fashion clothes

Does anyone else feel constantly disappointed in humanity these days? I fight my propensity to be cynical with every ounce in my being at times, but there is just such an abundance of "I'm so offended right now" in this world that it is an uphill, often losing, battle.

Something that seems to be getting worse every day to me are the mommy wars. I'm not talking about the wars about whether it is better to work or stay home (let's all just assume, incorrectly, I might add, that every mother is ever afforded that choice in the first place), it isn't about whether formula is perfectly fine or breastfeeding is right. It's not about the usual suspects, this most recent war.

Nope.

This war is about cupcakes.

Really.

I'm not kidding.

The newest variety of the mom war has Pinterest written all over it, accented with handmade bows and custom outfits.

Let me explain.

Some people are crafty. Some people were born crafty. Some people become crafty when they have kids. Some people actually enjoy making 50 cupcake toppers and coming up with awesome decorations for parties. Some people actually bend over backwards to make special cakes and adorable invitations. Some people loathe it but do it anyway because they want to do it for their kids.

An actual cake I made. Haters gonna hate.

Some people can't do it, either because they just aren't crafty or don't have the time/energy/extra money to drop on making tiny cupcake flags. Some people buy cakes from the store and packaged invitations and their kids have amazing birthday parties. Some people keep celebrations small and at home. Some people forget until the day of, then hustle to get it together at the last minute. Some people always forget goody bags. (totally raising my hand on several here)

Why does what someone else does or doesn't do for their kids have anything to do with your parenting?

It shouldn't.

It doesn't, in reality. It quite literally has nothing to do with you.

It does, though, or at least it seems that way, because every time I see a friend post something kickass she did for her kids on the book of face, someone has to come along and crap all over it.

It seems like someone always has to tell this mom who is just doing something cool for her kid that she is making the comment leaver feel inadequate as a mother.

Always.

You've seen it.

Why does my kid's birthday cake make you feel inadequate?

How does anything I do in my family have an affect on your self-worth?

It shouldn't. This isn't a contest. There is no winner for best-mom-ever, but there are definitely losers...and as long as we're comparing ourselves to each other, we are all losers.

I've written before about this, about how I truly believe that we are all different as mothers. We all kick ass at something, we all go way over the top when it comes to our kids about something. Whether your something is birthday cakes or homemade pancakes or notes in lunches or bedtime rituals or whatever it is - we all are totally awesome at something.

And we all suck at something. There is some aspect of parenting that we all hate, that we all loathe with every ounce of our beings. There is something that no matter how many times we have tried, we are terrible at.

And it is all okay.

Seriously.

We live in a world now where the response to feeling inadequate about our parenting because of what someone else shares on Facebook or Pinterest has resulted in mom shaming, hence the comments being left on all things awesome. It's even gone so far that mom fails are now a thing.

And they are. We all screw up. We should be as willing to admit the times we forget about a lost baby tooth or yelled at a kid purely out of frustration or tried that new Pinterest recipe and it was an abysmal failure as we are about the things we did right.

But that isn't how social media works. Social media, for most people, is a platform for the shiny and happy and perfect and positive. All that is great, this is true, but the shiny and happy and perfect and positive is only part of the story of our lives as parents.

And none of it has anything to do with anyone else.

I joked (sort of) yesterday about how I am starting to feel like I need to make a gigantic IT'S NOT ABOUT YOU sign and staple it to my forehead.

We, as a society, and especially as the mothers of the children of the next generation, have got to stop taking everything so goddamn personally. We have to stop believing that what anyone else does is a reflection on our triumphs or failures as people, as mothers. We have to stop making other women feel as though the things they do for their kids make us feel bad.

We have to stop.

Because it is not about us. It never was about us, it was about their child. For the love. We don't get to insist that it is about us simply because it makes us feel bad.

There is a moral imperative here. An absolute crisis of conscience going on, and it's one that we are modeling for our children. We need to support each other, celebrate the gifts of our friends, support one another when things aren't shiny and happy and perfect and positive.

We need to stop making other women feel bad when they have done something they should be proud of, something special for their families, something important for their children.

And we need to do it now.

