CON.TXT

Good morning and happy Saturday! I actually got to sleep til 6:30am! Boodle was being kind this morning, which I appreciate. I was technically awake at 6, but I was feeling lazy and just kind of rested there until Boodle insisted.

Today, we're going to take it easy. Depending on how they feel, Jess does have an appt at 10 to get their suit altered. They had a pretty gnarly migraine last night, so if they're not up to it, we'll reschedule. Aside from that, maybe a nice lunch out? I'm pretty okay with taking it easy this weekend.

The baking bug may bite me today, as I've been considering making bagels, but that's fun, not work. I was thinking about making egg bagels, but I haven't found a recipe that sounds good, so it'll probably just be topped plain bagels. I've got everything seasoning, and some roasted garlic I could add it.

Tonight, I will probably use the beef stew that I got from Costco. Unless we go out for dinner, in which case my sister is on her own. Unless she wants to come with. That is also a possibility.

Tomorrow, we have game at 5:30pm, which should be fun. It's one of my favorites, where I get to play an 11th level bladesinger wizard, who is about to be in for a world of angst as he goes back to meet his estranged family.

At some point, I do need to hang a new shower curtain liner. The old one just isn't cleaning up well and a new one is super cheap, so we'll go with that.

I'm on the third book of the Fourth Wing series. It's not bad, though a little less action oriented than the first two, but has higher stakes. I'm about 50% through it, so we'll see where it goes.

I'm enjoying that my brain is engaged enough that I've been able to read so much in a few days. I think the part of my brain that is fannish is only let out a little these days. I'm fannish about D&D, but that's about it. I just haven't found anything else that hooks me. I think SPN broke me.

I miss being able to just come up with a plot and write it out, but it's much harder now. And since there's nothing I'm really fannish about, I'm using that part of my brain to come up with D&D games. Still, there's that little part that misses being able to whip out 100,000 words within a month. Now I'm lucky if I get 1000.

I'm having a lot of trouble writing the module that I planned to possibly sell. It's a lot of work, and I'm trying to flesh it out, when my tendency is just to write the bare minimum so I'll remember the scene, what I'm trying to accomplish and then move on. I may need to do that and flesh it out later because the current campaign is to it's last arc, and then we shall start the new campaign.

It'll be hard saying good bye to the Arvandor crew. We've been playing them for years, first through some one shots, then through Waterdeep: Dragon Heist and Dungeon of the Mad Mage. It would have been tough had we stopped after Mad Mage, but the Arvandor campaign has really been stellar. In D&D you're lucky when you get a session where things are just clicking and you can truly immerse yourself in the story. When you get good emotional beats as well as cool combat. Arvandor has been a game filled with those sessions. I know I've said it before, but my players are amazing. I came up with a cool plot, and remembered to give space for those beats, but the players took the ball and ran with it. They added backstory, and gave me plot hooks that I could then pull in, and let them get their emotional closure. I'm prepping for the next arc, which is going to pull in two or three more backstory hooks, and I'm going to enjoy that.

We just wrapped up the one player's backstory arc, where the character killed the man who enslaved them as a child, but also had them taught to be an artificer. Plus they revealed their goblin heritage, and fell in love with one of the party. It was a good arc, meaty. So far, I've been able to hit everyone's backstory during this game. It's been awesome.

I'm just hoping I can stick the landing for the final chapter. Make it epic and dire, and just bring the house down. That's my goal.

And on that note, I shall go forth and get myself together. Everyone have an amazing Saturday!

It's finally Friday! I am so glad to see this weekend go fuck it self. Not that it's been a bad week. Just busy and occasionally stressful. But it's all good. It's Friday and should be relatively quiet.

The PET scanner is down again at our one site. It's kind of a mess. That's like 10 cancer patients per day that we have to find another way for. It's a lot. Mostly they're handling it outside of us, but sometimes we catch a stray call, and those are never fun. For those counting, this is the second time it's been down in a month.

I busted my ass at work yesterday. There were a TON of openings and people to slot in them. Three cardiac MRIs, four cardiac CTs, and a slew of MRIs. I got them all filled, though. I was a goddamn superstar. By the end of it, my brain hurt. Some of it involved playing tetris. Like "On this day and this day we have half an hour openings. I have someone who needs a full hour. Lets see if this patient would want to come in a little bit earlier." Or hey, I need a cardiac MRI in Bethesda for a STAT patient. I also have two openings in Columbia for cardiac MRIs. So, looking for patients who went to Bethesda, but would be closer to Columbia. But, right now they're only accepting certain diagnosis, and I needed to make sure we had insurance that we could get authorization in time. Basically, I was looking for a goddamn unicorn of a patient. I found 2, and can give my STAT patient their choice.

