Author: katrina

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Ohio Again, Day Three

By the time we got to the high school to help clean up, almost all of it had already been packed away. There were no extra chairs, no screen, no tables full of photo boards. All that was left was a row of flowers and memorial gifts near the front. My Aunt Sue introduced us to Pam, Jodi’s mother. We said we thought cleanup wasn’t supposed to start until 10AM, and Pam said, “Well, we couldn’t really sleep, so…” One of the other helpers told me both sets of parents had been there since 8:30AM.

We loaded the dozens of vases, baskets, wind chimes, blankets, and memorial stone benches into the cars. Sue and Pam went up to each arrangement or gift to look at the card and determine who should take it home. A gift from Jim’s work would go with Sue, flowers from a student Jodi worked with would go to Pam. Pam said something about having read these cards a million times already. It must be exhausting to make so many decisions that feel significant but are ultimately trivial.

Sue wanted to drop a few of the arrangements over at their church, where the casket had been buried the day before. We went out to place the eternal flame stand near the spot and see the freshly dug dirt. The family was buried in the back corner of the cemetery, overlooking a big open farm field. One of the students Jodi drove stopped by to pay his respects. He is mentally disabled and said he hadn’t been able to attend the service because he gets nightmares easily. His mother said it would have been too much to be there. But he wanted to see the grave and honor Jodi in his own way.

We went back to Sue and Bob’s house and began unloading three cars full of gifts. We filled the dining room table with flowers. Sue decided she wanted to give some to the nearby nursing homes, and we loaded them back in the car. As I was walking back into the house they were discussing who should help deliver, and I heard Sue say, “And Katrina! Katrina will go with us!” She was very excited to bring me along. I got the feeling she was very excited to have anyone around, and anything to do.

Mike, Sue, and I stopped at two different nursing homes to deliver the flowers. We had to drive by Jim and Jodi’s burned down house twice. Both times there were people stopped outside. Sue didn’t like this. She couldn’t help but feel they were all just look-i-loos.

At the second nursing home the manager was on the phone when we arrived. She appeared to be having a difficult conversation. “Well no, you’re not nothing,” she said, “He raised you, but you’re still not his biological son, so…” We waited patiently and she apologized for taking so long.

“I’m Sue Rainey,” my aunt said. There was a pause. “I…”

The manager nodded. “I know.”

“Well,” Sue continued, “We have all these flowers and I thought I could leave some of them here with you.”

The manager smiled, clearly touched by the gesture. “Of course,” she said, “Our residents love fresh flowers. We can put one in every common room.” She came out to get them from the car herself.

Mike and Erin had to leave to attend a wedding, and the rest of us sat around chatting for a while. Bob made fun of Sue for being too afraid to get eggs out of the chicken coop. I walked around outside the house and recreated my favorite photo of young Cody from my visit eight years ago. The trees have grown so much since then.

Sue and Bob took us down into the basement to show mom and dad the old photos they had of my great grandparents. The partially finished basement is full of stuff, from boxes of VHS tapes to antique furniture my cousin Erin would like but Bob swears they’re “still using it.” There were piles of stuff that belonged to Sue and Bob’s three boys, left from the broken rule that they would take all their stuff out once they each had their own home. We came across some old boxes of farm toys that Cody, Austin, and Jessica used to play with.

“They never came by to pick those up,” Bob said. “And now I guess they never will.”

We had sandwiches at the house and got in the van for a little drive. As we were leaving one of the chickens wandered into the garage, and Bob asked me to get it out. I ran after it, making noises and flapping my arms. My mom thought my tactics were pretty entertaining. I told her everything I know about chasing chickens I learned from Austin and Cody.

To start our drive we went to see my cousin Andrew’s new property, then through Fostoria to see the flour mill where Jim worked. They’d put up a memorial cross by the sign surrounded by four small crosses, and dressed it up with Jim’s safety vest and hat.

Next was the Chestnut Grove Cemetery, where my great-grandfather Howard Rainey is buried with his second wife, Helen. My family line is through his first wife, Nina, who is buried somewhere in Fostoria. Sue couldn’t remember where exactly, and with both my grandfather and my Great Aunt Jean gone, I’m not sure anyone knows anymore.

At this point we’d been driving around for over two hours, and Sue told us it was so nice to have a reason to get out of the house. We still had time before dinner so we stopped by Bob and Sue’s old farm in Republic, the one I visited back when I was nine. I’ve kept a memory of that farm in my head for over 20 years, and it looked exactly the same. Smaller, I suppose, but otherwise just the same.

We arrived at the Tackle Box 2 (so named because the original Tackle Box burned down), and my dad and I split a pound of fried perch. My parents were hoping to pay for dinner, but Sue insisted she and Bob would. Her voice started to crack.

“It’s just meant so much to us to have you here,” she said. Both her and my mom started crying.

I’m so glad I came back to Ohio.

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Ohio Again, Day Two

We slept in until 10:30AM this morning. My folks and I got dressed in the nice but dark clothes one generally wears to funerals, and headed out to get a late breakfast at a nearby diner. We drove through the tiny town of Bascom to get to Hopewell-Loudon, the school where almost every Rainey in Ohio graduated high school. Jim and Jodi’s oldest child Austin had only graduated this year. Cody had just started the 10th grade, and Jessica was a first grader.

