CON.TXT

Another Friday in the books--but I had to fight for it, let me tell you.

Work was almost entirely stuff for the new job. I waa barely on the phone. First up, I got to go into the trashfire's appointment from yesterday and see how many errors she'd made. It showed two things that needed to be updated, and five appointments that needed to be moved, including a particularly egregious one that was at an outpatient center, for a patient who had verbally abused the staff at a different outpatient center that the cops had to be called. Pt's with behavioral issues go to the hospital where we have security. The outpatient centers may have an aging security guard, but lets be real: In a real emergency they're going to do no good. I sent her an email about that one. I wanted a paper trail. Patient care alerts or FYIs are in red on the left of the pt chart, and on the right side of the chart is the reason for it, also in bold letters. I sent her an email to fix it. I get the feeling I want documentation that I've spoken with her, just in case it tries to bite me in the ass.

Soon after, it was the manager's meeting/bitchfest. The trashfire was the topic of discussion for much of it. This time I was more involved, presenting the stats for her errors (12% of her calls have errors of varying seriousness.) The managers were not pleased by this. There was discussion of if there was a specific type of scan that screws her up, and I had to admit that while MRI's lead the list, it's in every modality.

Much discussion about what to do with her. It's decided that the trainer will shadow her a couple of days, and that I (who me?) will also shadow her a couple/few days. This will occur after the Top two managers and her manager confir on Monday. It should be interesting.

Then there was discussion of my job, and that they were granted the two new positions, but not to backfill my role. As a result, I'm on the phones sometimes. They're going to announce soon, I get the feeling that they're trying to figure out how to do it tactfully, since they didn't advertise the job, basically just installed me into it. I also learned that the last time I had applied, I was second choice. If the other person hadn't accepted, I'd have gotten the job. That's fine, I got it now. There was a little bit more discussion that I don't remember, but I did make notes.

Then, I took a turn watching the help channel in teams. It was mostly not busy, though towards the end of the hour, the questions were coming from multiple people at once. I hadn't done it since I had applied for the first job, and I was suprrised how much easier it was this time. I only needed to look up one thing, and I was right about what I was going to say. I guess I did need that extra 15 months for seasoning.

Finally, I grabbed my lunch break and relaxed after taking doggo on his walk. Then, back to my desk and 12 new emails. Good lord. The rest of the time was filling appointment and checking emails.

I got a message from the pacemaker person. This ballsy motherfucker called their cardiologist on vacation (!!!!) and got him to write the order for his MRI. So now I need to shuffle two patients to make a hole for us to get them in on 4/20. I hardly ever say this, but that poor doctor. I now understand why the office told me "We're very familiar with This patient."

I finished up the day with a coworker pinging me on teams to see if I had a scrip for sending a mychart message to a patient. (Of course I fucking do.) Any new message I write, I keep a document of. It makes live easier. One of my bilingual coworkers is helping me translate to Spanish as well. Eventually, I plan to put it out there as a resource.

I will bring that up in the chat on Monday.

Finally, I finished work and sat down for a half hour before we dealt with dinner. I had put on the ribs at 3:30, so by 5:30 they were tender. The carrots were taking forever to cook, so instead we had salad with them, and then nibbled ont he carrots later.

I wanted game snacks, so I ordered dumplings from NiHao, which came 40 minutes into the game, but they were so worth it. I got Crystal Shrimp dumplings, which are so delicious and tender, Soup dumplings which were brimming with tasty pork soup, gyoza, which are a favorite. Last, I ordred Peking Duck eggrolls which come with a plum sauce to dip. Good lord, I love those things. I could eat just them. I also have scallion and egg rice for breakfast, which should be yummy. I need my friends to come down here so I can take them for Dim Sum at NiHao.

