And then, there's a bearded fetus.

Following the theme...



Yesterday, I followed my plan of ducking out of work at noon. During four hours, I took 24 calls Over the 17 that everyone else has been doing. I also filled not one, but four cardiac CTs, and a pacemaker MRI spot. In short, I busted my ass.

After I finished, I ran up to Sam's club and got 4lbs of butter and some spinach and some other stuff. I desperately needed the butter to make the loaded potato soup.

I relaxed for a while in the afternoon, and we finished season 1 of Reacher. It was deeply satisfying, and I enjoyed it immensely. Next up, Daredevil, episodes one and two. I'm already spoiled for one deeply traumatic event near the beginning, so I'm ready to face the show.

I'll probably wait to watch season 2 of Reacher, because of the weeklong Amazon blackout starting tomorrow. I'm going go do my damndest not to use them, but it's tough. I've never used any of the other music services, so that's going to be difficult. I guess I'll just have to listen to the radio.

After/during Reacher, I got to work on our soup, first sautéing bacon, and then onions and garlic. Then we added the flour and butter and made a lovely roux. Next up, milk and chicken broth. Then seasoning. It had no where near enough flavor, so I added two big dollops of Sam's Club Chicken broth, which bumped it up a bit. It simmered for an hour, and then, I turned it off until my sister got home. There was also a sourdough loaf that they referred to as a "bread bowl". I don't know who that would be a breadbowl for. It could have held half the damn pot of soup. It made nice slices to dip in the soup though. It turned out pretty well, and topped with a bit of cheese and bacon, it was lovely. Recipe below.

https://www.budgetbytes.com/loaded-potato-soup/

Tonight it's leftover pork roast, and some sort of vegetable. Then tomorrow, I'm going to make some spinach feta pasta. I'm debating on whether to slice up a chicken breast and add it into the pasta for a little more protein or if the feta will be enough.

I have the weekend off--no work and only 1 game that I'm running and 1 that I'm playing in.

We had a fun game of Blades in the Dark last night. I introduced a couple of plot lines, for future games, and they're on their way to finishing the current heist.

Okay, time to go forth and grab a shower. I'm feeling icky and itchy, which means it's probably been a couple of days. In the winter, I try to do every third day to give my skin a break, but if I go over, my body lets me know. Everyone have an amazing Thursday!

Going for a little Indigo Girls today. Will it be them all week? Maybe!

I am very sleepy today. I had a little panic attack at midnight and was up for an hour or so. I mean, the state of the world is very panic attack worthy, but I wish my brain would do this while I'm awake, instead of the middle of the night.

Yesterday was psycho at work. I had multiple appointments to fill, while also juggling the incoming phones. I ended up taking 54 calls, so I didn't do too badly. Today will probably be more of the same. I know I've got a cardiac CT to fill at our Columbia office. Columbia and Bethesda are just a clusterfuck to get into for any specialty test. Of course, they're also the ones most likely to get big cancellations. Not necessarily any of the big ticket items, but MRIs drop like a stone.

Right now, I'm desperately trying to get in a kid for a brain MRI sooner than the end of the month. I don't think it's going to happen, since there's only two sites that can do that study, and it has to be done during nursing hours, so basically, I need someone to cancel in prime time. It's not likely, but I'll keep watching.

I haven't been to Starbucks in forever due to boycott, but it looks like they might be discontinuing my beloved white chocolate mocha, and that makes me sad. I'd get it at half the amount of white chocolate, and it was perfect, and not horrible for me. If I paired it with egg bites, my carbs would be within limits for a diabetic breakfast.

My sister got a call from the Dad's OG IRA, asking if we had filled out some paperwork. We explained that with moving we hadn't gotten the forms. She mentioned probate, and the woman was very confused, since the account had beneficiaries. We were under the impression that there were no beneficiaries, and that the paperwork we'd filled out was invalid, because dad died within 30days of it. She's looking into it. If it turns out that the paperwork is good, I'm going to bitchslap someone. I'd already planned on pulling out all but 20k, but now I'm tempted to pull out all of it and invest myself. I know I'd take a penalty, but it would be worth it not to deal with these assholes again.

Happy Mardi Gras! We're going to have pancakes and bacon tonight, so that'll be good. I'm looking forward to it. Yesterday was bacon wrapped pork tenderloin and roasted beets and carrots-nothing fancy, but tasty none the less. There was plenty of leftovers of the tenderloin, so I'll probably make something out of that for tomorrow. Maybe add a little gochujang to it. (I'll add gochujang to anything, honestly.)

