Marian Call Adventure Quest: The Quests!

Marian Call's album release happened this week, which means the Adventure Quest game is completed and my entries submitted for her consideration. As promised, I will share my entries with you, along with explanations when necessary. The instructions for the Quests are taken (and abbreviated, for the most part) from Marian's European Adventure Quest website. The Quests mostly involved commenting on an album review or a blog entry about Marian's music. I've cut most of those out of the instructions because this post is getting tremendously long and my cut & paste was dropping the links.

 

TASK THE FIRST: WORDS IN CHAINS

The first word of your comment must begin with the last letter of the last word in the previous comment. All of the words in your comment should begin with the last letter of the previous word.

Example: “I imagine every young gopher requires starch heretofore.” But you should write about the music, of course.  Ready? GO!

This was harder than I thought it would be, and my entry is pretty short. (I'm "Jennifer" or "Jen" in these screencaps).

 

TASK THE SECOND: TABOO

Your comment, however, may not contain the letter M or the letter C — yet it must be at least twenty words long.

Do you have any idea how hard it is to comment about Marian Call's album release when you can't use "music" or "album" or "record" or "CD", or even the woman's name?

TASK THE THIRD: ELEMENTALLY, MY DEAR WATSON

Here are your guidelines today: your comment must include, in order, the letters in the abbreviations for the elements of the periodic table.  First H, then He, then Li, then Be, and so on.

The letters do not have to begin words, they can be anywhere within a word — your first H doesn’t have to begin a word, and He could be in the middle of “the” — but every letter pair must be preserved. You cannot separate the L and the I in Lithium, for example.  Where you have two letters that don’t go together so well, such as Mg or Zn, you may use a space between them — but never shall they be separated.  Dig as deep as you like into the periodic table, only a few elements or dozens of them.

I had to have the periodic table open in a second window as I was writing this one. I finished it, was ready to submit it, but after a quick review I realized I'd completely skipped Titanium and had to rewrite half of it. (My submission is at the very bottom)

TASK THE FOURTH: FOUND IN TRANSLATION 

Write a short but very positive thought. It can be directed at the album release, a lyric from the song you most connect with, a note for the folks in the US and around the world currently needing electricity and gas and food and health care, or encouragement for the crying child who wants the election to end – it can be anything, long as it’s sincere and not snarky.

Copy and paste your happy thought into http://translationparty.com. Choose your favorite permutation of the translation (doesn’t have to be the final equilibrium post) and post it at this album review from the UK if it’s about the music.

This one was easy. I had a purring Mojo on my lap when I opened up these instructions, and that's a terrifically happy thought right there.

TASK THE FIFTH: ACOUSTIC ACROSTIC

Write a comment in which each word of the comment starts with the consecutive letters of a Marian Call song title, (E.S.B. might be “Excellent song, bro”). Create an acrostic with your comment from the name of any MC song you choose. Longer song titles will of course make for longer comments.

I chose her songs "Got to Fly" and "Free Bird".

TASK THE SIXTH: PICTIONARY

Have a listen to a little Something Fierce over on the American Songwriter live stream page. Grab a piece of paper or a post-it note — or, if you’re waiting in a long voting line, use a phone app or draw on the back of the upright citizen in front of you. Illustrate your interpretation of a lyric or image from one of these songs:

“The Avocado Song”

“Dear Mister Darcy”

“I Wish I Were a Real Alaskan Girl”

“Coffee by Numbers (Faon’s Song)” 

I chose to go with the obvious pun and use the lyric "You're my Avocado, Baby". I drew a baby avocado. It's adorable.

TASK THE SEVENTH: TIME FOR PI

Let the digits of pi dictate the number of letters in each word of your comment.  First word gets three letters, next word one letter, next word four — etc.  Zeroes should be punctuation; use commas or periods or semicolons or dashes (you may use punctuation anywhere else too, but you must punctuate where a zero appears).

The last one was nice and easy, just a fun little doodle. But this? Damn, Marian, you made this one tough! Keeping track of which digit I was at was making me crazy, and there's a chance I've missed one and disqualified myself. But I tried! This one is by far the most nonsensical of my comments.

