And then, there's a bearded fetus.

It's Saturday, it's a busy weekend. I've got to go take the doggo for grooming, come back, get Dad up, pick up the dog, put dad back, and then we've got a game! Tomorrow, I have my eye appointment, and then I can start looking at glasses. I desperately need a pair of computer glasses. My neck constantly aches from the way I have to angle it to look at the computer screen when I'm working. I mean, my neck is prone to hurting anyway, but this definitely isn't going to help.

Yesterday was again a somewhat rough day. Dad seemed a little out of it, and I was thinking we were heading to the hospital. His nurse came over and didn't seem concerned, so we'll give it a while and see. All the fuss led to us moving last night's game later, and then when the nurse didn't show up until 8, Jess decided not to play. It was very frustrating, and I'm really unhappy at the moment. I'm trying not to resent him, but I 100% do. I am resenting the fuck out of how much of our time and energy is just sucked dry.

He seems to be back to his normal now, where he's not quite an asshole, but not overly nice either. It definitely makes the resentment worse, because I feel like I'm not even busting my ass for a nice person.

Jess is taking the brunt of it, which I hate. Really, I just hate everything about the current situation. While I've been training, Jess has had to sit in with him all days so that if he needs something, he doesn't yell for it at top volume while I'm on a zoom call.

Philadelphia is next weekend, and I'm not sure it's going to happen. I mean, we'll go up to Philly, but it may be a day trip, because I don't know if an overnight is feasible.

I'm angry. Fairly constantly angry about how much the situation takes out of both of us. We're in bed by 8:30 except on game nights, just trying to prepare for the next day.

The bright spot is D&D, but I've had to cancel or move 4 games in the last three weeks because of him.

I know we're just in a rough patch, but after two months of peace while he was in the rehab, it's a lot.

Okay, going to go consider pants and get this day started. Everyone have an amazing Saturday!

IT's 5am, so it must be time for me to be vertical. Technically, I don't have to be up this early, but it's the one time I can get up and have the house be quiet. Even Dad doesn't normally wake up for at least an hour. (Having said that, I'm sure I'll hear him soon.). But generally, it's a bit of a quiet time to enjoy the stillness for fifty minutes of so.

Not a whole lot going on today. I'm going to prep a turkey breast for Jess to throw in at like 2:30pm, so it'll be pretty much ready by the time I finish work. Given a choice, I like to eat earlier, since my nighttime pill doesn't do that well with high fat content. I can, I just usually ad an anti-anxiety pill to the mix. Like, while we're in Philly, we'll be eating a bit later, so I'll take the anti-anxiety after dinner, and then take the ambien when we're ready to sleep, and it should work.

Yesterday was a tough day. Dad wasn't being great at keeping his voice down, and then he started sliding forward in the chair. Jess tried to get him to use the sit/stand for the urinal, and he couldn't get up. by the time I came out, he was way down in the chair, and he had a bitch of a time getting up. Required more support than usual. I mean, I know we're all going to have bad days. But stilll. With this in mind, I made the decision that we were going out to eat.

After some consideration, we decided to go to Absolute Thai and Sushi. It's a little restaurant in a strip mall. We'd ordered from there before, and liked it. I will say, in person it's fucking amazing. We started out with Chicken Satay with the best peanut sauce I've ever had. Seriously, so tasty. I was dipping my shrimp in it, just to get a little more.

I had Pad Thai with shrimp, and it was so so good and a huge portion. I have some noodles to nom today. Not enough for a meal, but it'll be a bie snack. Jess got the Massaman curry, which they really enjoyed. Then, for dessert, I insisted on the sticky rice with mango, even though I was super-full. It was lovely, with ripe mango and delicious coconut cream.

It was nice to get out, since I think it was our first time out in a couple of weeks.

Today, I shall pay some bills, and prepare for a whole bunch or role playing as patients and call-takers. Exhausting, but I shall deal.

