Y'all, yesterday was the stupidest day I've had in a while.

Class was interesting, except that we had some people who just were not putting on their listening ears and just could not/would not keep up. One dude, who I suspect is a doctor, was especially bad, managing to be both dumb and condescending. It was impressive. By 10am, I was so frustrated that I was sending everyone random texts or DMs about it. As I said to [personal profile] poisontaster, the next time I get down on myself, I need to be sent to a tech class. Because holy crap, I feel better about myself. I got a 96% on the test, so apparently my estimation of my understanding was pretty spot on. I'm not Einstein by any means, but damn. Anyway, day one down. Two more days to go.

While Dad has been in the hospital, Jess has been our all star. They've been going down at 10am each day to be there when the doctors do rounds, so that we get some information, since they seem disinclined to actually call us. Yesterday, they let Jess know that they were going to discharge, and his social worker called my sister and said that they couldn't get an ambulance to bring him home until 9pm. (I usually am in bed by then.) We all whined, but sucked it up. Cue night time, when I have a nasty headache. 9 o'clock comes and goes. 10 o'clock comes and goes. By this point, I'm getting annoyed. So I called down to the hospital just to see if the ambulance had left yet.

The desk person in the unit seemed very confused. "He's not being discharged tonight." She handed me over to his nurse, who confirmed that no, he's spending at least one more night. Apparently, his blood culture showed MRSA. They're assuming contaminates, but want to be certain, so he's getting a CT of his chest and another round of antibiotics. But no one thought to maybe pass along the information? Sweet baby cheesus, these people are bad at their jobs.

Of course, after all that, I was awake until 12:30am, making my 5am alarm hurt quite a bit.

So, now we're back in a waiting pattern. The CT isn't happening until sometime today, so basically, we have no clue of when/if he's coming home today. Hopefully, if they do send him home, it'll be at a reasonable hour.

I'm hoping that todays classmates are a little more capable of listening to instructions, so it won't be quite so painful.

I think they fucked up our schedule this week. They have us scheduled from 8-5, with an hour lunch, but Kronos is only accounting for a half hour, so we're all going to have OT.

So, today we shall see what happens with Dad. I have no real faith that they're going to call us about anything. You can bet that we're going to be up their ass, looking for updates. One thing, apparently they did a PT eval, during which he was shaky but able to stand and walk a couple of steps. So I feel less bad about going on a little trip in two weeks. So, Philly, here we come!

That's about all that's going on right now. I will now go forth and get some more coffee. I'm going to need it. Everyone have an amazing Thursday!
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, [personal profile] 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!
Welcome to a rainy Tuesday in Baltimore. Today should be a mostly quiet day, unless they send Dad home, in which case there will be some chaos.

He's doing much better, much more with it and perky, but his heart rate is still hovering around 120, and I'd appreciate it if they could fix that before they send him home. He and his nurse both thought he was out of there yesterday. Poor Jess went over to visit and discovered this, but then the herd of doctors who did rounds said no. They're going back over today to see what's going on, since hospitals cannot be trusted to actually communicate with the families. Yet another way that we would be 100% fucked if we didn't have them.

Class is going well, though the commercial insurance is much more challenging than the government ones. I have been sucked in to basically being the team mom. We have this participant guide that's a fillable PDF. And the trainer goes through her powerpoint, and the answers are underlined. On day 1 of the Foundations class, she had someone put the answers in the chat, so if someone missed something, they could refer back. I offered to do it in the afternoon. And I've kept doing it. It is apparently my job now. I don't mind doing it, I feel like typing it twice actually helps to fix it in my mind, but it's just funny. Yesterday we covered Aetna, BCBS and Cigna. Today is four of the smaller plans, plus the test.

I've got one more document that I need to print and sign, and then I think I'll finally be done with my onboarding packet, which will be nice.

Tomorrow, we shall have Epic training, which is the hospital's software system, and Blades in the Dark at 7, kicking off our five day stretch of games, which is always fun. We don't have a ton of games over the next few weeks, so I'll enjoy this little streak.

I made my eye appointment in two weeks. The Hopkins vision plan is pretty good, though I'll most likely still get my glasses online. I've been using Zenni, and I've been pretty happy with their frames and lenses. I'd like to try Zelool at some point, because they have some cool and kind of wacky frames that I'd like to give a shot. I'll probably go with Zenni for my next pair, and then I'll get a secondary pair from Zelool. That way if the quality isn't up to where I want it, I have a primary pair. I need bifocals and I want the progressive lenses. I don't have them on this pair, and when I go out in the sun, I feel it.

