Ever wonder what I'm talking about when I say 'I'm looking forward to the game this weekend'?

(Head's up, it's not football or any other sport). Here's an overview of how to set up a character in Call of Cthulhu and a little bit about the game itself.  I've been playing one continuous campaign for 32 years now (okay, we have a little extra umph in our concept rather than just ordinary people with guns who die or go mad quickly). I've enjoyed that immensely. This game really gave me a good sense of interacting with other people and having fun all at the same time. And this video is well done.

Well, I screwed up

Apparently, I really thought I'd transcribed the notes from the last Cthulhu game, and that we didn't actually play last Sunday when we did. I guess it's understandable as we've been sick and Brenda had to go out of state one weekend, but really! And we were at a point we could have maybe finished the Elizabethan adventure we're in right now. Oh, well. Instead, we're watching 'The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina' and 'Perfect Harmony'. I'll get the notes back on track, but needless to say, I'm embarrassed, although with my memory I'm surprised I didn't do this earlier. I was telling the gamemaster that I didn't have to do the notes, and he didn't say anything, mainly because I tend to get annoyed at him for reminding me of my bad memory. Sigh. Okay, he's on a phone call but it sounds like he'll be back in a moment, and we'll continue watching, so I should go. Just wanted to check in and vent about my lapse.

Well, we did survive the adventure, even the mummy who was killed by a Spawnling of Hastur

because everything was in a dimensional time marble, and it all reset, basically, so the people who had died horribly, or gone mad and eaten their comrades or grass or died of hydrophobia, all lived.  We found out that out time traveller (who is modelled somewhat after Doctor Who) also 'regenerates', or more properly, another 'her' is pulled from another dimension into this one, with different appearance or personality. We received our rewards, rolled our checks, and have one last leg of the campaign, which is supposed to be even harder.  The whole thing has been about distraction and misdirection, something our game master is an expert at.  We've seen two avatars of Hastur and have lived to tell the tale.  Let's hope we can make it three, or at least prevent the third.  This is all out of the Call of Cthulhu book 'Ripples from Carcosa', published by Chaosium.  There are three adventures: one in Rome in 80 CE (shortly after Mt Vesuvius erupted), Norman England, and the 22nd-century future.  The first adventure is 'Adventus Regis' ('The Coming of the King').  The second is 'Herald of the Yellow King'.  I don't know about the third yet; that shall wait till next week or, more likely, after, assuming we actually complete the adventure hale and sane.

Our Call of Cthulhu game is a little unusual.  For one thing, ours is an ongoing campaign and has been running in real time weekly or so since July of 1991.  In game terms, we started at the same point and are in July 2012 currently.  Our characters have undergone multiple transitions and transformations, saved the world countless times, lived, died, had children, gone mad--all within that timeframe, going forward in an interactive and ongoing story.  In it we are trained martial artists and weapons masters (and mistresses) living in Arkham, Massachusetts right outside of town (we kind of got kicked out of the town itself, after several incidences, from the dreaded pizza boy incident (let's just say we do carry-out now) to the gas explosion that was really a super genius child building an interdimensional transporter in a microwave.   It includes aspects of horror, science fiction, mystery fiction with occasional forays into westerns or even romance.  The game master has incorporated several systems into our game.  While Call of Cthulhu, by Chaosium, is the basis, he has also converted things from Witchcraft, RIFTS, The World of Darkness, GURPS, Nightbane, Star Wars (the roleplaying game), Ars Magica, and Hârn, to name a few.  This has made it very rich, indeed.

Over time there have been several players, lots of characters (my original one is actually on this mission, and I rolled her up that fateful day in 1991), and it's all been done around a table with dice, paper, and pencil and a lot of actual roleplaying (not dungeon-crawling, or shoot-em-ups, or stuff like you find in so-called computer 'roleplaying' games).  Nor is it live-action roleplaying (LARPing), where you actually act out the story, although I had a guy in a hair salon tell me otherwise, that that term is being used to refer to old-style roleplaying vs. computer games.

So anyway, it was an enjoyable game.  We all got some action in (Brenda's male character did a lot, as he was the guy, and well, it was Norman England, so the women spent their times mostly sewing until everything hit the fan, and then there was swordplay.  His female character nearly died from a blizzard, only to be torn apart by a Spawnling of Hastur, but she got better.  So all in all, we did well.  Let's hope the last leg works out, too.

Good night!

Hope you have an absolutely happy and safe New Year!

We're three hours away from 2018 here.  Brenda has left after much mayhem, first by playing the Harry Dresden Cooperative Card Game that she got for Christmas, and then in the Call of Cthulhu game, where we are back in about 1080 CE trying to prevent the King in Yellow from bringing He Who Shall Not Be Named (no, not Voldemort) from arriving from Carcosa.  I'm afraid we're probably going to lose characters before this is all over, and the timeline may be changed for the worse.