My expensive chair is supposed to come on Friday! So, I know what I'll be doing on Saturday! Or, possibly Friday after work. We'll see. I kind of want to do it Friday, so I can have it to sit in for Friday night game.

I also have a new, more noise cancelling headset. We'll see how it works, but hopefully, it'll help drown out some of the background noise. That comes today at some time.

Okay, I'm going to go forth and have some more coffee. I'm especialy sleepy this morning. Everyone have an awesome Thursday!

They've cranked up the intensity at work. Now we've moved onto our practical application training, and it seems like it's going to be a bit more intense than the others. They have us unmuted the entire time, to gauge our background noise, and it is stressing me out. My office isn't bad, but there's some more that I'd like to do to possibly make it better.

First, I want to put up a curtain rod over the door and put a sound deadening curtain. Second, I want to get a white noise machine and plug that in behind me, to cover a little bit of the noise. I'm sure they're not going to be as critical of the noise as I am, but I want this to work, so I'm going to do some soundproofing. In the meantime, it's making me a wee bit paranoid. I dislike the feeling that people are judging me.

Aside from that, the class doesn't seem horrible. A lot of review with a few new things thrown in. Mostly it seems like it's going to be the soft skills class. We had a Quality person come in yesterday to discuss what they look for in scoring calls. I have no clue what we're going to do today, but we'll see.

Tomorrow, I shall get my first full pay, which is exciting. It's probably not going to be quite as much as I made with 911, since the insurance is more expensive, but we'll see.

I was a bit worried about Dad yesterday. In the morning, he seemed a little bit weak and he's still coughing a fair amount, despite cough pills and inhaler. But after we got him up, he napped in the wheelchair and work up all perky, so we'll see. His primary care will be here between 12:30 and 1:30, so we'll see what he has to say. I want to ask about an antibiotic, since the hospital didn't send him home with one, and maybe about getting a nebulier to help with the cough. Maybe get more cough pills if possible.

It's been a little rough this week, and I'm feeling a bit stuck. I'm afraid that we won't get to go away in 2 weeks, even for an overnight. As Jess said, I'm 100% expecting the rug to get pulled out somehow.

My sister is now up, and is immediately very chatty. I have a little bit of a headache, and am considering going back downstairs to lay down for a few minutes. I get up at 5 because I have 45 minutes of quiet, but today that wasn't long enough.

We had our first CONfab meeting last night, and it really helped me get more of a feel for what we'll need to do over the next 7 months, and what more needs to be planned out. I need to go through the calendar and figure out what days need to be what. In the past, we advertised way more than we needed to, and I feel like that alienated some people, so we're going to try to come up with a schedule that keeps us in people's minds without pissing them off, and also without burning out the staff, which is basically poisontaster and me. So, there's at least one more meeting in my near future, just to come up with the schedule for the next couple of months.

And on that note, I'm going to sign off, and go put on some pants. Everyone have a stupendous Tuesday

Ugh, time change. I hate "Spring Forward" with every ounce of my being. I slept until almost seven, yet it is not even light out. Ugh. But once my brain saw that it was 6:40. it informed me that I needed to get up.

For some reason, I'm really tired today. I'm tempted to go back to bed for an hour or so. We'll see how I feel at the end of this coffee.

Yesterday was good. We took it mostly easy in the morning. I had a nasty headache, so I went back to bed for an hours, which helped. Then, it was time for game! It was a lot of fun, as we race to keep a rat god from being freed from his prison in a small porcelain statue. Between the cleric and I we totally noped out on a fight with the rat swarms the god sent after us. (Sleep spell and animal friendship spell, which was hilarious.). We're heading into the big battle now, which should be a lot of fun.

After that, we made our grocery and weed run, and came home for the night. (It was icky out and I did not enjoy it.)

Today, we have a game in the evening, which I'm looking forward to. This is the game where my red dragonborn decided that because he had fire resistance, it was an awesome idea to cast fireball at my own feet. Because no matter what, I'd take half damage, and if I succeeded on my saving throw, I'd take 1/4. But my opponents were water hags, who might be susceptible to fire?