Okay, time to consider the merits of more coffee and maybe pants. Everyone have a superb Tuesday!
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!
Today has not been an awesome morning.

Yesterday after game, Dad was a little uncomfortable, but all his stuff checked out. Oxygen was good, no fever, so we let it ride. But this morning when I got up he was fussy and didn't seem quite right. I checked his oxygen, and it was low. He also seemed a bit out of it. So, time to call 911. He was very displeased by this, screaming "No," and "I don't want to." It was mildly traumatic. He's currently on his way to the hospital, so we'll see what they have to say.

Yesterday was good up until the end of the game. We had a lovely lunch, and came home and played a game, and it was fun, and then right at the end, as we were doing the post game chatter, I started to get a tiny bit overstimulated. Then, I came out and dad was constantly making noise, and I was getting severely overstimmed. I was not at my finest, which I'll apologize to him for when he's back in his normal mind. I was sent downstairs and hid for a while until I felt better.

Today we have a game at noon, which we'll I'm debating on whether to play. My sister is going to the hospital, but I feel kind of bad having a game with the current circumstances. I'm also a little anxious because they didn't use a siren to come into the neighborhood, but as soon as they cleared our street leaving, the siren came on, so I'm not sure about that.

The game itself yesterday was pretty good. It was the first game, so almost 100% set up and world building and character introduction. Hopefully, it'll continue to progress into awesomeness in the next session

Our TTRPG schedule right now it insane. There's a game almost every Friday, Saturday and Sunday as well as a lot of Wednesday and Thursdays. We're currently scheduling in May-June for new games. It's an awesome problem to have.

Okay, I'm going to run my sister over to the hospital, so I will keep it short today. Everyone have an amazing Sunday!
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!
It's March! I am once again in the land of the insured! This morning, I'll be sending in my info to our pharmacy, so they can get the prior authorization started on Rybelsus. Hopefully, I'll be able to get it in a couple of days. Okay, probably not until Tuesday or Wednesday at the earliest, but hopefully not much more than that.

And then, Jess can set up an appointment with psych, and get more drugs, and everything will be up to date. I have a follow up appointment with my psych next week, so that'll be good. And Jess and I both have check ups in late March, so we'll start getting shit straightened out.

Aside from that, today is just work, and then Frostmaiden in the evening.

Yesterday went relatively well. I woke dad up at 7:15, and got him pills and coffee, then went to work. Jess got him breakfast, and sat with him while I was on my Zoom call. We got him up at lunch, and fed him. I went back to work, and he asked Jess about going back to bed. After 90min. Which was annoying. They couldn't do it alone, so he had to sit up. Around my break time, his stomach rebelled against the pizza, but Jess was in time to get a bucket. After that, we did let him get back in bed. He watched TV and napped til dinner, and was fine after the one urp. I think his pizza just didn't settle. So we won't be doing that again. After dinner, we had Curse of Strahd, where I nearly killed players. They're in the Amber Temple and that part of the module is hard. It was a lot of fun, though. I swear, players like it when there's a little trauma.

Tonight shall be Frostmaiden, and tomorrow is a long-delayed homebrew Monster of the Week game set in New Orleans. It's been written for months, so all I need to do is poke at it tomorrow morning and make sure I didn't write gibberish. Frostmaiden is a little harder to prep, since I have absolutely no idea what the players are planning to do. They're going to question the diplomat they just rescued, but after that, completely up to the players. There are some options, but I have no idea which way they'll go.

Also tomorrow, we're going to go out and celebrate my first paycheck, and have some good Italian food before game.

The nurse is supposed to come today for their inital eval, but they haven't called to let us know whent hey're coming yet, so no clue if they're actually coming or not. I'd be happy if they pushed it off til next week, but we'll see.

And on that note, I'm going to go consider coffee and pants. Everyone have an amazing Friday!
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!
It's D-day for Dad's return, and I am anxious. I woke this morning, and after a couple of moments, it hit me, and the dread returned. Hopefully, it'll go well, but we shall see. Either way, it's going to be stressful. I have no doubt that we'll find the new normal, and be fine, but it still seems daunting. Mostly, I'm just hoping that I've got the timing correct, and he'll be arriving after I'm done work, so I can help get him in. I think traffic will slow them down enough that I'll have finished, but you never know.

My current goal for the day is to try my damndest to focus on my insurance training instead of on Dad's imminent return.

Yesterday's class wasn't bad. Of course, we had an icebreaker that took way too long, which is always painful. It was two truths and a dream (because that's more positive than a lie, apparently.) We also, of course, had breakout rooms to group source the answer to problem sheets, as well as to get to know each other a bit. My first breakout room was kind of bleh. We did the problem, and there was a little chat, but not much. Mostly we sat in silence. The second one was a bit better, thankfully. I did learn a bit about insurance, so that's good.