TASK THE EIGHTH: ENTITLED

Leave a comment at least twenty words long. Your sentences much be complete, with subjects and verbs, and they must more or less make sense — but you may use only words from the titles of Marian Call songs. Cover songs are all right, and parenthetical or secondary titles are certainly valid.

My first try didn't have "complete" sentences, so I had to go back and leave a second comment.

TASK THE NINTH: TEA AND POETRY

Your task today is a creative writing assignment. Make some poetry. Rhymed or unrhymed, limerick or haiku or sonnet, song or epic. Your topic: “The bravest thing.” It can be about the bravest thing you ever did or hope to do, or it can be fictional.

Mine was very short, because I wanted to be able to share it on Twitter instead of making a blog post for it.

TASK THE TENTH: THE ULTIMATE ANSWER 

Listen through any Marian Call song (originals only) for the 42nd word. Compose a question for that word, an Ultimate Question of your own, that can be answered only with your word.

Well, I couldn't let that go without acknowledging the Hitchhiker's Guide reference, now, could I? Especially since word #42 in the song "Good Morning Moon" is "ground", opening the door for this:

TASK THE ELEVENTH: THE SUBTLE PLAGIARIST 

Visit Marian’s collaborative music video with Awkward Embraces, a fantastic web series about a nerdy girl who tries her hardest to face the #wretchedhiveofscumandvillainy that is the dating world. Post the video on your Facebook or link it on Twitter, if you like — I would be very much obliged, this is the best possible way to get some NOVEMBER 13TH 2012 buzz (though that part of the task is optional). 

Once that’s done, leave a comment on the video. Your comment must include at least two of these four things: 1) a kind of animal; 2) a color; 3) a food; 4) a place name or specific geographic reference. 

Most importantly, your comment must include each of the last five words in the previous poster’s comment. They do not have to be in order or consecutive, so sprinkle them wherever you like inside your own comment. If you wish, strategically leave five words at the end that you want to inflict on to pass on to the next player.

I took strategy to heart and tried to be evil for the next poor sap, but three other people posted at almost the exact same time as me, so people could choose from those instead. Dang.

Link to the video (worth watching!)

My comment is at the top. I had to use the last 5 words of the post below.

TASK THE ELEVENTIETH: WHAT’S IN ITS POCKETSES? 

Your comment must be in charcter, and it must be a character from one of the works listed below. In character, tell listeners which song from Something Fierce is your favorite and why. We ought to be able to guess your character — you are posing us a riddle — but try not to make it too obvious. Minor characters, like Yellin or the Borg Queen, are less obvious and extra fun. Both book and film interpretations of characters are acceptable. 

• The Lord of the Rings trilogy or The Hobbit 
• The Princess Bride 
• Star Trek: The Next Generation 
• Firefly or Serenity 
• The complete works of Jane Austen

Too obvious, perhaps, but it was so much fun to write!

TASK THE LAST: I’VE GOT A LITTLE LIST 

Today I had a task for you about emailing your local radio stations and things, doing important minion-y work, but in light of some journaling I did on the airplane today I have changed my mind. Today’s task is for and about you. You have been doing enough about me, blogging and posting and all. This one is for you, and for everyone, and I hope you will keep it. You are important to me and I’m thankful for you. 

Choose a Marian Call song title or parenthetical title from Something Fierce. Use the letters of the song title like an acrostic; each letter in order will begin a list item. Create a list for yourself of Happy Thoughts, of things you do that make you truly healthy when you do them — think action words. List only things you enjoy doing, mind, this is not a to-do list. The results should be uplifting, not discouraging, and should include things you already do often as much as things you wish you did more. If it’s not too personal, take a screencap (if your list is digital) or a photo (if your list is on paper) and share it on Twitter using the hashtag #somethingfierce or on your own Facebook page. Feel free to post individual items on Twitter. 

Post the list somewhere you can readily see it, and try to look at it, in an affirming and not discouraging way, on a regular basis — try not to let it become invisible. Remember what you feel like when you do those things for yourself. Double Fierce. 

