And then, there's a bearded fetus.

Greetings on a sleepy Wednesday! I really didn't want to get up, but also really wasn't sleeping, so I dragged myself out of bed. It was warm and I was snuggled in next to Jess, and that was tempting to stay for another hour. Technically, I could sleep til 7, but I've been getting up at 6. So I might rethink that one.

I'm a little less gloomy today, which is nice. Possibly I'm too sleepy to be particularly gloom and doom. Or possibly yesterday went a little less stressfully, and I've relaxed.

Dad decided not to get up yesterday, which is not ideal, but in the case of yesterday worked out well. His doctor came around 2:15. I was hoping he'd. be here during my lunch break so Jess wouldn't have to take it, but alas. He's more concerned about his low blood pressure and high heart rate, so we're adding a new pill into the list, and getting another chest xray to see how his lungs are doing. Otherwise, we're just watching him. No grippy sock vacation at this time.

After work, I raced around the beltway, as much as traffic would allow, and made it to my doctor's appointment. Diagnosis, fucked up shoulder and neck, unspecified. I need to have an MRI of the shoulder, and as long as the problem isn't the joint, I'm going to have physical therapy. She also gave me muscle relaxants and steroids to try to reduce the inflammation. It's pretty much what I expected, but it's annoying that I have to wait. I know there's not much in the way of MRIs for a couple of weeks, so I'm going to be waiting a while to get this scan, which means waiting a while for the therapy. Maybe I'll get lucky and someone will cancel a 7pm scan in the next few days.

Yesterday was my last day of being supervised on the phone. Today, I officially start my time as a solo agent. Which is why my schedule is changing a bit. It's going to be weird to just sign in and start taking calls without any chit chat. I think I can handle it, though I'm sure there's still going to be some things that mess with me. But there are resources and things I can use to puzzle out conundrums.

Our game tonight got cancelled, which is probably a good thing as I get used to the new schedule. We don't have any other games until Sunday. If we can find a showing of Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, we might go to that on Friday, since it looks like all the Mummy screenings are early (boo). And Saturday, my work is holding an event at a swanky bowling alley, which I agreed to go to. With the shoulder, I probably won't be bowling much, but I wanted to actually meet some of the people I work with. Jess is going to come with me, so that should be fun. At the very least, we'll have some good food.

And now, I shall go forth and consider pants for the day. At least, since I don't have to go anywhere, I don't have to put on a bra today. That was annoying yesterday. Anyhow, everyone have an excellent hump day!

Despite my determination to get up at 5, I hit snooze and finally dragged out of bed at 5:45. I just couldn't quite do it. Even now, that I'm up, it's a struggle. I kind of want to crawl back down the stairs and take another hour. It doesn't help that we had our AC on yesterday, and it got fucking cold last night, so now it's chilly in the house. Makes me want to burrow in with Jess under the weighted blanket. I put the heat on and am wearing a sweater, so between the two, things should improve.

The weekend of games has come to a close. We played five games over four days. I'm a little bit wiped out, I have to admit. I might need to remember to hold it to 3-4 games per 4 day cycle. The last one was a bit of a struggle. They all wen't pretty well, though. The one I was most worried about was the Saturday game, and that went really well. We got through some plot, and more importantly, people were role playing the hell out of it. It was awesome. So many bits of backstory revealed! Everyone learning how the characters are going to be. Because no matter how you write them, when you come to the table, you might find that they play a little differently than you expected. Some characters, it's a bit of a journey to get them where you expected them to be. Which is one of the really cool things about this kind of collaborative storytelling--whatching the characters come to life and seeing how they're going to mesh with the other characters.

Yesterday were two of the longer running games, so there's minimal prep or heavy lifting. First up was Monster of the Week, which was as always a blast. The party has now made friends with the Greek Gods (And have taught them how to be influencers) and the Court of Vampires. This in addition to making a deal with a demon (whom they later killed) and getting the veil over the supernatural ripped back.