Okay, time to go forth and get myself together. Everyone have a wonderful Tuesday!

I swear, this dog is driving me crazy. His new thing is that he has a couple of treats in the morning before Jess gets up, and then he demands walkies from me. It's fucking cold this morning, and I did not enjoy it. Yoda was fucking thrilled. He saw a squirrel, but alas, I wouldn't let him chase it.

Today, aside from laundry and one run to pick up a couple other groceries is going to be a slow day. With Fat Tuesday this week, we really wanted a king cake, so I will go forth and fetch that. Jess has their final exam for her classes, and they're really anxious about it. I know they're going to do just fine, but I understand the worry.

Yesterday, I made Beef Bourguignon. I completely forgot to take any pictures of the prep or finished product, but it turned out pretty well. Maybe not exactly how the French do it, but it tasted amazing ladled over the mashed potatoes. The recipe was a little fussy, but not horrible. Most of the time was spent in the oven. It was 100% worth the slight fussiness, as it tasted so good. Rich sauce, plenty of pearl onions. But goddamn, it was filling. One plate was 100% enough. I'd planned to use my roll to sop up some of the sauce, but I couldn't even stuff that in. It was just too much.

I don't know which nationality I'm going to use for my next big meal. Something fun, maybe. Tonight is going to be something simple, with sautéed kale with bacon and garlic as the side. Maybe some rice as well. It'll be an early dinner, since Jess and I have a game at 5:30pm.

I could make more mashed potatoes, but my shoulder needs a break from mashing.

We're going to try to fit a viewing of Glass Onion into there, because my sister hasn't seen either movie. We made her watch the first one yesterday, and she definitely wants to see #2.

Okay, time to get a bra on to go get the king cake. Everyone have a stupendous Sunday!

Apparently, I'm on a bit of a Green Day kick with my subject lines. Go figure. Maybe I'll start making each week the week of a particular band. Maybe not. It's 5:30am, I'm not that decisive.

I slept a little better last night, so that was good. I'm still achy as fuck from the firmer mattress, but at least I slept. That will bode well for D&D tonight, as I might possibly be upright for the whole boss battle. They're fighting an aspect of a dragon goddess, which is a bit challenging. She just healed herself to full after taking a shit ton of damage, and is looking at strategies. They banished her pit fiend, so it might be time to use another phone a friend and go for a BIG friend. A large portion of the party has counterspell, so a lot of what she's been doing has been just noped out, so it's time to bring a non spellcaster into the mix. I mean, technically, the being I'm bringing in is also a spellcaster, but she also comes with a big fuck off sword and has a grudge against he party, since the last thing they said to her was "go fetch." FAFO at it's finest.

Tonight, my sister shall return from Boston, and I get my own bed and my own cat back. I'm looking forward to it.

Hopefully, things will be easier at work today. Yesterday everyone seemed to call on speakerphone/with a bad connection/mumble. I spent a lot of time going "can you spell your last name?" and "I'm sorry, I didn't catch that, our connection is not the best." It was annoying. Also, I had a TON of patients with tough problems or complicated situations. Cochlear implant for an MRI? Oookay. Need an appointment for a study that's only done at the hospital, but your insurance doesn't allow you to be scheduled at the hospital? Awesome. PET Scan, but the template hasn't been set up for your particular type of PET? *headdesk*. Okay, lets see what we can find out. I've got a couple of patients to call back today, who I've been trying to get in.

Tomorrow, I have a day gloriously off. I'm looking forward to this. Originally, I'd planned for us to go out for lunch, but financially, that isn't happening, so I'm going to use the day to make my beef bourguignon from Julia Child's recipe. I think it'll end up tasting amazing (I hope!). The recipe certainly looks good.

I don't think I have enough flour to make a loaf of bread, so I might see about ordering something. Oh wait, I ordered dinner rolls from the creamery. Scratch that, we're good. I will try to take pictures as I go to post.