The service wasn’t until 3PM, but we came early because there was “a visitation” in the gym from 10AM to 3PM. I’d never heard of a visitation before, and my mom suggested they must be calling it that because a formal viewing would have been impossible. The fire that killed the Raineys was so hot firefighters hadn’t even been able to enter the building when they arrived. It was hours before they were able to recover the bodies. With the exception of Austin, all the family members had to be identified using dental records.

We pulled up to the school and found a firefighter in uniform directing traffic. As Sue had instructed the night before, we told her we were with the family and would be in the procession to the gravesite later. She pointed us in the right direction, and we parked in a line of cars right outside the gymnasium. We followed a line of Hopewell-Loudon marching band members in formation as they entered. The lobby was full of flowers and photo boards, as well as a therapy dog that had been visiting with students all week. Flowers and gifts had come from every corner of the community: the auto shops, the Wells Fargo employees, the firefighter’s union Austin had only just joined. The marching band went into the gym and to the front to play a song in remembrance before taking their seats in the bleachers. A single casket was near the front, the remains of the entire family hidden inside. My parents and I said hello to Aunt Sue and Uncle Bob, then we put our coats on a few of the chairs reserved for family. I’m really sick of having reserved seats at funerals.

The next two hours were a mix of looking at photos and re-introducing ourselves to distant relatives. All around us people were wearing matching navy blue t-shirts with the firefighter logo and the hashtag #RaineyStrong on the back. Austin was a cadet for the Bascom Volunteer Fire Department, but they treated him as though he were any other fallen firefighter. Austin died just two weeks before he was supposed to take his exam. My dad got the phone number for the woman who organized the t-shirts. He’s hoping to get us each one when she does the second order.

Though there were five clergy members leading it, the service lasted no more than an hour. We listened to scripture and sang a few hymns. They played a video of little Jessica performing a dance she learned for one of her Vacation Bible School songs. At the end, what appeared to be the entire fire department stood up and came to the front. They ceremonially draped an American flag over the casket and gave a salute. The fire chief came to the microphone to narrate the bell ceremony. For each bell rung he listed a different significant date in Austin’s life: the day he was born, the day he was called to serve, and the day of “the last call he answered.”

The line of cars in the procession was very long, led by several firetrucks. They also had a yellow school bus and a transport bus for the Seneca County Opportunity Center in the line, as Jodi had been a driver for both. At the very end was a bright green tractor.

A sharp chill had come up by the time we got to the cemetery. They’d set up the casket underneath a small blue canopy, but it could barely fit a third of the guests in attendance. It was a good excuse to crowd in close to combat the cold. All of the firefighters were still with us, surrounding the group on all sides. The priest performed a short gravesite ceremony, and the firefighters folded the flag and gave it and a second flag to the paternal and maternal grandparents.

Next came a loud sound, like an alarm. Then beeping and ringing. It was coming from the radios of the firefighters, all of which had been turned on. There was the sound of static, then a female dispatcher’s voice, clear and orderly:

“This is Seneca County calling number 69, Austin Rainey.”

More static. I heard the whole crowd intake breath at once, and we all began to quietly weep. There was a very, very long silence.

“This is Seneca County calling number 69, Austin Rainey.”

Static. Silence. More loud beeps to call to attention.

“Attention all units, I regret to inform you that Austin Rainey has answered his last and final call on this earth.”

She said his badge number, 69, would be retired. It was now a memorial to him. I looked over to my left and saw a young man, not much older than Austin would have been, with goosebumps all up his arms from standing in his firefighter short sleeve dress shirt. He had tears on his face.

After the service my parents and I drove over to see the burned down house, just a minute or two away from Bob and Sue’s house. They had to erect a chain link fence around it because there are ongoing investigations into the cause of the fire, and to keep people from hurting themselves trying to get close to the wreckage. As bad as I thought the house might be, it was worse. It was just a shell of a home, charred black, with half the walls and none of the roofs. The stairs were still there but most of the second floor was not. Many of the possessions had been completely destroyed, but some were surprisingly intact. There was the melted remains of an oven, half of a sleeping bag, and an entire pumpkin from the porch.

We went over to Sue and Bob’s for a large meal with the family. I spent some time cuddling with a few babies, my most distant relations. Aunt Sue gave one of the little girls a bucket Jessica used to use to store her crayons at their house. My cousin Andrew said he never understood how a heart as big as Cody’s could fit in his small chest. My Great Uncle John made fun of my Great Uncle Carl for only being his half brother instead of a full sibling like my grandfather. My cousin Matt asked if I was going to wait another ten years before I came back to see them. I ate two servings of spaghetti and way too many chocolate peanut butter bars.

I never had a chance to meet Jessica in person, because she was born after the last time I visited. I have been repeating a memory in my head from the last time I was in Ohio. It was the time my grandfather, Uncle Bob, Jim, Jodi, Austin, Cody and I had to chase a mother duck and her ducklings into the pen for the night. Aunt Sue was laughing at us from the deck because of how terrible we were at it. I wished Jessica had been alive for that. I wished she was a part of that memory.

I saw Jessica’s birthdate listed under one of her photos at the gym. I did the backwards math to that moment in the backyard with the ducks. Eight and a half months. I can’t know for sure, but I think Jessica was there.

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Ohio Again, Day One

One week ago today my cousin Jim, his wife, Jodi, and their children Austin, Cody, and Jessica all died in a house fire.