Dad was very fussy and squirmy yesterday, which occasionally made it difficult to focus, but I think I did okay. Fortunately, he'd settled down by dinner time, so we were good for Mine Finders.

Today, I shall relax and take calls, and see how I do with my own software. It needs to be set up, but it's waiting for me when I log in.

After much consideration, on Saturday, I set up an appointment for accupuncture. I looked, and our insurance covers it, so I figured I'd give it a try and see if I could get any pain relief out of it. Jess felt like it helped their head when they tried it. We haven't really been able to afford anything like PT or accupuncture for a few years, but at 90% coverage, we'll give it a go. Jess decided to schedule for the appointment after me, so we'll have a wall of consultation the morning of the 11th. Sadlly, because of my late day schedule, we had to wait a little while for our appointments. I figure that gives me time to go get the MRI of my shoulder and my neck done in the meantime, so I know what's actually wrong with them. I mean, the neck I'm assuming is just a flare up of my spinal stenosis. The shoulder? Who the fuck knows. Maybe a tear in my rotator cuff? Maybe just degeneration? I honestly have no idea.

As I pointed out to my family, if it's torn or otherwise fucked up in a way that would require surgery, I'm going to just have to butch it out, because I can't take time off work right now, nor time off taking care of dad. It'll be a least 6-8 months before I'll have the kind of PTO I'd need for that.

Okay, time for me to consider the merits of pants. Everyone have a wonderful Monday!

It's Saturday! And I didn't get up til 7:45 am. Of course, that means I don't get any quiet time, as my sister is now awake. I give it 20 minutes until overstimulation. She's not even talking to me, just to the dog, but it's this constant barrage of noise when I just want to drink my coffee and sit quietly.

I'm really sore today. This 51 thing is for the birds. I pulled a muscle in my stomach sneezing, and so that's sore. In addition, my shoulder is highly peeved today, just achy and tender. I go to have the shoulder and neck looked at on Tuesday, so we'll see what the next step is. Probably an MRI, if I had to guess. Doesn't thrill me, but I want to know what's going on, so I'll deal. IF the stomach is still sore, I'll add that to the list of things to get checked.

Yesterday, I did calls for a few hours, then had lunch. Dad's home health nurse came right as I got off lunch, so I let Jess know that I'd take that appt. Wasn't the best of choice, as it ran nearly the full hour. I had just enough time to grab a cup of coffee when she was done.

Everything checked out okay, and she didn't seem concerned about him still bleeding, so we'll just watch him.

After lunch, I went back to work and into the last of my Epic classes. (Finally!) The class was boring as hell. It was teaching me stuff that I have already been doing, so it wasn't exactly thrilling. I managed to stay awake, and completed the test, and am officially certified on Epic. That finished up super early, so I took some more calls for about two hours. Towards the end of the day, my copy of Epic finally showed up, so on Monday, we'll spend some time setting it up the way I want it, and then I'll do a couple of days of taking calls on my system while supervised. After that, I get shoved out of the nest to fly solo.

Today, we have one game, the start of a new campaign. Odyssey of the Dragonlords is an indie game that came highly recommended. It's a campaign set on the mythical island of Thylea, and is structured like a Greek myth. The characters are the foretold heroes who will save Thylea from doom at the hands of two Titans. It's been a while since I started an official campaign. I've had one shots that morphed into campaigns, but I think the last actual campaign I started was Strahd. (At least that's who my Session 0 document was customized for.)

I'm nervous about this, because it's an enormous module, and a very different tone than I'm used to. It'll be fine, but until I settle into it, I'm going to be a bit nervous.

Speaking of which, time to go prep some more! Everyone have an amazing Saturday!

Today's subject line is brought to you by Bo Burnham's hilarious "From God's Perspective."

I really enjoy a lot of his skits and music. A lot of them are on my playlists. This is one of his older ones, so occasionally he goes a little flat, but I love it anyway.

I didn't sleep great last night. I was up and down all night, which was annoying. I feel okay, but I know this afternoon, I'll be a tired kitty. We've got a game tonight, so I need to be somewhat awake.