I have another game tomorrow night, which is out of my twisted little brain. It's a game where the players are playing evil characters, sent by their bosses to thwart another evil group's plans for world domination. It's the second game of it's kind, since I had enough people for two sessions. The first one went really well, so we'll see how #2 goes. Then on Sunday, I'm playing in a game run by poisontaster where I play a dragonborn wizard. My god, at higher levels, wizards are terrifying. Irsu has 5th level spells. There's one, called Steel Wind Strike that is just hardcore. Five attacks on five targets doing an average of 30 points. It's so much fun. I feel bad last sessions, because it felt like because of it, I kind of made some of our combats easier than they were supposed to be, and then I had a scene with one of the NPCs that went longish, and I worry about main character syndrome. So I'll probably try to take more of a supporting role in our murder mystery portion. Unless there's combat. Then I'm going to fuck some shit up. Lol

Okay, time for me to get myself together for the day. Everyone have an amazing Friday!

This is one of my favorite Indigo Girls songs, but somehow I'd never watched the video. There's a thing near the end about living your life within 20 miles of where you were born, and that kind of stung. Because that's me. Aside from a few vacations, I've gone nowhere. And I'm afraid that in 30 years I'm going to look back and hate myself for it. Not a whole lot I can do about it, really. I've got obligations and I can't just walk away from them, but god, sometimes I want to just take Jess and the cat and run. Maybe one day.

I love my apartment, and I love the fact that I can snuggle in and be comfortable, but I'd also like something more. I don't know really what I want, but I do know that I want something.

I had my team meeting last night. My section went well. I decided that I did want to do a powerpoint, so I spent some time in the morning throwing that together. It was only a few slides, so it didn't take long at all to run through. It really wasn't anything that was earth shattering. Mostly housekeeping. It could 100% have been an email instead of a 2+ hour meeting.

That honestly was the majority of my day. Jess kindly made dinner, BBQ pork tenderloin and baked potatoes.

Today, I have a half day, so that I can take my sister to the airport for her flight to Boston. She's only there a couple of days, and will be back on Friday night. I'm a little worried about all the airline issues, but hopefully, she arrives safely.

This, of course, means I'll be sleeping in her bed for the next two nights with the dog. I usually don't sleep too well in that case, but we'll see. Hopefully, Yoda lets me get a little sleep.

On Friday, I have Frostmaiden, which should be fun, if I'm conscious for it, lol. Nah, I'll be fine. That's what coffee is for.

My sister has the news on, and I want to stab everyone who's talking. The Vyvanse hasn't kicked in yet, and I'm a little overstimulated. I am debating going and taking a shower. I think I will.

Everyone have a wonderful Wednesday!!

A little tired this morning, and for once it's not Boodle's fault. I had game last night, so I also had a lot of water, as I was also talking a great deal. And it had an inevitable effect. So I was up every couple of hours needing to run to the bathroom, and now I'm a little sleepy.

I need to sleep really well tonight and tomorrow, because I will be spending Wed and Thurs night sleeping with the dog in my sister's room as she takes her much delayed trip to Boston. I'm deeply concerned about her flying but hopefully, everything goes okay.

Yesterday was a very pleasant day. I ran up to Sam's club to grab my sister a cake and a bag of beef jerky and grabbed some piza and croissants. The club wasn't horribly busy, since we went as they opened. Then, it was back to eat some fairly good pizza.

After that, we relaxed, and started Jess on Reacher. They enjoyed it, and we got through five episodes. We shall work on finishing the first season over the next couple of days. Then, it'll be onto the next season.

After that, there was just enough time for dinner before our game started. It turned out to be a fun module, and I yet again killed my spouses character, for the second time. No one had revivify, so Jess had to sit out the final battle. They were playing the cleric, so they 100% could have healed themselves before that point, but they tend to neglect their own hp in favor of others. They seem to subscribe to the Ben Meredith "I have loads of hitpoints" school of thought.

After that, it was bedtime. Today, I have a half day of work, then will make some sort of chicken dish. I'm thinking something fiddly and French. My sister brought home some kale and 2 bunches of asparagus from their visit yesterday, so I'll have to decide which I want to cook. I'm leaning towards asparagus today, and kale tomorrow. On the other hand, I'm kind of excited about the kale. I want to look hard and find a way to make it tasty. (In the past, I have not been a big fan.

Okay, about time to get myself together. Everyone have the very best Monday!

An insanely catchy song for your Saturday morning! This is Ghost, who we're going to see in July. I am very much looking forward to it. For all their "Satanic Pope" shtick, they're just a really good band, with fun, catchy music. I think it'll be a good time.

