Corner of Bourbon & Division

Tonight is the final boss battle against Cyric (I think that's how it's spelled) the lich, better known to our party as Not-Bob, who has been plaguing us since the very beginnings of our campaign. We are currently getting our asses handed to us, and the battle is a hell of a grind.  We may well TPK (Total Party Kill), but it will have been worth it.

God, I love D&D. I am going to miss Coco, my beloved murder!birb (the Kenku who looks like a budgie), but in a couple of months we will be starting a brand new campaign in the Eberron setting, so I'm excited to see what that brings.

Further updates will come tomorrow. 

Catch you on the flip side, friends!

 Slowly making my way through my weekend day shifts. D&D ended at a reasonable hour but then we stayed up chit-chatting, and I got to bed very late considering it was a work night. I hadn't had the chance to play this particular D&D campaign in several weeks due to a bunch of scheduling glitches and last-minute emergencies for a bunch of us (distributed pretty evenly across the board). We're doing a D&D/gothic horror mashup with Masque of the Red Death, and it's a lot of fun. The nice thing about having a D&D group who are all in agreement that what's important is the story and the character development is that you don't get the unpleasantness of having some players who want to powergame or murder-hobo their way through generic dungeons. You also have the advantage of everyone, including the DM, pulling in the same direction of "what will make the coolest/most affecting story?" We left on a cliffhanger of an entire building just falling off a cliff into the sea. Oops? (It was not the party's fault, for the record.)

There's not much going on at work today. I'm on the Marine desk, and handling an incident involving a grounded cargo vessel that has attracted the attention of the directors, but everything is fully under control, so I've been continuing my catch-up of Critical Role. I've watched ten episodes (I think) since the last time I talked about it, and holy cow, so much is going on! I'm currently watching the live performance from June 15th, 2025. Sam Riegel has made a surprise appearance! I thought Episode 91 was the last I'd see of him for a few months, so it was fun to have him show up. I don't think he'll be here for more than just this live show, but still, it's nice to see his face.

I think the next three or four episodes are a separate story, so I'm not sure if that means Matt will DM for the same characters but in a parallel universe kind of thing, or if a different DM will run the show the way Brennan Lee Mulligan did for the events of the Calamity or Aabria Iyengar for Exandria Unlimited. Whatever they decide to do, I am excited to see what happens. Usually these smaller arcs offer a deeper glimpse into the lore of the world, and I am a sucker for lore.

I still have three and a half hours before I get to go home, and then I have to send out the announcements for Quaker Meeting when I get home. Which reminds me, I need to prepare for my turn at First Day School next weekend. I somehow let myself be roped back in, which is not my favourite thing to do. I always feel singularly unqualified to teach young people about Quakerism when I myself know so very little, even after all these years. When I was the Clerk of FDS Committee I spent so much time stressed the fuck out, and I am not really looking forward to going back to anything remotely resembling that. At least this time I won't be the Clerk, and I've only committed to one Sunday a month, which isn't too bad. Probably what I'll do is arm myself with a whole ton of arts & crafts supplies and try to make the activities as child-led as possible while doing my best to keep it thematically Quaker. There's a lot happening in the world right now, and depending on how old the kids are (it varies a lot), we can gear whatever we're doing toward whatever is on their minds on that day.

We'll see how it goes, I guess.

I did manage to wet block the Hubris Shawl, although it's so big that I didn't have a surface large enough to hold it, so I'm not sure how good a job I did. I did have a sneaky but unformed plan to try to drive to Montreal and back at some point next week, although I don't know how 'd manage that with KK's work schedule. She's asked me to attend a pre-retirement course with her Wednesday and Thursday, and she's planning to be in the office Monday and Friday, and on top of that I have a medical appointment on Tuesday. If KK could switch one of her in-office days to Tuesday I could manage it, but I don't think she will. After that I won't be able to visit my parents for at least another month, which is very sad. Maybe I'll ask for a day or two off in the coming weeks, but there aren't a ton of options on the schedule. Everyone and their cousin is off on courses, which means that there's very little wriggle room for the rest of us to take time off. It kind of sucks, and since I'm the most recent hire, I am last to be considered for everything. *sigh* One of the drawbacks of shift work, alas.

So last year, right around this time, I stopped watching Critical Role. It wasn't a conscious decision, it was more that I was kind of busy with various things, and Critical Role is a hefty weekly time commitment (anywhere from four to six hours per episode), and I got a little behind, and then a lot behind, and then it just seemed like a lot of work to catch up.

I was reminded of its existence on Thursday, because that was apparently the Campaign 3 finale, and that kind of motivated me to start watching again. Thanks to their revised schedule of only airing three weeks per month and reserving the fourth week for a game that's unrelated to the main campaign, I don't have as many episodes to catch up on as I feared I might--"only" about 30 or so. So I've decided to go with roughly one episode a day whenever I have a chunk of time. I tend to listen to the episodes like a podcast rather than watch them, because I know the actors' voices well enough to be able to differentiate them. I do miss a lot of visual cues and moments that are much better when watched, but I don't mind too much. Whenever I know that I've missed something I tend to go back and re-watch just then.

Anyway, I blithely started watching Episode 89, and then 90, in which the party are on the moon called Ruidus, racing against time to save their world. It's an extremely tense arc, and so by the time Saturday rolled around I was more than ready for Episode 91 because it felt narratively like things were coming to the climax of the arc. Then, <details><summary>Click for spoilers!</summary><p>Fucking Sam Riegel broke my heart AGAIN because FCG sacrificed himself in a blaze of glory to save all of his friends from a TPK. I was at work, on a night shift, trying very hard not to cry in front of my coworkers, and everything was terrible</p></details>.