Today, I have a check in meeting with the Quality team, and then another 7 hours of insurance training. Actually, that's my schedule for the next five days, come to think of it. Then, on Wednesday, I start training on the Epic software.

One nice thing, at 5pm, my paystub landed in our Employee Self Service portal. I won't get the check until today at the earliest, but it was nice to see. It was a good check for one week, though of course, next pay they'll start taking insurance out, so it won't be nearly as pretty. I should be making about the same as I did at 911, give or take, so that's good.

Either Jess or I need to get to the bank to get some more cash out for the tip for the nice accessible transport operator. When we switched from a weekend to rush hour on a weekday, the price went up a bit. Still, $100 is very reasonable for transport, especially since to do it on a stretcher would be over $500.



Getting down to the end of the month, so I've gotta come up with a couple of good ones for today and tomorrow.

Things I like: Drugs. Or more to the point, modern medicine. I have enough problems that it's not an overreaction to say that without them, I'd be long dead. From the adrenaline when my throat closed due to an allergy to Ceclor, down to the meds that control my asthma, and the ambien that helps me sleep, I love my meds. They keep me functioning. In a few days, I have an appointment with my psych, and we're going to talk about ADHD meds. The Strattera did nothing, so it's time to look at other options. And I'm sure I'll love that drug, too.

Okay, time to get some more coffee and get my ass in gear. Everyone have a wonderful Wednesday!
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!
And thus ends a fun weekend, and starts another work week! Today, I have shadowing, then tomorrow I start classes, which will run til the 17th, I believe. Then, I'll begin more shadowing/training to take calls.

Yesterday was a pretty chill day. We got up, played D&D, then I went to see Dad. I was a nice person and stopped at an Italian bakery on the way in. I got him a coconut Napoleon and I picked up a pound of cookies for the nurses. Dad was in a much better mood today, so it wasn't torture to sty for a little while.

After I got home, I sat there thinking that I wished I had gotten us cookies, so after a fight between my laziness and my need for baked goods, I drove right back up and got a box of cookies and two slices of cake. The cookies were good, but those cakes! Jess had a cannoli cake, which tasted just like a really good canoli, and I got my sister a rum cake, which was boozy and excellent. (I did not get a cake for myself, because I'm still not on my Rybelsus, so my body might not handle that much sugar well. The cookies were better for me, since it was portion limited.

We got back 20 minutes before our second game, which worked out perfectly. I had just enough time to prep, and then hop into discord to start. Unfortunately, one of our players had technical difficulties, and missed the second half of the game, but it was fun nonetheless.

Sleep has been a little rough lately. I've been okay getting to sleep, but then I tend to wake up a couple of times during the night. It's annoying. I still feel pretty rested, so it's not too bad, it just annoys me.

My sister has been up for maybe 10 minutes, and already the barrage of news items and tiktok videos has started. I never need to know what the Cheeto is doing, but she is determined to share. (It's totally in a "I want him to go to jail and never be seen again way," but that involves all of his latest gaffes, and really, it is not even 6:30am. (This is why I get up at 5am, so I will have an hour of so to relax before I have to deal with people.)

And on that note, it's time for round 2 of coffee! Everyone have a good Monday!
It's a lovely two game Sunday! Boodle is very chatty and playful this morning, running around and yelling as she goes. I went over to give her some love, and she allowed it, but what she really wanted is crunch treats. I of course gave her a few, which were summarily eaten. Now's she sitting there giving the sad meow of her people, trying to coerce me into giving her more treats. She seems to be saying "I know you have Churu treats, woman. Now kick some down." (Which reminded me, I need to get her more Churus.)

I am very much looking forward to having some games, one this morning and one this afternoon! The morning one is DMed by [personal profile] coyotegestalt, and I'm the DM for the evening game. We have a lot of games this week! We have a game every day from Wed-Sunday this week. It's going to be so much fun! The Wednesday game may be in a little jeopardy because Dad is scheduled to come home Wednesday evening. But we're gonna play it by ear and see how it goes.

I had a pretty good day yesterday, though it was busy. First, I set about building my new temp chair. I'm not sure I love it, but I think it'll do for a few weeks until the really nice chair arrives. The cat seems to really like it, though. It was a pain in the ass to put together, and I am definitely feeling the soreness today from it.