I was really tired and brain dead when I finished, but I also really enjoy it. It appeals to the side of my brain with excellent spacial relations and the one that always liked the "If-then" kind of tests.

Today, I'll probably be making more Tetris moves, plus my counterpart is out so I'll be getting all the emails.

Afterwards, we have a game, which was moved from last night due to headaches. (not mine for once--I had one, but I was okay to play. But 3 others had migraines. The game is a Monster of the Week game that was delayed from NYE due to the cold of doom. It's about a bunch of monster hunters being called in to protect the Gävlebocken. They will quickly find that things are not what they're expecting and may face tough choices. I'm looking forward to it.

I'm still pissed that this cold wiped out one my heaviest weekends of games. Stupid thing. It's almost gone now, thankfully.

One cool thing! Jess and I looked at the cast of the Rocky Horror on Broadway in NYC and decided that we had to go. We're going at the end of the run, on 6/20 with a friend. I am very excited about my Broadway forays. I need to add things to my countdown app, so that I'll be able to see how close it is and get excited. Seriously, the cast looks fucking amazing.

Tomorrow, we have nothing planned, which is nice. Maybe we'll go out and get lunch or something. Mostly, I plan to be a lump, though. Unless I decide to cook. We'll see. We have a game on Sunday, but it's at 5:30, so I'd have time to play during the day.

This literally made me lol. Long and short of it is that ghost played the Kia Center in Orlando and the next night, the Orlando Magic got just decimeated in their next game. Immediatly some yahoo on the internet begins blaming Ghost for cursing his team with their Satanic powers. It was great. Sadly, not satire, but the internet's reaction is hilarous.

Okay, time for me to maybe take a bath and get ready for work. Everyone have a stellar Friday!

It's Wendnesday morning and today is going to be a better day than yesterday!

Actually, yesterday wasn't horrible, just frustrating. First up, my sister went to get her car out for work, and couldn't. She's stuck half in and half out of the spot. Jess went out to help her clean up, but even with them pushing, it would go nowhere. I tried again at lunchtime, and still no luck.

Work was fine. I did a lot of filling in slots and wheeling and dealing to make room for other things. Mostly I was successful, so I was actually pretty pleased with myself.

In the morning, I put a message out for someone to help us dig our cars out. And a guy answered, so I gave him the info and we agreed on a price. Needless to say, he no-showed and has ghosted me. I think my sister got the number of a dude who one of the BIL's family used, so we'll try him this morning.

Then, since I was unable to get the car out, I Ubered over to the pharmacy to get my inhalers. And the pharmacy was closed. No clue why. Just locked up and no one there. I'll have to call them today and hope that they're open, otherwise I will need to call the doctor and beg them to switch my meds to another pharmacy, because I am down very low on my rescue inhaler. This of course, will mean that they won't have my new prescription in, because they had to order it, and they weren't there to receive it, apparently. I'm beginning to panic about how low I am on albuterol. It's really not great, especially seeing that I still have a bit of a cough. Hopefully, they're in today and I can just take an uber over on my lunch break to pick it up if the cars haven't been dug out.

Like I said, hopefully today will be less frustrating, and hopefully, our cars are freed tonight so I can run to the dispensary. I'm also out of my sleepy pills, though I used Jess' relaxing mints, and those work really well, possibly better than the ones crafted for sleep.

Work will either be really quiet or it'll pick up today. We'll see which it is. If nothing else, it's payday and that's exciting. All of my overtime comes in on today's check, so that'll be lovely. It looks like it's about $300 extra. Definitely will have to think on what I want to with it. Definitely a nice lunch or dinner this weekend, but something else as well.

They're talking about a possible snow this weekend as well. Probably not like this, but some. We'll see how the forecast goes. Right now, its only a 40% chance. Hopefully, it stays the hell away.

We're now down to 99 days til the cruise! Double digits!

Okay, time for me to get myself together. Everyone have a lovely Wednesday!

(I can dream of springtime at least.) The great Weather Event is over for the weekend! We got about 11" of snow and sleet, but we kept power!