I'll make my ridiculous birthday cakes. You do whatever your thing is. We can high five each other instead of snarking, honest.

Let's do that instead.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a Princess Celestia My Little Pony Rainbow cake to make....

I'm taking a much needed break from the ranting and the frustration today to tell you about my most favorite inappropriate party game.

When I say it is inappropriate, I'm understating. Vastly.

For real.


I was waiting to write about this one because they just overhauled their entire distribution system. You used to be able to pick it up at game stores, but it is now an Amazon exclusive. Once it all got figured out, the price dropped back to where it should be. For a while, people were charging over $60 for this little black box of cards.

Four things.

1. Still would have been worth it at $60.
2. It's $25 now, which is way better.
3. I was already Amazon's bitch, so this works for me.
4. You can make your own version on their website for free.

This is it. Well, the original version, anyway.

The tagline on the box reads "A party game for horrible people". It's true. Lord, is it true. If you don't start out the game being a horrible person, you will become one quickly.

There are rules, though at some point no one will pay attention to them anymore at all because your ribs will be hurting from laughing so damn hard. You will feel great shame for laughing at the things you laugh at.

Here's how you play. You need at least three people to play. Pee first and pee often. Having adult beverages handy helps lighten the mood quickly. This is not a game for children. Or prudes. I'm totally not kidding on that last one. 

There are white cards and black cards. The black cards contain the first half of the sentence or the question, the white cards contain possible options for the second half of the sentence or the answer. They are all wildly inappropriate.

To begin, each player draws 10 white cards.

One player reads the black card. Then every remaining player chooses one white card from their hand to submit for judging. You want the most outlandish, most inappropriate, most hilarious combination of cards. The reader of the black card takes the submissions and randomly reads them aloud to the entire crowd, then deems one card the most hilariously awful and therefore the winner. That person gets the black card, then the next player reads a black card and so on. Always keep your white card hand size at 10.

Whenever you decide you're done playing or everyone in the room has peed their pants, the player with the most black cards wins, not that anyone cares.

Everyone wins with this one. It is that funny.

Here is an example of a black card with submitted white cards. This one is mild.

From The Game Aisle's review

I'd have to go with the bleached asshole on this one, but that's just me.

The more people you have playing and the greater the amount of time spent hyperventilating, the longer the game will take. No one will mind. You will cry actual tears at some point and your abs will be sore the next day.

This isn't a game for the faint of heart or those with weak bladders.

It is, however, amazing.

Before I get into the meat of this post, let me preface what I am about to say with a few disclaimers.

1. I freaking love science. Always have, always will. Shoulda been a marine biologist. True story.

2. I don't intend for this to turn into a debate, but if the shoe fits...I'm game.

Not my card, but it works.

3. I am concerned, very concerned....

This is a topic that I've been meaning to write about for a good long time now, and to be honest it is so broad with so many issues that there is no way that I'll be able to discuss most of them. I'm hoping to at least gloss over the major issues that concern me the most, and might write about some more of them in more depth in the future.

One of the precipitating factors in the conjuring of this post was the debate about creationism and evolution that happened recently between Bill Nye and Ken Ham. I watched the whole thing, which was a bit of a challenge while making dinner and helping kids with homework, but I wanted to see it myself before I could make any sort of commentary on what transpired.

Because that is how things are supposed to work....you are supposed to form opinions about issues only after being presented with all the evidence from all sides...

Anyhow, I watched it and ended up writing a piece about the debate for Lefty Pop. I wrote it there because I knew my propensity would be to over analyze the hell out of it and turn it into a long post if I touched it here. Over there, I have to work very hard to condense my words, and so that's where I did it. You can read the post here if you haven't already.

The debate was concerning enough, the idea that there is a group of people wholly unwilling to accept scientific truth, entirely reliant on the Bible as though it is now or was ever intended to be the factual basis for anything. As Nye himself said, and the reason for his agreement to do the debate in the first place was, what adults want to believe is fine...it's the children he is concerned about. I agree with him absolutely.

I agree with him because we are already struggling as a nation when it comes to science education. We are already losing our edge when it comes to our ability to compete internationally in innovation and the development of new technologies.