Work went pretty well today. I took 40 calls, which is not my max, but I had a lot of fairly complicated calls that took a little bit of time. Of course, at my meeting, they told me that for the first month, you're only expected to average 30 calls a day, so I'm doing okay.

I'm still working on preparation for the new campaign on Saturday. It's an independent game, and seems to be awesome, but because they can't use official art, they just made default tokens of a red circle with the name of the monster on it. It's making me twitch. I'm slowly going in and replacing all of those with actual art, but it's an enormous module, and it's going to take roughly forever. So, I'm just replacing it in the order that the creatures appear, and hopefully, I'll be able to keep up. I think I'm okay for Saturday at least. I'm four scenes in, and since this is session 0, I don't expect to get that many down.

I have rewritten my session 0 document, so that I'm ready for this game. I'm going to try to play this one a little more straight. It's based on Greek Myth and fabled heroes, and doesn't seem to have much of a sense of humor about it. While I'm sure we'll break that fairly thoroughly, for the start, I'm going to play it as written.

Okay, time for me to go forth and get something to eat. Everyone have an amazing Thursday!

Good morning and happy Tuesday! Nothing much planned today, but since Dad came home yesterday, I guess the time will be filled.

Yesterday was a pretty good day at work. I managed 52 calls, which I was pleased with. They want me to take 40, so I'm doing quite well. I mean, it's not rocket science. Once you have the computer system down, it's not that hard to do. And I know when I get cut loose, I'm going to be slower, because I'll be filling out an appointment tracker in addition to the normal stuff. That will only be for a little while, until they're sure I know what I'm doing. Then, I'll get cut loose entirely.

I have my 60 day check in this morning at 10:30, so we'll see how this goes. I'm pretty sure it'll be fine, honestly. I don't believe they have anything to complain about, so it should be pretty positive. But of course, after 911, there's always a little trepidation. With the meeting, I probably won't make 50 calls today, which is okay. I can live with that. (I'm a little competitive, so I'd like to, but it's okay if I don't.)

As I mentioned at the top, they sent Dad home yesterday. Still not 100% sure what caused his issues, but since he seems to have perked up, they turfed him back to us.

The ambulance arrived about 8:45pm, and they sent my rather large father (255 lbs) with a team of 2 women, weighing collectively about 300lbs. This meant that I was obliged to help out, so as not to have him dropped on the fucking floor. Honestly, we damned near did anyway, but through some concerted effort, we got him from the stretcher to the wheelchair and the wheelchair to the bed. And holy fuck, I am hurting today. My shoulders, arms and back are just a mass of Do Not Want.

Then, finally, he's in bed and we're getting him all set up and I see the horror show they've made of his junk. At home, he uses a urinal, but in the hospital, that's not really feasible, because he can't really hold it for very long. So, they do either a catheter, or a condom catheter. This visit, they did both.

Apparently, they put the condom catheter on in a way that it pulled the skin adjacent to the base, and pulled the skin right off. It's raw and bloody. Then, it also seems to have damaged his junk itself, which is also bloody. The internal catheter also seems to have scraped him up, so his urine is, you guessed it, bloody. I took his gown off and just did a total body cringe. I'm so furious at the hospital. There is no way that he should have been discharged while dripping blood from his dick. I may call the social worker to complain, honestly. If there was a problem when they took the condom catheter off, they should have held him long enough for the bleeding to at least stop. And it should have been noted in paperwork. Then again, since they didn't send any paperwork, I guess that's a moot point. Then again, they also didn't call in the new inhaler they wanted him on, so I shouldn't be surprised.

I'll call his primary care when they open and see if we can get a prescription called in, but goddamn, I shouldn't have to.

Okay, guess I've bitched enough. I'm going to go forth and finish my coffee, and consider putting pants on. Everyone have a wonderful Tuesday!!