I'll let my screencap speak for itself.

Red Blood Cell Cake

This week at work, we produced our 50th lot of antiglobulin control cells. It's a week-long process, from testing red cells to treating them, diluting them, putting them into little vials, and labeling and inspecting them before getting them ready to ship out. Everyone here has a hand in the process, and so we all feel connected to the product. I decided that 50 was a big and important number, and that it called for celebration.

I made a cake.

When in doubt as to choosing a way to celebrate, the answer is usually cake.

I took a plunge into real baking and made this cake completely from scratch. It's something I've been wanting to try for a long time, but I've been intimidated by the process. It just seems so complex and touchy, especially when compared to the three easy steps involved in a Betty Crocker cake mix. But, a cake was needed, and what better time to finally just go ahead and try something new? The year's nearly over already, and since "bake a cake from scratch" is on this year's list of goals, it had to happen sometime.

I asked my sister-in-law (link goes to her blog) for some help choosing an idiot-proof recipe for both cake and frosting. She's been making tasty from-scratch cakes forever, so I figured she had enough experience to know which recipes may be unrealistic for a beginner like me.

On her recommendation, I made Hershey's "Perfectly Chocolate" chocolate cake, and topped it with an "easy vanilla buttercream" icing. The cake was a matter of measuring everything into my stand mixer and then pouring it into pans, not very much different from what I would have done with a box cake, except that I had to measure more things out. The final batter was extremely thin - the website warned me about that, but as I was making the cake, I hesitated. It was already looking very runny, and then I was supposed to mix in a whole cup of boiling water. I did as instructed, but the result was the consistency of tomato soup, and I was sure I'd done something horribly wrong somewhere. Despite my misgivings and my many peeks into the oven to see if it was still goo, it baked up just fine into actual solid cake. Hooray!

Cake!

While the cakes cooled, I made the icing. I took the sticks of butter, which had been on the counter all day to soften, and dumped them into the stand mixer's bowl. When I tried to fluff the butter with the whisk attachment, the machine shuddered and wobbled, so I stopped it in a hurry. When the thing stopped, I saw my problem: a solid ball of butter lodged inside the whisk. I guess "room temperature" did not equal "soft" on this particular day. I poked the handle of a wooden spoon between the wires of the whip and dislodged the butterball one chunk at a time, scooping the chunks into a measuring cup. Once I'd gotten most of it, I microwaved the measuring cup so the butter would be of a more whiskable consistency.

The finished icing looked and tasted great, but it needed some color. I wasn't making a white blood cell! Again on my sister-in-law's advice, I'd picked up some Wilton gel food coloring for this project. Because red takes so much dye to get right, a gel works much better than the liquid color and doesn't dilute the icing. I picked "no taste red", thinking that maybe the others had a weird taste to them, but it turns out that this shade doesn't really go to true red. It was more of a pinky coral color. Still very nice, but not the bright oxygenated hemoglobin I was going for. I ended up using almost the whole jar.

I used a small paring knife to cut away an indentation on the top of the cake, because red cells are biconcave (dimpled on both sides), and I was going for realism. Or as much realism as an amateur baker and decorator could get out of buttercream and cake, anyway. This also gave me an opportunity to sample the cake before inflicting it on my coworkers. I was quite relieved to find it delicious.

Looks pretty good, even naked!

Here's the finished cake just before I covered it up to bring it to work. You can see that the red didn't really come out right, and I'm a little grumpy about that.

Finished Red Blood Cell Cake

Also, I tried and tried to make the icing smooth and flat, but all I had to work with was a small offset spatula. I think I'd need some fancy cake tools to get it right, but I'm not sure I'll do this often enough to invest in those.

If my coworkers were disappointed in the color or outer texture of the "red" blood cell, they didn't say anything. The cake disappeared in record time. Yay! Total cake success and I can cross something off this year's list of accomplishments!

Mmmm. Cake.

Marian Call's European Adventure Quest

I adore Marian Call.