Our education system has become increasingly obsessed with objective measures of knowledge, and has insisted on legislating how to teach from the top down, often by people with no actual experience in the classroom. We worry so much about literacy, and yet find ourselves struggling even more there now than in the past. In the meantime, we have sacrificed math, science and all extra curriculars at the altar of literacy. The experiment is failing. It is failing our children, it is failing our families, and it is failing our society as a whole.

We have sacrificed everything else for reading and writing, but are churning out a generation of kids who can barely put together coherent sentences, let alone tell you what a covalent bond or confidence interval is.

We need a reboot. Desperately.

We need science. Now more than ever.

The danger, to me, in the Nye/Ham debate isn't how the universe started, which was the point of the debate in the first place. The danger, to me, is in the refusal to see evidence of evolution that exists right now in this space and time. The danger is in discounting the very real changes that are happening in viruses and bacteria that already are presenting threats to the lives of humans in current time. Things that we used to be able to understand and treat are mutating, evolving, surviving our only arsenal of weapons against them. To just deny that is happening isn't only a silly debate to me, it's dangerous.

Deniers seem to be all the rage these days, though. Climate change is one of the greatest debates raging in the political world currently, which begs the question of why science that almost every climatologist in the world agrees on ever became fodder for political debate in the first place. Why are we debating science? Why do we think we can?

If you haven't seen it, you should watch Bill Nye and Marsha Blackburn on Meet the Press from last weekend. It makes my head hurt to think that she is an elected official.

Easy. It's easier to deny it. It's easier to wave it off as speculative. It's easier to say that there is no possible way that human involvement is speeding up the process, because if we believe that, then we have no incentive to change how we do business...and that is the crux of this faux debate - business.

Business wants to make money. Corporations are legal fictions that exist to make money. Period. They do not exist to serve the public interest. They do not exist to serve public health. They do not exist to serve the environment. They do not exist to serve the world as a whole. They don't even exist to serve our nation. They exist to serve their shareholders. They exist to make money.

Politicians anymore exist to serve corporations, not the people.

The quickest way to make a buck isn't going to be the cleanest, the safest, the more environmentally conscious.

Why do you think we don't have fully operational electric cars yet? Why do you think the water in West Virginia was contaminated for weeks after the plant hadn't even been inspected in years? Why do you think wells are being erected at a record pace all over the country in every place a shale deposit exists?

Money.

It's not because the corporations give a damn about what happens 10 years from now or 100 years from now. It's because they want to make money, they want to make money the fastest way possible, they want to extract fossil fuels from the earth the fastest way possible, refine them the fastest way, and they need to keep us totally dependent on them.

The fluids used in fracking aren't even public information because the industry has convinced regulators that the information is proprietary. Never mind that they may be contaminating ground water and air. Never mind that they may be creating seismic activity in areas that had very little before.

The Weather Channel just released a huge collaboration on the effects of fracking in Texas. It is well worth the read, particularly if you live in an area of the nation obsessed with drilling, as I do.

The regulators of many industries are people who either work in the industry themselves or who reside so far down in the pockets of the industry that they can't see their way out. Biased regulation isn't regulation, and it certainly isn't safe.

Instead of actually studying the short and long term environmental impacts, instead of worrying about public health, instead of doing their jobs, the talking heads we the people elected are just denying these issues exist at all.

They aren't doing their jobs. Instead, they are pretending to be experts in areas they know nothing about and calling the actual experts liars.

As if the time and energy wasted on denying climate change and the dangers of industry aren't enough, we should also be very worried about the knowledge base of the average people here in the US.

A study came out last week that 1 in 4 US adults believes that the sun revolves around the Earth. 1 in 4. I read that aloud to my husband, and in his generally skeptical way, he questioned the validity of the study, mused about who the population sample was.

It was a study by the National Science Foundation.

Shit.

Are we really this uneducated? Are we really this ignorant? This can't be true. Can it?

There were more questions in the study, and our collective answers are compared to other nations here. It's not pretty, I promise.

Then again, as we learned in the wake of the creationism debate, 46% of the population believes in the Book of Genesis - that God created the universe and everything in it in 7 days. Carbon dating, evidence of the big bang, evidence of trees and ice on the Earth many more thousands of years older than the Book of Genesis tells us....all means nothing.

