There’s a guy at the library that looks exactly like my Dad, but with a full goatee.

Evil Dad?  Mirrorverse Dad? Undercover Dad?  What is this?

I love you all, but I have exactly Three (3) braincell today and they are being allocated to “Stop Dog From Opening Pantry and Eating Her Wieght in Dried Beans”.  This is a very wily dog and I need all 3 of them for this task.  Further updates as events warrant.

(As usual, all the names have been changed to protect people’s privacy.  LONG POST so press “J” to skip or start scrolling because I can’t make cuts work for Moblie, sorry.)

Back in 2004 I went to a cousin’s wedding and my mom got into Fandom.

Ruth, my Mom’s-college-roommate’s-daughter was getting married to a man of mixed reputability in what had been for several months had been the primary sitcom of the family- mushroom vs. champagne draperies, the bride wanted a small ceremony and the mother of the groom wanted to invite every business contact she had, and then there was the problem of the Rabbis- Ruth’s rabbi had mostly retired but had promised to marry her in her youth, David’s had promised the same and the current Rabbi of Ruth’s synagogue wanted in too, so they agreed to be married by all three Rabbis.  Furthermore, any Jewish wedding requires a Chuppah- a canopy under which the ceremony takes place.  Mom agreed to make one for Ruth and David’s wedding, (MUSHROOM-colored of course, not champagne) and escort it there personally as we were attending the ceremonies.

Alas, the wedding was in Columbus, a terrible place. 

Southeast Ohio is generally a rather nice place- on the far northern end of the appalachia it has lovely rolling hills of deep hardwood forests, a spectacular zoo and many other things a scientifically inclined teenager might enjoy but I was not going to those, I was going to a Wedding, where I had been guilted into being a flower girl on account of being the youngest available cousin, along with my sister.  I spent most of the drive from Colorado in a state of spectacular teenage misery, which was almost entirely obliterated when we got to the hotel.

The guests of the Hotel consisted thusly:

1. My family (4)
2. A small herd of fancy-suited businessmen there for some obscure finance meeting (30ish)
3. A jolly and boisterous horde of Gamers, Cosplayers, Geeks and Freaks present for the World Of Warcraft convention immediately across the street (several hundred)

I didn’t actually know a damn thing about WoW, other than it was something my geekier friends in middle school played, and that it had elves with ridiculous eyebrows, but I know how to make friends with the kind of people who wear nothing but bodypaint and prosthetic ears in public and started talking to the gang of Blood Elves at the breakfast bar while the businessmen huddled together at their table like a group of musk oxen forming up against a pack of wolves.

Eventually mom wandered over and joined in the conversation- after years of making Halloween costumes, stage props, miscellaneous fabric constructions like the Chuppah and so forth, she’d gained an extensive knowledge of what fiber can be made to do, but wanted to know what marvelous things these people were doing with plastics.  She hit it off particularly well with the Troll over his teeth, and they decided to confide in her.

“Hey, here’s a fun thing to do-” Said the blood elf, before trotting over to the edge of the mezzanine overlooking the lobby.  

“LOK’TAR OGAR!”  she bellowed as loudly as her tiny, corseted frame could manage.

“FOR THE HORDE!!!” Roared back several dozen Warcrafters, shaking their con-safe weaponry and causing several of the businessmen to duck for cover.

“Yeah, if you need anything, just yell that.”  she nodded, before we parted ways.

Later that night, Mom slipped in the shower and sprained her ankle, which resulted in a moderately panicked but ultimately boring visit to a clinic to get it X-ray’d and acquire a wheelchair.  The next morning, however, we had to proceed to the wedding, and discovered that the elevator was out of service.

A Chuppah, if you’re not familiar with one, is roughly the same dimensions and weight as those pop-up tents they use at gentrified outdoor craft fairs, or about 9 feet long and close to 60lbs when folded up.  This one was closer to 100 once all the memorial images and sentimental fabrics and special tent poles had been added on.    Mom was stuck in the wheelchair, Dad was in a state of near panic at Mom being injured and also having to be somewhere On Time, and my sister and I were liquefying in the summer heat and the bride-mandated mushroom-colored seven goddamn layers of itchy-ass tulle flower girl dresses, barely able to lift the chuppah between us.

In short stairs were not happening and three quarters of us were about to riot but Mom is definitely the smart person in the family because she remembered-

“LOK’TAR OGAR!!”

“FOR THE HORDE!!”

“I NEED SOME HELP!”

Instantly the cosplayers from the night before were there, along with a dozen more.  Two beefy trolls carried Mom down the stairs and clean out to the parking garage, someone else got the chuppah, and the Blood elf managed to get concierge to bring our car around to the curb with our destination already programmed into the (VERY PRIMITIVE) gps.  I thought my dad was going to cry with relief.

“So [Gallus].”  Mom asked me on the way to the wedding.  “People who like videogames. Do they all have Magic Words?”

“Yeah most of them have some kind of phrase like ‘may the force be with you’ or ‘live long and prosper’.  Why?”

She just nodded, storing that fact away for later.

