Brain currently booting in Safe Mode

I'm trying to work out where January went. It was here just a minute ago and then *poof*.

The most remarkable thing that happened was this: the on-going D&D game that I was in finished. We got to the end, had a bit of a "what happens next", mostly births and deaths (there were tears!), some speculation on what the kobolds are going to get into and up to over the centuries and that was that. Then clawfoot and I went into some detail about those intervening years between campaign's end and character death over email.

The thread was the equivalent of getting curb-stomped in the feels, yo. We didn't gloss over the deaths of beloved characters, we killed them. Because I was crying so often, the tops of my cheeks were red and raw. But it was a good pain. Now that it's truly over, I feel a little like I am adrift at sea, my little raft lost far from shore. Instead of Good Book Hangover, I have Satisfying Conclusion of a Game Hangover. This one cut a little deeper and I was a lot more invested in this character than any of my others, so it makes sense that I'm grieving the loss.

And, because we finished up a long term game, we are starting on some palate cleansers and have chosen Wanderhome as the first one. It's very soft and gentle and just the thing after a very dark and hard campaign. We did some world building and character creation yesterday, and will start playing next session.

Short reads for a short month! I've started in on my graphic novels that have been languishing in my physical TBR. With luck, I can get through all of them this month. I should be able to, but life doesn't often go smooth. In any case, even some of them read is some that weren't read before, so I'll call it a win either way.

I loves me some comics, and have for a long time. I don't buy them like I used to, and I certainly don't read them like I used to. February seemed as good a month as any to try to get through what I have here.

Pilling the cat has been...an adventure. Yesterday, I wrapped him in a towel and it was easier for both of us. It didn't take nearly as long (good for him) and his body was more confined (good for me because Sunny is pointy at five ends, as my hand will attest to), so I call that a win.

Did I mention that Sunny is a treat fiend? He is a TOTAL fiend when the treat jar comes out, so I had Paul pick up some pill pockets yesterday as he went out on an errand of his own. And, I will say it was the most successful yet. Getting the pill pocket around the capsule is a bit of a trick and it makes for a rather awkward treat, but the cat didn't seem to care. Once it was down his gullet, he started shnurfling the counter for more treats that he might have missed.

Now here's hoping he doesn't pick up Franklin's trick of eating the pill pocket around the medication, because it will be back to pilling him after that.

In other news, I am making peanut butter cookies for game tomorrow, because we are gaming. In person. For the first time in a year and a half. HOLY FUCK. The cookies aren't necessary or even expected, but they're kind of a gaming tradition and it's been too fucking long. The only downside is the lack of chocolate chips, because I am completely out. I did put roasted peanuts in them, though, and they smell AMAZING.

Dealing with the new normal. It's not great. I've already had one instance of the perimenopausal-chest-warmth-hot-flash-bucket-of-anxiety when I'm in bed recently. It's alarming and scary and it takes me a fuck of a long time to shake off the worst of it and go the fuck to sleep. Not helping is how damn sore I am. I am way way WAY overdue for a chiropractic adjustment, but my appointment last week was cancelled, so I'm just going to have to suck it up.

I am trying to go out for short walks every so often, if only to get some alone time. I might go out today, even with the dumping of snow we've just gotten, if I can find the time between the laundry that needs doing and the apartment that needs cleaning.

I read a great book last week, The Hollow Kingdom by Kira Jane Buxton. It's a post-apocalyptic romp with a crow named S.T. (short for Shit Turd), with a craving for Cheetos and a really foul mouth beak, as the main character. I don't want to give too much away, because it's funny and heartbreaking and worth the time to read it. I will say that reading a post-apocalyptic/zombie-ish novel may not have been the best choice during a pandemic. Time to switch to the historical romances, I think. Good, comfortable reads that will let me forget all of this nonsense for a while.

I did figure out my gaming situation, so that's pretty awesome. Again, it's not what I WANT, but, given the circumstances, it's decent enough.

Right. I have things to do and I have rambled on long enough.

Weirdly vivid dream this morning.

It was a roleplaying/LARPing dream. There was a group of us and a group of them in a brawl. WE weren't physically fighting (touch is only with consent), but our characters were. Them were a high-level party, with a missing party member that everyone referred to as Superman (dude was seriously over-powered). Us was happy that Them was missing Supes, because Us was a lower level party and needed strategy and sneakiness to get past Them.

The room is set up where I was sitting at the end of long table, the DMs/Storytellers behind a counter at the other end of the table. Game is on.

I was playing an assassin (this is the closest image I can find to the one in my head), with a penchant for backstabs and poisoned blades. I knew, in character, that killing anyone of Them would mean death for Us, so my character, Raven, decided to use something instead of poison: sleeping draught. It would take any of her victims out of immediate combat, but they would wake up with the WORST hangover of their lives long after the dust had settled.

It was a solid plan and it actually worked.

Because three (? - I think it was three) members of Them were futzing around at my end of the table IN GAME and with their backs to me, I used the opportunity to take them off the board. Three attacks, all successful, and all of them had to quietly sit out the rest of the game. Us was mostly victorious except for one minor snag: the player who had Supes (who looked a lot like this, minus the blood) showed up at the very last minute of game.

Supes found his three fallen comrades, all downed by a single stab to the back, and went for vengeance. With permission, Supes' player and I were physical for effect. I remember standing in front of the counter, him behind me, the three that Raven had downed to the left of us, in a very comfortable headlock (comfortable because dude was actually really sweet and his hands were warm and headlocks are kind of more intimate that most people want to admit), trying to get a DM's attention.

The storytelling team was distracted by other players, end of game stuff, someone brought in a baby. It was chaos.