I was moderately productive yesterday. After I hopped off here, I made Cinnamon rolls. They weren't the best ones I've ever made, but they weren't horrible, either. The icing, as usual, pulled it through. Then, I relaxed, then I cooked dinner.

All the other things I thought we might do like watching media just didn't happen. Instead, I had a nice quiet day and relaxed. Then later in the day, I picked up my Kindle and started working on the first of the Fourth Wing series. Is it wish fulfillment? 100%. Is it a bad book? Nope, it's not. It's an easy book to read. The protagonist is definitely a chosen one archetype and because it's a female character who gets to be the specialist of the special, People shit on it. I spent a couple of hours just reading, which is rare. Normally, my ADHD will let me read something for a little while, and then move on. This was at least 2 hours worth. Apparently, it's going to be a tv series, so I guess I need to work through the books before that comes out.

Towards the afternoon, I got a text from my boss asking if I would be able to come in at 7:30am, so that we have a little more coverage. Today is going to be 100% hell. Everyone is going to cancel, and they're going to be pissed that we don't have openings next week for them. We have a thousand or more patients scheuled today, and I'm betting that all of them call this morning. I of course, agreed. My alarm is set at 5, and I'm usually up before it. Starting at 7:30 is no big deal.

We tried to take Yoda out into the weather twice. Both times, he stopped, turned around and noped his little ass back inside. The second time, I wasn't sorry about it. I was having trouble staying upright. The snow was all powder and it shifted weirdly when you stepped into it. He has pee and poop pads inside, so he'll have to work with that.

We'll try again when maintenance shovels the walk this morning. I know they were trying to keep up yesterday, but it was just coming down too fast. They'll have to work on it this morning and see what they can do. I'm so grateful that I don't have to do it. There have definitely been some adjustments living in the apartment, but this is one of those things that makes me happy.

For dinner we had a lovely roast from our stash from Evensong Farm. Good lord, that was ridiculously tasty. Not sure what I'm going to have tonight. I told my boss that I would be happy to stay late if needed, so I don't know what time I'll be finishing up, so it needs to be something simple. I will think on it.

I am very tired this morning. I didn't sleep well, and then a cat kicked me awake at 4:15. I'm currently having difficulty keeping my eyes open, but coffee will fix that, I hope.

I think that nexxt weekend we are gameless on Saturday and a late game on Sunday. I could bake again. I would very much like to make bagels again. I might try making an egg bagel for a change. They're my favorite.

I have one game this week, on Thursday and then there's one that poisontaster is running on Sunday.

It's less than usual, but it'll give me time to bake if I feel up to it.

Oh, speaking of which, I needed my inhalers refilled, so I set up a virtual appt with a PA for yesterday. She was lovely, called in both so I can pick them up today or tomorrow, depending on when we get plowed. But then I coughed, and she asked how long that had been going on. I said 37 days, and she was like "Yeah, I'm giving you Doxycycline, too. I think you may have a sinus infection that's making it drag out." So I guess I'll be taking that once we make it to the pharmacy. It's just kind of a WTF, since only the last two people I've talked to actually did anything useful. I saw two doctors, who only gave me steroids. I saw a nurse practitioner who gave me codeine cough syrup, which was very useful and then I had this PA who was actually concerned for me. The difference is pretty stark. Both doctors basically patted me on the head and acted like I was crazy for coming in. The NP was very nice and told me to check back if it hadn't resolved. We decieded to wait on a chest xray, because I didn't feel like it was in my lungs. The PA was so sweet. I wasn't even there for that. I just happened to cough, because that's what I do right now. And she zeroed in to see what she could do to help me. Y'know, the way medicine should be.

I'm bracing for the onslaught we're going to have at work today. It's going to be bugfuck, and we all know it. And patients are not going to understand why we can't "work them in" later this week or next week. The plan was for us to open at 10am, but I don't think that's happening. And even if it does, most people are going to cancel. Of course, if we do close, there's bound to be some asshole who is like "I can get there in my Hummer, what do you mean you're not open?!?"

In short, I need to wear my patience pants. My patience pants are fleece lined leggings. I broke them out yesterday to take Yoda out, and wore them the whole day. They're very nice and snuggly and I love them. I immediately went on Torrid and ordered a few pairs more for Jess, my sister and me.

Okay, time for me to get myself ready for work, and maybe finish Fourth Wing before I have to start. I've only got 14% left. I should be able to get through that in an hour. Everyone have an exceptional Monday!