This should be terrifying to all of us.

Incidentally, this should not be taken as me saying that religion and science cannot coexist. I absolutely believe they can and do coexist, for the simple fact that even if you subscribe entirely to the Big Bang Theory, as I do...something had to start it all. The matter had to come from somewhere. Mayim Bialik was on Real Time with Bill Maher last week. The woman, an actual certifiable genius, said the same - that there is no conflict between her religion and her foundation in science.

They aren't mutually exclusive, as much as people may want to simplify it. They can exist in harmony.

When people labor under the delusion that they can't coexist, or that science is bullshit, people die. Children die. Children like Kent Schiable, who died of pneumonia because his parents believed prayer would save him.

Prayer didn't save him. Antibiotics might have.

This is a matter of life or death. If we keep slacking on science education, we'll all pay the price eventually.

Usually, I have a decent amount of things to mention in these TTPMOT posts. This week, there is an abundance....so much so that I have taken entire groups of things out to write separate stand alone posts about later on this week.

That much stuff.

Off we go.


Florida's Pro-Murder Assbackwardsness
On my mind more than any other news story this week, the sick and twisted most recent case of a murder of a child in Florida. The fact that most of the major news sites are running it is as the "loud music trial" is prejudicial and just flat wrong. There was a person killed, it was a murder trial, and the victim's name was Jordan Davis.

In the case, a drunk white man with a history of being a bigot pulls into a convenience store parking lot, gets offended that a car full of kids is playing loud "thug" music, somehow becomes afraid for his life even though none of them exits the vehicle, grabs his handgun (that he has a concealed permit for) and unloads 10 rounds into the car, 3 of them when the car was actually fleeing. Yes, he kept shooting after they tried to leave. None of them were armed.

Instead of alerting the authorities, he went back to his hotel room, poured a few more drinks, ordered pizza and took his dog for a walk. Since he has been in jail, the letters he's written to his daughters include things like, “This jail is full of blacks and they all act like thugs.… This may sound a bit radical, but if more people would arm themselves and kill these fucking idiots when they’re threatening you, eventually they may take the hint and change their behavior.”

What in the actual fuck????

He was tried for first degree murder of Jordan and also charged with attempted murder and shooting into a vehicle. The jury hung on the murder charge but convicted on everything else. Logically, I'm not wrapping my head around how he is guilty for shooting and not killing the other three guys in the car, but they couldn't agree he was guilty for shooting and killing the one person he actually killed. 

At least the jury hung and that charge can be retried. He faces up to 60 years as is for the convictions he already received. (That is quite literally the only positive thing I can say about the outcome.)

Florida's asinine "stand your ground" law needs repealed. Kids are dying. Paranoid people carrying weapons have been give carte blanche to commit murder. 

Whatever happened to antitrust laws?
Ahhh, America. The land of entepreneurship and capitalism in its infancy, now struggling to wade through huge multinational corporate control of more and more and more industries.

The latest one to be sullied by a patent lack of competition and total market dominance - cable. Not just cable, because cable isn't just cable anymore. They are the main providers of internet service and oh yeah by the way they are content providers too now.

This should bother you if it doesn't. I can promise you that.

Here's the thing, you guys.

We have antitrust laws for a reason. To encourage competition. To protect both consumers and the market from abuse of market share. To foster development and innovation.

Oh, but wait.

We don't need to be bothered with things like that anymore. Antitrust, schmantitrust. Chuck Schumer, Senate Democrat and member of the antitrust subcommittee supports the merger. Of course he does. Time Warner gave him more money than any other candidate the last time he ran in 2010 and his brother is in on the deal. 

We do elect them to do the bidding of huge corporations even if it hurts us and destroys competition, right???

She's baaaaaaack
The geniuses vying for the GOP spot on the presidential ticket have already pulled out all the stops in the campaign to destroy Hilary, but the most recent tactic even has Mitt Romney shaking his head. 

For serious. When Romney is all dude, you guys, that's not cool....maybe you should listen.

What could be so horribly bad that even he is defending Hilary?

