Yesterday afternoon I started to come down with a cough, at work.

I came home and we ordered Chinese food. Wonton soup is a comfort food I go to whenever I'm not feeling well.  After dinner, Missy gave me a bath, and even climbed in there with me, to take care of me.  She put VapoRub on my chest, and got me to bed for cuddling, and good sleep.

Being sick sucks, but having a wonderful wife to take care of me when I'm not my best is a beautiful thing.  I'm grateful I have such a loving partner.  She's the greatest.

Posted
AuthorMako Allen

Our girl Kate's partner Ollie has moved to the east coast!  This gives me great joy for several reasons:

- Missy and I adore Ollie, who is a marvelous, thinky, sweet, kind, person, who we love to spend time with.  

- It makes Kate super happy, because long distance relationships are SO DAMN HARD.  

- It means that when Kate does come down to see us, she has someone to share the drive with, and most importantly the drive home, after a long day or weekend.  

- I love their shmoop.  They're a pair of shmoopy mooshbags, who hug, kiss, and are generally just sweet to and on each other all the time.  It's a very pleasant thing to be around.

I'm grateful Ollie's here! 

Posted
AuthorMako Allen

So as I've said before, Missy and I love to play Ingress.  On Saturday we did something we've never done before, we went to a Build.  A Build is a social event.  You and a bunch of other Ingress agents get together, and en masse, take down the other faction's portals, and put up your own.  

It's really fun.  Missy got home from a rare Saturday workday, and told me it was happening, and asked if we should go.  I said yes.

About 30 minutes later, two of the higher ranked players in the area came to the house, and picked us up.  We drove up to Old Town Alexandria, where we met a big group of people in the parking lot of a supermarket.  

There were about 30 people there.  After we chitchatted for a bit, and laid out the game plan, the convoy got on its way, and we just slammed the area.  It was amazing to see a field of blue portals go from fully charged, fully loaded, to destroyed, to green, fully charged, fully loaded in seconds.  We weren't in the first car of the convoy, so it was almost pointless to try to help smash the portals.  By the time we got there, they were already built for us.

But we got to pick up gear, oh boy did we ever.

But that's not the best part of the event, for me.  The very best part was seeing the reactions of people to meeting Missy.  She's kind of an Ingress superhero.  She's been playing less than time than I have (by about 2 weeks), and is already a level 9.  (I'm a newly minted level 7).  

She's tireless, and dedicated.  She's a constant thorn in the side of the other faction.

And everyone knows it.  

When we got there, and were introducing ourselves, and she told people her agent name, everyone said, "WOAH, you're THAT agent?!" She beamed with pride.

I was grateful I got to experience that.

Posted
AuthorMako Allen

So I wrote recently about how when I was down in Florida, I shared a sundae with my grieving wife, sister-in-law, and friends, and it made the good things better, and the worse things less worse for a time, Spider Robinson style.

A good friend of mine, Enfant, who we've had the very great pleasure to interview on the Big Little Podcast, also happens to be a Spider Robinson fan.  We got into a nice little discussion about two of Robinson's books I have yet to read, Mindkiller and Time Pressure.

Well, look what I got in the mail from him, yesterday.

I'm grateful I have such thoughtful, generous friends.  I'm looking forward to reading this.  I'm going to make it my read-before-bed-for-a-half-hour treat nightly, for a long while.

Thanks Enfant!

Posted
AuthorMako Allen