Whoo, the cat was driving me crazy this morning. She laid on my shoulder (the bad one) most of the night, and it was hurting like a sonofabitch. So, when she came back at 5, I told her no, and pulled the covers up. She did not take it well, and proceeded to sing the song of her people for an hour straight until Jess and I gave up and crawled out of bed. I love her, but goddamn, she's making me go spare.,

Yesterday was a quiet day. I worked, which was pretty uneventful, and then I ran t,o Whole Foods to get a few things for dinner. Dinner was bbq bacon cheeseburgers (fancy) and fries. They were pretty tasty.

After dinner and taking the dog for a walk, Jess had the continuation of a game that started in October while I was at CONFab. After reading some tweets about it, I decided to watch Reacher.

So far, I'm enjoying it. I really like Alan Ritchson as a person, so I kind of want to support the show. It's 100% copaganda with the "few good cops" theme, but it's also got the Sherlock "This dude is smarter than the cops." All in all, fun watch so far. There's something satisfying about watching him beat the ever living hell out of assholes. So far, there's been a bit of fat shaming and a near prison rape, which was ended in a violent and satisfying way.

I've looked at "does the dog die" and found that season 2 has a dead dog, but it doesn't sound like it's shown onscreen, just the body.

So, I'll give it a shot. I'm almost 2 episodes in, and I'm definitely curious about Reacher's dark past and the conspiracy in small town Georgia.

Okay, time for me to have some breakfast and get myself together. Everyone have an excellent Saturday!

It's my day off. I "slept" an hour late, by a certain value of slept. Boodle was at her most operatic this morning, so mostly I was laying there listening to "mrrrow? Mrrow! Meow!" every couple of minutes from 5AM. Honestly, it was about what I'd expected.

Since I'm off, I may do a little cleaning, maybe a load of laundry. I want to vacuum the living room and hallway. Maybe freak Boodle out and vaccum the liter that she manages to kick on the floor despite the high walled litter box and litter mat.

I have a taste test at McCormick's at 11:45, taste testing a Dorito flavor. Damned if I remember what the flavor is, but I do remember that much. I've done this once before, and it went well, I filled out a survey on a tablet and went on my way with a $40 amazon gift card.

I'm a little headachey this morning, but nothing horrible. We're supposed to have a bit of snow showers starting this morning, so I'm 99% sure it's just that.

I see that they're talking about sending stimulus checks to everyone again. I'm not turning it down, but my god they're so stupid. I honestly cannot fathom how stupid this administration is. Stupid and malevolent. I hate it so much. I'm constantly low level anxious about what evil and petty shit is going to come out today.

I see the douchebag has declared himself king. That's awesome. Maybe we could convince Europe to invade us? That would be wonderful. Subsidised healthcare, socialism. Yay! the Scandanavian countries especially can invade. I would like a little bit of that hygge.

For now, I'm looking forward to little things. Like the Ghost concert in July! That'll be fun. And my D&D games. They're awesome.

I had my one year anniversary at Hopkins yesterday. They sent out an email and everyone congratulated me on making my first year. It was nice.

Okay, going to go grab a shower, so I don't stink for my taste test. Everyone have a super day!

There is not enough coffee in the world today. I just want to go back to bed for a little while. I slept pretty okay, except for the cat laying on my chest for like 4 hours. She didn't do anything except curl up in a cinnamon ball and sleep, but she's very warm. A little too warm, so I was kind of suffocating and not getting the best sleep. And now I am a bit sleepy.

This morning, I had to get up a little early to pee, and then wash her dish so that I could feed her. I could technically have gone back to bed for 30 min, but it didn't seem worth it.

Yesterday was fairly busy at work. I did 47 calls, even with the fact that the last hour I spent trying to find people to take a bunch of high value cancellations. We had no less than 7 cardiac CTs cancel over the span of the rest of the week. The problem is that most insurances require authorization, which can take up to 7 days. Each site does 3 of these a day, because they're so involved, so they're booked out into at least late March in the best site, and May in the busiest. They're also great moneymakers, so if we can fill them, we try to. I got six of the seven filled, and will get the two for Friday filled this morning. It just involves combing the schedule and finding someone who has Medicare or Blue Cross Federal, neither of which requires auth, and calling them.

After work, I cooked dinner. It wasn't hugely awesome, but it wasn't bad, either. It tasted good, even if my first sauce split. Tonight, it'll be a pork tenderloin and some mashed potatoes or turnips, not sure which. Or a mix. Maybe I'll toss some carrots with honey and butter, and bake them, too. A little salt, and a little chili powder will make them taste good.