Easy. Rand Paul has said that he's not above dragging out the Monica Lewinsky case to use against her in the election.

I wish I was kidding.

He's worse than a woman scorned bringing up the distant past, which oh yeah by the way, I'm fairly certain that Hilary had no part of. The affair was between Bill and Monica, not some bizarre Oval Office cigar laced three way.

AND EVEN IF IT WAS....why would that fucking matter? How many leaders of the GOP have cheated on their wives repeatedly? I don't think any of them have faced impeachment proceedings for it....

This is an old story that had nothing to do with Hilary, Rand. Get over yourself.

If you want to attack her, just talk about Benghazi 24/7. Oh wait....you already did that too.


Hi. My name is Rand Paul. I like to beat dead horses.

For the love.

Just a little racist bullying in the NFL, NBD
So, the case of Jonathan Martin and Richie Incognito and the Miami Dolphins is over and done with, right? Just a little razzing by well-meaning teammates, right? This happens all the time, right? Martin was totally fine with it all, right?

This is what the NFL is all about, right?

No.

All the forced apologies and shrugged shoulders and shucks, it's not so bad interviews from a while back were bullshit.

In the past week, the actual effect the bullying has on Jonathan has come to light through messages to and from his parents that were released. The guy, clearly a sensitive soul to begin with, was being crushed by the taunts and racial epithets thrown at him, they were eating away at his self worth and making him question whether he belonged in the league at all.

He fell rapidly into depression.

The messages are heartbreaking to say the least. You can read them all here. 

This is what bullying does to people.

THIS IS WHAT BULLYING DOES TO PEOPLE.

THIS IS WHAT BULLYING DOES TO ADULTS.

Imagine being a 13 or 14 year old kid and living through what he did or an 8 or 9 year old kid, then being encouraged to act like it wasn't a big deal, like it was all fine, and smile for photo ops with the guys who were tormenting you.

There is no gay agenda
The "gay agenda" was invented by conservative Christians, not by the LGBT community. That should tell you everything you need to know about it.

It seems that the closer we get to achieving any semblance of equality in this nation, the more threatened people on the fringes are. As a fierce advocate for equality myself, this bothers me in some ways but amuses me in others.

It amuses me because it often appears like a bunch of toddlers throwing a fit because they aren't getting their way, so they start to get desperate and become willing to do anything that will get them attention.

Marriage equality, along with protection against discrimination, isn't a tool being used to manipulate society, much to the dismay of those who want to insist that it is. It is a basic and fundamental human rights issue. No more, no less.

There is no agenda. There is no recruiting going on. This is not contagious.

Not a single LGBT person I know honestly gives a shit whether a total stranger likes them or not, whether they approve of their life or not.

They just want to be seen as equal human beings in the eyes of the law with all the same rights and protections. They want to be insulated from discrimination and inequality.

You'll never be able to make me understand how a person can say that someone else being treated as an equal in the eyes of the law is a threat to their way of life.

You'll never be able to explain to me the inconsistency inherent in a person who simultaneously claims that their religious freedom is being infringed while they actively suppress the freedoms of others on the precise religious grounds they claim are being infringed. It's a logical fallacy.

Ellen Page, Michael Sam. Their coming out in the last weeks has been news because it is news and it will remain news for as long as homophobia exists. Until LGBT people no longer feel compelled to come out, until they no longer have to declare who they are to the world, until they are just accepted as equals, until they are seen as equals under the law, it will be news.

No agenda. Just a fight for fairness.

I can always count on my brother to keep me honest.

For real.

The irony comes in where he pretends he doesn't read what I write, but then asks about something I wrote.

He is always, always, always the first one to call me out when I do something stupid, when I say something I shouldn't, when I write something that contradicts something I wrote before.

He is the king of leaving and then deleting comments on my Facebook page. I wonder sometimes if he even means for me to see them, he does it so fast. Usually I do see them, and they usually are right on about some aspect of something I overlooked or glossed over or neglected to talk about.

I should tell you this. We couldn't be further apart in how we see the world if we tried, him and I. We rarely agree on much, but we learned a long time ago how to talk about anything and not get stabby. We respect each other's perspectives. We understand that we see the world a different way. We accept it all.