Then, we went to get hot pot. After some discussion, we decided to try a new place that had both hot pot and Korean BBQ. Holy crap, it was so good. I mean, the place we normally go to is nice, but this was just excellent. They had so much good stuff. I got a miso soup base that was so good. I need like a gallon of that next time I get a cold. Jess and my sister both got the spicy Szechuan broth. (They did not lie about the spicy.) We ordered a ton of meat, both for the hotpot and the grill. There was so much good stuff. I did not dislike anything I ate, honestly. There was a spicy garlic pork belly that pretty much won the day, though. It was a thick roll of pork belly that was marinated in garlic and soy and it crisped up and the fat rendered and it was amazing. I think next time we go, we will be ordering a couple plates of that to start. They also had really good gyoza and rice cakes. Oh! And their udon noodles were really good. Very hard to get out of the pot, but very tasty.

After that, we headed home for a bit, and then Jess and I went up to see Dad, who was in a bit of a Mood. Understandable, since he was expecting to be home, but still annoying. We didn't stay for long because it was roughly 7000 degrees in his room and I was having anxiety about being trapped. It's one of my big triggers, and for some reason, it decided to kick in hardcore. So, we left a little early and went to Target to get some new t-shirts. With me being work from home, we definitely needed more clothes. It was one thing when I was wearing a work "uniform" like I was at 911, but if I'm going to be home, I'm going to be comfortable, and we only have so many pairs of leggings and t-shirts to share. So, once the taxes came in, I put in an order at Old Navy for leggings, and we headed to Target to get some nice shirts. Fortunately, it wasn't too busy for a Saturday, and we were able to get six new shirts in various colors. The old Navy order was here by the time we got back, so we are set.

Tomorrow it's back to work, for one more day of shadowing before I start insurance training on Tuesday. So far it's going well, I'm starting to get the hang of how to use Epic, which is good. I'll have Epic classes starting the week after, so I'll hopefully be a little bit ahead of the game.

It's strange to be back to work, honestly. It's been about 5 months since I was working from home in any capacity, and I feel like I'm out of the habit. I'll get used to it, of course. It's just a little strange at the moment.



Big, stupid action movies. Jess and I were discussing movies last night, and a lot of what we were talking about was your big budget high octane action movies. The bigger and dumber the better. I loved Battleship, for instance. It was dumb as hell, but there's something about disengaging my brain and just letting the movie take me where it wants me to be that I adore.

As my brain has gotten harder to wrangle, the breadth of movies I'm able to sit through has diminished. Whereas I used to watch a variety of genres, now I'm mostly stuck on the big budget action movie. Next month, once I have insurance again, I'm looking forward to finally having the ADHD discussion with my doctor, and just maybe I'll be able to focus on things again.

Okay, gotta get my brain in gear for game this morning! Everyone have a wonderful Sunday!
Some days, I wonder if we attract other people's incompetence, or if that's just the luck of the draw. My sister took off, so that she could go watch Dad's therapy and see where he is and all of that. He's doing pretty well, can get up with the sit/stand frame, and stay that way for over 10 minutes. It's much better than we expected going into this, so we'll take it. However on the way back to the room, the social worker came up, and said, "oh good, I needed to call you, but time just slipped away from me. Because he had a little fever on Tuesday, we've decided that it would be in his best interests to keep him a few extra days, just to make sure he's not coming down with anything, so we're releasing him on Wednesday instead of tomorrow." My sister kind of gaped like a fish, but his physical therapist was not, and lit into her for not letting us know sooner, because we need to figure out transport, and people will need to get off work! So, yeah.

Fortunately, the people we use for transport are amazing, and will pick him up at 4pm. With that, he should get home right as I get off work, so I'll be available to help. It was fairly easily solved, but who does that? With less than 22 hours to go? Yeeesh.

Aside from that, yesterday was okay. Work was fine, I'm still mostly shadowing. My actual classes don't start til Tuesday. I've learned a lot so far, but it feels like there's a lot yet to learn. I enrolled Jess and I in health insurance, which will be effective on March 1st. Hopefully we'll have the cards by then, but if not, I know our pharmacy can look it up. In just five days I can get my Rybelsus!!

I got the official notification that our joint account with the Johns Hopkins Federal Credit Union is active. I think the fact that this excited me means that I'm old. In 20 years, Jess and I have never had a joint account, if you can believe it. So this is going to be awesome. No trading the debit card back and forth when someone needs to pick something up. I'm hoping in September, when I've had my car for a year, and made payments on time, I can refinance through them at a lower rate. That would be lovely.

My new desk chair came in too late to have for work or game, so that's on the agenda for today. We had game last night, which was a lot of fun. I really like the modules by the Greasy Snitches. They're usually well paced and have challenging battles, but leave room for fun RP.