Aside from that, not a whole lot going on. We've got two weeks til our trip to Philly, and I think we're only going to be able to do one night. Dad's just not quite at the level that I need him to be at for me to be comfortable with two nights. Maybe in a while he will be, but I don't feel like we're there yet. So, we'll leave early on Saturday and come home later on Sunday. That'll give us time to do everything we want to. We didn't have plans really until around 2pm on Saturday, so that'll be fine. We'll have lunch, do the Franklin Institute and then come back to our hotel room, check in, and go to dinner.

Sunday, we may go to brunch at the Sichuan place we had last time, but we'll see. It looks like I might have waited to long to make reservations at Parc, so we might be adjusting some of our dinner plans. We shall see.

Time for me to get some more coffee and maybe consider putting on pants vs taking more naps. We'll see which one wins out. Have an amazing Sunday, y'all!

It's a chilly morning and the cat is singing her little brains out. Not sure what about, I suspect it's "I want treats." (Spoiler, I got up to check and she wanted treats. She gobbled them and is back to singing the song of her people.)

Yesterday was rough, y'all. 4 hours of sleep, plus the stress that Dad may/may not come home, plus 8 hours of class = a lot of coffee. I spent most of the day so tired and fried that by 1pm I had already cancelled the game for last night, because there was just no way I'd be any good for it. Fortunately, Thursday games are a little easier to reschedule, so we're only a few weeks out.

Now the cat is racing through the house yelling. I have no fucking clue what she wants.

Jess went over the hospital and they said pending infectious disease, he was being released today. The social worker came and said she was getting an ambulance for 4, so she'd still be there for any issues. I think I forgot to mention that PT came in to evaluate him yesterday and found that he could stand without the sit/stand frame and even walk a couple of steps, which was kind of amazing, since he hasn't stood unaided since Feb 2023.

I managed to mostly pay attention in class, but only pulled a 90% on the test, which wasn't as good as I'd like, but it was still a pass.

Then, 4:00 rolled around. No dad. 5. Nothing. This time, I did the intelligent thing and called. Apparently the ambulance was running a bit late, but he was 100% ready when they got there. Finally about 6:15, they rolled up. The team was so nice, and got him into bed with a minimum of fuss, which I appreciated.

Dad is definitely better, but not where he was when he first came back from the rehab. He seems more fussy than he was and not quite as sharp. They didn't send him home with any antibiotics, so I'm not sure about that. I sent his primary care a message, and he's going to see him on Tuesday, so if he needs more antibiotics, he'll take care of it then.

The chest CT they did was mildly alarming, though the hospital seemed less concerned about it, so maybe all the stuff is just "Patient is old, film at 11."

We got him settled in, and in bed by 8. I went to bed anxious, worried about how his night would go. Despite that, I slept pretty well.

Today, I have a morning class, then an afternoon class. Hopefully, we're done a little before 5, I have a psych appointment then. Oh well, I'll manage. Just have my personal computer in there and ready to go the moment we sign off. I'm hoping to bring up the ADHD question now that I'm on my insurance's time. Which reminds me, at lunch I need to call the office and give them the new insurance information. I meant to do it yesterday, but...well, ADHD.

Tonight, we have game, which I am looking forward to. I found art for my Muppetborn, and named him Simba. He's a Muppet-y cat, which I plan to play 100% sincerely. It should be interesting.

Tomorrow, we have the game that got rescheduled when we both got the stomach bug. I also have to find time in the morning to run up to the Emissions station, as I've got two weeks before I need to have that done. Next weekend, I have Yoda's grooming and the week after, we'll be in Philly, so I've kind of got to go. Or, I suppose I could get an extension. I dunno. I'll think about it.

For now, I'm going to go forth and figure out breakfast. Everyone have a most excellent Friday!

Well, I survived the last day of Insurance training and finished off with 93% on my test. Which gave me a 96.3% score overall. I'm pretty okay with that. I'd like to have gotten 100%, but I guess I can live with an A.