YKWIA is either playing or listening to a game on the computer, I suspect Mah Jongg, given the Asian tones playing, and I've lit a candle and am in my room on the computer, using my phone hotspot. The lavender scent is lovely.  I'm considering breaking out some blackberry mead I have in the refrigerator for the New Year, although I rarely drink.  But I had quite a bit of fruit at the game and some herb bread I made for us earlier today, and that might not be the best way to finish off a high-carbohydrate day when you have diabetes.  So we'll see.

Anyway, I hope you have a lovely New Year's Eve, and I hope to be writing more in 2018.  I think I'm going to listen to some music now and relax.  I've cleaned, made bread, played the game (although I didn't actually do anything except have a foreboding feeling--Brenda's character is male, so he's out dealing with cannibalistic cultists and my characters are in the kitchen and trying to embroider.  But I'd say there will be time very soon when I'll be slinging a sword and trying to prevent the end of the game world, too.   But I'm a little tired, I must admit.  Good night.

There is a very good chance

That I will lose a character next time we play the game (next week is right before the move, so I may need that Sunday for last-minute packing). Both Brenda and I have characters hanging in the balance, both infected by a mad scientist who took the only vaccine, with no known cure. The scientist was killed by ghouls after we unmasked him as a horrible serial killer and mad anatomist, but the damage is done. Magic is possible, but we don't have the time or materials needed for such a large spell. I came up with a possible solution after Brenda left, which the game master is considering, but even if it's iffy. I think the best we can hope for is to save Brenda's character. The scientist used a spell to nearly destroy my character's heart before infecting her, so she's not likely to be saved. But Brenda's might be. And he has kids and a wife who's going to be really passed if we let him die. Mine is unmarried and started out as a shallow princess (literally--she's a Savoy), but who's grown over the years. She's not my favourite, but I am rather fond of her. If she dies, it'll be the second killed of in less than two months, and the fourth in 26 years.

I'm not sure

that I've ever gone this long without blogging, except maybe when I first started this blog. I'm sorry. I've mostly been working. The other night I was at the emergency room for hours with a friend (who is okay, but it was important to go), and I tried to write there since I had my computer with me and they supposedly had free WiFi, but it wouldn't save my post, let me listen to Pandora, or was in any way helpful in helping me pass the time, and my phone was dying, and neither using their charging station nor plugging directly into a wall outlet using the stock charger seemed to work, as at the most it would go up 1% after several minutes. It was rather frustrating. The next day I was a little late to work, but my boss understood, as she'd been in the ER with her father the other day and had come in late herself. Despite being very tired I worked very hard and maintained a level of perkiness suitable for dealing with the public, although it was hard, and then went and got my friend some groceries. I was so tired that I could barely drive, and came home and went straight to bed. Yesterday was slower at work, and I was still pretty tired, but I managed to get through it, go home, and I went to bed early again, sleeping till almost eleven this morning. I got up, got a shower, and went to the library to work on the game notes for about three hours, then went and got my hair cut (it really needed it; I hadn't had it cut since the end of March), and then came home and relaxed for a bit before returning to the notes for another three hours or so. But they're finished. We are, as far as I know, playing tomorrow, now that we've recovered (mostly--coughing is still bad for both of us) from the plague, so I wanted to get those done. I did want to work on the house some, as well, especially the books, but it's 9 pm now. It's taken so long because there was a lot of investigation. Anyway, that's ready for tomorrow. I need to desperately do my laundry tomorrow over there as well, as I didn't do so last weekend, and I'm down to almost nothing (or at least comfy underwear, which I consider essential). I'm looking forward to playing, though. We are currently playing an adventure that is set in Glasgow, Scotland, so I'm learning a lot about its history, including that of Saint Mungo, the patron saint (whose Celtic name was Kentigern). I know a little bit about Kentigern, or at least the name, from The Battlefield Band's song 'The Dear Green Place'



Mungo is known for four miracles which are portrayed on the city of Glasgow's heraldic shield. From Wikipedia:

• The Bird — Mungo restored life to a robin, that had been killed by some of his classmates.
• The Tree — Mungo had been left in charge of a fire in Saint Serf's monastery. He fell asleep and the fire went out. Taking a hazel branch, he restarted the fire.
• The Bell — the bell is thought to have been brought by Mungo from Rome. It was said to have been used in services and to mourn the deceased. The original bell no longer exists, and a replacement, created in the 1640s, is now on display in Glasgow.
• The Fish — refers to the story about Queen Languoreth of Strathclyde who was suspected of infidelity by her husband. King Riderch demanded to see her ring, which he claimed she had given to her lover. In reality, the King had thrown it into the River Clyde. Faced with execution she appealed for help to Mungo, who ordered a messenger to catch a fish in the river. On opening the fish, the ring was miraculously found inside, which allowed the Queen to clear her name. (This story may be confused with an almost identical one concerning King Maelgwn of Gwynedd and Saint Asaph.)