Today, I now have nothing to do. We decided that we're going to go to lunch at the hot pot place, which should be tasty. And I need to assemble my new chair. Aside from that, not a whole lot going on, since we'd specifically tried to keep the day clear, since Dad was coming home. I'm sure we'll find a few more things to get into, though.

Okay, I am going to go grab some more coffee, and consider waking the rest of the way up. Everyone have an excellent Saturday!
I did not want to get up this morning. My alarm went off and I just turned the alarm off and snuggled under the covers for another 30 minutes. Finally, I dragged myself upright. To be honest, there's really no reason I have to get up that early. I just tend to do it so I have a few minutes of quiet to wake up in. As proven by yesterday, some days I really can't handle noise in the morning, but sometimes a buffer will help. I've gotten better at not reacting to my overstimulation as I've gotten older, but when I was a teenager, I would just go off and yell and cry about it. I think it was much more sensitive back then, though. Someone stirring their coffee too loud would set me off. Drugs are a wonderful thing.

I'm still incandescently angry about that. I spent from 13-17 showing all the hallmarks of depression, but not a single person did a goddamn thing about it. I flunked out of school, got my GED, couldn't handle college, and not a damn thing was done for me. No medication, no psychologist. Just "oh, it's just teenage hormones." I honestly don't know what the fuck anyone was thinking. I know it was the 80's, but a kid goes from honor roll to flunking in one semester, you would think it would throw up some red flags. I wonder sometimes what I'd have been if action had been taken. Would I have gone to college? Maybe I'd have become a doctor or nurse.

Of course, if that had happened, I might not have found Jess. And that's worth more to me than anything. So I guess it's okay.

My trainer's phone system was out yesterday, so we ended up being sent off to watch other employees for 8 hours. The morning wasn't bad, because my dude was taking phone calls, and that was interesting. Unfortunately, he was on scanning duty in the afternoon, and that was boring as fuck.

It actually worked out, because I needed to make some calls to set things up for dad's return home. Namely, how the fuck we were getting him home, and getting a sit/stand frame so we could get him out of the chair and into bed. Of course, that was 100% my job. To be fair, my sister did contact the social worker to see what time we could pick him up. But after that, it was all on me. Fortunately, even though we waited til last minute, both places were able to accommodate us, so we are ready as we're going to get.

I am dreading him coming home. It's been such a nice little break from constant care. And now, we're right back in it. Oh well. We'll see how it goes.

I ended up cancelling the game last night. There was just no way that I made it to dad and back in time for game unless I didn't eat at all, and I would have been thoroughly stressed the entire time. It was r/s for two weeks out, which isn't horrible. Today, my sister is going up to see him at lunchtime to watch his therapy, so I don't have to do anything when I get off work, aside from get ready for the game.



Yoda! I mentioned Boodle earlier in the month, but that's only half of the duo of small furry goblins that share our home. The other half is our 7 year old bichon mix, Yoda. He accounts for a good 15% of the stress in my life, worrying about his poopy butt and grooming and what not. But he also contributes considerably more love. He's a very affectionate puppers, shoving his head under your hand like a cat when he wants pets and climbing halfway into your lap to flop over like the fluffiest version of Michaelangelo's Pietà. I love him very much, even when he frustrates me, and my life would be infinitely sadder without him.

Okay, time to finish up here and do some actual game prep. Maybe get some more coffee first, though...

Everyone have a terrific Friday!
I am so sore this morning. The old chair is kicking my back, especially since I'm doing 8 hours during the day and then another 2 1/2 hours for game. My back is so thoroughly pissed off. On the plus side, both sets of taxes came in this morning, so I put in an order for a new chair. Downside, it may take a few weeks to arrive.

I ordered from a place that refurbishes old chairs--in this case a Steelcase Leap V1. I had to go up on what I was willing to pay by about $200, but if it's as good as it's reputation, it'll be worth it. They primarily work with Steelcase and Herman Miller chairs, which retail for $1300+. Fingers crossed that I like it!

Today is going to be hectic. I've got work from 9-5:30, then at 5:30, I need to dash up to see Dad for a little while. Then, I need to dash home for game at 7:30. At some point, I need to get to the pharmacy for my inhaler, though I may have Jess do that if they're willing. If I had thought about it, I wouldn't have scheduled a game on a night when I have to visit Dad. I'm already having anxiety about making it there and back in time.

My sister seems to be especially loud and annoying this morning. I don't think it's her fault, though. I think I'm just having a combination of misophonia and anxiety. When I get like this, it's almost a physical pain from the stimulus. It should make my work day a lot of fun, though hopefully, I won't have the same reaction to my trainer's voice.

