DC-Slash

It's Monday again, and I am girding my loins. With the snow last weekend, we were super quiet last week with plenty of cancellations. Today, the kids may go back to school for the first time since January 22. I mean, there's two weekends in there, so it's just a week, but still. I have doubts about them going back even now. There's some streets that are just not well plowed. But if the kids do go back, our lines are going to be very busy.

I think I'm going to have to take the antibiotics the doctor game me. I'm hesitating because I'm afraid of being allergic to them. I've never taken Doxycycline, but it makes me nervous. I'm allergic to Sulf to the tune of hives, but I'm allergic to cefaclor in a deadly way. I stand by the fact that I should have been hospitalized when I had the anaphylaxtic reaction, but my doctor thought he could manage it with steroids and antihistamines. I didn't die, which is a bonus, but every single night for weeks, I had serious reactions where I'd have trouble breathing. And my mom gamely gave me the inhaler, and benadryl. It was terrifying and I don't want to do it again.

And I don't have an epipen. I may send a message to my doctor and ask for one.

I was going to just butch it out, but I've had a 3 day headache, and my cough seems to picking up again. So, I'll consider it.

I spent a good chunk of the weekend napping. Saturday, I slept for a couple of hours, Sunday, i was back in there dozing. I was just really sleepy. After Saturday's adventure, we stuck at home on Friday and orderd delivery. First one was from Mucho Gusto in Towson. The fajitas were excellent, as was the chips and guac and Elote. Very tasty. They forgot our tortillas, but I didn't really care as long as we had the chips.

Dinner was L&L Hawaian BBQ, wich was kind of a mixed bag. My loco moco was okay. The burger was very dry, and even the gravy and egg yolk couldn't save it. My sister's looked pretty good, I think she ate all of it, so that's something. Jess' ribs were fucking amazing. Korean style Galbi beef ribs. They were tender and delicous. My favorite thing, though was the Spam Musubi. It was just rice, teriyaki BBQ sauce and a slice of spam with a strip of seaweed holding it together.

I created and have been moderating a Facebook page for our upcoming cruise. It started out just me, then slowly enlarged. It's had a lot of growth since then and now we're up to 50 members! I just put up a poll to see if people want to meet up either the night before we board or on the ship. I'm hoping that maybe I can find someone I like who would want to come with on our whale watching, since we still have two slots open in the private tour.

I've got an in person doctors appointment at 4:30pm today to get my psych meds. He only makes me come in the office once every 6mo-a year, so I can't really bitch. I think I'll send that request for an epi pen so I can pick up everything all at once at the pharmacy.

After work I have to see what I want to do with with sirloin steat tips. I'm thinking some beef in a nice sauce with a side of pasta. The tough part is: what sauce. I'm thinking maybe a gorgonzola, or alternately using the Boursin that's been in the fridge for a bit. That would probably make a tasty rich sauce. Especially if I chop up some onions and cook them down a bit add garlic, and then add the gorganzola to melt, and then finish it off with a bit of milk for smoothness. It might be good.

I'll need to get some gorganzola. Oooh, or a feta pesto. I will think on it. I'll probably use the boursin, since I don't need to order it.

Next weekend is a big game weekend. We've got no less than 4 games going, three of which I'm running. They're all modules, so not as much prep. Then, the one I'm not DMing is our high roleplay game, so I need to be on point for that, too.

It'll be a lot, but we'll manage. At least I don't have a Saturday until Valentine's Day. My sister and BIL are going out for a concert with their favorite blues artist, so we'll be home for Valentine's day, ordering from somewhere nice.

We're probably going to have our Valentine's date on Friday the 13th or Sunday the 15th. I'm okay with that. My sister also deserves to get to go out, and Vanessa Collier was only there on the 14th. I'm wondering if anyone is available on one of those nights to play something. Especially the 14th. We're going to be up dogsitting late anyway...

Okay, time for me to go forth and get my ass in gear. Everyone have an awesome Monday!

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!