, i.e. Ingress tournament, that's in Seattle (and Milwaukee, and Rio di Janeiro (!)) on the 27th randomdreams suggested that I contact my team leader and ask what inventory I needed, because he's a gentleman among smurfs*. He needn't have bothered; she just contacted me.

I have to say that the multi-tab spreadsheet is impressive: a beefy list of items, both in-game and out, that would be good to have. Sheesh, I've gone to Burning Man with sheets that had fewer cells, and as regular readers know I'm anal-retentive. Yes, there's the external battery that bork suggested, but also wired (?) headsets (?!) for communication, and a recommended app. I'm the lowest-level player on the team, and boy am I glad I leveled up to 8. I wonder if they'll turn on me and throw me to the vicious rebel scum when I tell them I have to take my son to work late that afternoon.

'Nuther words, this is all waaay more serious than I anticipated.



*randomdreams & manintheboat belong to the Resistance faction, whose color is blue.

I "dinged 7" at Ingress last night from inside the building where I work, nudging myself over the top by juicing up a portal. The anomaly, i.e. meetup, is on the 27th. If I get at least 33⅓ thousand points per day between now and then, I can reach level 8 and therefore maximally assist my fellow toads on the 27th. So far I'm on track.

But can I get my son to come along? Should I, given his schoolwork load? I catch myself worrying that if I leave him in the apartment, he won't be able to keep himself on task. Sooner or later, though, that's on him.

Executive decision: If I ding 8, I'll put the word on the kiddo to keep the early afternoon of the 27th clear, unless he has work then.

Work. Ingress level 6.24. (Dig the new user pic!) Housework. No dates: Much Younger Woman's fella is having a tough time, the Norwegian & Elder Goth are both busy, and the Tickler's been ill. And St. Valentines Day is coming. Can I martyr him again myself, good & hard?

The best thing that happened to me lately? Getting an unexpected chat message from somebody far away, and who I'm reluctant to mention by name. Some of you can guess who she is, and would be justified in rolling your eyes.

I left work around 1830, being under the impression (Foreshadowing!) that my son wouldn't be done with work until 2100. You know what that means: I bopped around playing Ingress in downtown Seattle where easy portals are thick on the ground. At 1924 I get a call from m'boy asking, basically, "Where the hell are you? I'm downtown."

So I stop playing Ingress. Luckily, I was only a block from our usual meeting spot, University Street Station. We got on the 5 to Red Mill Burgers - I'd already eaten, but I'd saved room for a (chunky!) peanut butter shake - and all was well. Had I not been playing Ingress downtown, I would have have gone home, and the Wendling would have had to take the E line - E as in "Eek!" - to my place.

This was not me screwing up. This was my son telling me next week's work schedule when I'd made it clear I was clearly asking him about whether and when to pick him up this week. Business as usual with him.

Item #1: An ad. My ex wants to sell the dining room table at the old place. She won't have a place to put it when she moves out. It can be configured with zero, one, or two leaves in the middle, and it's got squarish legs and some nifty swirly grain. No gotta photo, but drop me a line if you're interested.

Item #2: The roof at the old place was damaged by bozos who applied a pressure washer to the composite shingle. I didn't know that was a no-no, but Ex remembers telling the bozos not to years ago. Oh well, that's money we won't get when we sell the house.

Item #3: I have no dates scheduled. I guess I wasn't thinking past the weekend's pah-tay. Time to rectify that. To tell you the truth, it's kind of nice to have a break so I can do things like laundry.

Item #4: I'm at level 4 in Ingress, and more than half way to level 5. Setting up a big fat control field right before bedtime is embarrassingly satisfying. Somebody dropped portal keys all over Aurora, so I snatched as many as I could from the E line, of course.

Item #5: Breaking changes in open source projects are the root of all much evil.

This morning in Ingress I "dinged 3" - I think that's how you say it - and made my first link. I discovered yesterday that the E line is a fabulous place from which to hack portals, made even better with the larger action radius one gets with levelling up. I gather that since Enlightened agents are knows as toads or frogs for their team color of green*, low-level Enlightened agents are called tadpoles, and I feel very much as if I still have gills.

I tried to get my son into it last night, but without success so far. It may take multiple attempts.

---

I had a shopping date at the downtown Nordie's with Taller Woman this afternoon at the downtown Nordstrom. I had no idea there was an honest-to-goodness bar in there! That wasn't a bad Negroni that TW bought for me. I have to hand it to Nordie's for business sense: a liquored up customer is probably more likely to spend money. As TW observed, the bar's customers were about 97% women. Then we hit the MAC counter for makeup; I had a shopping list. I found the perfect occasion dress, on sale for $660. That's right, six hundred sixty dollars on sale. I'm amazed my nose didn't bleed.

Walking around the downtown Nordie's made me feel like a big, dowdy, butch Margaret Mead: all the pretty young things so perfectly toned, made up, and turned out, for whom trips to Nordie's are probably a much more regular occurrence than they are for me. Do I want to join their legion? Oddly enough, no. Style beats fashion any day. I will funk you up, sweet thangs.

SFDs: short black trenchcoat, hoodie-with-tails from Mishu, Bombsheller leggings, tall Docs and minimal makeup because duh, I went makeup shopping.

Tonight: pah-TAY!



*With many local variations. "The snot" and "the slime" are popular overseas. The Resistance, however, seems to be smurfs pretty much everywhere.