Yesterday was pretty good. I'm training with someone who's been with Hopkins for a few weeks. She's taken the first round of software classes. My classes aren't for a couple weeks yet. But in the interest of teaching us, they're tossing us both on the training software, and showing us a few things in the live environment. The trainer showed us how to pull orders off the email and the virtual fax, and then scan them into the chart, then had us do it, letting us take control of her screen. I got to go first and I kind of kicked ass at it. Considering that it was the first time I'd touched the system, I was very pleased with myself. When we switched to the training environment, I continued to do pretty well. I had a few struggles, but I got there. All in all, I was pleased.

Today, we'll probably do somre more in the training environment, and I think the trainer may have the other trainee control her screen while she takes calls. I'm a few weeks away from doing that, I think.

Aside from work and preparing for Dad's return home, not a whole lot else going on. He had a little fever on Tuesday, but seems to be feeling better yesterday. Hopefully this doesn't screw anything up.

I don't really want him home. It's been so nice having peace and quiet in the house. And I've enjoyed not having to make decisions about his care. I'm going to miss the freedom. And I have no faith that his new attitude will last at home.



Something I like: Pro Wrestling. I have a long history with pro wrestling, dating back to the days of Wrestlemania 3. I kind of have fallen in and out of love with it along the way, but during one of the in love stages, I met my future spouse on a pro wrestling fanfic board. We both shipped the same group of people and they were an amazing writer. Leaving comments led to chatting, led to virtual dating via AOL Messenger, led to phone calls, led to me flying out to Chicago to meet them. We were long distance for the first year or so, and then they transferred to a Baltimore college, and we haven't been apart since. As a result, wrestling will always have a place in my heart. I don't watch much anymore, but I kind of follow along via recaps, and hop on youtube when something exciting happens. Will I ever fall back in love with it again? Dunno? Probably? As the song says:

Still I guess some things we bury
Are just bound to rise again.
And even if the whole world had forgotten,
The song remembers when.

Okay, I believe that I need more coffee and maybe an anti anxiety med. Wishing everyone a lovely Thursday!
Hump Day! We are at the halfway mark of the week! I'm not really counting because of the job, more because of them sending dad home. I'm really not looking forward to that. My sister went over to watch him do his therapy, but he's gotten a little illness of some sort. Had a little fever yesterday morning, and just felt kind of blah. They did xrays and labs, so we'll see what's going on. Hopefully, it's just a little cold and passes quickly. I'm not quite sure what we're doing this week with him, because we have games tonight through Friday, which would make it very tough to get up to the rehab and back after work. I could go super early, but he'll still be asleep, so I don't know if that's really viable. I have no idea what I'm going to do. I don't really want to reschedule any of the games, because scheduling is always such a challenge anyway. He might have to go visitor free one night? I'll be up there on Saturday to pick up his clothes and stuff, so it's possible I just won't see him til then.

Work went well yesterday. It's kind of a weird training class. The other trainee has been there for a few weeks, mostly taking the insurance classes and the stuff I'll start next week. But she's been observing for longer than I have. What'll happen is that we'll both watch and get some information this week. Then, next week, she'll start controlling the trainer's screen, during calls, and I'll be going into insurance class. I have so many classes to do. A week and some change of insurances, then a week of training on their software, Epic. Once that's done, I get Patient Access training, and then I'm back to listening to calls, and eventually starting to control the screen, and finally taking calls.

I'm looking forward to learning more. Right now, it's just learning the rhythm, and seeing what the scheduling looks like, which is cool. I'm learning what the quality team is looking for, and how to use some or the ancillary tools. It all is a little confusing at the moment of course. I kind of feel like it might have been a good idea to do the Epic training first, then let me listen to calls?

I'm slowly starting to understand, though. And I'm taking notes and doing my best to pay attention.

ION, it sounds like since I left, IKEA has continued it's tailspin. The Deputy Manager at the call center who started the bullshit "everyone knows everyone's Job" and advised my team to apply for team lead? Yeah, he was fired. A handful of other managers have left, either by quitting or being fired. Two of the specialists were suspended without pay and declined to come back at the end of their suspension. It sounds like a complete and utter shitshow, and I'm so glad I got out when I did. Everyone I keep in touch with is miserable. No one wants to be there.



I unsurprisingly missed this yesterday, so today you get two!

Sushi Burritos! There's a place near us that has a Hawaian Dragon roll. It's cucumber, shrimp tempura, faux crab, pineapples and spicy mayo. Good lord, it's tasty! I could eat two easily.

