Murder Mystery Party: ‘Til Death Do Us Part

Last weekend it was time to give Spring a kick-start and throw a murder mystery party with a Grand Cayman wedding theme! It came from a boxed party set with character descriptions and secret clues. There are also some items that set the scene: in this case, a bloody, 10 inch kitchen knife and “B” on the wall in blood.

Everyone dressed up to fit their assigned characters. The bride was the victim, but we had the groom, his dad, the bride’s half sister, a bridesmaid, the wedding coordinator, a former girlfriend of the groom, the entertainer, and an escort. Whodunit? I won’t tell!

Several of us at the party have played many other murder mystery dinner parties, but this one was the hardest in terms of getting the party going. If we were all beginners, we might not have had a very successful game.

Most games provide each character accusations against other players as well as information they should try not to give away to implicate themselves. This game gave information for each character to try to hide, but no accusations against other characters! When all we had was information to hide, it was not easy to get the conversation started. Ah well. I have another party from this maker – maybe I’ll make sure everyone has a bit more to drink before we start. Thankfully, the other brands of these games are much more robust. I’m eager to hold many more parties in the upcoming months!

Want to know about the fun menu I served? See my companion post here on my food-focused blog!

Caustic about the Caucus

My last experience in voting for a Party’s nominee was in Virginia, and it was a straight primary. No one had to be affiliated with a particular political Party in order to vote: upon showing up, they indicated which Party’s ballot they wanted, and it was voting as usual from that point. It was efficient and voting lines were open the same duration as for other votes.

That was for a state that sometimes feels like it wants to return to the Civil War era. I would have expected that if anything, Colorado would have a more modern feel to its political system. How very wrong I was.

Colorado, like a few other states, prefers a yester-century caucus approach. I wasn’t a fan of the idea before going to my first caucus. For one, there’s no absentee voting system. If you have an evening shift job, you either take vacation time or forfeit your right to vote in a caucus. Got young kids? Too bad, one parent has to stay home with the kids, effectively discriminated against for having children. This was evident at my precinct: lots of parents left spouses at home so one person could vote, despite there being two registered voters.

In a regular primary, one parent can stay with the kids while the other votes, then switch. Evening shift workers can vote before they go to work.

I tried to maintain an open mind when I attended my first caucus. The agenda should have been straightforward: one piece of paper was for the straw poll – to vote for a candidate to become the Party nominee. And that’s not even a real vote! Another piece of paper had the voter’s registration information on it. There were three more pieces: one for electing a precinct committee person, one for electing county delegates, and the other for potential items of interest that anyone wanted to throw out there for the rest of the group to vote yes or no to. The county delegates are not bound in any way to vote according to the precinct’s straw poll results: they vote however they want to. They select state delegates to attend the National Convention and vote however they please.

What a waste of two hours. That simple agenda was nowhere near efficient – or competent, for that matter. We meandered from one topic to another and back again. The meeting was led by the two outgoing precinct committee members. It took several repeated questions to get even the vaguest idea of the responsibilities of a precinct committee person. They wanted volunteers – and yet they couldn’t articulate what the volunteers would end up volunteering for! They did a better job describing the role of the county delegates, and ended up having a vote off to narrow down the list of volunteers. Fully 10% of the members at the caucus volunteered to be a delegate – that’s pretty significant, in my book. But then it was all ruined for me when they decided to ask everyone for money. Bah humbug.

I finally got tired of the pointless meandering after that – supposedly people could identify issues they’d like to see brought up at the Party’s National Convention later in the year. I left.

Instead of going in to vote for my pick for Party nominee in a few minutes, I wasted two hours. I hoped I’d learn a bit more about the real point of the National Convention – other than a formality for politicos who want to mingle and feel important. I learned nothing of the sort. I did learn a trifle more about state politics, but I could have learned oh-so-much-more given half the time on the Internet.

Maybe I should go for county delegate next time with one agenda – omit the caucus and transition Colorado into the modern world of Presidential Primaries!

Fraser Experimental Forest

What visions does the name “experimental forest” evoke in your mind? Other than areas of cut timber, Fraser Experimental Forest looks like a normal forest to me. There are lots of evergreen trees. So what’s so experimental about it?

I imagined that new hybrid species might be planted in areas to see if they’re hardier. Do they stand up to pine beetles that are ravaging thousands of acres in Colorado? Do these varieties thrive on less water? Are they more resistant to forest fires? Perhaps it has nothing to do with the trees. Maybe new animal species are introduced to the forest to see whether they survive?