I'll give you resurrection and the spontaneous creation of fire, and the fish, of course, but we're still trying to figure out how bringing a bell from Rome constitutes a miracle. There must be more to the story, surely. Anyone with information, feel free to comment with that.

Okay, I think I'll get up and stretch a bit, as I've been typing at the computer for far too long. I will try to blog more. In the meantime, if I don't write again tonight, have a good evening, and a great weekend.

With much effort

after being in bed almost all day except for occasional foraging for food, I got up and showered, got on some comfortable yet clean clothes, and went over to YKWIA's for a small shopping list and went to the store so we'd both have food while we fight off this cold. He is not happy I brought a plague into the house. Also, we called Brenda and told her about the plague. She's having some sinus issues, but we're actually contagious, I think and feel crappy, so he called off the game. Brenda has a possible conflict next week so we won't play for two. We've generally been consistent, with just a few hiatuses. This week actually marks the 26th anniversary of the weekly Call of Cthulhu game that we've been playing continuously. It's an interactive story that just has kept going on. We've been raising kids, fighting Cthulhoid monsters, surviving attacks from warlocks and witch hunters, occasionally going mad, that sort of thing. The kids are actually the toughest part. I do love the game. I am, however, not going to do the game notes tonight. I'm going back to bed for awhile. I'm so tired.

So it's been a difficult few days

Lots of stress, lots of little things, lots of running around, lots of phone calls. I won't go into all of it, but suffice to say most of it it financial, and things should get better in the next few days, and in the meantime I'm moving heaven and earth trying not to overdraw my bank account.

And, although the game was very good Sunday, and it was a particularly difficult adventure that the game master really had to rework, I lost a character. Now most of you who roleplay do short bouts of adventures, with a dungeon crawl here, or a single story, and then things happen and sometimes your character gets killed, and you roll up another and go on. But when you play an ongoing story, in which the characters take on life, for nearly twenty-six years, you get a little attached to them, and it kind of bums you out for a day or two. In all the time I've been playing Call of Cthulhu, I've lost three characters. One was stomped on by Shub-Niggurath and became toe-jam, just two months after she had a baby. The second was a guy who sacrificed himself in Antarctica to save the world (and a beloved non-player character), and I felt very good about that one, really, and hadn't been playing him very long at all. This one I've played for about 5-7 years; she had a baby 10 months ago in game time, and was killed by being cooked from the inside out when she missed her saving throw by none other than Nyarlathotep himself. I suppose I should be honoured by the fact that I've had characters killed mainly by major manifestations, but it still hurts. Also, the woman's husband had to be killed because he was turning into a Cthulhoid thing (and he was already a necromancer), just mere hours before her death. So the child is an orphan, though fortunately the family curse was thwarted, and he will not be doomed for all time.

You've got to love Lovecraftian roleplaying.

On the good side, I had no less than three characters on this adventure, and one was my very first character--the one I've been playing for 26 years or so--the one who usually survives by going insane, getting pregnant--she actually spent two game years inside Yog-Sothoth. If that's not devotion to avoiding death and mayhem, I don't know what is.

In this one adventure--'The Burning Stars'--we had seven characters (two for Brenda, three for me, and two non-player characters). Two went insane, two died, one barely survived having her heart squeezed by a spell by Nyarlathotep, and one was left standing to hike back into Port-au-Prince (we were in Haiti) to find help. That was the one who'd been around all these years, and she had an interesting discussion with Nyarly (as we call him) where she was basically tired and mourning and wasn't up to being terribly afraid of him. Of course, she should be.

So I was down a little yesterday, kind of glum, actually. Today I feel better. Of course, I also had my rehab today and did lots of exercise, worked harder than I had, did my breathing exercises, and wound up pushing myself into the beginning of an asthma attack, so I had to use my inhaler. But things are improving on that front. I'm still holding at about 7 lbs short of where I was a month ago and 16 lbs short of my all-time high. So it's helping with that, as well.

Okay, I think I will go do some things around the house. I need to call in the air conditioner and our bimonthly pest control visit is Thursday, and those dishes aren't going to wash themselves (more's the pity).

Considering

I've had a total of about eight hours' sleep since Friday morning, I think I'm doing pretty well. Insomnia set in Friday, as I was pumped up on too much soda caffeine. Then A had to get wake-up calls at 6:30 am yesterday and today, rides to work at 8 am, and a ride from work on Saturday at 1 am (and tonight it will be midnight). So I've really only gotten about five hours last night and three Saturday during the day.

