April Updates: Eclipse & Other Whimsies

Short and sweet update on my life!

Last month, April, I traveled with Andy to Pittsburgh (his hometown) to go see the big 2024 eclipse.  

I have always wanted to see a total solar eclipse.  It's a major item on my bucket list, and I was planning to see the one back in 2017, in Oregon.  Unfortunately, my father died that week and I had to miss it.

With the next North American total solar eclipse not coming until 2045, I knew I had to make this one.

So we went to Pittsburgh with plans to drive out at dawn to get into the path of totality.  Our original plan, like many people's, was to go to Erie, PA, or Meadville.  But on the day of we discovered that clouds had moved in and it would not be good viewing conditions, so we went with our backup plan: Wooster, OH.

I invited my friends Kevin and Tom along for the roadtrip, which spanned Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and finally Ohio.  Kevin couldn't come but Tom showed up at dawn, and we ended up having an amazing time riding out to Wooster.  It was the typical roadtrip experience of sharing stories, pointing out horse-drawn carriages and signs for antique gun dealerships, stopping by crappy diners and gas stations, and getting increasingly excited for the big event.

In Wooster we went to the Wayne County Library.  We were there so early that there was not much to do except go by a local brewery and kill time.  

The eclipse began and took about 40 minutes to reach totality.  In the final 10 minutes the vibe was really one of total excitement.  The whole town stood still and everyone stood on lawns or in the street, staring up at the sun with eclipse glasses on.  (Calvin described the eclipse as looking like a cookie.) (He got nervous as the 2 p.m. afternoon, clear and sunny, slowly got darker and darker; he wanted to go inside the library near the middle of it.)

When the sun finally blinked out, everyone cheered.  Somewhere, someone set off fireworks.  The photo sensitive street lights blinked on.  It was dark, but dawn was in every direction; we could see the dim light on the horizon all around us.

And the ring of fire?  Amazing.  It wasn't moving, precisely, but it felt very alive, like it was buzzing or vibrating.  Tiny red specks (which I later found out were solar prominences, which are rings of plasma) were on the bottom of the ring.  The ring itself was a sort of opalescent color that doesn't quite have a name.

It was a sight that I had heard cannot be understood unless experienced, and I wholeheartedly agree with that sentiment.  It literally brought tears to my eyes.  It was worth the trip.

Pictures don't do it justice but here's one, courtesy of my brother-in-law, who was there with us:

After seeing the eclipse on Monday, I got on a plane that Tuesday and flew to St. Louis to visit with my brother and his partner, Jonah.  We hit up City Museum, which is less of a museum and more of an architectural playground, and what I would consider the crown jewel of St. Louis.  You can learn more about it here or just look through these pictures of the whimsy and madness, although, like the eclipse, pictures just don't do the experience justice:

Other than that, we played Yahtzee, fed ducks, drank (at both the Armory, St. Louis's biggest bar, and a very tiny disco dive bar, possibly St. Louis's smallest bar) and, and generally just hung out for a couple days before I went home on Thursday.

It was a brief but very well-realized vacation, and when I returned to work I found that I had gotten Employee of the Month for March (another random thing I've always wanted!)  This bodes well for the long summer months ahead; my only goals for June and July are to work hard and save up for my next big trips in August and September.

Which isn't to say I'm not finding time to dress up as Spider-Man and hold baby goats.

Sometimes the best moments of our lives are the briefest moments of magic shared with our loved ones, be they friends, family, or baby goats.

2024: Tony, Wine, & More

Welcome to 2024! 

Back in 2022, I mentioned I got a new part-time job at Whole Foods.  Well, sayonara, Whole Foods!

I quit back in October, shortly after passing my sommelier exam.  This coincided with my hours getting violently slashed.  As much fun as I had (I make my own fun), I felt increasingly underappreciated and undervalued there, especially when new part-timers were being hired even as my hours were being cut.  It felt like they were pushing me out, and I was more than happy to make room.

One of the things I got out of 2023 was that all of my most valuable experiences were travel opportunities.  Travel ain't cheap.

So after I quit, I took a month off and then began a job search.  I almost, almost, became a tour guide at Alcatraz, but opted instead to join Total Wine and More, which felt like it would really fit my current vibes.

And so far... it has!

It was a huge financial raise from Whole Foods.  While the commute is much longer, it's well worth it.  I knew I was in the right place when my first day involved signing paperwork and then attending a wine tasting.

For the last three weeks, I've been working with a team of other new hires to get the new Corte Madera store in proper working order.  (The Venn diagram of sommelier certification and forklift certification is just a circle, it turns out.)  It's been rewarding physical labor combined with the satisfaction of seeing everything coming together into a very well-organized and attractive little store.  (Plus, I got to do the signage!)

I feel like I'm really in my element, being surrounded by wine and people who love it.  All of my coworkers are fun to be around and they're a breath of fresh air; Whole Foods employees always seemed rather depressed, whereas the Total Wine team seems genuinely enthused to be there.