My friend who got the job on my team is doing well in training and enjoying it, so that's good. Hopefully, she'll continue to like it as training goes on.

I'm looking forward to being able to chat with her more once she's on the job. I don't want to bug her too much during training, because it's a LOT of information.

I've picked up a couple of new books off of Smart Bitches Trashy Books that were actually on Kindle Unlimited, so I'm going to try reading those soon. I will report back if I'm able to get through any of them.

And on that note, I shall go forth and do my thing. Everyone have an excellent Tuesday!

...You're not my children; you're a bad game of Sims.. (sorry, had to get the second half of that lyric in there.)

I managed to sleep til 7:15, when a baby started yelling for food. That required taking out her plate and cleaning it, so after that, I was awake. Now I'm sitting here nibbling on a valentine's day cookie from the creamery and chugging my coffee. I was mildly productive this morning. I set up my MMR vaccine at CVS for next weekend, though if we finish the movie at a decent time, I might change it to this afternoon and just get it done. We'll see. Or I could do it on Wed night, since I have Thurs off for Yoda's vet appt. I know I want to get it done as soon as possible, just in case. I wish they would let me get RSV, but I'm apparently not decrepit enough. I can't do much about the oncoming bullshit, but that I could do.

The current political climate scares the fuck out of me. But of all the shit that worries me about the two stooges, it's RFK who terrifies me. I'm on SO many meds to keep my mental and physical health in the Jenga tower, and he's against all of them. I don't know how much he can actually do, but it scares me.

Yesterday was a long, but fun day. I worked in the morning, and had my manager hit me up first thing (they're not usually on there, but they knew I was working,) askeding me to call a disgruntled patient. Apparently he went to a different radiology practice, and they said he didn't have to drink contrast for his CT scan (spoiler, he does). He was very upset, and wanted us to call the doctor to confirm. We did, and they said "yeah, that's not great, but the images will do." So I called him to let him know that he didn't need the double dose of CT radiation.

He wasn't really mollified, and said that he can't get his doctor to call him back, and he wanted to talk to her before he cancelled. I agreed, that it was fine to do that, and we left the scan on the books.

Then, I had a 2 hour MRI for yesterday cancel and a 1hr one for tomorrow, so I backfilled those with someone from Thursday (when we're going to have a lot of snow.) When I mentioned it to my manager, she was so excited that I was taking the initiative. I'm like "it's my job? Literally 1/4 of my job these days is trying to help manage schedules, and making sure that high value slots aren't wasted.

After that, it was time for lunch and then our Odyssey of the Dragonlords game. It was delightful, and full of that good good RP. They had a couple small battles, but mostly it was character work, which is always fun.

Then, another break, and then MotW, which was also fun. I've thrown our monster hunters into their greatest foe--diplomacy.

Today, we're going to go see Captain America: Brave New World, and then we have Rise of the Ice Dragons in the evening, so it'll be an awesome day.

8hyenas was talking about prepping for the coming bullshit, and it got me thinking about how COVID affected me. I think I've mentioned this before, but aside from one month of it, when I actually had the OG strain of Covid, it wasn't bad for me personally. There was definitely fear, and horror at the number of people dying, but honestly, I'd say my mental health actually improved during Covid.

Coming in, I was lonely. I had no fandom that I was in, I had just been diagnosed with diabetes the year before. Outside of family, I had one person I talked to regularly. I missed my fandom days.

Then, covid hit, and everything closed down. And suddenly, conventions I couldn't afford to attend were virtual for $15-20. And then Con.txt changed everything. We had a TTRPG panel. I'd been listening to the Rusty Quill Gaming and The Adventure Zone, so I attended. And it was like a bolt out of the blue. At the end of the panel, one of the audience decided to set up a TTRPG discord server. And a bunch of us joined. And someone introduced a game called Masks. And I played, and it was SO fun. And then, I got my nerve together, and offered to DM a game called Monster of the Week. And then, Frostmaiden. And then another, and another, and another. And in the process, I found community. And I made new friends, and drew in old friends, and now I have games almost every week where I laugh, and tell stories with my friends. They've been there through so much this year, and we're still standing strong.

And with that bit of navelgazing, it's time to go forth and get pants on. Have an outstanding Sunday, y'all.