This morning my parents and I woke up early for our cab pickup at 5:15AM. We took Southwest through Oakland and then on to Columbus. We picked up our rental car and started north. It would take almost two hours to get to Tiffin. We called my Great Aunt Sue to tell her we figured we’d just go straight to our hotel, since it would be so late by the time we arrived.

“Oh that’s alright,” Sue said. “Mike and Erin and Matt and Michelle are all here, and we’ll be up pretty late. Don’t eat anything though, cause we got lots of food.”

Aunt Sue asked if we had GPS to help us find our hotel. We told her we did, but either she didn’t hear us or didn’t trust it, because she proceeded to explain in detail how to get there from Columbus. She said after we checked in we could call her if we needed directions to the house as well. We told her we’d be fine.

We checked in, spent a few minutes freshening up, then got back in the car to drive over to Bob and Sue’s house. Dad had their address in his phone, and he handed it to me as navigator in the front seat. Looking at the map it didn’t seem right. It’s been eight years since I was in Ohio, but I thought they lived farther out of town, and on the other side of the main road. The numbers in the address seemed wrong, too. I’d spoken with my grandmother in California right after we found out about the deaths, and she’d given me Bob and Sue’s address in case I wanted to send a card. I thought I remembered it being different, but since it was still on a post-it note on my desk at home, I had no way to check.

Dad’s phone directed us to a set of dark buildings. Dad commented that there didn’t appear to be anyone home. I said with certainty that this wasn’t the right place. The closer we got to Bob and Sue the more I remembered those two weeks I spent with them back in 2009. I texted my boyfriend to see if he could send me the address from my desk, but he wasn’t at home. So we called my grandmother, told her we’d landed safely, and asked if she had her address book handy. As soon as I put the corrected address into my phone it made more sense. As we approached the cross streets it all looked familiar, even in the incredible dark of rural farmland. I pointed at the house lights up ahead. “Yes, that’s it. That’s their house.” It was exactly as I remembered it.

I said hello to my cousin Mike in the driveway. Him and his family were about to drive down to pick up more people from the airport. Inside my other cousin Matt and his wife and baby were about to head out, but stayed for a few minutes to say hello. Sue and Bob and I sat in the kitchen for the next 45 minutes. Easily 35 of those minutes were spent just listening to Sue, which is exactly what I wanted. She told us what we’d learned about the fire, the trouble with the arrangements, how things were going.

We went over the plan for tomorrow, and how there were five ministers helping with the funeral service. One was from the UCC church the family attended, one was from the local Catholic Church (Jodi was raised Catholic), one worked with Cody in the community, another had taught Jessica, and as I understand it the fifth minister was there to help with the sound system and the slideshow. Sue explained how they’d been given $2500 from the Red Cross to help with arrangements, but they had trouble spending it at first. They assumed it would go towards caskets, but since Austin was in training to be a firefighter much of the casket arrangements had already been paid for by the fire department. Another donor had taken care of the plots, someone had donated money for the cemetery tent and sound equipment. The Red Cross money went to the headstone carving, and eventually Bob and Sue had to set up an account at the bank just to accept the donations. Sue says they’ll turn it into a scholarship fund later.

It’s very late, I’m very tired. I’m very glad I came back to Ohio.

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BookTubeAThon 2017 – Reading Challenges and my TBR

BookTube is a community of people on Youtube who post videos about books and reading, and every summer this community has a seven day read-a-thon (this year from July 24th to July 30th). This year’s challenges are:

  1. Read a book with a person on the cover.
  2. Read a hyped book.
  3. Finish a book in one day.
  4. Read about a character that is very different from you.
  5. Finish a book completely outdoors.
  6. Read a book you bought because of the cover.
  7. Read seven books.

There are video and Instagram challenges that happen during the week, which I’ve done in the past with mixed success. I think this year I’ll keep an eye on them but only bother with the challenges that really excite me.

It wouldn’t be a Katrina Project if there weren’t a spreadsheet, so here you go:

Tracking Spreadsheet

This spreadsheet shows the breakdown of what I’m reading and my plan for how I’ll pace myself. If you want to do the same you can download a copy of the spreadsheet and make it your own.

Here’s what I’ll be reading:

1/ Read a book with a person on the cover.
A Brief History of Time
2/ Read a hyped book.
Gone Girl
3/ Finish a book in one day.
The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane (person)
4/ Read about a character that is very different from you.
Everything I Never Told You
5/ Finish a book completely outdoors.
Art & Fear
6/ Read a book you bought because of the cover.
The Stone Heart
7/ Read seven books.
Bark

This is my third year doing the challenge, and hopefully my third success! Seven books sounds like a lot, but remember a book is how you define it. Every year I have at LEAST one book that’s very short, such as a play, graphic novel, or children’s book. If you’re participating this year let me know in the comments, especially if you have an Instagram or Youtube channel I can follow.

Good luck and happy reading!

 

 

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BookTubeAThon 2017 is Coming Up

I’ve been taking a purposeful break from the blog, but I wanted to pop back in to let you know that BookTubeAThon 2017 has been announced! The dates are July 24th through July 30th, and I will be participating for my third year in a row. If you want to join me, check out the BookTubeAThon channel on YouTube to get the updates. They haven’t announced the reading challenges yet, but those should be coming soon.

Good luck!