Yesterday otherwise was pretty dull. Jess went down to see Dad, who seems to be doing well. The doctors rounded while they were there and said he's there til at least today, maybe Thursday, because they want to see if his blood cultures grow anything. I'd appreciate it if they'd keep him til tomorrow, but we'll work it out however it goes. I just really would rather not cancel tonight's game if possible, since I cancelled last week after being exhausted from getting him home. So, we'll see. Tomorrow we have a game, but not one that was recently cancelled.

I also got a notice from Caremark that my Rybelsus prior auth was denied, so I sent my primary care a note asking why, and if they'd included the two medications that I'd previously been on. Apparently the problem was that they didn't have any documentation proving that I was diabetic. I've been on Rybelsus the whole time I've been with this doctor, so they didn't have any of the pre-diabetic labwork. I guess they thought I was using it for weight loss? Anyhow, they resubmitted it yesterday, so hopefully, I'll get an answer today.

Today, I start the training on the hospitals medical records system. I like technical stuff, so I think I'll enjoy the class. It's going to be like 95% of my job, so I better learn it good. It's apparently less interactive than the insurance class. I've got this class for all of today and tomorrow, then half a day on Friday.

I have no idea what we're having for dinner tonight. I had put in a pick up order at Aldi, but they were running late, so I cancelled it, rather than have them switch the pick up time to 10am today, which is usually what happens for later pickups. Once we know what's going on with dad, I'll put it back in, maybe for 4-5pm instead of 6-7pm.

Tonight we shall hopefully have game, which is good, because I think I have a fun heist for the team to pull off. Tonight's game is Blades in the Dark, where you play as a gang of theives going on heists for fame, money and power.

Tomorrow's game is a D&D game loosely based on the movie Toys. (Very loosely.) I don't really want to have to cancel that, either, but of the two, that would be my first choice to postpone.

Friday, poisontaster is running a bit of a horror game, but kindly allowed me to play a somewhat unserious species, so I'm going to have a Muppetborn Ranger. (Yes, that's exactly what you'd expect it to be.) I haven't decided the particulars, but it'll be an animal shaped Muppet. I'm still debating on gender and animal type. I'm leaning towards a male cat type Muppet, but we'll see. I plan to play it straight, so to speak.

I suppose it's time to think about pants now. I'm not sure if the Epic traning will be on camera like the Insurance class was, so I'll have to put on a bra and nice shirt just to be safe.

Everyone have a wonderful Wednesday!

And it's back to Monday. This weekend did not feel particularly restful.

Dad is stable, but still pretty messed up. My sister stayed til about two, but felt like her presence was making him more agitated, so she came home after they'd gotten him settled into his room. We're still not 100% sure what's causing this. They've done a ton of tests, which showed fluid in or around his lungs. Whether that's pneumonia or because his heart isn't pumping as well? Who knows? He had a little blood in his urine, so maybe UTI? A bunch of his labs were fully out of whack, too, so really, any guess is as good as another.

Hopefully, the antibiotics and lasix will settle him down. Jess is going to go visit this morning/early afternoon, and we'll see how he's doing. They seemed to think he'd be in there for a few days at least. I guess it depends how he responds to the medication they're giving him.

I feel bad for him, because he's so out of it, he doesn't really understand why he's there. On the plus side, if history is a predictor, he won't remember the first couple of days anyway. Which is awesome for him. I wish I had that option.

After we launched Dad to the ER, my sister insisted we play our D&D game, so we did. It was a lot of fun. Got to play with a new monster, a Behir, which looks like the cross between a Chinese dragon and a mole rat. Managed to get a couple of good hits in before my players dispatched it.

After that, I threw in dinner, and later popped over to Whole Foods to pick up some stuff for my sister. I am simultaneously into and creeped out by their pickup orders. You just click that you're on the way, and it's activates the GPS tracking, and they're already bringing out your order as you're pulling up. It makes things incredibly easy and quick. It also is incredibly invasive, but the convenience wins out for me.