I have a book  indicating winter trails which don’t allow machinery (snowmobiles), making them perfect for cross-country skiing and snowshoeing. Several featured trails are located in this 36 square mile forest. We first tried snowshoeing in Fraser Experimental Forest (near Winter Park, CO) a year or two ago. After trudging upward for a long time, we finally got to the marker that would lead us downhill – for more than twice the distance we’d already traversed. There wasn’t enough daylight left, so we turned around. Thankfully, we have a snowshoeing rule: go uphill first, so the return is easier and faster. This rule has served us quite well! We wondered whether we were actually on the trail we’d intended. The turn around point seemed a lot further than the book described.

So this time, we picked a different trail, and took along our GPS. What a nice change to know exactly how far we hiked! Well, once again, we didn’t manage to follow the book. We were supposed to go counter-clockwise around the loop. We went clockwise. So unsurprisingly, we never found the major 4-way intersection at the 1.5 mile point!

Extreme Experimental Forest

Along the way, we learned that our imagination was rather limited regarding the meaning of “experimental forest.” We encountered this sign. A little further along the trail (summer road), we encountered a clearing on the same side of the road. The cleared area was roped off, as if the rope was an impervious boundary for any radiation. You’re fine where you are but cross under the rope and you’ll get radiation poisoning! Um…right. There were a couple of obvious little buildings on the other side of the road, down in the woods, with large tanks. What, do they store their emergency radiation suits there? Oops, forgot my suit today, let me just grab one that the mice have been nesting in. The holes won’t matter…much. At least the hantavirus carried by mice pales in comparison to radiation.

Of course, that little encounter sparked my curiosity enough to look up the forest’s website when I got home. The official site makes no obvious mention of the radiation area. It does say the experiments have been ongoing since the 1930s and that temperatures and water levels are recorded. Whoopee. OK, so the site did expand my vocabulary as well: silviculture is the growing and cultivation of trees. So my original thoughts on what an experimental forest (here’s the overall USFS site for experimental forests in general) might be used to study wasn’t too far off. But what about the radiation?

I searched “Fraser experimental forest radiation” but all the top results regarded solar radiation. Somehow, I just don’t think a wooded area would be closed as a radiation hazard for solar radiation. If that were the case, every high altitude, typically sunny area would be closed off! That includes most of the state of Colorado. Mining is a significant industry in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains, and uranium is one of the elements extracted – but from my limited research, uranium mining is done in the western portion of the state, not along the Continental Divide where we snowshoed. There’s a nearby molybdenum mine, but molybdenum isn’t radioactive. Besides, the mine isn’t exactly next door to the experimental forest. Several miles separate them.

So the mystery remains: what the heck is radioactive out in the forest? Looks like we might have to start hiking the area in the summer to see what else we can figure out. Until then, maybe we’ll pay better attention to the guidebook, buy a map, and enjoy the area on snowshoes.

Incidentally, this was Kermode’s first snowshoe! Last year she was too young to take long hikes, and too heavy to carry. She did very well. She’s well used to her booties, but this was her first hike in them. She didn’t mind the snow packed trail, but she preferred to bunny hop through the deeper powder on the side of the trail. She was silly, entertaining, and an absolute delight on the trail. Glacier was much more regal while walking, but stopped at every opportunity to make puppy snow angels. So we’re eager to take them snowshoeing again. Tomorrow, perhaps?

 

Myrtle Spurge

This is your warning – stay away from myrtle spurge. Period.

In Colorado, myrtle spurge (also called donkey tail or creeping spurge) is a Class A noxious weed. What’s that mean? State law requires you to eradicate it, on private or public land. This is more serious than the annoying, prickly varieties of thistle that are found everywhere wild grasses grow. Some of those harm livestock. Myrtle spurge can harm you, and most often afflicts children.

I just learned about this detestable plant today. But I think I may have been exposed to it throughout the summer. In May, I went to a dermatologist with a very irritating, itchy, angry and bright red rash on my legs, including some inflammation. It started at my ankles and moved up my legs to about mid-thigh. I hadn’t been outside in shorts, I’d always been in pants, so it didn’t occur to me that a plant could have caused my issue. The dermatologist said I had a case of contact dermatitis. I have never been so itchy in my entire life. It was horrible. I tried not to scratch, but sometimes I’d wake up in the middle of night doing so. I drew blood from all the (restrained!) scratching.

With a cortisone shot and some medications (including prednisone), things calmed down over a week or two. At least I was able to resist most of the itching – best of all, I could sleep through the night. But it came back later in the summer – a few times. Each time, it took weeks to settle down. The second time, I returned to a dermatologist, who told me just to take some over-the-counter allergy medication. Gee, thanks. It took a bit longer for things to settle down that time. The third time I didn’t bother seeing a doctor, as it was clear neither of the dermatologists were interested in trying to discern the cause.