 

 

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How to Make Weiss Schnee’s Myrtenaster Sword (without access to a woodshop)

Cosplay tutorials aren’t normally my thing, but I’m posting this one as sort of a public service. Last summer I cosplayed as Weiss from the web series RWBY. When I was researching Weiss’s weapon for my costume, there was only one tutorial that didn’t require some serious power tools, and it wasn’t quite what I wanted. Having no real woodworking knowledge and certainly no tools, I had to discover my own way. I also had to do it fast – the whole thing was made in one week. So for all the other cosplayers out there who don’t own a table saw, here’s what I did.

Materials

  • 1/2 inch wooden dowel (36 inches long)
  • Foamboard
  • Crayola Model Magic
  • Black spray paint
  • Silver acrylic paint (I used Iridescent Silver from Art Advantage)
  • Masking tape
  • Plenty of hot glue
  • Floral Foam “Mug Plug” (mine was from Desert Form)
  • Electrical tape or paint (in order: turquoise, purple, white, yellow, dark blue, red)
  • Hard coat Mod Podge
  • 1-2 fresh black sharpies
  • Paint brush
  • Exacto knife
  • Peeling knife (or any small knife)Sword Supplies

Blade

For me the most important part was finding a solid base for the sword that was lightweight and easy to work with. I wanted to make sure the prop would be solid, and wouldn’t break apart the first time I bumped into someone. I wandered around Home Depot for about an hour, picking up various pipes and metal rods and pretending to fence with them. I’m not going to lie, I looked super cool and very sane. Eventually I settled on a 1/2 inch wooden dowel, which I later realized I could have purchased at my local craft store when I went to get the other supplies. Regrets.

Chamber

You could probably use any type of foam for the center dust chamber so long as you can easily carve it. Floral foam is easy to damage, but it is also easy to shape and the mug plug was very close to the correct shape already. I happen to own a peeling knife, which has a curved blade and is perfect for making a rounded end (though any small knife would work). I rounded one end, making small slices until I got the shape I wanted. Floral foam is super brittle so it’s not hard to just push the dowel through the middle. Beware that this also makes it easy to accidentally chop off huge chunks or squeeze it too hard, so watch out. You will get tiny foam dust on absolutely everything during this process, so do it outside or next to a vacuum.

Sword handleFilling Out the Shape

I’ve used Crayola Model Magic for a lot of projects over the years and I love it. It’s very light weight and hardens by air drying. The thing to remember is that it’s very weak. I would never try to make an entire sword out of the stuff – it would snap in half under its own weight. That’s why I only ever use it as decoration over a strong base (the dowel in this case). I made a ring for both the top and bottom of the center chamber. For each ring I made four notches that I could later stick the wings into. I wasn’t sure how necessary this was at first, but it turned out to make a big difference in how stable the wings were and how nice it all looked. I wrapped a layer of Model Magic around the handle to thicken it up, and added the pommel (knob at the end). I gave my Model Magic at least 24 hours to dry.

Once dry, I wrapped a few rows of masking tape at an angle on the handle to mimic a leather wrapping. I tried to make the rows even at first, but gave up quickly because it wasn’t an even surface. It looks the same either way. I also added a bit of hot glue near the end of the handle to ensure the pommel would stay on.

Blunt tip closeupFinally, I added a dab of hot glue to the business end of the sword to make the tip round instead of flat. This made a big difference in making the dowel look less like a dowel. It probably made it safer, too.

WingsWing cutting

I had a screenshot of the sword wings on my computer, and I resized the image until the printed version was a size-match for my sword base. This way I was able to cut the wing shape straight from the screenshot and lay it on top of the foam board to trace.

Foam board is annoyingly difficult to cut, and the inner foam breaks apart easily. I’m not sure I particularly recommend it, but I can’t think of any other material that doesn’t require a wood shop and can still hold the weight of the sword. Cardboard or craft foam could work visually, but I don’t think you’d ever be able to let the finished sword rest on the wings, which would be a real pain at a convention.

Sword Wings on handleIt took a long time to cut the foam board with the Xacto knife. Small bits of foam popped out the sides and made the edge very uneven. I sealed the edges up with hot glue, using the hot tip of the gun to smooth the glue until it was mostly flat. It wasn’t perfect, but it worked well enough. I got better at both the cutting and the gluing as I went. If I were blessed with more time and/or more patience I probably would have re-done the first wing. But here we are.

Once the wings were all cut and the edges sealed with glue, I attached them to the sword with more hot glue. This is where it became clear that I had made the right choice by leaving notches in the Model Magic circles. The wings fit in perfectly, with the notches covering up most imperfections. I added a bit more glue to seal up the edges and make the surfaces as smooth as possible.

Black SwordPainting

I let the glue dry overnight, then I spray painted the entire thing black, doing one half at a time to avoid smudging/getting spray paint all over my hands. The black ensures an even look, and a solid base coat gives a lot of depth to metal props. I let it dry for a day, then I began the slow process of painting it silver. I used Iridescent Silver from Art Advantage, but any acrylic metallic silver should work. It works best to dry brush – applying a bunch of thin coats on top of each other until you’ve got the color you want. You can usually do several coats at a time because by the time you’ve finished the forth wing the first one is dry enough for a new coat. However there is a limit to this. After a couple coats the sword will be too damp and new paint will start wiping away old paint. Plan to have 3-4 painting sessions with several hours in between each session.

The hardest part of painting was the foam cylinder in the center, because it was inclined to fall apart when wet. Be careful with it. Were I doing this again, I would consider spraying the foam black as soon as it was shaped, then using Mod Podge or a clear coat spray to seal it before attaching any other pieces or doing any other work. Regrets. It worked fine either way, just don’t look at it too close.