We have been playing a particularly creepy adventure in our Cthulhu game where the main character was an unreliable narrator who lost a total of 82 sanity points in one adventure, and was hallucinating people and acting out their personalities and accents, and he wound up beating himself up with a rock when all hell broke loose. Meanwhile, my character, who was not in on most of the investigation, wound up having to:

1. take out the cultists,
2. take out the priest-cultist,
3. seal the talisman that summoned the flying polyp of doom (which had caused the above sanity loss) with an Elder Sign,
4. get my comrades out of pods of goo in pools,
5. wake folks up,
6. put Brenda's crazy character in stasis, and
7. retrieve the item that will stop an avatar of Nyarlathotep [and it makes me happy that Chrome can prompt me to spell Nyarlathotep correctly] from rising.

Kudos to the game master, who had us questioning the reality of our own presences and also for taking an adventure where technically everyone is dead and re-writing it so we could survive great danger.

I think I'm going to take my contacts out, turn Pandora on in the bedroom, and try to rest before A calls me for the midnight pickup. Tomorrow I'm going to go over to YKWIA's and help him go through some things, then take him to a doctor's appointment. But I would like to get some proper rest tonight, to be honest. Let's hope I can, anyway. I had less caffeine this time, at least, and I'll try to limit screen time for the rest of the night, limiting it to the alarm clock.

Good night.

Usually

when I go to pick up A on weekend nights, I'm half asleep, but I got some rest this evening, and I'm perky and awake, and it's almost 2 am now. I've taken my various night meds, brushed my teeth, flossed, and rinsed my mouth (that's one of the things I have to do with my asthma medicine, rinse my mouth), I've put some Neosporin on the cat bite after washing it again, and generally I've done all the other stuff to get ready for bed. I'm sitting here listening to some music and contemplating going to sleep for the night. I want to get up fairly early and get my laundry together tomorrow, as well as take the trash out and even make breakfast, if I can get going then. I've some eggs and milk, and some pancake mix. That sounds really tasty. Then it's over to my friends' house and my Sunday duties and my laundry to do. We may watch something, too. Next week we end our hiatus from the game and start that back up, which I'm very excited about. This month marks the 25th anniversary of the start of our campaign. Yes, really, we've been playing the same Call of Cthulhu game since July 1991; our characters have come and gone, some have children, that sort of thing. I still have my original character, mainly because she has been insane, pregnant, recovering from a physical injury, or stuck in Yog Sothoth for periods of time. Her son is a scary mad genius of sorts, and he's twelve. When he was three or four, he opened a dimensional portal in the kitchen microwave. It's been a challenge. Here's the cast of my characters:

1. Rosalind Marie McVey--former linguistics graduate student at Miskatonic University who was a founding member of our group after her first Cthulhoid experience and training. Was put into a crystal room in a lost city in the desert, where her latent telepathy woke up and she was able to communicate with Cthonians and other Mythos creatures. A former colleague who had gone to the side of evil impregnated her and put her back into the room, making their unborn son incredibly smart, telepathic, and oh, yeah, having almost emotionless intellect with little regard for others. At one point, Rosalind was captured by the government, which augmented her telepathic gifts and used her as a weapon. Her Mythos knowledge got very high; her comrades were able to save here, but it took a lot of regular knowledge out of her brain and damaged her gift, which is mainly just a connexion with her son these days. She is currently working at the Orne Library at Miskatonic University in Arkham, Massachusetts. Her brush with the government technically left her 'dead' in terms of identity, so she is living under an assumed name, Eileen Neila MacLeod.
2. Melissa Jane Andrews--physician who joined the group early on. Her father was a former American soldier; her mother was a British journalist. In her tenure in the group, her magical gift for necromancy woke up, and she had a transformation physically from someone who looked a bit like Scully from 'X-Files' to an Ancient Aegyptian with white hair and green eyes. She spent 65 million years in a Greater Race of Yith stasis pod on the moon, then travelled to the end of the time and into our present timeline. making her essentially immortal (although she can be killed). She cannot have children due to her status as a necromancer. She is currently in a magical order that is in a bubble of reality. She recently lost an eye in a mission. Her transformation was so difficult to explain, that she is living under a different name, Alexandria Mereneith Amentiri. (The last name I temporarily forgot,  then remembered it was derived from a name for the ancient Aegyptian Underworld.) 
3. Miranda Amelia Wainscott--her great uncle and she lived in a sprawling mansion outside Arkham, Massachusetts. Unknown to her, he was a cultist related to the Whateleys of Dunwich. He killed her parents and tried to sacrifice her at age 16, but it went terribly wrong because she wasn't actually a virgin. One a mission under the Atlantic, she went through a gate to another world full of water, where the people there changed her with various implants so she could survive under the sea. She returned, but had to be magically changed to be able to live in Earth's polluted oceans. She has three forms: her normal human form, a base aquatic form, and a silver battle form. She is currently in the magical order with Melissa. She has no children. Her house is now our headquarters. She is bisexual, but has had no children.
4. Sara Rashel Baum--an archaeologist who was born in Israel. She was seduced by a mystical creature, had a son, and died two months later by being stepped on by Shub Niggurath, becoming toe jam. Her tagline was 'You can get stepped on by a Dark Young of Shub Niggurath and live.' Unfortunately, the Mother with a Thousand Young herself was too much for her. Her child is being raised by other characters, and will turn into the same sort of creature as his father when he's older, becoming a life force vampire of sorts.
5. Ariana Sofia Krios--an electric engineer from California of Greek descent, she is now in the magic order studying as a Hermetic mage. She is of Witchblood, but never knew it--but has an affinity for air and water magic. She is a lesbian who has not had children.
6. Carolyn (Carol) Kathleen Reardon Grant--probably my favourite right now. She is a nurse who worked with Doctors Without Borders in Bosnia during the war there. She is a Witch in a coven with some other members of the group, apparently a late bloomer in her family. She has a daughter by an English lord who was possessed by one of the mystical creatures akin to Sara's lover. As a result, her daughter is very intelligent. She is currently pregnant by one of her comrades, who is an elemental mage. The children have their father's elemental magic, each with two of the elements, and are already demonstrating the gift in the womb.
7. Therese (Tessa) Celine Cavaillion--an artist from Quebec who is very much 'the good girl'. She was a novice in a convent but left to experience the world, and wound up having a Cthulhoid experience. She has some healing ability and a mysterious 'friend' who shows up occasionally to have her do certain things. She has a high will but seems to never be able to resist vampires, faeries, or anything like that. She married one of the other characters, and was pregnant with their daughter, but they went to the Everglades, battled alligator men, and she was injected with a mad scientist's serum, which caused the child to have augmented body-shaping ability (an extension of the biokenesis in Tessa's family) but also made her 'download' various aspects of Tessa's personality, splitting her into several discrete personalities, able to change form for each until that gift was turned off psychically. One of the personalities is male, one is an alligator creature, and one is totally sociopathic and is terribly dangerous. When she was two, she drove a screwdriver into a character's eye, partially blinding him. She is now in a mental hospital where she occasionally tries to get out and is very rough with the staff. The father was killed by a Dimensional Shambler in the future on the moon. Tessa has another child by a mobster (long story, let's say magic was involved), who's pretty much normal, and is raising her quietly in Newton, Massachusetts. She ran afoul of the mystical creatures that Sara was involved with, some of whom basically killed most of her family off, so she's had a lot of death and tragedy in her life.
8. Celeste Malfalda du Mornay--raised as the daughter of an opera singer (who was one of the Savoy family, the former rulers of Italy) and a French industrialist (who was killed in a car bomb when she was young), Celeste is actually the daughter of an English lord whose family figures prominently in our game (several of Brenda's characters are members of that family). Celeste was kicked out of several boarding schools and is an unlikely operative, but she is doing pretty well. She lives in Arkham, Massachusetts with her Bichon Frise, Abelard, and her nieces, who are blood magicians from another timeline, and a long suffering but well-paid maid. She has a small precognitive gift. She is bisexual, with no children.
9. Joshua (Josh) Ethan Adler--my only male character. He was somewhat telepathic He survived a plane crash only to save the world by manoevering himself into a position where the Elder Things would not recognise him as sentient and so they had him killed by a Shoggath and his head put on a machine that keeps a horrible Mythos creature at bay. Note that the two characters I had that were Jewish both died. Josh was a photojournalist; the one other photojournalist in the game (the father of Rosalind's son) died horribly as well, after going mad. So Josh was doubly-cursed, apparently. But his death was very good in the sense that it saved a non-player character I am very fond of, and also saved the world. I love a good martyrdom.
10. Alexandra (Alix) Evelyn Bishop Rhodes--a former socialite and soldier who is married to a necromancer. They have a newborn son who was fated to suffer his family curse upon his father's death, but she had Carol's mother, a Witch, potentially solve that problem. She is mildly telepathic and a recovering alcoholic. She has a lot of trouble around magic of all kinds, and it tends to screw her over a lot. She lost an eye, which was replaced by an NPC with future technology. She is unhappy with her husband's familiar, which is an undead cat that has magically been transformed to look alive, which hates psychics of any sort--but who tolerates her based on her husband's commands, and who would protect their child with every ounce of her undead might, but it does make getting a nanny problematic.

Am I forgetting anyone? I don't think so--I did almost forget Alix. That's eight children, total [Tristan, Jason, Lia, Kaia, Claire, Nathan, Aiden, and Eden], if you count the two on the way, I think. That's the character list for me, in a nutshell. Taken together,  they incorporate much of my personality and interests.  Anyway, I'm looking forward to going back to the game. I'm curious as to how Carol's twins will turn out. She just survived a warlock attack. Hopefully there won't be any more for awhile.