The game was a lot of fun. They reached the Forgotten prince, who gave them a hell of a fight and took down one of the players before being curbstomped. It was a good fight and everyone seemed to have fun. And the rogue critted on a vorpal sword attack, which was hilarious. and a fitting end to the arc. Now, armed and ready, they will prepare to take on Tiamat. Fortunately, our next game isn't for three months (We switched it around so the player that had to leave for school can play. So Saturdays will be chaotic for a while on the old calendar. I need that time to code in a handful of characters. I'm going to need stats for the handmaidens. then I need to pull dragon character sheets. Then, I need to code in Tiamat. She's a five headed dragon, and for her, each head needs it's own character sheet and initiative. It's going to be bonkers.

It should be a lot of fun. I'm looking forward to it. Also ready to finish the game. It's been an amazing five years, and I love these characters, but I've run out of things to do with them. They've fought just about everything the D&D world had to throw at them. It's time.

This was session 92. It would not surprise me if the game lasts to 100 sessions. They still have some work to get into hell, and then a gauntlet to run before they get to the big, big bad. The ultimate enemy for the end of a five year campaign.

Today should be fun. I've got a few errands to do, and then I shall relax. I've only got one pack of my sleepy pills, so it's time to put in a big order at the dispensary, since they acrually have them in. This will carry me through til Canada (Where I sadly cannot take it.) So that's good.

I'm waiting on my new carry on bag that will join my backpack as my personal item. It's not supposed to come until Wednesday. I want to start packing the stuff I can, dammit. I'm ready for this trip. I realized that I was not going to be able to carry any clothes in the backpack when you factored in medicine, including Mounjaro in a case of some sort to protect it, plus electronics. (Laptop, Kindle and all the accompanying cords) plus sound machine. And my purse is relatively small. So now, I'll have the laptop bag, and then the other bag as a personal item, with my purse inside. I think it'll work.

Tomorrow, I also have very little to do. I'm going to take a coupld of hours to help one of my players code a homebrew subclass into Roll20, and then I'm going to guide her and Jess through a role play of their characters meeting, so that they will know each other before the adventure starts. They're both starting in prison, so it makes sense for them to be acquainted.

Anyhow, time for me to consider pants and maybe breakfast. Everyone have an amazing Saturday!

If you asked me why I'm awake at 3:30 in the morning, I think my body would just shrug. It was a confluence of needing to go to the bathroom at 2, but being too cozy, the cat yelling and my traitorous body deciding why the fuck not. It's going to be a long damn day either way.

Work was fairly busy again yesterday, with me spending a lot of time on the phones. I did some wheeling and dealing to get some people in, but it was somewhat frustrating, because for every one that said yes, at least one other said no. I understand work and childcare and all of that, but when your doctor says STAT, I'd at least like you to try to see if you could work it out before you say no. In some cases I worked hard to get you those spots at the locations you said you could do. Ugh, people. So annoying sometimes.

Towards the end of the day, our order came from the Punjabi Market and Halal Butcher. I got a bunch of meat for Yoda's meals as well as some quinoa and other snackies. I got a mix of meats, including chicken, chicken legs, chicken gizzards, ground goat and some goat meat for stewing.

I started with the goat stew meat. It had bones, seeming to ne mostly the cast off pieces, so into the pot it went to make a mild broth. Once that had cooked for 2 hours, I got the goat out and let it cool and threw in butternut squash. Later, when the goat had cooled enough to get the bones out, I deboned and threw it back into the pot along with some frozen green beans. Let them stew for a little while, until the squash was soft, and scooped some out to cool for his dinner, hoping against hope that he would like goat.

Turns out, he really likes goat meat. Which is good, since we have two more trays of meat.

Today, I shall wash out the pan and throw in some chicken legs and some gizzards to boil up a broth. Then, I don't know. Maybe some more squash, maybe some brown rice. We'll see on what veggies we want to add as well.

The goat was great, but next time, I need to get more of it. The bones ate up a lot of the weight, so it only made two meals.