After the whole thing looked sufficiently silver, I did about three coats of Hard Coat Mod Podge. Not only does it keep your paint from scraping off, but it makes your prop much more rigid. Mod Podge dries pretty fast so you can get all three coats on in one evening if needed. A true perfectionist might sand down the final coat to make it extra smooth and shiny, but I didn’t have any sand paper and I’m trying to be less of a perfectionist.

Finished sword closeupDecoration

For the dust cartridges I cut out pieces of colored electrical tape. I still had that perfectly sized paper printout of the sword, so I made a template from that to ensure each cartridge was the same. Spacing the tape was weird, because it’s six colors on a cylinder that’s been divided into four sections. If you’re using paint instead of tape, I recommend painting white pieces of paper and gluing them on rather than trying to paint directly onto the cylinder. This allows you to adjust the spacing easily, and ensures the colors stay bright.

I was nervous about the designs on the wings as I’ve never been good with freehand drawing. I used a regular black Sharpie and drew directly onto the sword. The lines around the cartridges weren’t so bad since they were symmetrical and outlined the colored tape. The pattern on the wings was pretty complex though. Once again I had my printed wing as a starting point, but I knew just trying to copy the whole thing was going to result in an uneven disaster. Instead, I picked only a few lines at a time, and drew them on both sides of all four wings before moving on. This way I could think about each line in terms of start and end points rather than trying to draw what I saw. I started with the lines nearest to the edges since they followed the contour of the wings, and moved in piece by piece. I also focused first on the bigger, primary shapes and only added the little pieces after I’d finished the big parts on all eight sides. There were times when I was drawing a single, short line on all eight sides before drawing the next thing.

Finished sword closeup full handleI did a final coat or two of Mod Podge over the electrical tape since it’s notoriously not sticky, but other than that, it was done!

Final Thoughts

The whole project took exactly one week, working on it almost every evening and most of the two weekend days. The GorillaPod isn’t a requirement, but it certainly made the painting and drying easier. Plus I wouldn’t recommend having the sword rest on the wings more than necessary, especially before the Mod Podge is on.

I’ve never considered myself much of a prop person, so I’m really proud of this one. It held up well, looks great in photos, and now lives on the mantle in my living room because I don’t know where else to store a sword.Weiss movie still

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10 Minutes in the Forest

When people asked about the show I was in, I would say to them, “It’s part theater, part game, part haunted house.” The show was called 10 Minutes in the Forest, produced by my friend Casey Middaugh. It was an immersive theatrical experience, where audience members would enter alone or in pairs and be the protagonist in their own fairytale, based on the Slavic folk tales about Baba Yaga and the Firebird. This is how it would go:

In the lobby right before your scheduled time, a man in a black suit tells you in a deep voice:

Firebird lightenter the deep forest, stranger

where Firebird hides her eggs from danger

three attempts are all you’ve got

you are safe: the eggs are not

beware, take heed, keep watch, look out:

Baba Yaga is about

You go through the door and into the black box theater. Sitting in a pool of orange light is the Firebird, a dancer wearing red, yellow, and orange wings. She looks up and coos curiously at you. She looks you up and down – her new friend(s). Behind her and taking up the entire rest of theater space is a large, messy forest made of PVC pipe, plastic wrap, and tulle. It’s dark. A disconcerting sound is heard from within the forest and Firebird begins to panic. An orange light comes up on the far side of the room, and Firebird gestures towards it. She needs her eggs. They are in the forest. But she can’t get them herself. It’s too scary.

You have to get them.

Pulsing green lights come on as you enter the forest, and you slowly move side-to-side to avoid the big, flat, plastic trees and low-hanging tulle branches. A few simple drum beats or some high harps are heard overhead, but it’s not enough to cover up the sounds from inside the forest – a tapping click, a low growl, maybe some hideous laughter. You notice a figure darting through the trees. She stays low to the ground. It’s Baba Yaga, the old, witch-like woman you were warned about. You get to the corner and find the nest, raised up on a large platform. It’s made of knotted plastic and inside are three balloons – the eggs.

Baba Yaga on floorYou reach for a balloon and notice that Baba Yaga doesn’t seem to like this at all. She’s holding up a large knitting needle, ready to pounce and pop a balloon the moment you grab it. You take your chances, grab the balloon, and make a run for it. Baba Yaga chases you through the forest, scurrying around and catching you between trees. If you make it out with the balloon, Firebird is overjoyed and spins around in delight. If Baba Yaga gets you, the balloon is popped and Firebird lets out a wail of sorrow. Either way, you have to go back for the other two. The music is louder and the lights are flashing. And now you only have eight minutes.

_______________

The original game mechanic was simple: there were three, bright red eggs in a nest in the back of the forest, and the audience members had to recover all three and bring them to the Firebird. In an ideal scenario, Baba Yaga would pop one or two eggs but always let them get the last one. Unfortunately there’s really no way to rehearse a show where the audience is the main character. Our opening night was filled with unintentional play testers, and it was immediately clear that our game was too easy. The show was called 10 Minutes in the Forest, and people were getting out in 4-6 minutes. One group did it in three.