I remember one of the flare-ups occurring after I spent a portion of the day outside, but I was careful. I had on long pants and clogs, but no socks. I hopped on the riding mower. I was careful not to walk in any areas where plant life could touch my skin. So at this point I had considered that maybe I was allergic to something outside. But where I would not let my bare legs touch plants, I would pull up weeds with my bare hands, wearing short sleeves. I never had a rash on my hands or arms. While I wash my hands when I come in from gardening activities, I only wash my arms immediately if I see dirt or dust.

And at some point, it got worse. My final flare up of the summer came in the form of exceedingly painful blisters – they felt like chemical burns. I watched a blister on the inside of one ankle grow from multiple little blisters one night, to dime size in the morning, and greater than quarter size that afternoon. The pain was incredible. I’ve had my share of blisters before – and even hiked several miles on fresh blisters with a heavy backpack and hiking boots rubbing every side of those blisters. I can endure pain. I went barefoot or wore thongs – these burning blisters were near my ankle bones – nothing touched them. And yet the pain was that bad. I’ve had second degree burns over both hands and my face, enough to cause me to be out of work for three weeks – and yet the pain of a single blister on each ankle rivaled that pain. It was time for some medical help. I didn’t bother with the dermatologist.

I went to my internist, who was baffled. She gave me more prednisone, two types of allergy meds (one prescription strength), and did some blood tests. She could not come up with a cause, but she at least tried – far more so than my dermatologists. So I gave up on figuring out the cause, at least until it happens again.

Today I ran across myrtle spurge. I googled the heck out of it – I recommend you do the same if you live in any of the Western states. It used to be sold as an ornamental plant, particularly suited to xeriscapes and rock gardens! On the surface it sounds good: it’s hardy, drought tolerant, thrives in full sun (even at higher altitudes, which are more caustic environments), and is deer resistant. But all parts of the plant are poisonous. They are caustic skin irritants, and cause yellowish blisters. Fortunately, some people have posted pictures of their children’s faces after playing in myrtle spurge. Those blisters look identical to the ones I had.

I’m not exactly self diagnosing the cause of my mysterious skin irritant, but next time I need to see a doctor because of the out-of-control rashes or blisters like I experienced over the summer, I’m taking information on this plant. Several places claim that children are more likely to get rashes and blisters because they pick the flowers. So perhaps a local pediatrician would be more likely to identify symptoms of contact with myrtle spurge than an internist (specializing in adult medical care)? I saw a news article from Colorado Springs – six children were all afflicted from myrtle spurge contact. An emergency room physician father of one child (not sure if it was the same or a separate instance) had never seen or heard of myrtle spurge or its effects. That leads me to believe it’s not commonly known amongst the medical community. (I really hope I’m wrong.)

I spent several hours today researching myrtle spurge – most of the information I can find just says it’s a caustic skin irritant and causes blister-like burns. I think I’d call them burn-like blisters (at least that was my experience). Unfortunately, I found nothing in the way of home remedy advice, nor anything helpful on the medical side. I found lots of state recommendations (Colorado, Utah, and Washington were the most common sources) for eradication. Basically, it’s a manual labor solution, on a weekly basis, when the ground is moist. And it’ll take several years to eradicate it. Ugh. But I’d rather know what I need to do than be as clueless as I was, well, this morning.

Counties in Colorado each seem to have a weed control expert on the county staff. There are state resources as well. I have a call in to my county’s weed control expert. From looking at the pictures, I think I’ve seen myrtle spurge in my back yard. But until I see it in Spring, I don’t know for sure. Even then, I’m not particularly adept at plant identification. So I’m looking for tips on how to positively identify this wicked scourge of a spurge. If I discern anything really useful, I’ll add it here. Until then, be aware this nasty devil exists and do your research. Oh, and wear socks, boots, long pants, and rubber gloves if you know or suspect you’re dealing with myrtle spurge.

And if you’ve had contact with this enemy, what happened? Please share!

Prancer and Cupid

Glacier and Kermode got to have pictures with Santa, courtesy of our vet! They got into the spirit by being Santa’s reindeer for the day. Since Glacier sashays and prances, he’s Prancer. Kermode is the loving, affectionate one, so she’s Cupid.

Merry Christmas from the Prancer and Cupid, the Caucasian Ovcharka reindeer!

Christmas Village Display

Winter villages are a fun way to decorate the house for Christmas. In my case, I started with a piece of furniture that begged for Christmas decorations, then slowly built up my collection. Now the collection is bigger than the display furniture, but that hasn’t slowed down my village! This year is my first to set up the village in this house, and it’s really paying off!