That part, the acceptance piece, is huge.

I don't think it happened, if I am being honest, entirely, until our father was sick.

Incidentally, if you read here often, you know that I usually write about my father's illness and death as though it occurred in some bizarre only child vacuum. There's a reason, and the reason is that my brother hates it when I write about him, so I usually try not to.

Yet, I'm doing it today anyway.

I'm doing it now because there is this piece of who we are that is cool and weird and seems way too grown up and mature.

It's the acceptance part.

It goes a bit like this, and I've tried to explain it to people, but I sense that it might be something you have to live to understand. Anyhow...when our father was ill, I was here, a thousand miles away and my brother was there. In the same town. In the same place. At their house almost every single day.

We necessarily had a different experience with it all as a result. For a while, we were frustrated with each other. It's easier to cast blame on someone else for whatever you think their shortcomings are when they aren't physically in the same space you are. It's easier to believe whatever stories you've been told when you aren't privy to living it first hand. It's easier to get angry about what the other person is or isn't doing when they are too far away to really know.

Having sick parents is stressful. Having dying parents is stressful. Having parents with mental health issues is stressful. Having parents who refuse to take care of themselves is stressful.

Having to deal with all that while living your life, dealing with your spouse and children magnifies everything.

Being stuck in the generational sandwich can suck it.

At some point though, though, we had this moment. It probably happened when our father was in the ICU the first time about a year before his death. When my brother and I were in the same physical space long enough to see that the other one of us was doing the best we could with the information we had, the frustration disappeared.

We realized that neither of us had any idea what the other one was dealing with. We realized that we had to honor the role of the other one, that we had to talk to each other more and rely on what anyone else told us less. We understood that we each had different gifts and abilities and patience levels. We knew then that we could help both of our parents better if we were a team.

From that point on, things were just different for us. Better.

No more bickering. No more animosity. No more resentment.

Isn't that the kind of relationship that siblings should have, eventually anyway? They are, after all, the only people in the entire universe who came from the same place we did. They are the only people who could ever possibly understand the crazy things we were subjected to as kids, why we are the way we are.


They are the best able to understand us.

They are the most equipped to tell us when we're derailing our lives.

They are the usually first ones in line to tell us we're wrong.

And that's all okay, or at least it can be if we go about it the right way.

He called me on something this week, and he was right. He was absolutely right.

In the post I wrote on the anniversary of our father's death, I gave mention to feeling manipulated in the past by my mother and her incessant need for everything to be worse for her. She really did spend a lot of time minimizing our grief, and I can tell you that it gets old in a hurry.

He sent me a message the following morning, after clearly not reading the post (wink, wink), saying that if I truly believe, as I do, that she suffered from intractable mental health problems, then I can't blame her for being the way she was.

And he was right.

I can't blame her. I don't blame her, though it may have seemed that I was doing just that to a casual reader. I don't blame her. I don't want it to seem like I did or do.

Death is so weird that way. I feel like I have to make everything about them in the past tense now, and that just seems so wrong. Anyway...

As I told him when he pointed out my flawed reasoning, or at least the way I had presented it, my response was this:

And therein lies the inherent value of siblings.

They know exactly what that means.

No matter how horrible this journey has been,


For that gift, given to me by my parents, I will be eternally grateful.

Ahhhh, Valentine's Day.

The day that we are told is filled with promises of exquisite jewelry, bouquets of extravagant flowers, wining and dining at the finest of restaurants.

That's what the commercials want us to believe, anyway.

In real life for us, it means lobster and steak cooked at home, eaten in a candlelit dining room after the kids have gone to bed as the dishwasher hums in the background.

There is no new jewelry, except perhaps the most recent bracelet crafted on the Rainbow Loom.

If there are flowers, they come directly from the grocery store, though in all likelihood, the flowers were skipped because we understand that the same flowers that were $10 yesterday and will be $10 tomorrow are $30 today. We've grown too practical to throw money away on frivolous things.

Besides, lobster was on sale, and we all know that is a better use of the money.