I miss the game

We're on a hiatus right now due to some stuff that's going on, and I find I'm missing my weekly foray into a world of eldritch horrors, witches, vampires, faeries, cultists, magicians, and yes, even children. At the beginning of July, if we do start back by then, we'll have completed 25 years of playing a single, continuous campaign of Call of Cthulhu. It's what I do for fun, week in and week out, rolling dice, making check marks on my skills, and conquering everything from Nyarlothotep's evil minions and Shub Niggurath's cultists to kids that are faerie princesses or can change into animals. (Really, the cultists and eldritch horrors are easier than the kids. Give me tentacles! I can wield a sword against them with no trouble. Parenting, even fictional children, is far more scary.)

I got home from the game while it was still light outside

which is almost unheard of. I enjoyed the game--downtime this time, but with getting so little sleep last night, I'm ready to get some rest. I've been researching pregnancy a bit for the game, as I have a character who is pregnant with twins. She's fifteen weeks along (I thought it was thirteen, but gestation is dated from the last period, not from the date of conception, I found out.) One of them is female, the other is male (it's too early to tell by mundane means, but magic is a totally different thing, and after all, this is a horror/sci-fi/fantasy sort of game. And apparently there is active magic going on with the babies already, even though they haven't been born, so it looks like we'll have a couple more special kids in the game, to join the ranks of fairy princesses and shapeshifters.)

Before we played, as I was doing my normal game preparations, I also did my laundry, which had piled up for two weeks rather than the regular one, so that's good. I'd taken the sheers over there to be evaluated, and he liked them. so I washed those, too. I think one rod will work, but the other window will need a different one, as my bigger window rod doesn't collapse down far enough. So today was productive over there. I'd like to do a bit around here--I still need to take out the trash and recyclables, for example, and tomorrow isn't good because I'll probably be there late due to an appointment. But I'm already in my sleep shirt, and I'm pretty comfy and don't want to put regular clothes back on to take that out. But I've got my alarm already set for 6 am, so I might be able to take care of it in the morning.

I've been home almost an hour, listening to Pandora again (this time it's the OneRepublic channel, so stuff like them, Imagine Dragons, The Fray, and Maroon V). I've got the windows up, the fan going in the living room, and I have one small light on. With it getting dark outside, there's not much light in here, and I'm getting pretty sleepy. I really don't want to go to bed yet--I'd like to make it to 10 pm. I also need to go looking for one of my medicines--I accidentally put it in a bag of meds rather than my bookbag, and put another one in there instead. So I didn't have it today. I also need to go ahead and take my Lantus so I can keep on track with my injectible medication schedule as well. I just checked my Habitica tasks--I apparently forgot to mark my dailies off yesterday, even though I did them, which is unfortunate, as I lost hit points for my avatar. But I've marked things off for tonight, anyway. I was also sure to wish a co-worker happy birthday today on Facebook. She and her family went to the Louisville Zoo today. :)

Okay, I think I'm going to go in-between and instead of going to bed, which would necessitate closing the windows, I'll prop myself back on the couch recliner. But I'll sign off for now. Good night.

Heaven help me, I fell asleep doing the notes

at the climax, no less, when one of Brenda's characters had shot an Elder Thing that was opening a time portal to our time from the Jurassic era and when we went to retrieve the tools that were creating the portal, the sight of six shoggoths barrelling down upon us caused her other character (who'd had previous experience with the horrors) to go mad. He was knocked out, thrown over a shoulder, the objects were retrieved, and we ran like mad back to our time machine.

I love the Cthulhu game. But I did fall asleep in my chair for just about three minutes, and had to go back and listen again. Now the notes are finished. I think it took about three hours, and we only played for about four. I'm going to go take a nap, then get up and get some stuff done around here. The late afternoon sun is streaming in the windows and making me sleepy, I think. :)

Home from 'Grimm'

which I enjoyed. I came home and closed the blinds, and fished a part of my windchime that is usually in the window that a fellow player gave me years ago off the couch. It had had slipped off its ring when the guy took it down to put the blinds in. I got that back on, got the chime back up, and went outside to see how it looked to have the blinds down. Wow. If I wanted, I could dance naked in my living room and no one outside would know. For years I've had open curtains (still there) with sheers up, so technically naked dancing could be risky. :)

Tomorrow I'm going to try to get my driver's licence, as there is an office across town open in the morning on the third Saturday of the month. Fortunately the state finally sent me my refund (all $26 of it), so I can give it back to them in the form of payment for my ID and then have enough over for maybe a drink and a breakfast biscuit at McDonald's. :)

After that I need to take someone somewhere while having a come-to-Jesus meeting as well. What I have is an almost uncontrollable urge to smack the person, but instead I will be the adult and talk instead.