Finally we were noticed and went into a hallway to finish the rest of this. Three of Them stood to one side whilst Supes and Raven played a game of cat-and-mouse down an alley way. Once Supes caught her, Raven confessed that his companions weren't dead, merely sleeping. By this point, Raven was pretty beat up and Supes' hands and wrists were scratched up. Because she hadn't killed his friends, Supes knocked her out instead of snapping her neck.

Then I woke up.

But man, that feeling of being gently manhandled by a big guy with warm hands has stayed. Can't say I mind. ;)

Some stuff that has happened:

- the last full week of January was full of appointments, including a trip to Sick Kids to meet with the Nephrology team and some testing for Declan to determine what's up with his kidneys and the cysts.

- when I went in to find out WTF was up with my knee (possible patellofemoral syndrome, which is only 'cured' by eight weeks of physio), got the results of my blood work. It came back normal. You should really see my surprise face on that one. *rolls eyes* The urine test did come back positive for protein (joy) but it's not enough to be worrying. At least it's an easy test to repeat.

- Declan had no protein in his urine and his blood work came back as normal. So there is that.

- having your knee x-rayed is weird. The positions you have to keep it in is very unnatural. The highlight of the entire process? Connecting with another mother who was there with her son. We both agreed that shame was something for other people, especially after you've had someone fondling your cervix with others watching. Yay, childbirth.

- tried to call my shiny new(ish) psychiatrist, since I'm running low on meds. Hahahahaha, no. Apparently, I had a consultancy appointment, and don't actually have a psychiatrist. Cue lots of swearing and gnashing of teeth. Fine, thinks I, it's back to the doc for my meds and make the appointment, which is for this Friday.

- my games continue to truck along. I am finding that Thorn's voice is nearly silent in my head, but Amy's has gotten very loud. You'll have your time to shine, darlin'. But it's not yet.

- I am currently bashing my head against getting a data recovery program to actually work. It's my fault that the information is lost, but it shouldn't be THIS hard to get it back. I am frustrated and about this close to pitching my computer off the roof.

- small victory: picked up Declan from school AND took out the recycling without falling on my ass. It's been raining since this afternoon and freezing, so not slipping and sliding is worth noting.

I just made over 3 dozen ginger snaps and 4 dozen butterscotch cookies. I had forgotten how much work went into the entire process behind cookie cutters and dough rolling. But they're good (and they're done).

And now I get to bribe the Storytellers with them using the old WATSFiC rules. :)

It's time, I think, to introduce a new rating system. After the brilliance of the "Hoover Scale" for WATSFiC tourneys, it occurred to me yesterday sitting next to a woman who just would not shut the fuck up while I eating my lunch that something was needed. So here it is...

The Ball Gag Awards!

It's pretty simple. When you are in earshot of someone who would do well to be reminded that silence is a virtue (especially if it needs to be imposed) through a physical barrier, just nominate them in your LJ (small children, unless they are extremely bratty about it, aren't candiates, as they just don't know any better).

My first nominee is that woman at lunch. She was sitting at the next table over in the Sick Kids cafeteria and nattering away about nothing. Every time her eating companion tried to get a word in edgewise, she would cut him off and just prattle. I was getting very very angry at having to listen to her endless verbal diarrhea and I wanted to stuff my fist in her jaws just to stop the noise. She could have used a ball gag, and I would have provided one to her, if for no other reason than to let her friend actually speak an entire sentence without interruption.

Notes to Self:

-Natural peanut butter is perfect for nanaimo bars. It helps to cut the cloying sweetness of all that icing sugar.

-Must do yoga tonight. I've been lax about keeping up with my exercise routine (keeping up, that's funny...I can even get it *established*!) and I need to stick with it.

-Hmmm. Should get stuff together to finish the Super Secret LARP Project. I still have time before the next game, but I don't want to be rushing around 5 minutes before I have to leave trying to get it done.

-Open the rest of the windows. For some reason that I cannot fathom, someone has turned the furnace on (?) and it's bloody hot in here already. I'm contemplating sabotaging the switch so it can't be turned on again once it's off until the switch is fixed. Problem: I'm not comfortable enough fooling around with it. Damn. It seems like the only real way to get the furnace to stay off.

-Bathe the baby at some point today. She's due.

-If possible, clip the cats' claws. I just had a gander at Franklin's and they're a bit on the long side.

Wow. That's quite a list. I should get right on that, then. :)

It was such a lovely day. It would have been a lot nicer if I could have sat outside in the back garden and read or something, but not having a garden or the time to read, really, killed that quite nicely.

I'm currently working on my character history for the Elder's LARP. It's going fairly well, but it's getting out of hand already. I'm eight pages in (twelve was the set maximum on account of a character history that I wrote for another game being a mere thirty-six pages!) and no where near done. At least clawfoot, one of the storytellers, is willing to read it in its entirety. But I still have to include a reference sheet for both her and the other storyteller, wildelf, for dates and times and such. The irony of this is my previous character for this game had a character history of a mere three pages, because I was keenly aware of wildelf looking at me when the page limit was announced. *sigh* Infamy...who needs it? :P

That aside, it was great to play again. It was even more fun to dress up a little and wear a pair of boots that I hadn't had on since before I was pregnant. My feet were unhappy by the end of the night but I just didn't care...I felt good.

Right now, the baby's trying to decide if she wants to sleep or cry. She fusses for a bit, then settles and looks ready to drop off into dreamland. But, can't have that! So she fusses again. Silly tired baby. Sleep now, sweetpea.

I found out not too long ago that I might be able to return to the Elders LARP.

*does small happy dance*

I'm not counting any chickens yet, but I miss it and it would be nice to return.

In other good news, the landlord replaced the kitchen tap. It doesn't seem like a big deal, but now I can run the water for more than 5 seconds without causing a sizeable puddle under the microwave and all over the counter.