It's day 2 of thw weekend boogaloo! Today, I have very little on my adgenda aside from going to get my shorts from the mall, and probably driving my sister up to do laundry. Yesterday, I got most of my errands done. I went and visited dad, who is doing about the same. He's still not quite all there, and his oxygen levels just won't stay where they're supposed to be. They had him on just oxyden when I went in, but it kept droppping every few minutes. He'd get it up to 92 or so and then a few seconds later, it would be down to 80, so they put him back onto the cpap machine, which blows air at you to try to force you to take deep breaths. That seems to work, combined with it being hooked to oxygen. All he's doing is sleeping. I've been haunting the patient portal to watch his results, but as of yet the doctor hasn't called us to give us an update on what they all mean. I think Jess is going to try to get over there by like 10am, since the doctors usually do rounds at 10:30-11.

I hate the way the system is set up. If you can't be there all day every day, you get no information. No one calls, the nurse gives you vague answers that tell you nothing at all, especially when the question really is "How soon are you assholes planning to release him?" It's just infuriating as a caretaker. In my mind, he's definitely not ready to come home. In theirs? Who fucking knows?

I also picked up my glasses, which look cute, but have the bifocal in a slightly different place. I'm not sure I like them. My others came as well, and they fit really well and are comfortable, but they're a no line bifocal, which I'm struggling with. Also the frame is much larger than I thought, so I feel a little self conscious in them. These, to be exact.. The outer frame is much larger than I thought. But they're still cute, and I will probably start weearing them.

And then it was time for Jess and I to go out to lunch with my friend L from 911, which was a lovely time. I got the same thing as last time, which was an enormous prime rib steak with a pile of crab imperial on top. It was so tasty. I ate all that I could, and it didn't look like I'd touched it. My sister got the rest for dinner.

After that, I had a bit of a headache, so I decided to go lay down afterwards, and I did not get up til about 7am this morning. Head feels much better today.

Okay, I need more coffee, so I'm going to sign this off now. I hope everyone has a wonderful Sunday!

And it's Friday! Woot! One more day until a little breaky break that we call the weekend. That's good, because I've been working my ass off this week. Yesterday I took 47 calls, which is pretty good. It would have been more, but at 5pm, people just stop calling. Everyone assumes that we close at 4:30, so the calls completely die off. Up until then, yesterday was super busy. Every time I put my phone in "ready" I immediately got a call. Most of the people were very nice, so that helped. It doesn't hurt that I use my warmest, kindest customer service voice. I have spent years perfecting it, and it's pretty effective. My trainer likes it, apparently. She said that I sound sincere, like nothing will fulfill my life more then to schedule your mammogram. Which is kind of what I'm trying to convey, so it's good that it's coming through.

Yesterday, they sent out something about the checks being delayed. They were supposed to be here on Friday, but mine did finally come in around 3pm yesterday, so that was nice. It was here in plenty of time for our date night.

For date night, we went to the Local, which was excellent. I had crab soup, then we had short rib french dip bao buns. Then I had the dayboat scallops, and Jess had the short rib. Everything was excellent, but I definitely need another bao. They were super messy, with a horseradish sauce and sautéed onions over slow cooked short ribs with a nice savory au jus dipping sauce. Very tasty and a little spicy from the horseradish. I immediately dripped horseradish on my shirt. Not really a shock.

Today, we have another day full of calls, and game tonight! Game is a wee bit challening after working til 5:30, since I only get an hour and a half to take a deep breath, recover and get ready to talk some more. I'm sure when my schedule switches to 9:30am-6pm, it'll be even more difficult, but I'll manage. I enjoy playing too much not to. Besides, hopefully I won't stay on that schedule for too long. They indicated that I could go earlier pretty quickly.

Dad continues to have issues, and I'm not sure which way he's going to go. He could either perk up and be fine, or he could go downhill. I'm leaning towards a visit to the land of grippy socks, but I don't know. It could go either way. I really hate it when we're in this situation. The constant anxiety is just exhausting, trying to decide if he's bad enough to send to the ER, worrying about every little noise. I hate it.