Because both roles are so physically demanding (especially Baba Yaga), we had two actors to play each part every night. After each run that first night Casey and the four actors (myself included) would quickly throw out ideas for how we could extend the experience. Each run gave us a new idea, which meant each audience member was seeing a slightly different game than the last. Our changes in order of implementation:

Firebird - back1) Add more story

Originally the audience came in to find an already panicked Firebird. Instead, we had her start happy and allow the participants to see the panic grow in her. This was a good element story-wise, though it added at most 20 seconds to the adventure.

2) Leave only one egg in the nest

The first egg was in the nest, the second we hid in the other back corner of the forest by sticking it into a sort of tulle hammock that draped just above eye level. The third we stashed behind the nest, with the intention that Baba Yaga would bring it out when the time was right. This helped a little, but once people found the hidden egg they were bolting out too fast for Baba Yaga to catch them. And one group found the third egg that we thought people wouldn’t see.

3) Seriously, hide the last egg

We moved the final egg to an area behind a black curtain where audience members were extremely unlikely to find it. Even if you started poking around in the curtain, it was easy to miss. Therefore the only way to get the final egg was to somehow get it from Baba Yaga.

4) Make the forest more difficult to navigate

After about five groups there was a big break in the time slots, and we used it to add more tulle to the forest. There was no time to secure it, so we just threw it everywhere. Anything to make it harder to move around. Before the second night of performances we came in early to hang even more. I made it my personal mission to block off the route out from the second egg.

Hammock5) Add black eggs

With only one egg in the nest, people knew right away to look for more. The second night we added two black balloons with the red one, so when you first approach it seems like these are the three eggs you’re supposed to get. However if you tried to give a black egg to the Firebird she would recoil and motion for you to go back for the red one.

6) Swaddle the second egg

We started wrapping the hidden hammock egg in tulle before placing it, so you’d only realize what it was if you were looking right at it.

The more we ran the piece, the more we realized how different each experience could be, and how our attempts to draw out the game ended up adding a much richer story. People now had to go through three trials, just like one would expect from a fairytale. The first was to figure out their task (red eggs, not black eggs). The second was to venture deeper into the forest (find the second egg). The third was a direct confrontation with Baba Yaga herself (she is holding the final egg).

What may not have been clear to the audience members is that they really were informing the whole story. If you came in with fast energy, Baba Yaga would be running around and jumping out at you. If you were really scared, Baba Yaga would be quiet, slow, and creepy. This wasn’t something we discussed with Casey ahead of time, but something all of us who played Baba Yaga naturally did. Baba Yaga is not always the villain in the original folklore, and we loved playing with that idea. If you treated her like an evil witch that’s how she would act. If you were respectful and unthreatening, she might decide to trust you.

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A handful of the things that happened in the forest:

Baba Yaga eating balloonsA young couple came in, and before I had a chance to present myself as the Firebird the woman loudly announced, “Alright, we’ve got to get some eggs.” They were ready for the game. Once inside the forest I heard her tell her partner, “We gotta get them for my friend Feeny” (as in Phoenix). They found the hidden hammock egg first, Baba Yaga began to chase them, and from somewhere in the forest I heard the woman yell, “Move, move, there’s a witch, bro!”

One young woman, after getting the second egg down from the hammock, held the black one out in front of her to ward me off like a human shield. I decided to play along with her idea, decided I didn’t want the black ones harmed. When it came time for the final egg she approached me with the black one, lowered it near the floor, and lifted her foot. It was a threat. Give her the red egg or she’ll pop the black one. It was brilliant. We traded.

Nest in lightAn older couple came in and took the longest time figuring out they needed to get the eggs. The wife realized it first, and she noticed that I (as Baba Yaga) would respond to her movement, and even chase her around if she got my attention. I heard her whisper to her husband to “get the eggs!” before getting me to follow her away from the nest. In response, he stood there. He stood right next to the unguarded nest and did nothing. She and I did this twice more before he finally caught on. They got the second egg without much trouble, and I held the third one close thinking they might offer a trade. Instead she started approaching me and making noises to see how I’d react. For a minute I thought she was going to simply ask for the egg, but instead she tried to startle me and I recoiled. The husband was standing nearby, and after watching her interact with me for a while he held his hands up slowly as if to say “I’m unarmed.” He then gently lowered and extended them, asking without words for the egg. I ignored the woman and handed it to him. If you were nice to Baba Yaga, she would give up the final egg.

When all three eggs were either found or destroyed, a white light would come up over the second lobby door and Firebird would stand by it, bowing in gratitude and showing audience members the way out. One man didn’t get this at all and rather than going out the correct door or even back through the entrance, he walked out a third door over by the booth that was only for actors.

A young woman and her boyfriend came in, him in casual street clothes and her in full Lolita fashion attire. I don’t know if it was the wedge heels or just the way she always walked, but she moved very slowly and didn’t want to run. He was able to get the first egg out without trouble, and I staked out my usual threatening spot near the second egg. He came over and stood on the other side of a plastic tree, right between me and the egg. He grabbed the side of the tree and moved it back and forth, using the plastic to block my path. No one else had thought to “trap” Baba Yaga like this, and I started clawing at the shrink-wrap like a bear. I shifted to the side and he grabbed another tree, blocking me again. The whole time, Lolita was slowly pulling the second egg down from its nest and quietly making her way out of the forest.