I first became acquainted with her talent on JoCoCruiseCrazyII in February of 2012. She was one of the performers, but because her room was across the hall from mine, I met her before the ship even left Fort Lauderdale. A pretty redhead with a suitcase stopped in a doorway, said "Hi, I'm Marian," and held out her hand for a good cordial shake. After our short, polite, how-do-you-do exchange, we retreated to our separate rooms. That's when my husband told me I'd been speaking to a famous person! I'd heard that stars were generally bitchier and antisocial, so I guess that's why I didn't recognize her. Too nice for show biz.

Her show knocked my socks off. You know that episode of the Simpsons, where Bart and his buddies end up in Branson Missouri at an Andy Williams show, and Nelson is completely entranced? 

 

I was Nelson for her whole show. (Note: nobody was asleep or drooling during Marian's show, so the analogy isn't perfect. But I was still totally Nelsony the whole time.) Here's what I said about her in my cruise recap post:

Did I enjoy the concert? Well, I came home with Marian's double album, and would have come back with even more of her stuff if the gift shop hadn't been sold out of it. But Marian is so, so incredibly wonderful, that she handed out free download cards to the Sea Monkeys so we could all go to her site and get some of her music, even if we were too poor to buy albums on the high seas. Her concert absolutely blew me away. I was chatting with Dave about how I hoped the show would be good, and then the lights went down and she started her first song, Love and Harmony, and I was hooked. Some of her songs are silly, and some of them will reach inside you and push buttons you didn't know were there. I cried at Anchorage, and I didn't even cry when Bambi's mother died. While I enjoy Marian's albums very much, I think she's the sort of performer whose voice really comes alive in a live show. She tours a lot and does very small shows - look her up, ask her to come to your town. You won't regret it.

She's got a new album coming out - Something Fierce - and it's wonderful. Sometimes light and catchy, sometimes a little deep, and immensely re-listen-to-able. I find myself coming to my car after work and fishing out her CD to listen to whichever one of her songs has spent the whole day rattling around in my head. I wish I was a better music reviewer so I could describe the album and her music in fancy terms, but I'm not. All I can say is I like it a lot, I think she's incredibly talented, and I hope my friends check her stuff out and give her a listen. You can download two of her songs for free here - it can't hurt to try, right?

The album is being released with fanfare, of course, as all albums should, but Marian is a geek and she knows her fans well. Her recent European tour was funded by a Kickstarter campaign and was given a video game theme. She took the theme even further for the ramp-up to the album release, giving her loyal fans "Quests" to complete. She gets press, we have fun and interact with other fans. It's absolutely win-win, and it's been a blast so far.

I'll be participating in her Quests for the next two weeks, and I'll be reporting back on the game once I'm done. Stay tuned!

A Limerick for a Mythbuster

Here's my best effort, just for fun. It doesn't fit on Twitter, or I'd just post it there.


This Mythbuster suddenly died
When a pumpkin into his head flied.
Instead of a wake
His body was baked
Because his poor head had been pied.


Edited to add: Silly me, not yet used to Twitter. You split it up into multiple tweets, of course! And I even did that part wrong. Sigh. Don't judge the newbie! Oh well. I'm leaving it here because I think it's pretty good.

My Class

I took a big step outside of my comfort bubble last night. Ever since I escaped shift work and started my new day job, I've been muttering about taking a class of some sort. Frustrated with my endless procrastination, I dedicated an afternoon to searching the internet for online professional certificate courses to push my career along, but became discouraged when I found that legitimate courses are very expensive. But I was tired of always saying I wanted to do something, and never doing it, so I decided to start small instead of giving up. Baby steps aren't much, but they're better than standing still. I registered for a writing class at the community college.

My first class was last night. I wasn't given any information beyond the name of the high school where the classes were held, so all I brought with me was a good pen and a slightly-used yellow spiral notebook, figuring that I'd at least have the basics covered. Notebook in hand, I stepped nervously through the front door to the school and was greeted by a helpful volunteer who showed me to my classroom.