Tomorrow, I have lunch with a friend from 911, which should be a lot of fun. She's very much a broad, and a lot of fun to hang out with.

I put in our $$ to go to our work bowling event. Johns Hopkins is paying for the prime time lane rental, we're just putting in $20 for food. Jess agreed to go with me, so they'll get to actually meet my new coworkers with me. It's at a swanky bowling alley downtown, and we have a ton of appetizers that they're getting.

Okay, now I shall go forth and get something to eat. And maybe put on some pants. Everyone have an amazing Friday!

It's payday! But not until around 4:30pm, sadly. But that's okay. We'll be able to get something out, so I don't have to blow my entire break at 4 getting food ready to go in the oven. I don't mind doing it, but it'll be nice to not need to scramble. It'll also be nice to have a little break between getting off work and game time. The food will be there, and I can just tear into it. Now the hard part--where do we want food from?

The next few days are going to be busy. We've got game tonight and Friday, and tomorrow, we're going out for dinner. I'm looking forward to all of the above. Game might be a little challenging, because I'm talking a lot during the day. So I'm going to have to use my hour and a half wisely to rest my voice. It'll be fine, just an adjustment.

I think for lunch on Saturday, my friend and I have decided on Michael's Steak and Lobster House on Eastern ave. I kind of want both a steak and crab imperial, and there I can get an enormous steak with crab imperial on top of it. I've had it before, and it was really good. It's this old fashioned place, with dark wood paneling on the walls and waitresses that call you "hon," but the food is really good. It's not cheap, but that's okay.

Yesterday, I took 42 calls. The goal that they want you to get up to when you're fully trained and settled in is 40, so I was very pleased with myself. I've only been on the phone full time for about a week and a half. I'm pretty proud of the accomplishment.

I wish they had been able to move my class sooner, but that is apparently not happening. So, I'm going to spend at least the next week and a half doing this. Not sure what we'll do after I've had the class. The normal process is for me to have another week supervised, but I'm not sure if that'll happen or if they'll cut me loose. I suspect it'll be in between. They'll give me another day or so of being supervised, just to make sure that my newly downloaded system works, and then I'll be on my own. I guess we'll see.

Since I have no EPIC app of my own, I'm taking calls on my phone line, but doing the work via controling my trainer's computer over zoom. This means that she can't touch her computer at all, and thus can't do any work while I'm working. Since I'm fairly self sufficient, she doesn't need to be watching me 100% of the time, so she's bored. She has a wireless microphone, so she's been wandering around her house, doing chores while I'm taking calls. Yesterday she disassembled her daughters' bunk beds and reassembled them in the living room so she can paint in her daughters' room. When she finished that, she played Elden Ring for a while. She's there if I need her, but she's having a productive week.

So far, I've been enjoying the job. Sometimes, I feel like I'm a little too perky, but I haven't had any total assholes yet, so it must be working? Mostly it's older people who aren't comfortable with doing it online, and I have a lot of experience with seniors.

Okay, time for me to sign off and take my morning pills and start the day. Everyone have a good Wednesday!

Happy Eclipse day to everyone in the path of totality. (Which is definitely not us.) I hope y'all get an amazing view. My sister ordered glasses for Jess and I, so I may take a little break this afternoon and go peek out, we'll see. Depends on how busy the queue at work is. I fully expect that people will stop calling while they go watch the eclipse, so maybe I'll have a few seconds to run outside.

Aside from that, I have my long-awaited psych appointment for ADHD today. I'm looking forward to it, and a touch anxious as well. When I did the online doctor, the only thing they were willing to prescribe was Strattera, which did fuckall for me. They cited my anxiety and insomnia as a reason. Oh, and my perfectly controlled high blood pressure. I'm hoping my actual doctor has some other ideas. It would be nice to be able to focus on something for more than two minutes at a time--maybe, and I know this is crazy, but maybe be able to read a book! I feel like my difficulty focusing has gotten worse as I've gotten older. Ah, a quick google tells me that menopause can make ADHD symptoms worse. Huh. That would make some sense. I've been in peri-menopause for about 6 or so years, and that would pretty much correlate with my ability to focus going kersplat. Especially if it started up while I was still at Chesapeake Urology, since towards the end of that job is when my focus became a problem. I mean, that also coordinated with when my fibro/cervical stenosis/migraines were at their peak, too. So y'know, it could kind of be either or both.