The wedding turned out to be an event in and of itself- The mother of the bride fainted when they kissed, the rabbis nearly got into a fistfight, the mother of the groom fell off the chair and needed stitches, uncle Larry tore his pants on the dance floor then elected to remove them and keep dancing- and I managed to forget entirely about Mom’s question.

*

Last year, we were doing theater set-in at the same time the local theater and culture complex was hosting the small city convention.  It was July, hotter than satan’s own asshole, and the stage pieces were too large for both of our 5’2-and-under asses to move.

I came back out from wresting a Magic tree into the complex to find mom squinting calculatingly at a group of Marvel cosplayers.

“What are their Magic Words?”

“Huh?”

“The words you say when you want to summon them- ‘Use the Force’ or something?”

I blinked a few times, as my heat stroke-addled brain translated that.  “…Avengers Assemble?”

“HEY AVENGERS!” Hollered Mom. “ASSEMBLE!!”

INSTANTLY, an Iron Man and three Captains America sprinted over.

“What can we do Ma’am?” asked one of the captains, sticking rigorously to character.

“We need help moving these set pieces in and you have muscles.”  she explained, and without question everyone pitched in to move a magical forest, the front half of a castle and a dragon’s cave into the Children’s Theater backstage.  The Iron Man politely answered questions about painting metallics on Cardboard for her and all three Captains America lines up and saluted her upon emptying the truck.

“You’re dangerous.” I teased her as they returned to Con.

“Tell me more Magic Words- I need that tall one in purple to help with the lights.”  she said, gesturing to a Waluigi that was about to become familiar with the Children’s Theater Lighting System.

_________________________________

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also we came to a WILD realization tonight: when playing rock, paper, scissors, people from the east coast and midwest go on SHOOT, and people from the west coast (who are insane) go on scissors. like WHY

Years ago, I got to go to an AcademicDinner Party, because one of my history professors missed a class from a bad cold and didn’t want to go through the effort of rescheduling the classroom.  We’d just attend this dinner party in his backyard and discuss things intellectually and “Eat enough so I don’t have to deal with leftovers for a month” and we’d get class credit.

Apparently several other profs had the same cold and idea, so it ended up being an inter-departmental Socratic seminar/“get drunk and rant about your chosen feild of study without the tenure board listening in” party. I don’t drink so I had the pleasure of being stone-cold sober while various academic authorities lost thier inhibitions, but fortunately not thier clothes.

Some Humanities Professor, mildly soused on white wine: “So what’s your opinion on the proposed Geothermal enegry plant?”

Volcanologist, who has been shooting whiskey all night: “Not to over-simplify my career, but if you poke holes in a Volcano, Lava comes out.”

Volcanologist, deciding he needed to clarify: “This is a Bad Thing.”

Humanities prof, probably a philosopher of some flavor becuase only philosophy people say shit like this: “Well, every time there’s an erruption we also end up with more island, so it’s not all bad? Accelerated expansion, if you will.”

Volcanologist: “Has a tendency to burn and then encase preexisting parts of Island though. I lost my favorite shave ice place that way.”

Humanities: “Alright, we poke holes on the side with all the millionaire tourist mansions and state senator villas.”

Volcanologist: “…You might be onto something there.”

Me: “If you guys decide to go full supervillain I can make costumes.”

Humanities: “Well, this is all playful speculati-”

Volcanologist: “I WANT A CAPE THAT LOOKS LIKE A’A AND IS ALSO ON FIRE!!”

My history professor, who has just seen me and heard the word ‘fire’: “NO ENABLING PYROMANIA [GALLUS].  At least not where I can’t hear it an be accused of aiding or abetting.  Go discuss it in the driveway.”

Anyway that’s what college is like if you make friends with your professors so you should definitely go to thier office hours and make future Henchperson career contacts.
…………………………………………………………………………………………

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So recently I went camping with my sister and I had a Linguistic expirience.

We were in Yellowstone being excited about geothermal features and generally enjoying ourselves becuae turns out Late September is the best time to hit up the Colder national parks- the only other people there was a family with matching windbreakers speaking german with Swiss accents and the Park Ranger patrolling around to make sure we weren’t planning on skinny dipping or the other bonehaded things tourists do.

As we’re on the way back to the car we see a woman in Bright Red Pants in the parking lot looking both lost and near tears.  She sees us and practically sprints over to ask us

“Parlez-vous français?”

Now, my sister is fluent in spanish, ok at pourtugese and italian and even has a good chunk of Japanese under her belt.  “yo hablo español!”  She offers.  Then offers the other three languages.  Madame Red pants shakes her head at all of them.

I have a dubious grasp of English, but I know enough German to navigate a major metropolitan area if everyone is real patient and repeats things three times for me. “Sprechen Sie Deustch?” I try.

Madame Red Pants (I can see her husband in the car looking equally bewildered. I cannot see the color of his pants. I assume they are equally Rhodacious.) looks crestfallen but tries anyway.  She takes out the park map and indicates the Norris Junction, while speaking French faster than I understand English, but it’s apparent she doesn’t know where she is currently, and needs to get to Norris Junction.

We know where she is and how to get to Norris but can’t convey this via pointing at the map and waving our arms. I feel genuinely bad, and she looks near tears with frustration. 