Today, I start the Commercial Insurance module. That'll run for 2 days, before we'll switch to out Epic training. We have games Wednesday-Sunday, so that'll be fun. Hopefully, dad returning home will not mess up any of them, but we'll see. Thursday, I have my virtual psych appointment, which will be nice. I'm going to see if we can discuss ADHD this time, since I am on insurance again and won't feel guilty bringing it up when I'm paying a discounted rate. Which reminds me, at some point, I need to call them and give them the new insurance information.

Okay, time for more coffee! Everyone have the best Monday possible!

It's Saturday!! And I'm apparently a total flake. I swore I had everything written down for todays game, but I cannot find the file on Googledocs to save my life. Fortunately, it's all in my brain, so I'm retyping it, but c'mon. Maybe I dreamed that I typed it, I have no freaking clue. It's entirely possible. Oh well. No big deal I can type that out in no time. My notes tend to be pretty vague anyway. I'll have a few beats I want to hit, but beyond that, it's up to my players what we shall do.

Today, we've got game at 2, but before that, we're planning to go have lunch at an Italian place. I'm currently debating between carbonara and crab ravioli.

Yesterday was a long, vaguely chaotic day. The nurse came for Dad's first evaluation. Fortunatley, he came while dad was in the living room in the chair, so that was good. Everything checked out well, so the home health brigade is free to start.

Dad's been doing pretty well. He hasn't been a total dick to any of us, and I feel like he's trying to be nice. It's been a lot, but we've worked out a bit of a routine. He gets up at 12 during my lunch break, and then is up until I get off from work at least. Not sure how Saturdays will shake out yet.

I got my check for what I paid into the MD State Pension while I was with 911. It's only $700, but I will gladly take it. I immediately deposited into the credit union account, which I got my debit card for. Proving that I'm a total nerd, I geeked out a bit that it's a touch free pay. I can tap to pay! It's very exciting for someone who has no actual life.

Work is going well. I've been in classes 4/5 days this week, and I'm enjoying that. I like learning new things, so it's good. I have now taken Foundations of Insurance and Government Insurance.

We yet again played Kahoot for our review, and I yet again smoked the competetion. Was slightly annoyed that I only got a 96.6% on the final. I missed a question, and that kind of ticks me off.

All in all, though, I feel like we're settling into a new rhythm. I have hopes that it's going to be a better rhythm than before. So far, it seems that way, at least.

Three weeks til we get to head out to Philly for a weekend break! I'm very excited about that. It's been a while since we did more than an overnight. It was tough with dad unable to even pull himself up in bed, but my sister is insistent that we take the two days, so off we go.

Okay, it is definitely time for more coffee and maybe to consider pants. Everyone have an awesome Saturday!

I gotta say, when my alarm went off, I didn't really want to get up. I just lay there for a few minutes before I finally heaved my ass out of bed.

Yesterday ended up being not as bad as I worried. I had class during the day, which went pretty well. In the morning, I did a typing test, which ended up being respectable. 53 words, no errors, which I was pretty happy with. Then, we had more learning until we finished, and then we played Kahoot. (I fucking hate Kahoot.) It's one of those BS "motivational" quiz games. Our quiz was (shock) on the stuff we'd spent the last two days learning.

I may hold Kahoot with contempt, but on the other hand, I'm super competitive. You get more points the faster you answer. I missed two out of thirty questions, but I answered 28 correctly and quickly enough that I absolutely smoked the rest of the class. I ended up with 14,000 points, and the closest one had 11,000. It was gratifying. After we finished Kahoot, it was time for the actual test, which I passed with 100%, so I ended the day feeling pretty good about myself.

While I was finishing up work, I got the text from my sister that they were loading dad into the wheelchair transport, and then they were going to be heading home. My plan worked out perfectly, as I finished work at 4:30pm, and the truck pulled into the driveway at 4:45pm.