High forest scene

I’ve always had to be careful about scratching the wood with some of the houses as I move them around during set up and lighting. This year, I wanted to add the look of snow, and found a way to simultaneously protect my wood furniture! I picked up some foam insulation boards from Home Depot. It took a bit of work (mostly due to the size of my village) with a knife and box cutters, but the result is something I can keep to reuse year after year! I made a base for each shelf I used for the village. I also made a couple of basic mountain scenes by setting foam vertically. The cutting process was a bit messy, but that’s a one time event. It’s far neater than using bags of fake snow! An unexpected bonus is the sheen of the foam glistens at night when the only lights are from the village.

Moose Lake

I used more of the foam to create hills and elevation. In the first picture, I stacked several pieces to elevate the eagle’s nest (secured with toothpicks as I added new layers, but glue would work well, too). At the lake, I elevated the buildings and gave the wolves a little ridge from which to hunt. The lake was created with blue plastic wrap from the kitchen. I crumpled it into a ball, unrolled it, then laid it out with some folds. The crumpling and folding gave the lake the look of waves, which seems more interesting than a glassy lake (which I’d expect to be frozen over in winter).

Sledding hill

The top of my schrank (wall unit) has a curve to it over the central display area. I have plenty of room between the top of the schrank and my ceiling, so I turned one side into the sledding area. The other side is my ski slope!

Ski slope

I really like to collect wild animals for my village, some of which aren’t exactly common in town. As such, I set up a little forest area, where the only human is a wildlife photographer. I’d like to add some snowshoers to the scene in future years. I also plan to add some little lights on the underside of the shelf above the forest scene in order to create starlight, since there are no buildings or other sources of artificial light in my wilderness.

Forest scene

One of the problems with using the store-bought creek pieces (like in the forest scene) is that few bridges can actually span the water. So for my farm scene, I created my own creek. I call it Willow Creek because the barn is labeled “Willow Creek Farm”. Once again, I used the blue plastic wrap, but this time I lined the water with aquarium stones, covered with some fake snowflakes. They look somewhat frosted and icy – perfect! I saw another village recently that used a watery-looking ribbon to create a moving water effect, so that would be another good option.

Willow creek and the farm

Something I’ve struggle with year after year is the ice rink. It’s easy to collect a lot of ice skaters, but hard to find a big enough ice rink for them all! I didn’t feel like cutting a mirror this year, though I certainly may do that in the future. This year I found a pack of several square mirrors. I placed two side-by-side, but that didn’t realistic. So I went back to the kitchen, this time for waxed paper. Crumpling it gave it the feel of lots of grooves from ice skates (I don’t have a village zamboni, you see). I confess I got lazy by this point so I didn’t shape the mirrors. I simply surrounded it like Willow Creek in aquarium stones and fake snow. I absolutely love how it turned out! Of course it occurred to me later that with the waxed paper, I could have used aluminum foil instead of the mirrors, so I might do that next year. Foil would be a lot easier to form into a more natural shape!

Town Centre ice rink and dog park

I placed most of the residential houses together for a real neighborhood effect, so most of the people playing in the snow are there. One shelf is just for food-related business: there’s a cheese shop, a winery, a cooking school, and a tea room. The shelf with the farm shares space with a separate sheep farm and woolen mill. The town centre includes a church and fire station. I managed to pick up some polar bears but they don’t seem to go well in much of the rest of my village. Right now they’re near a couple of log cabin as part of an Alaska or Canada section. That will be expanded next year to include a totem pole gallery and sled dog rides headquarters. In that way, we’ll have sort of an Arctic community where the polar bears will fit in a bit better!

Einmal bier, bitte!

After all the work that went into setting this up, I wish this was less Christmas village and more all-winter-long village! Instead, I’ll have to settle for joining Pete for a brewski.

Dogs, Not Drums

After years of listening to Mr. Bruin (aka my dearest husband) wax nostalgic for Denver’s Christmas parade, the Parade of Lights, we finally made it this year! It was chilly, in the 20s, but the wind wasn’t a factor amongst the tall downtown buildings. When we got out of the car, we were doubting our decision to attend. But once we got to 16th Street prior to the parade’s start, we were fine!

Our friends (the Scotties) joined us from Colorado Springs. They’ve lived there most of the 20 years we’ve known each other. And yet they had no idea what the Parade of Lights was! Somehow, I failed to mention Denver in the planning conversations, so they thought they were coming to a mid-size CO town for a little parade. They’d never even been to downtown Denver at night! As we talked, it came out that they had never even been to a real parade! Sure, they’ve seen little parades at festivals, but they’d never been to a parade as the whole event. That’s now in the past, and I can say I’ve been to Denver’s Parade of Lights, too!