My office. In the three years I worked from home for IKEA, I slowly built my office to be exactly how I wanted it. From a cheap desk in the corner to a very nice hardwood desk, with my Minnie Ears from Disney mounted above the monitors, and the painting I chose from Great Big Canvas. It's all the way I want it. I'd like to clear out some of the junk on the other side of the room, but I'll deal for now, and clear it a little at a time. The next big step is a new chair. The one I have was fine for IKEA, where I wasn't chained to the desk, and could get up every so often, but since I'm going to be taking calls, I'll be sitting, and it's not good for any long stretch. My back was so pissed last night, and is still a little cranky this morning. My tax refund is supposed to come through tomorrow, so I'll be ordering one then. Possibly, depending on what time they send dad home on Saturday, I'll go hunting.

Everyone have a wonderful Wednesday!
First day of the new job is down! It wasn't bad at all, really. I got there a little early, so they had to call someone to buzz me back. The only one there was the IT guy, so he came out and got me and tucked me into a cubicle while he went to get my gear. As he was getting me set up, one of my managers came in and introduced herself, and welcomed me. The new laptop is kind of enormous, and the monitor is a 26", which barely fit in my trunk. I apparently impressed the IT guy with the way I jumped in and started setting up the monitor and all. He asked if I didn't think that maybe I'd want to come work with them instead.

The morning orientation was not particularly interesting. They did a little "aren't we great" history of the hospital, and then we talked about the core values and the mission statement. The standard stuff that you go over. We broke for lunch a bit early, giving us about 90min for lunch.

I wandered over to my manager to let her know, and they snagged me for about 15 minutes to go over some departmental policies, and then told me that if I wanted to, I could go home for the second half of the orientation, and really, they didn't need to ask twice. I packed up and headed home, making it with over 30 min to spare.

The second half of orientation was slightly more interesting, as we talked about benefits and other perks. The parking and security session wasn't very useful to me, so I went ahead and enrolled for benefits during it, and applied for an account with the Hopkins Credit Union. My benefits will start on March 1st, so I figured I should get my stuff in early.

They finished us up around 3:30, so I was able to leave to see dad pre-rush hour. He's doing well. Starting to get excited about coming home. Jess has been busting their ass trying to get the house ready. We currently have a dumpster and are trying to throw things out so that we have room for the sit/stand machine we need to get.

I put in for an ebay auction for a new desk chair. It's a local seller, so I can pick it up and have it quickly. I'm thinking that I might need to beg my brother in law to use his larger SUV, because I'm not sure the Soul is big enough. I've got dimensions, so I'll take my tape measure and see. It's a Steelcase Leap V1, which is supposed to be ideal for short and fat people. We'll see! If it sucks, I've only lost a few bucks.

Today, my real training begins. I met my trainer brieftly yesterday, so today we'll set to work. My hours for the next few weeks is kind of all over the place. Today I'm 9am-5:30pm, but next week, I'm 8-4:30.

And now, I shall have some more coffee and prepare for my day. Everyone have a most excellent Tuesday!
It's D-Day! My alarm went off bright and early at 5am, and I bounced out of bed to grab my coffee. I've got the morning all plotted out. I've got til 6:10 to do my thing, then I need to wash out my travel coffee mug, because I'm going to need that. Then, get dressed and be ready to go by 6:30. If I get it right, I'll be at the office half an hour early, and will hopefully get a good parking spot.

I swear, the moment after I hit disconnect on Discord last night, all the anxiety that I'd been ignoring jumped up and started bouncing around yelling "Pick me!" I managed to get to sleep through the marvels of modern chemistry, but it sort of sucked for the two hours before I got to sleep.

I got to pull a Rusty Quill special during our game last night. While surrounded by green hags, my red dragonborn decided to cast fireball, centered on himself. Since he's a dragonborn, he was going to take half damage, even if he failed the save (which he totally did). The hags on the other hand, took full damage. Even with my hit points dropping to twenty five, it was 100% worth it for the 31 points of damage I dropped on them. And since it worked pretty well, I'll 100% do it again.

In addition to that game, we played another in the morning, which was awesome. After that, we went to see Dad, and then we went to pick up groceries. Jess went in and saw Dad, while I waited in the car. I'll go see him tonight. I'm not quite sure how we're going to work things with me working this week, and games from Wed-Friday, but we'll figure it out.



Looks like I missed a few days of these, so, in no particular order, four things I like.

Sparkling water: I am a huge fan of any kind of unflavored fizzy water. It just makes me happy

Natural History Museums: Dinosaur bones and shark dioramas? Yes please!

T. Kingfisher/Ursula Vernon's books: I haven't read her horror novels, though I've been told that they're very good, but her non-horror books are fucking amazing. Nettle and Bone was one of my favoirte books I've read in the last couple years. She writes compelling, practical heroines, who don't end up carrying the idiot ball much if at all.