After that, I have no plans. I could come back home and work on the house (and the game notes--I've been a bit distracted this week). Or a friend and I could do something fun, maybe. I don't know. We'll see. But it's not a day crammed with plans like a normal Saturday, and that's great. I don't know yet if we're playing the Cthulhu game on Sunday; I'm assuming we are, and need to finish the notes, therefore. But I don't know for sure.

Okay, my phone is telling me it's bedtime. I'll write tomorrow. Hope your week went well, and here's to a happy weekend.

I don't normally blog on Sundays

Mainly because that is the day I play Call of Cthulhu,  and it's an all day thing,  between cleaning and playing and a few things afterwards,  usually from about 9 am to 10ish pm,  and actual play time is about 5-6 hours.

We had a good adventure tonight,  a time-traveling one involving shoggoths and Elder Things, along with dinosaurs. It was fun.  Six shoggoths coming towards him made one of Brenda's characters go mad temporarily (it would most people--Google 'shoggoth' if you're curious,  especially images),  but at least it was after we kept them from rampaging into the town of Arkham through a time gate.  Since there's not much we can do about shoggoths,  we picked him up and just ran for our lives,  getting back to the time machine and getting out of there. We dropped him off somewhere he could get help,  and hopefully we'll return to Massachusetts in 2011 forthwith. (The time machine,  like the Doctor's TARDIS, is a bit sketchy at times,  and we were on the Titanic briefly about two hours before it met the iceberg at one point.)

After the game,  I made YKWIA some fish and rice and we watched a great episode of 'Ugly Betty',  I helped him find something which was unfortunately accidentally placed in the trash and taken outside,  but was undamaged and contains one of my character's family tree along with their psychic gifts,  so I was happy to root through a bag for it.

Now I'm home,  happy,  content,  and in bed., ready for the workweek. Hope your weekend went well.  Tomorrow should be warmer (in the 70s, as opposed to 50s). Yay!  I may wear a skirt.  I'll check to see how windy it will be,  though.  :)  Good night.

So the game is on hiatus for a bit

mostly for the month of January. The last thing we did was have several characters celebrate Beltane, and the gamemaster rolled and one of my characters is pregnant. Tonight he had me roll on a pregnancy table, and lo!, it's twins, a boy and a girl. I'd already had a boy's name (Aiden). Now I have to come up with a girl's name. Of course, this is why I own several baby name books. I'm thinking of Fiona. The mother is mostly Irish in background; the father is Vietnamese. It should be an interesting turn of events. That character is one mission short of going up a level; looks like it will now be awhile. I try not to take the pregnant characters out on missions given what happened to one poor woman in the Everglades. (Let's just say Alligator Men and evil mad scientists working with a variant of the Herbert West serum do not go well together when you go on your honeymoon and you're six months pregnant.) That's the fun thing about Call of Cthulhu--anything goes when it comes to the horror factor, and anyone is fair game for sanity loss.

Pooped

Each Sunday, we play a dice-and-paper role-playing game, Call of Cthulhu, which is based off of HP H P Lovecraft's horror fiction of the 1920s and 1930s. We have been playing most weekends since 1991. Really. Same story line. Our characters have kids now. "_Each Sunday, we play a dice-and-paper role-playing game, Call of Cthulhu, which is based off of HP H P Lovecraft's horror fiction of the 1920s and 1930s. We have been playing most weekends since 1991. Really. Same story line. Our characters have kids now. :) But I'm glad we cancelled today because frankly I needed to rest after doing Thanksgiving yesterday. Thank goodness for four-day weekends. How on earth do you people do Black Friday after cooking and eating on Thanksgiving? I don't get it. smile emoticon I had no energy, ached all over, and was just blah all day as I recuperated. But the food and companionship was worth it. But I'm glad we cancelled today because frankly I needed to rest after doing Thanksgiving yesterday. Thank goodness for four-day weekends. How on earth do you people do Black Friday after cooking and eating on Thanksgiving? I don't get it. :) I had no energy, ached all over, and was just blah all day as I recuperated. But the food and companionship was worth it.

This year's Thanksgiving menu:
• Bleu Cheese Gougères
• Pumpkin Soup
• Quorn Turk'y Roast (fake vegetarian turkey made from fungous)
• Braised Brussels Sprouts, Chestnuts, and Pearl Onions (this is what I accidentally put white wine into, but was very good nonetheless)
• Butternut Squash Tian with Herbed Breadcrumbs
• Mashed Potatoes
• Green Beans with Shallots and Garlic
• Rolls
• Chickpea and Cucumber Salad with Cumin
• Pumpkin Pie

It was scaled back from previous years, but it still kicked my butt. I cooked under direction, but did all the prep work, stirring, etc. The real cook, who was directing everything, wasn't up to much more than overseeing and putting a spice or two in to taste. Even A was put to work, and he peeled two pounds of pearl onions, just about. I peeled 10 lbs of potatoes, and peeled and slice two butternut squash--easier than kabocha, but still, it's amazing my arms work today, especially with the stirring. But it was fun, it was great, and my mistake was okay and I think it came out really well. But I'm going to go to bed early and hopefully tomorrow will be less painful and more productive. Good night!