The desks were tiny, arranged in three neat rows facing a chalkboard half-filled with a teacher's precise handwriting. I saw that the class was reading and analyzing Nathaniel Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter, and I smiled to myself, thinking it was probably just as well that I never had to read that one at school, or I wouldn't  have enjoyed it. Sometimes, reading too much into a book takes all the joy out of reading the book.

I was alone at first, twenty minutes early on purpose so that tardiness wouldn't add to my anxiety. The door was behind me, hidden at the end of a short hallway, so each time I heard the click of a new student arriving, I had to turn and wait to see who would appear. One by one, my five classmates came in and chose their seats. It's a very small class - only six women - and I am by far the youngest student. It feels strange to be taking a class about memoir and legacy writing when I'm not really old enough to have much of a life story, especially when I'm sitting there beside women in their seventies and eighties who have done so many incredible things.

When the teacher asked us to introduce ourselves and tell her why we were taking the class, I told everyone that I'm a Canadian import who came here for love, and that I love to write and want to learn more about it so that my blog will be better and maybe someday I'll write down my family's interesting stories for my grandchildren to read. I then had to explain a "blog" to my oldest classmate.

I hope I like the class, and I hope I do well. It's not for credit, but I will feel better if I can notice a difference in my writing, or at least in my approach to writing, by the end. We do writing exercises and share our work, which terrifies me. How strange that I can put my work online and not feel anxious about how it will be received, but reading a paragraph to the class makes my voice tremble. But it's not a challenge if it doesn't push me, so I'm going to do my best.

The first bit I read aloud to the class was the result of the teacher's instructions to find an important moment in my life and write about it for ten minutes. No other guidelines, just put something on paper and share it. I wrote about my first date with my husband, and while I would definitely go back and polish it up before presenting it to the world as an example of what I can do, it made the class laugh, and writing it made me happy.

I'm not sure whether I will, or whether I even should, share the results of my writing exercises with the internet. Who wants to read my memories, anyway? The important thing is that I followed through on a goal I set for myself, and I'm trying to be creative and find a way to grow a little. Wish me luck.

Use-it-up Challenge

Why not use the start of the new year as an excuse to clear out older stock from my freezer and pantry? There are so many things in there I've forgotten I even had, and I don't want to discover them too late and have to throw them out because they're expired. I've decided to challenge myself to use up food I already have before going grocery shopping again, even if it means we'll have some interesting meals. I'm particularly curious what's in the unlabeled plastic containers in my freezer - many are spaghetti sauce, but some of them are a complete mystery, because I'm not good about labeling my leftovers. I'll still buy fresh fruit and veggies if I need to, and definitely milk, but I'm going to see if I can get through the rest of January without buying any meat or anything in a can or box.

Yesterday I made a package of cheddar and broccoli Knorr Pasta Sides, and steamed some frozen broccoli to add in. There was a lot more frozen broccoli left in that package than I remembered, so there's still some in the freezer for another night. With the pasta, I had more maple cinnamon glazed carrots, using up the last of the old bag of sprouting carrots. That all went with a honey ham steak, and it wasn't half bad. I can't believe I'm just now discovering how easy and tasty a ham steak is for a quick dinner!

Tonight I got rid of an almost-empty bottle of honey teriyaki marinade by putting it over a couple of chicken breasts (long-time freezer inhabitants) in the oven. I also had a collection of veggies nearing the end of their usable lifespan, so I stir-fried a green pepper, some mushrooms, and a quarter of an onion, so they could go with the chicken over some rice. And the rice was the last 2/3 of a cup left from a big bag. It's been sitting there forever because I bought new rice since then, and since I always make a cup at a time, the 2/3 cup wasn't enough, and of course the new rice didn't have the same cooking instructions as the old one!

So far, so good. I'm clearing out some room in the pantry for new supplies. It's been crowded in there for a while, and I keep buying more and wedging it in, but it'll be nice to have a little breathing room. I don't want to empty us out completely, of course, but we have some soup that's been in there for at least a year, 6 cans of corn, some old cans of pumpkin, a couple of one-quarter-full boxes of pasta... this overhaul is long overdue!