Forest with tulleWhen the actors were taking a break from performance we would usually sit in the booth with Casey. You could see the whole forest from up there and watch the story play out. When watching from the booth, nothing was better than the Narrators – that was the nickname we gave to anyone who narrated their own experience out loud. When Narrators talked to Firebird it was like playing charades.
“So we need to go in there and bring back the eggs.” Firebird would nod. “Will you go with us?” Firebird would shake her head.
Once inside they would talk about Baba Yaga. “There’s some kind of witch or something in here,” they yelled loudly. We loved Narrators because we could go on the whole journey with them – mistaking the black eggs, looking for the hidden one, trying to decide what to do at the end.

Casey in TulleMy friends Kristina and Joe came through when I was Firebird. Kristina was startled every time Baba Yaga made a move toward them. Once they were deep in the forest I heard the following.
Joe: “We could use the buddy system.”
Kristina: “What do you mean the buddy system?”
Joe: “You know, you don’t have to be faster than the Baba Yaga, you just have to be faster than your buddy.”

In terms of absolutely precious things people did to convince Baba Yaga to give up the final egg, no one beats my friend Brandon. I was Firebird the night he went through, and I crouched down low to watch the final interaction from between the trees. Brandon first tried to bargain, but he didn’t have a black egg so there wasn’t much he could offer. He handed Baba Yaga a bit of broken balloon, but she didn’t seem to care. He grabbed a bit of the plastic wrap from the nest and offered it, but she just laughed and gestured to the forest around her, filled with plastic. He patted his pockets for a moment, looking for anything else he could offer her. Finally he started to lower himself to the ground. It was pretty common for people to lower their stance when attempting to make a deal with Baba Yaga. At first it seemed like Brandon was just trying to mimic her movements – maybe to trick her, maybe to make fun of her. But Brandon kept going. Slowly, steadily, he went all the way to the floor until he was completely prostrate. He was lying flat on his belly, chin on the floor. Baba Yaga rose up a bit, enjoying the respect he was showing to her and the forest. She gave him the balloon.

Whispered between a young couple:
“Should we split up?”
“No, no, we should never split up.”

A woman came out of the forest in the middle of a particularly energetic run and looked up straight up at the booth. “I lost my shoe in there!” We never spoke to audience members from the booth, but in this case we assured her that we’d go get it once they were done. She nodded and started back towards the forest to join her friend, who was still inside chasing Baba Yaga. She then stopped, took off her remaining shoe, and threw it on an open shelf near the exit.

FirebirdSome people would temporarily give up. They’d go see the eggs, see Baba Yaga guarding them, then come back out to Firebird and say, “We tried, but there’s this woman there.” As Firebird, some runs you had to work harder than others. Yes I need the eggs. No I don’t want black ones. Yes I mean the red ones. Yes there are more to find. No I can’t come help you.
As Firebird, communicating ‘yes’ and ‘no’ without words is easy, but telling someone ‘I have no opinion on that idea’ is rather difficult. So questions like “Should we put the black ones back in the nest?” or “What should we do next?” were difficult to respond to. Next time you’re looking at yourself in the mirror, try expressing the sentiment “I don’t care, you do what you want,” through a series of balletic shrugs.

Forest - Setting up with LadderThe last run of the show I watched from the booth. Two young men came in and the taller of the two immediately demonstrated that he was a Narrator. He started talking rapidly to the Firebird, asking her questions and explaining to her how they needed to find some eggs. While he was asking real questions, there was humor in his voice. He was being good natured and playing along, but he wasn’t really invested. Baba Yaga began to rustle in the forest. Firebird pointed toward her eggs and the tall man said, “We should probably enter this…scary forest.” Wink wink. They approached the edge and he nudged his friend forward. “You go first,” he said, “I got you though.” Wink.
The next few minutes were fast and chaotic and full of laughs as they went through all the normal steps of the show. Each time the tall man let us know exactly what he was thinking. They found the black eggs and were confused about why she didn’t want them; they found the hidden egg and tried to get it away from Baba Yaga (they lost that second egg; it got popped in the struggle and Firebird cried). But they made it through in the end and recovered the last one by trading the black eggs. As they were walking out and Firebird was giving her thank you bows, the tall man yelled into the forest, “Goodbye misunderstood old lady! I hope you enjoy your black eggs!”
Because it was the last run of the night, we all went out to talk with them afterwards. The tall man explained that in situations like this, he uses humor to deflect so he doesn’t have to worry about things getting too scary or too intense. But when the second egg popped and he saw how sad the Firebird was, he really started to go on an emotional journey. Then at the end, seeing that Baba Yaga wasn’t just some crazy killer took him to a whole different emotional place. He said that being in the forest made him drop his usual defenses.

ForestI loved every night of the show and many people managed to get all three eggs, but if I had to pick a true winner it would be my friend Jillian. She ran the show with her fiancee Jake, and their experience was mostly typical. They each grabbed a black egg only to find they were worthless. Like most, they left them on the floor near the Firebird and went to retrieve the first two real eggs. When we got to the end I held the third egg close, thinking Jake and Jillian were the kind of people that would think to trade. Sure enough Jillian disappeared and came back with a black balloon. She held it out in front of her with a stern look on her face, pulling back slightly when I reached for it. It was a gesture I’d seen a lot from audience members: ‘you hand me yours and I’ll hand you mine.’
Slowly I gave up the red egg and grabbed for the black. Jillian disappeared with her prize and I began my usual end routine of making scary laughing noises while Firebird escorted the audience members out. I went back to the nest but when I turned around, Jillian was there again. She had the other black balloon, and was holding it out for me. I’m not sure what face I made, but it was probably one of shocked gratitude. When you’re Baba Yaga you take the way people treat you to heart. Jillian already had what she came for. All three red eggs were safe. She didn’t have to come back into the forest, but she did. After the show I told her how surprised I was that she brought me the second black egg even though she had already won.
“We had a deal,” she told me.