There might be a card, if we remember, though at some point we gave up on them too. Seeking out an overpriced piece of paper holding words that are only tangentially relevant to our love seems like a waste of time anymore. There isn't a card that fits us now. Perhaps there never really was, we just wanted to believe that we could fit into the tiny boxes society told us we were supposed to.

Love, real love, isn't about flowers or chocolate or jewelry or fancy dinners.

Real love is nights spent cuddled under blankets on the couch until you fall asleep.

Real love is a call on the way home to ask if you need anything at the store.

Real love is flowers on an ordinary Tuesday just because.

Real love is bringing you a roll of toilet paper when you are trapped in the bathroom.

Real love is asking if you are okay before laughing at how you got hurt.

Real love is shoveling the driveway.

Real love is letting her cry.

Real love is pacing in a waiting room.

Real love is being vulnerable again.

Real love is saying sorry.

Real love is second chances.

Real love is messy.

Real love is beautiful.

Real love is the everyday pieces of who we are, what we do for one another, the unspoken things woven in the tapestry of this connection between two people.

Real love isn't one day.

Real love isn't one moment.

Real love is the spaces in between.

Happy Valentine's Day, my friends.


Mr. Hive, I love you.

Hi. I haven't done one of these in a while, and a lot of stuff has happened around here that I haven't written about so I figured it was well past time to revisit Nerdsday.


For those of you new to the Hive, an introduction might be in order. I'm a nerd. Always have been, though I spent a good portion of my life actively suppressing it (poorly, I might add). I love so many things in the Nerdiverse that I wouldn't even know where to begin.

This probably explains a bit of it.


And this.


I love superheroes and sci-fi and fiction and The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones and table games and Doctor Who and Sherlock and lots and lots of other things.

Anyhow, Thursday is the day where I (occasionally) tell you about something I love in the Nerdiverse.

I have a lot of new material to write about because we acquired a lot of new games in the past few months, including my husband's current obsession, Pathfinder, Rise of the Runelords, which is a card game version of Pathfinder. I will write about that one for next time though, unless Cards Against Humanity wins the battle in my head for priority.

I did get my own set of dice for Pathfinder though, so maybe....

Anyhow, this week, I wanted to write about the game we have played the most as a family since we bought it - DC Comics Deck-Building Game.


Though I adore all things Ironman and Loki, my loyalty will probably always lie with DC over Marvel. I can't say why, really, that is just the way it is. There is a Marvel version of the game as well, which I am sure will somehow magically find a way into our cabinets eventually.

In this game, each player chooses a hero to play as. Each hero in the deck has a different ability, which comes in handy throughout the game as long as one thing happens: you remember who you are and what your ability is. Easier said than done, especially if you change heroes each time.

I always play as Wonder Woman. I know this comes as a shock to you.


After choosing heroes, each player is dealt 10 cards to begin the game with. Starter cards are either worth 1 point or 0, and you use those points to acquire new cards throughout the game, adding them to your deck. You play five cards each round, unless the cards you have allow for more.

To acquire new cards, take the cards in your hand and add up the purchase points. Many cards (and some heroes) alter this number, so be sure to stay on top of it. Location cards often allow for an extra card to be drawn. Use those points to acquire cards in the line-up.

In addition to the main deck line-up to pull from, there are also Kick cards - which give you two additional points every time they show up in your hand and Supervillians - which each have their own set of powers.

The game ends when the stack of Supervillains has been defeated or when the entire main deck is exhausted.

Depending on who your hero is, as you play through the rounds, you may focus on acquiring heros, powers, equipment or villains. Wonder Woman seeks villains, as they increase her hand size every time one is acquired.

The winner of the game is the player who tallies up the most star points at the end of the game, which are different than both the cost of the card or the playing value, minus the number of weaknesses they pick up along the way. (Unless you have Bizarro. Bizarro is pretty kick ass.) It's a little tricky the first few rounds keeping all the values straight, but you will get the hang of it and learn the strategy of your hero quickly.

The game is labeled for ages 15 and up, but my three older children can play it without any problems. Our 8 year old has won the game more than once.

It takes approximately one hour to set up and play the game start to finish, though it might take a bit longer the first time until everyone feels comfortable with the rules.

If you dress as your hero, the game is infinitely more entertaining.

Just a suggestion.