Then I remember.
The matching Swiss Family.

I jog back into the geyser complex and find them excitedly taking pictures of a chipmunk while the Ranger watches them suspiciously from behind a pine tree.  

“Sprechen Sie Französisch?” I ask, and they collectively turn towards me, freeing the chipmunk from thier gaze as it sprints off into the underbrush.

“Ja, bitte.” Says thier Matriarch and leader.

“Eine Frau is Veeeeerlos- no, Verloren! Kann Sie- aw crap what’s the word? Translate?”

“Oh, Ja!” Frau Windbreaker speaks Idiot Tourist too, apparently.  The Swiss collective follows me back to the parking lot and and Frau Windbreaker and Madame Red Pants have a very animated conversation in French that I understand exactly none of.  My sister, feeling left out, offers various memebers of the Swiss Collective trail mix.  some of them even take it. Frau Windbreaker turns to me.

“Wo ist Norris?” She asks, looking mildly embarassed.

I end up having to convey the directions to Norris in German, which Frau Windbreaker translates to French, hindered slightly by the fact that neither of these women know how to read a map, but eventually Madame Red Pants comprehends, thanks us profusely, gets in her car, and manages to turn the correct direction out of the parking lot.  Frau Windbreaker and I shake hands and all of us part ways with the feeling of a job well done.

Before my sister and I can get in the car, the Ranger appraoches us.

“Thanks for that. I’ve felt bad all summer that all I’ve been able to do is turn on google translate for people.”  he said, shyly.

At that moment my sister and I both realized that Madme Red Pants had both a GPS in her car and an Android phone in her hand.

Hopefully the next person to help her was more technologically literate or generally observant than we are.

So while I was getting my haircut, the lady asked me if I had other plans for the day and I said:

“I’m just going to pick up the boy from daycare and then it’s date night.”

And the lady says “Oh! How old is he?”

“He’s three.”

“Mine too! Where are you registering him for kindergarten it’s such a hassle-”

And that’s when I realized I said “boy” and not “dog” because I always think of Charlie as “good boy” but this slip up has lead to a miscommunication.

The lady is now 6 minutes into a clearly needed rant about how unnecessarily complex shopping for schools is, esp when you have a neurodivergent child, so I can’t just tell her that Charlie is a dog because then she’ll feel awkward for unloading on me and she clearly has enough going on.

So the rest of the haircut became a game of “how much can I say about Charlie without revealing that he is not a human child?” And the answer is “enough to cover a half hour hair appointment, quite possibly several hours worth if I’m specific enough”

…While my phone was in the car, and I am SO MAD, but please enjoy this description:

• I take my own dogbeast, Charleston Chew, to puppy daycare at least once a week to get him some cardio and work on his social skills, and today after taking him in I saw the most.
• Bewildering Animal.
• This dog’s name is “Howdy” (presumably because it’d be rude to name a dog ‘Doody’) and he’s a German Shepherd/Greyhound X Bloodhound mix 
• Please take a minute to imagine this creature.
  
  
  
• His body is fairly normal- A smooth but thick red coat with a small, mottled black saddle.  He has a sock on his hind left foot (I think it was left.  he is eight months old and very wiggly) that makes it look like a jovial frat boy just rolled out of bed after a night of revelry.
• His skin bags slightly at his armpits and under his belly but not in dramatic fashion, until the cheerful gentleman that keeps him said 
• “Watch this!" 
• and lovingly grabbed the skin over his shoulders and hips-
• -And lifts enough skin to cover Howdy’s Body again over him while all four of his feet remain planted upon the floor, tail wagging with glee.
• He weighs, I estimate, about 70lbs and his bulky-boned, with a long, sturdy tail and a trim body under the onsie-like skin.
  
  
• The Head though
  
• Oh Dear.
• Howdy’s head has a somewhat lupine profile- the combination of breeds leads to a long but sturdy snout, and not too much overhang of his lips.
• He slobbers an entirely tolerable amount.
• His eyes are large like a greyhound, bright golden brown like a shepherd and his eyelids work correctly, much to his human’s and the vet’s relief.  The wide bright eyes lend him a wild-eyed, moderately panicked look.
• The skin bags too, at the top of his head  and the rolls covered in velvety fur make for a constantly furrowed brow of worry and give him the overall expression remineistient of an edvard munch character.
  
  
• Then There Are The Ears
• His ears are the size and shape of a bloodhound's 
• but due to the mix 
• They 
• Stick 
• All 
• The 
• Way
  
  
  
  
• UP 
• They are somewhat tubular, curled inward and much longer than wide and almost the size of his head again. they swivel independently of eachother, like  the eyes of a chameleon.
•  "We think he makes that face because he can listen in on russian sattelites.”
  
  
• I confess.  
• I guffawed upon seeing him 
•  "OOOOOOHHHH NOOOOOO I’M SO SORRY HE’S BEAUTIFUL BUT HIS EARS-“ 
• "That’s alright ma'am.  God put him on this earth to bring people joy.  And he sure does.”

Bless this Bewildered and Bewildering creature.

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