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What you get from the forest is what you bring into it. It was such a joy to see the excitement, confusion, creativity, and fear. Everyone is precious. Humans are great. Thank you to Casey, my fellow actors, the Pocket Theater, and everyone who helped make this show possible. Let’s keep making weird things happen.Wasabi Peas!

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BookTubeAThon 2016 – Reading Challenges and My TBR

It’s that time of year again – BookTubeAThon!

BookTube is a community of people on Youtube who post videos about books and reading, and every summer this community has a seven day read-a-thon (this year from July 18th through July 24th). The primary goal is to read seven books in seven days, but there are mini-challenges about the types of books as well. This year’s challenges are:

1) Read a book with yellow on the cover

2) Read a book only after sunset

3) Read a book you discovered through Booktube

4) Read a book by one of your favorite authors

5) Read a book that is older than you

6) Read and watch a book-to-movie adaptation

And as always:

7) Read seven books

In addition to reading, there are also Instagram and video challenges people can participate in before and during BookTubeAThon, like making a video about your TBR (to be read) pile or posting a photo of something from the cover of the book you’re reading. I am going to attempt to participate in these this year, though I’m preemptively giving myself permission to skip any challenge if I’m running out of time.

Last year I made a spreadsheet to plan out my reading, because of course that’s something I would do. I’ve updated it for 2016 and you can see if here:

Tracking Spreadsheet

The very first challenge was to make a video of your TBR, which I did and you can watch below. For a quick summary, here’s what I’ll be reading:

1/ Read a book with yellow on the cover.

Monstrous Regiment by Terry Pratchett

2/ Read a book only after sunset.

Market Ghost Stories by Mercedes Yeager

3/ Read a book you discovered through booktube.

Landline by Rainbow Rowell

4/ Read a book by one of your favourite authors.

The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis

5/ Read a book that is older than you.

The Missing Piece by Shel Silverstein

6/ Read and watch a book-to-movie adaptation.

I Am Legend by Richard Matheson

7/ Read seven books.

Year of Yes by Shonda Rhimes

Seven books in seven days can be a little intimidating,  but BookTubeAThon is not about success, it’s about effort. Even Ariel Bissett who hosts the challenge every year has never actually gotten through all seven of her books. However plenty of us have managed it, and it can be super fun. If you’re participating this year let me know in the comments, especially if you have an Instagram or Youtube channel I can follow.

Good luck and happy reading!

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Fun Facts of Lent, Day Forty-Six: Reflections on Pouring Your Heart Out for Forty-Six Days Straight

I made it. Forty-six days writing and posting reflections about my faith. Here are a few things I noticed.

Not every thought is worth posting. When I look back on the last 46 days, I know most of it would have never made it to the blog if it wasn’t for the promise of posting daily. This makes sense and is in line with what many other writers have said: You write every day so that a few of those days will be worth sharing.

Being vulnerable sucks. It did not feel good talking about my personal opinions so publicly every day. While my personal thoughts are present in everything I write, most of my Lenten posts were nothing BUT opinion, which means that I couldn’t help but take people’s reactions very personally. Speaking of…

Nobody reacted online. Normally I get a fair amount of likes and comments on Facebook when I put up a new blog post, and that didn’t happen as much with my Lent posts. There are a lot of possible explanations for this. One is that as previously mentioned, I wasn’t vetting for quality enough because of the time constraints. Another is that I got on the wrong side of the Facebook algorithms by posting daily from a third-party site. It could be a sampling bias, and I just perceive the response rates to be lower. Or it could be that my friends simply weren’t into the topics being posted, and didn’t feel the need to respond. As much as I tell myself the number of Likes I get on Facebook doesn’t determine my self-worth, it’s really difficult to say something publicly that you’ve previously kept private, and be met with crickets. On the other hand…

People brought it up a lot in person. With the exception of my posts on depression and Halloween costumes, I’ve never had so many people approach me in real life to talk about something I wrote online. Some people brought it up almost every time I saw them. Perhaps it’s worth noting that the people who talked about it in person were almost exclusively 45+ years old.

I would rather preach to the choir. I honestly don’t know how my friends took this experiment of mine, but knowing their existing feelings on religion made it very difficult to write at times. I don’t like talking religion to people who don’t want to hear it. I feel like I must be making things worse. It was easy to write a post when I thought of all my religious friends who might get the chance to read it. It was very difficult when I thought of my atheist friends that might be forced to see it on their newsfeed.

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One could say that this was my best Lenten discipline, since it was difficult, effected my daily life, and forced me to think about my relationship with God a lot more. It was also my worst, in that it caused more negative emotions in me than any previous practice. However it’s clear to me that most of the negativity was wrapped up in how much I rely on others to justify my thoughts. My favorite post of the whole season was one I felt great writing and great publishing. But when it got almost no response online, I felt terrible. It’s a good reminder that we can only control what we put out into the world, not what happens once it’s out there.

With that, I leave you. Tomorrow is Easter, and I plan on taking a much-needed break from posting for a while. Thanks for taking this annoying, uncomfortable journey with me.