My Bed: We got a Hesstun mattress while I was still with IKEA, and I love it. It's soft and has just enough firmness that I can get out of bed in the morning, but I don't really want to.

Okay, time for me to get dressed. Everyone have a wonderful Monday!
One more day til I start work, and it'll be a busy one! First thing is am early game at 9am, then we've gotta go see Dad, take my sister up to do laundry and pick up groceries, then get back in time for our second game at 5:30.

It's probably a good thing that we're so busy. It's less time for me to get anxious about starting work tomorrow. I'm excited, but also super nervous. I've been off from work for two full months, and 911 was such a terrible experience that I'm worried that I won't be able to do it. What if I do all this and I suck? 911 may have done some damage to my self esteem, I think. I'll be fine, it's just nerves.

I've already set my alarm for 5am for tomorrow. I need to be to work by 7:30, and I want a little tiem to wake up and have some coffee before I have to leave. That'll give me an hour and a half to have coffee and relax, so that should work well. I've got my outfit picked out, and I'm going to take my shower this afternoon, so my hair will be dry before bed.

I did have my haircut yesterday, so there's not as much it can do to have a bad hair day now. The sides and back are shaved fairly short, with the top just a little bit longer. It's super easy to take care of.

The email from Hopkins advises me to bring my phone and a charger for the orientation, which makes em think we're going to be watching it on there. I guess our laptops won't be ready. I may take my laptop and charger, and see if using that would be okay. Presumably they have wifi that I could use. I just think I'd be able to see things better, but we'll see.

The email informed me that the office is business casual and that jeans are okay to wear. I'm like "Uh-huh, the hell I will." I will wear my nice dress pants and a polo, thank you. I want to make a decent impression.

Aside from the haircut, I got my ass in gear early and went to Costco to get more of Dad's Ensure. Which, of course, they were 100% out of. So instead I spent money on other shit. Some of it we needed, but some...well, I got a little excited. After that, I relaxed and got ready for our MotW game, which is entering season 2. As expected, the players went in a completely different direction than expected, and decided to summon Posedion to ask him to remove a binding he'd placed on a nymph that bound her to the island. It went a little wild, and now the Greek Pantheon is preparing their debut into the world. They're going to have their own TikTok and website. It was hilarious and completely spur of the moment.

Okay, I am going to get myself together, maybe have a little more coffee, and get ready for game in 2 hours.
Good morning from snow covered Maryland! It's not as bad as they originally said it might be, only about 2 inches instead of 6.

Yesterday, we did all the things. Except my hair cut. That got bumped til today as the stylists kid got sick at school, and she had to go pick the kid up. But in the morning, I got off my ass and drove down to the Hopkins campus I need to go to on Monday. It's not a bad ride, though I'm going to leave a little extra time for traffic. (Which of course means I'll be there a minimum of half an hour early. Then, we took the dog to the vet. I was a total wreck, but he was a little angel for them, of course. Not a peep out of him for the shots, the exam, the butt shave or the blood draw. They gave us some doggie ibuprofen, and that seems to be helping him. He was a little mopey and clingy, but not crying, which was a huge improvement over last time he had shots.

Today, I will have my hair cut at 12, and then I suppose as long as the road is good, it'll be up to see dad. Then, back in time for our 4pm MotW game at 4pm. Tomorrow, we have two games, one in the morning and one later in the afternoon. Both should be a lot of fun!

Then, it's time to get my unemployed ass back to work.

I have some stuff to do this weekend to get ready. I need to clean my car out a bit. It's gotten a little trashy. I need to unearth my coffee mug and my messenger bag, both of which are kind of hanging out in the back seat somewhere. I want to empty my messenger bag of all the 911 crap, and refill it with some new legal pads and pens.

They told me to bring my phone and charger to do the zoom orientation on, which I will, but I'm also thinking that I will take my laptop. If it's feasible, I'd rather watch the orientation on there, since I'm old and have bifocals. If I can't, that's fine, too. I just figure I'll take it just in case.

As I was saying to [personal profile] coyotegestalt, I'm not quite qure why I'm going to this location? It's not the call center's location, it's an actual radiology office. The only thing I could figure was that maybe it has a conference room or office that they can tuck us in? (That's assuming it's going to be more than just me.)

I'm a little nervous about Monday, but it hasn't really kicked in yet. I'm sure tomorrow night I'll be completely anxious. Which reminds me, I need to stop at the pharmacy and grab my anti-anxiety pills and a new inhaler.

Okay, time for more coffee! Everyone have a lovely Saturday!

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