In fact, this is the first parade I’ve attended that included the large balloons controlled by teams of people. The balloons were each led by a vehicle with spotlights to make the balloons more visible. We stood near an intersection and each time a balloon came by, the controllers lowered the balloon. At first we thought it might be because of the wind tunnel effect at the break in buildings, as the street lights did not cross the entire street. But it was the lights that were the issue. Various teams approached the lights differently. Most lowered the balloon, which in the case of the penguin meant the balloon appeared to kiss the street! The best was when a flying Rudolph was flown higher so he launched over the top of the traffic lights!

Passed Out Penguin

As you might imagine from the name of the parade, the theme behind all the entries in the parade are Christmas lights. Members of marching bands were each covered in lights! I didn’t get any decent pictures of them though. Something else I found fun about the marching bands was that each one had a theme. One school’s theme was the science of light, another was The Nightmare Before Christmas – each player in that band had a painted face. Instruments were usually decked out in tinsel and lights. Mr. Bruin recalled his days of marching in the parade, where the players had a tiny portion of tinsel and only a few players carried lights. Progress has been made – his descriptions make the parades of 20 years ago sound spartan in comparison to what we saw last night!

Of course, the fantastic parts of the parade were the floats. Here are just two classic Christmas examples: a gingerbread house and the Nutcracker. Our little group was thrilled to see the true Christmas float, a nativity scene!

Denver’s National Western Stock Show was represented in the parade. Horses were expected. But in keeping with the parade theme, there was even a cowboy doing rope tricks with a lighted lasso (click for video).

We shared all the evening’s excitement with 14-month old Kermode Bruin. Last year she couldn’t go because she hadn’t yet received all her puppy vaccinations. This year, she was a trooper! Puppy’s first parade couldn’t have gone better! There was a lovely couple next to us, one of whom had a headband with ears and reindeer antlers. Pet stores carry them but they’re too small for our dogs. These adult headbands were perfect! So the very nice man next to us went into a private party in the building behind us and came back with two headbands for our dogs. They look fantastic! (But that’ll be another blog.)

Kermode was very well behaved. We stood in front of a larger planter on the street, which I would recommend for any parade-attending dog. It protected her from being trampled or stepped on, and gave her something to huddle under when she was unhappy with something passing by. She’s not a fan of marching bands, as it turns out. I covered her ears every time one passed. But there were a couple of other entries that she didn’t like, either, and the commonality was drums. Even I could feel the reverberations of the drums, and she was not a fan of them. Fortunately for her, she contents herself with leaning into her people. A few times, that meant the 95-pound fluffy sweetheart almost pushed me over!

She was intrigued with the horses, but her favorite parade entrants were the groups of dogs! There were samoyeds with lighted backpacks, and she wanted to make a few new friends. The other dog group was mainly border collies, but there were several other dogs represented as well. They were disc dogs – a club of some sort for dogs who adore chasing frisbees! The group was a great representation of owners who work closely with their active dogs and was wonderful to see! Kermode’s never chased a frisbee, but she’d be more interested in playing with the dogs than toys any day!

Overall, it was a wonderful evening, worth the cold toes that came with it. The crowd wasn’t too bad, as nobody we encountered was rude – how often do you experience that in a big city? Even better? The traffic escaping town immediately after the parade wasn’t bad. All in all, I’d say we have a new annual event to attend. And we know that Kermode will behave herself at noisy, crazy events. Bonus!

The hardest part of the evening was knowing where to go. I glanced at the map a few days prior to the event, but didn’t try memorizing anything. Early yesterday evening, before and during the drive to downtown Denver, we tried to pull up the website with a map of the parade route and parking options. Unfortunately, I think everyone else in the area was doing the same. We couldn’t access the site! So for any of you searching for that information from alternate sources (like this post), here are the details.

The parade goes again on Saturday, December 3rd, starting at 6 p.m. The route essentially loops the 16th Street Mall. Quoting from the parade’s website: “the 9NEWS Parade of Lights steps off at the City & County Building at 14th Avenue & Bannock Street, crosses Colfax Avenue, travels west on 14th Street, turns right on Tremont Place and goes three blocks to 17th Street. The parade travels down 17th Street to Arapahoe Street and turns left, making another left turn on 15th Street and continuing on 15th Street up to Glenarm Place. The parade turns right on Glenarm Place and finishes at 14th Street & Glenarm Place.” Saturday’s supposed to be pretty cold, so bundle up and take a thermos of something hot to drink! And don’t forget blankets to sit on, if you don’t want to stand the whole time.