The chicken I have a lot of, so I'm going to make a lot, and put it in little tupperwares in the fridge and freezer. I'm thinking about getting one of those vacuum bag sealers to make fairly flat packages that won't take up so much room, especially for vacation. They can just be frozen until they're ready to be used. I never thought that I would have Opinions about dog food and vacuum seals, but hey. Life comes at you fast. Sometimes your elderly dog gets sick, and you'll do anything to prevent it happening again.

Today, I shall write a bit more of Marchen, since I'm up early. I realized that I need to work on the character's introduction, write a little vignette to bring them into the game. I felt like it gave each character a little time to shine right at the beginning, and it gave the other players tantalizing backstory tidbits. My group is all nervous about the intros, but I promised them that I had them. I will set the scene and guide them through it. All they have to do is answer my questions the way the character would, and relax and have a conversation. I've got them. I find that it's more immersive and that it gives the setting a lived in feeling as well as giving the players a chance to roleplay the character before the story starts, so they get a feel for them.

Then, after the final introduction is done, then I shall bring them all together, and the story shall begin.

That's in 24 days now. I still have plenty of time to finish it up and be ready. I already have enough for probably 5 sessions or so, maybe more. I'm going to strip out some of what I wrote, because I was writing for a mysterious person who might want to buy and run my module, and that was hard. So now, I'm just writing in my style. Setup, possible outcomes, and let the players decide what will happen.

The plan is to have all the nations set up, so that the players can choose where they want to go. Some scenarios might be punching above their weight class, so they'll need to pick carefully. During the set up, I will definitely be mentioning which rulers are the more volatile ones, so hopefully, they'll know to avoid them.

I got the cutest little outfit from Torrid last night. I had gotten the skirt, but it was huge. Apparently my upper and lower are two sizes, the lower is a size smaller. This time, I got it in the right sizes, and added the matching top.



I even have a studded belt I can add if I so desire. It looked fun and I think I'll enjoy wearing it. I would like to get a pair of combat boots to wear with it, but we'll see. I've been having trouble finding boots that fit.

I also got some plain square neck jersey dresses that are super cute, but not so fancy you can't wear them anywhere. I like them with tennis shoes and biker shorts or leggings underneath to avoid chubrub.



Also, OMG, they have pockets!

Speaking of things I bought, I just bought an additional carry on that will count as a personal item. I'll stow my backpack above the seat, which will have most of my medications, some clothes in case of delayed luggage, and other stuff I'm not likely to need during the flight. The person case will contain the stuff I might need/that's too important to stow like medications I might need during the flight. My Mounjaro, which I don't need to get pushed around or crammed in with other bags, some ibuprofen, tylenol, benadryl, antacids, and anti anxiety meds.

Today, I shall hopefully not be on the phones quite as much. I'd love to work on the cardiac folder to see if I can start shrinking that down, but we've just been too busy.

I'm off this weekend, so we'll have to do something on Saturday. We have game on Sunday, helping one of the Marchen players to set up her entirely homebrew subclass character sheet and introducing her character to Jess' character since they're going to be starting in the same prison.

I have no idea what to do on Saturday. It's supposed to be sunny, but cool, so possibly not outside. Probably will just be lunch and relaxing. Maybe I'll go to the non-halal butcher and see what lean cuts of pork they have for Yoda and get my emissions testing done. That could be good and adult-like. I could also pick up my prizes from the quarter auction.

I have 14 days til I start school, and 42 days until we leave for the cruise. I'm slowly starting to get things in order for that. I think I have my clothes figured out. It's just a matter of packing them. But for that, I need to know the temperatures we're looking at and the weather. SO far, it's still butfucking cold in Alaska, so hopefully the temps go up a little in the next month. I keep looking at the sites to see if I can print out our boarding passes yet, or if I can chose our meal for the flight. Nothing yet. Probably a couple of weeks before, but hope springs eternal.

Okay, time to hop off and do some work on Marchen. I'd like to get the introductions written today.
Everyone have a lovey Thursday! Or Friday Eve, however you like to look at it!