Getting him in was a bit of a chore. The ramp needs to be replaced horribly, so I had to help guide the chair over some of the bumps. It's sound and safe, but the planks at the bottom have sunk, so it's very bumpy. The whole ramp has sunk a touch at the top, so it's got a little lip to get onto the porch. And then, we have a little ramp up the step to the door, but the door itself has about a two and a half inch lip. What this meant was that I'd bend over, grab the front of the chair and lift a little, pulling it forward. Yeah, not the best thing ever for my back, but on the other hand, we needed to get him in. As a result, I am super sore this morning.

He had been sitting in the too-small travel chair for a while, so he opted to get in bed pretty quickly. He did really well. We used the sit/stand frame, and it went pretty seamlessly, so I was pleased.

He's decided that he wants to get up at lunchtime and have lunch and dinner in the living room, so we'll see how that goes.

I ended up cancelling the game last night, mostly because I was 100% frazzled after getting him home, but we're definitely playing tonight. We've got fuckboi vampires to stop!

We've got a quiet day for the most part, trying to figure out the new normal. Tomorrow, the nurse arrives to start the endless round of PT and OT. Not looking forward to it.

Aside from all that, not a whole lot going on.



For the last day of February, I had to come up with something special. So... Something that I like:



You! I'm not horribly active any fandom at the moment, but I really do treasure the people it's brought to me. I guess I'm fannish about fandom now? Anyway, thank you for sharing a little bit of your life with me, and letting me do the same.

Everyone have a stupendous Thursday!

I am 100% tired this morning. Not sure why. I slept about as well as I've been sleeping. Just a tired day, I suppose. Time for more coffee!

I'm also a bit achy. Not sure if it's the new chair, or just general soreness. I guess we'll see. I didn't hurt as much yesterday when I got up at the end of the day, so I'm hoping it was just that I slept wrong. I suppose it could also be the weather, since it's supposed to be a rainy, blah day for the next couple of days. (Of course it's going to rain when we're bringing dad home. of course.)

Today, I start my classes, beginning with insurance classes. I've had some insurance experience at prior jobs, so we'll see how much new information I get. I'll have my pen and paper ready. I have to be on camera, so I'll be getting myself together for the 8am start time. I start out my day with a "Welcome new team members meeting at 8am. Whoo, I get to be perceived. Then, onto insurance. Insurance will last a week and a day, and then on Wednesday, I'll start training on Epic software. I spent most of my day yesterday doing the e-learning prerequisites for that. Six hours of people with perky voices telling me about the software. It was not my favorite thing in the world.

After today's classes, we have our last night of freedom before Dad arrives tomorrow evening.

As I was on Friday, I'm kind of dreading it. We'll have Thursday to readjust, and then Physical and Occupational Therapy will descend on Friday. I hate having people in the house, and I wasn't working on the phones the last time we had them, so we're going to have to see how this goes. I know Jess is very nervous about it. But I figure that since I'm going to be in classes, probably muted, it'll give us a few weeks to adjust.

I'm not sure what we're going to do with our last night of freedom. We have chorizo and hash browns to make chorizo casserole, but it kind of feels like we should get something good, and have it tomorrow night while Dad has his McDonalds. I don't know. We'll see.



As usual, forgot this yesterday, so you get two things!

Daydreams. Daydreams keep me sane. I go on Apartments.com and make plans for what we'll do when Dad passes, where we'll go. I asked Jess about it last night, and we've narrowed down plans to north, south or west. I liked Harford County, it's not the area's fault that 911 was a shitshow. And it's a bit closer to Philly and friends. I also like the idea of moving down towards DC to be closer to some of our friends. Or, there's west, with Ellicott City, Columbia, and even Frederick. We'd like to stay in MD in the current political climate, since we're a sanctuary city and even if gay marriage falls in the supreme court, it was ratified by popular vote in MD two years before it was federally legal.

Our weighted blankie. At first, I hated it. Too heavy, felt like I was being held down. And once in a while I still have to toss it off, but for the most part, I love it. It really is good for anxiety.

Okay, time for more coffee! Everyone have a most excellent Tuesday!