I JUST HAVE A LOT OF FEELINGS ABOUT D&D.

I'm a little annoyed that watching or listening to Critical Role is incompatible with my goal of reading more books this year. Obviously I can't listen to it and an audiobook simultaneously, and reading a book physically also isn't possible, for very similar reasons. So I'm just going to have to listen to it while I'm doing chores or knitting or something. It's fine. Hopefully this will provide me with enough motivation to actually get some cleaning done this week while I'm off work after my night shifts. If I play my cards right I can probably manage two episodes a day for the entire week. It's probably not great for my brain, but it's been a minute since I binged a show I really enjoyed, so that's something to look forward to.

In two weeks I've invited a couple of friends over for dinner. It's my old manager from the RCMP and his new boyfriend. He divorced his wife of something like 30 years back in 2021 (and good riddance, because she was an abusive, narcissistic bitch), and went to therapy, and finally allowed all the feelings he'd been suppressing all his life to come to the surface. I was the first person outside his family that he came out to, and I may or may not have barfed rainbows all over him when he did. ;) It's good to see him happy after all this time.

Having guests is always a good motivator to get the house clean, and also to try to come up with some fun recipes to try out. I haven't decided what to make yet, but I'd like to try my hand at some sort of fancy appetizer, at least. Maybe I'll try a Beef Wellington. That would be something, if I could pull it off! I'll have to poke around the internet and see what I can find as inspiration.

Okay, I think that's it for now. I may put in a grocery order to pick up for this week and just get that out of the way. I still have five hours left on this shift, and although I don't want to jinx myself, it's going by excruciatingly slowly.

It's been a weird day. It's been a weird week, frankly. I blame the fact that I was working from home for most of it and thus have the impression that I got nothing done.

Tonight is D&D (moved from Tuesdays because weekends are generally easier), so this has to be short. I will note that the professional organizers came today, and my garage is now tidy and organized! I still need to clean out the basement and put together shelving units in order to shift what's left in the garage, but my God, what a difference already. I put a ton of stuff outside with a "free" sign and posted it to Facebook, and I think about half of it is already gone, so I am cautiously optimistic for the rest of the stuff to go over the course of the weekend.

The rest of the weekend is booked for packing up with KK. I found extra boxes in my garage, too, which is nice. The only downside is that it cost a lot more than I thought it would. Ouch.

 We're playing the live game tonight (the one that streams on Twitch), and it's been a very roleplay-heavy session. We have a pair of brothers who are very close (and bicker constantly), and one brother has just found out that the other one is basically going to die unless they can find someone to cast a reincarnation spell. We're only level 8, so it's a ways away, but it's been a pretty emotionally charged session.

I took a short nap this afternoon, and ended up sleeping until 9:00 this morning. I finally heard back from Steve the Wonderful Car Mechanic, and I am bringing the car over tomorrow morning for repairs. Since I didn't get out in the field with Peggy today, I figure I will try for an early morning tomorrow and drive there directly from the field. Then Peggy and I can walk home, as it's only about a 30 minute walk. We shall see.

My Saturday night game is actually running tonight. We skipped several sessions, so I kind of forgot that was a thing I do every second Saturday. We're off to Candlekeep to do research on the sudden infestation of Illithids in Waterdeep, and to visit the mother of two of the party members. So far so good. :)

I tried napping earlier today, but was mostly unsuccessful. I am disappointed, to say the least, because napping before D&D is my favourite way of ensuring I'm not too exhausted the next day.

Today I slept in, stayed home, hung out with Peggy. I napped in the afternoon because I was supposed to play D&D tonight, but it got cancelled at the last minute, so I watched Blood Quantum instead (it's really good but very depressing) and am now watching an interview with Matthew Mercer of Critical Role before bed. 

I should go to sleep soon, but it's rather difficult to "interrupt" Matt Mercer. He is adorable, especially when he is gushing about how wonderful his wife is. <3

 We are fighting bandits! I think we're going to win. :)

I will come back with something more meaningful tomorrow.

Good night everyone!

I love my pets, I do, but why they all insist on acting up the minute my parents get on Skype with me is more than a little frustrating. My parents have concluded that my pets are out of control, and I can't really blame them. XD

 I am pondering a nap before tonight's D&D game, but I slept in already today and the game is in less than two hours, which means the nap would be kind of abbreviated. Decisions, decisions.

We missed the last D&D session, and I am trying to remember exactly what we did last time. My memory is not improving with age, that's for sure. Oops.

I think I won't nap, so feel free to remind me of this decision when I complain about being tired tomorrow, because I have to go to work early-ish to supervise a major network upgrade. *sigh* I don't feel like it, but them's the breaks.

We didn't TPK last time but we're about to start another fight that could prove just as deadly. Our poor, tiny, squishy party with no healer. XD  

Working from home sucks, and I am going to avoid it in the future. I am bad at it. I let myself get distracted constantly, and between than and the VPN constantly crashing, I got next to nothing useful done today. I am frustrated at myself, and it's obvious to me that being physically in the office puts me in the correct mindset for work. It might be a different story if I had no choice but to be at home, but I can go to the office in a manner that is safe: I am physically isolated from almost everyone else, and we have strict disinfection protocols in place. Since I am lucky enough to have this, I am going to take advantage of it and not try to reinvent the wheel working at home.

Tomorrow Peggy goes back to her trainer, and I'm both sad because I won't spend as much time with her and pleased because she'll be getting tons of exercise and training and run joyfully through the snowy fields every day. :)

Starting tomorrow I'm going to try to do a reset on the week and actually be productive the next few days. I am not at all pleased with how little I've gotten done since last Friday.