It's hump day! We're almost at the halfway point! Work has been kind of draggy this week. I've been spending a lot of time on the phone, and it is not making me happy. There are other things to do, and it's been difficult to get any of them done. I could have made some moves and gotten a couple more patients in, but there just hasn't been time. I've had to release a bunch of holds I have because I haven't had time to look to see if any of them are movable. I can't wait til we have this batch of new people and the next trained, so maybe it takes some pressure off the phones coworkers, and I can do more actual work.

I did get some time to do other things in the am, and some of the m worked out, So that was good. And a couple during. I got to deal with the pt who had been bounced around because people don't necessarily understand that there are documents as they relate to combo MRIs and MRAS. Especially MRAs. Theres's a handy document about Cardiac MRIS and then MRAs. Because some MRAs have toe be done together. Like the Loey Diets Protocol. It's five separate MRAs that should be like 3hours total. But when you add them, they become a protocol that cane be done in 60 minutes. (Tbf, even our other PAS3s don't always get this one. I know it because I've spent plenty of time with the Cardiac document, but People schedule it all over the place. So I fixed that, spicy patient and all.

Yesterday morning, after I finished my journal, I went and wrote a bit on the new campaign, Marchen. By the time I had to go get ready for work, I had 929 words out. The number annoyed me, so at lunch I wrote more, topping out for the day at 1229. I was much more pleased with that number. It's moved them through two countries, so I am pleased. I feel like I'm set up well to have the campaign writen or at least the majority fleshed out. I certainly have worked on the fly in the past if they break the campaign, or if some random villian will prompt their ire, leading to a new chapter about going to deal with them.

Even if I didn't write anything more until after we started playing, I'd be fine.

I offered the musical introduction for the player characters in Marchen, and the players jumped on it. I've got two out of the four already, plus the music I'm using in my lead in. I'm about to upload the player's intro. The two I've gotten already are very interesting. Totally different feels to them. One is the Dishonored soundtrack, which is cool, in a dark, moody sort of way.



And then Jess sent me a band I've not heard of, with a track that was wistful and maybe a little regretful.



I on the other hand was not so original, and picked May it Be from Lord of the Rings (So cliche!) as performed by the 2Cellos.



I honestly cannot wait for this campaign to start. I'm hoping it's a lot of fun and that the small clues I'm dropping will make it a fulfilling mystery.

In other news, the vacation is now 43 days away. It's very exciting! I'm still nervous about Yoda, but I'm going to be positive, and believe that this is going to go well. I've started looking at the app more closely, looking at the deck plans, so I will know where I'm going when the time comes. I feel like I need to know the most about everything, so I can make the vacation smooth for us.

As usual, I want this to be the best vacation possible. I want it to be perfect for the people I'm draging along in my wake, my Travel Prince(ss). They have an itinerary that I printed out and nothing else. I may let them carry their boarding pass, but that's about it. They can have their boarding pass for the flight once we go to the airport and print them all out from my phone, where they live. Our car service's info? In my phone. The hotels? In my phone. Our Excursions are all in my phone as well.

Mind you, while we're in Vancouver? That free day is entirely up to them. They can tag along with Jess and I, or they can do there own thing. And once we're on the boat, they can do whatever they would like.

Okay, time for me to work on Marchen and maybe take a nice shower. Everyone have a most wonderful Wednesday!

Title ripped from David Crosby's Hero, which I remembered while pondering songs for the Fairytale capaign. (It's totally Jess' Paladin, Dalton's entire steeze.

As I'm writing and the lands are taking shape, it's been interesting to see how things are changing from where I started them. I'm sure it'll continue to to shape itself. This morning, it ocuured to me that the thing I did for Crooked Moon, I could do for Marchen. I had already planned to give the characters introduction scenes, but I could also put out the call for the character's theme song.