Happy Halloween/Samhain!

I'm home a little later than I planned (I was hoping to start Library of Souls) because we watched The Abominable Doctor Phibes, a Vincent Price movie from 1971 that I saw in the late '70s in school. I've celebrated Halloween, but haven't really done so for Samhain yet. So I've lit incense and many candles and I'm listening to Loreena McKennitt. I have some wine for an offering that I'll give about midnight. All in all, even though this week was crazy and there was so much to do (and I'm still not caught up at work), it was a good week, with lots of Halloween fun, a friend's birthday, and now today having some rest and relaxation with friends. We are playing the game tomorrow, so that should be fun, too. The game notes were finished days ago, so I'm in good shape there. I can't believe it's almost November. The Chicago trip will be here before you know it.

Anyway, I hope you have a great holiday, and are having a completely decent weekend. It's a busy one here in Lexington--we had the Breeder's Cup at Keeneland yesterday and today, and American Pharaoh (see post for 2 November 2015 about the name American PHAROAH) completely nailed the Classic, which is to be his last start before retiring to stud. A and I watched it, and it was breathtaking. The horse at one point, once his lead was assured, seemed to be running just for the pure joy of doing so, rather than to win. I have some mixed feelings about horse racing, but it was still exhilarating to watch.

Not sure where this originated

but it is quite funny.



Okay, I'm going to bed now--morning comes early. I wish I had time to read Library of Souls, as YKWIA got enthralled and finished it the very same night he started reading it. I can't take that chance just now, but I definitely hope to do some reading this weekend. According to him, Ransom Riggs did an excellent job with bringing everything together with a multitude of revelations--I am so wanting to stay up and read now, but I've been up since 5:45 am and I have to get up about then tomorrow, as well. Tomorrow should be very, very busy, as I'll be playing catch up on several fronts, and then 'Grimm' premieres tomorrow night. But Saturday I have got to put aside some time to read Library of Souls. At least I'm good as far as game notes. We should be playing Call of Cthulhu Sunday. :) (And you know, it makes me happy that the Chrome browser spell check actually recognises and knows how to spell 'Cthulhu'.) :) Good night!

It is 3:30 on a particularly gorgeous autumn Sunday afternoon

and I am unexpectedly at home, as Brenda called earlier and couldn't play the game due to being sick. So I've opened the windows (even the bedroom one, which took a screwdriver, but that should be fixed this week, as I finally had them put in a work order when I paid my rent Friday). The sun (which we haven't seen in days) is streaming through to the plants, and there is a light breeze. I am eating some of the string cheese I brought for the game. So far today I have:

1. Done my laundry.
2. Worked my way through my Sunday cleaning list at my friends' house.
3. Gotten two back rubs from a friend who was thankful for my help with cleaning and knew my back was bothering me.
4. Listened to my friend's Ella Fitzgerald albums.
5. Checked dogs over for any issues after they got into it over food (which I missed, thankfully)--now they're being separated till they cool off. These two have never fought before and one is very submissive, so it was a surprise, although of course any dog can go off it it feels another is encroaching on its food. They're normally separated for that reason, to opposite ends of the room, and unfortunately one butted into the other's space. But they seem to have relatively minor injuries, thankfully. It doesn't help that they're both terriers, which means they become absolutely focused, even berserk, when riled.
6. Watched a little 'Golden Girls' with a friend. My God, I really am Rose, and that is absolutely terrifying. I would probably be the smartest person in St Olaf, but I'd still fit in.
7. Worked on a friend's feet and back, which were bothering him, and fixed him food, not in that order.

On the agenda for the rest of the day:

1. A nap. Yes, definitely.
2. Listening to some '80s alternative music on Pandora.
3. Reading some more of Hollow City--I only have three days left on my checkout.
4. Watching something fun either on DVD or Netflix. [It was Galaxy Quest. What a fun movie to watch again. 'Never give up, never surrender!']
5. Watering the plants, inside and out.
6. Putting some more water in the fish tanks (before they get low).

Notice I haven't mentioned cleaning in awhile--I've kept the house neat and orderly since the last real cleaning push. I've washed dishes and taken out trash as needed, the latter even during the rain, as well as kept the bathroom neat and cleaned it when needed. I've made my bed every day for the last two-and-a-half weeks. So I'm building better habits, at least for now.