Yesterday, we had a much better day with Dad. He was a bit perkier, and actually got up for a few hours, so that was good.

We had an excellent game in the morning, during which my character managed to get one good shot off, and blew up the cube we'd come to destroy, which immediately popped us into another dimension, which in a future game we'll be trying to get out of.

After that, it was just a normal Sunday. Getting the laundry ready and out to the car, running my sister to the laundromat so she doesn't have to deal with parking, the usual.

I did manage to talk myself into DMing another game, but it's just a short module. It's one from the 90's, and will require some updating. There's actually a more modern one that is a reimagining of the legend of Baba Yaga, so I'm going to pick up that one as well and see which I like more. On one hand, the new one is made for the current D&D system. On the other, I DMed the old one with the shitty group, and it was a lot of fun. So, I'll look through and see which one sounds most interesting. The old one had some seriously screwed up shit in it, so that could be entertaining. It probably won't be until June, so I'll have time to convert it if I decide to go with the old one. It seems like most of the creatures translate pretty well, so the majority of the work would be clipping the maps from the PDF and uploading it.

Watched part of the end of Wrestlemania, though I was asleep before the end. My favorite part may have been the opening where the daughter of the former head of the company (who was ousted for sex trafficking and various other horrible things) threw him under the bus and threw behind her husband on a worldwide broadcase, proclaiming it the most "special Wrestlemania because it's the first Wrestlemania of the Paul Levesque Era." It seems like both nights were a resounding success, which is awesome. I want all the wrestling companies to do well, because then on the occasions when I want to watch, it's not embarrassing to watch.

Okay, time for me to get myself together. Everyone have the best Monday!

We have made it to Saturday! It's supposed to be a lovely day here in Maryland, sunny and almost 60. I have to get myself together in a few minutes so I can go get my eye exam at Lens Crafters. I'm hoping they have the retinal camera, which I prefer over having my eyes dilated. That way just lies migraines and being useless for the rest of the day. Aside from that, nothing planned for the day. Just going to kind of take it easy. I saw a tweet about it the other day, and now I kind of want to watch Big Trouble in Little China, so that might be on the list.

Tomorrow, we have a game on in the morning, and nothing else going on, so another semi relaxing day. Of course, as we all know, relaxing isn't my best activity, so we'll see how that goes.

Last night we had a fun game of Frostmaiden. It was a boss battle that had been a long time coming. The wizard who had been a pest throughout the game had ascended to lichdom, and had a city under siege. The party played it smart, but so did the baddies, and it was a hard fought battle. Finally, the paladin banished the Lich's infinitely more scary girlfriend, and they had him on the ropes. He tried to escape, but the party followed, and he went down to a well placed Power Word Kill spell from our bard. It was a good battle, and they still have to deal with the demi-god girlfriend who is going to come back and find that the party perma killed her boyfriend, but I'm sure they can be reasoned with.

This was good, because my day was boring as hell. I had a class, which has no bearing on my actual job, but is the only way I can get the user role to overbook a slot. It involved setting up reports to run, which was interesting, but also nothing I will ever need. Unfortunately, as usual, the trainer had to deal with a lot of people who were not paying attention, and needed to go over the steps 85 times, which was making me crazy. I'll be honest, I tuned out and just went through the book and did more of the exercises. It worked out fine, kept me from going insane, and I got a 100% on the test.

After that, I took calls for an hour, which was much less annoying. It wasn't a bad day, just a little dull.

Okay, I should consider putting on pants for this appointment. Everyone have an excellent Saturday!