It's the song that plays over the introduction scene. They can use the music to further set the scene and to give the overal vibe for the character. One of our Crooked Moon players was introduced just before his entrance to his final UFC fight. She chose Blink 182's Blur-Song 2 for the intro, set up to hit the moment the character walked into the arena.

Players had so much fun with it, and I really felt like it helped to personalize the intro even further, to help the player really get a feel for their character. You write it up, and you have an idea, but then you realize that the "Perfect Song" you found speaks to a slightly different character. Maybe you change it, maybe you change the character? It's up to the player.

I really enjoyed it, and I hope my players in this group will too.

Yesterday was not bad. I was on the phones for the morning, then in the afternoon, I was mostly doing the new job. I got the dubious honor of checking all of that coworker's appointments. Fortunately, it seems like she's really slow, and only makes between 10-20 appointments per day, so I was able to whip through them. I got them done and was condsidering getting back on the phone when J hit me up to fix a cardiac opening. I did that, and another day sprung a cardiac opening. And it was a day where the appts could be Tetris-ed into a better formation that would allow us to get in a pt who got kinda fucked over by poor scheduling. It was a 90minute cardiac slot., which is a bitch to find. The pt was scheduled in May. But I got a cancellation, and was able to shift things around for the pt, and had her moved up to this coming Monday. Not half bad.

I was really sore yesterday, so we just had KFC for dinner. It wasn't bad, but not great either. My tender wrap was pretty okay, but the potato wedges were nasty. Ah well. They can't all be Reindeer Games. (This is another idiom shorthand that we picked up from a shitty movie, and still use to this day. In this case, it's from Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. We are just full of these stupid quotes, and almost no one will understand them.)

While we waited for dinner, I made Jess watch half an hour of the 1987 live action He-Man movie, Masters of the Universe with Dolph Lungren and Frank Langella. It's actually far worse that I remembered, which is saying something.

I went to bed early, since I had trouble sleeping the night before. Fortunately last night was better.

Today, we shall work and get our pay slip. I won't get the actual money til tomorrow, but tonight at 3-4:30pm, I'll know how much it'll be. Probably not a ton. I don't think I worked any OT this paycheck, and it's still at the old rate. The one I'm looking forward to seeing is the 4/8 paycheck. That'll have the new rate, plus one day of OT. It should look lovely.

I made Yoda a pile of food on Sunday. Boiled the chicken, added vegetables and healthy rice. It made enough for 7 meals. Which should work out well. I planned to make two kinds of meals for him each week, so we can alternate which we give him.

It's going to be a lot of work, but I'll feel better knowing that he's got good food that will help his stomach. I even bought a food scale so that I can measure his portions out exactly. He's going to eat better than us. Though while I'm at it, I may try prep our dinners as much as I can. I'd like to use door dash less.

With the total clusterfuck that is our government, I'm debating on moving the ride to the car back an hour just to be sure we don't miss our flight. They're saying that in BWI, security is taking 2 hours. They open at 4 am, so if we go then, we should get through pretty quickly. That of course, will mean leaving at 3:30am, which would suck, but I am not letting anything fuck up this vacation.

I really have no idea what I'll be working on today. My counterpart, Jo, is in today, so I won't need to make a ton of calls. That's literally her only job, calling people back, so we send them all to her. She's only reliably here from M-W. Thursday, sometimes, Friday never. She's also an elderly lady who's been with Hopkins for like 50 years, so I can see why they've minimized the work she needs to do.

But we'll play it by ear. Also tomorrow, I can put in my request for the last of my vacation days! It won't cover the Monday after we get back. I won't have that time til close to the trip, but if need be, I can call out sick that day. I've got the SSL leave for it. We get in at 7pm thanks to the time change, and I am certainly not going to be going in at 8am on Monday. They'll be lucky if I stumble in Tuesday morning.

Okay, time to do a bit more writing in Marchen. I've only got about 3 1/2 weeks to get at least the first teir done. I do need to also have a little something for the RP two of the Marchen players want to do of their characters' first meeting. Everyone have the best Tuesday!