The whole putting-together-a-new-store endeavor came to a crescendo with a big grand opening party.  I have always wanted to see a ribbon-cutting ceremony, and I did, completed with Big Gold Scissor Action!  

I'm hopeful this is a job I can stick with a bit longer than I did with Whole Foods.  I know I'm still a bit in my honeymoon period, because the job is so new, but overall I just have a very good feeling about this.

I'm looking forward to the new year.  One of my major plans involves going to England in September to attend my writing partner's wedding.  Me and Imo have known each other about ten years digitally, as writers, and we're both really excited to meet in person!  

Other plans include a return to Labyrinth of Jareth (this time with my little sister Kellen), more SCA wars, and viewing the total solar eclipse in Ohio this April!  This job will help offset those travel expenses.

Onward to 2024!

Christmas 2023 Recap

2023 ended on a really high note for me, because I spent the last week of it at my brother's house in St. Louis!  He offered to host Christmas, and it ended up being a perfect movie-standard holiday vacation, complete with tree, presents, and even snow, though I can't give my brother full credit for that last one, unless you count "enduring residency in St. Louis" as a contributing factor.

 

My brother is three years younger than me.  We're not especially close because my family just isn't like that, or maybe I'm just not like that.  But typically we only speak a few times a year and even then it's mostly just me sending unhinged memes with zero context.

Despite this sort of gentle estrangement, I like Nate a lot and enjoy his company, and the invitation to Christmas came with a fairly interesting backstory.

The context is that my brother had been with his high school sweetheart for fifteen years in what was basically a common-law marriage, though not a legal one.  In 2023 they broke up, and shortly thereafter, my brother had his new boyfriend, Jonah, move in.

The invite to Christmas seemed to be a kind of "Meet the Family" litmus test, and I was intrigued enough by the new boyfriend to accept.  I wanted to meet Jonah, and I'd never seen my brother's house in person, and Nate (my brother) hadn't met Calvin at "talking" age yet.  Calvin is now old enough to actually greet people by name and have conversations (so long as the conversation is about Peppa Pig).

So we arranged a flight on Christmas Day and arrived in the afternoon to a delightfully decorated home.  Nate's new boyfriend, Jonah, had made a ton of food, and had had the foresight to ask us about dietary restrictions beforehand to ensure we could eat it.  

 

Calvin had a nice haul; his favorite toy was the Peppa Pig doll in his stocking, though he was pretty fascinated by the Hot Wheels loop-de-loop playset, which was very loud and promisingly dangerous.  (Launching small, die-cast cars at child eye level at 1 million MPH = fun!)

 

He wouldn't pose for a family picture.

Over the next few days we did typical tourist-y stuff.  We went to the zoo on the day after Christmas, where most of the animals weren't really out and about due to the weather.  My favorite was the hippo, who was paddling around with gusto.  The sleeping hyena got an audible "wow!" from Calvin.

The day after that, we checked out the science museum, which had a lot of interactive "building" exhibits for kids.  I found it a bit overwhelming but the animatronic T-Rex made it (probably) worth it. 

The best day, far and away, was going to City Museum.  City Museum is difficult to describe; Google calls it an "architectural museum" and journalist Whet Moser called it "a wild, singular vision of an oddball artistic mind." 

 City Museum was my brother's suggestion, and it was jaw-droppingly amazing.  Once a shoe factory, it's been repurposed into a sort of giant, bizarre jungle gym that looks kind of like what Tommy Pickles thought "work" was in that one episode of Rugrats.

I'm no architecture but I can tell you that this was a masterwork of madness.  There are tunnels, caves, galleries, castles, a circus, an arcade, a skatepark, and tunnels galore.  Nate suggested putting an airtag on Calvin, which we declined.  We regretted this immediately when he tore off into the tunnels, which go between levels and on the ceiling and into the floor.  

His favorite part was one of the ball pits, and a castle with a trampoline net.

 

Down the staircase... 

 

...and out through the fish.

You basically have to crawl around like in "Die Hard."  There's a 10-story slide but Calvin was too little to ride it (and it was closed, anyway).  Peppered throughout the museum are side shows: storytime with Mrs. Claus!  A magician!  A circus with an acrobat!  (We went, but Calvin found her act too scary; there was a part in which she suspended herself from her hair and twirled rapidly, and he sat in the audience aghast, crying, "Oh no!  Stop!  Stop!" clearly distressed that no one was helping her.)

This is a place I would love to go to over a weekend as just an adult (note: there are bars in City Museum!) but it was also immensely fun to see it through a child's eyes, although indescribably hard on the knees.

Some might say the easiest part was slithering down the narrow vertical tunnels on the ceiling.

On our last (or maybe second-to-last?) day, we swung by the St. Louis arc, as is custom.  

So, all in all, a very packed trip for only four days!  Jonah seemed a little nervous (understandable, meeting your new boyfriend's entire family over the holidays) but generous, and I was impressed by his hospitality.  Nate seemed happy which is the best anyone can ask for, really.

Honestly, even without the zoo, museum, and City Museum Architectural Fever Dream™ I would have had a great time just hanging out with my family playing Mario Party and day drinking.