photo saturday: stone and nature

So, this week included the Freeing of the Finger (more on that later), the usual DnD shenanigans and... not much else.

Oh, I did make a really good bolognese sauce though... one I made up out of my head, and then let simmer for about... I dunno, four hours I think.

Lets start with the Freeing of the Finger. The bandaid lasted until Tuesday night. I mean it would actually have lasted the whole week probably, but I was enthusiastic to be totally fucking rid of it, so it lasted from Friday morning to Tuesday night.

And my finger was all kinds of weird and funky under there... mostly because it's been trapped inside a, most frequently, sealed dressing for a little over a month, with only five brief excursions into the world when the dressing was getting changed.

But a bit of a wash, a pair of nail clippers and some dry skin moisturiser later and it wasn't doing too bad. It is still a little weird though. Clearly being trapped under a dressing for that long has done a number on the top knuckle of my finger, and it kind of looks like I've had it soaking in water for a little too long. That'll sort itself out eventually.

As for the cut... it's a little like if you've ever burned yourself on an oven tray... it's almost like a little blister, which I'm guessing is how my finger is protecting the stop until the flesh completely grows over it. I mean it's already filled in a lot more of the edges compared with my memory of the piece that I cut off/my previous brief looks at the wound.

It's also very strange that that "blister" can't really feel anything, unless of course I happen to accidentally slam it into something... then I feel all the feelings. But it's only been four days since I took the bandage off, so we'll see what develops.

The DnD games went off as usual... although there were a lot less people around the place on Monday, which was good, it meant that I could actually hear all of my players.

Wednesday slightly derailed at one point... actually a few points... but it was a good session.

Thursday was still the smaller group, which I like. And we had a few significant moments... and picked up yet another NPC (at this point we usually have more damn NPCs with the group than players). And the nice thing about driving your DM home is you get to have private conversations with some of the NPCs.

Otherwise, a quiet week (and it was nice not having to get up first thing in order to go to a doctor's appointment in town).

Today was another day when I did get up nice and early, have my shower and then tidy the apartment up. Then it was off to the supermarket for supermarket things.

Not much to report there either to be honest.

Then after the ritual unpacking, we headed into the city to check out the Australian Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year.

I will say that I was pleasantly surprised at how many of the entries I really, really liked. So much so that when it came time to pick a favourite for the People's Choice thing, it took me a hot minute.

I ended up going with Broken Dreams by Ben Goode (top left), which Ma, predictably, went with Enchanted by Matty Smith (top right).

Although I very nearly went with Beetle’s Big Dinner by Yicai Chang (middle left(... which doesn't look like much in small scale, but was so simple but so beautiful blow up full size on the museum wall.

It's sticking around until 18 November here, but it's also showing in Sydney until the end of January, and it's worth a look (even when I occasionally disagree with what the judges chose as category winners).

We didn't have anything else we wanted to do, so it was a brief wander in the Mall, a quick stop for a beverage and then we called it a day.

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photo saturday: fluffy, feathers and frilled

As much as I don't want to hurry along summer, I also wish that the weather would make it's little mind up a tiny wee bit.

When the start of the week is shorts and the airconditioner, and the end of week is rain and a jacket, you can see why.

Anyway...

No real DnD news this week... everything was business as usual for the most part, although we did have a really good session on Thursday, mostly because it was only three players and the DM. Otherwise it was me running on Monday, the usual Wednesday game and then the Game of Variable Player Numbers on Thursday.

The rest of the week was fairly quiet... all things considered.

Friday was both my appointment with my GP about my sliced finger as well as my chiro appointment... and of course I matched them up so they were basically back to back.

It was also my final GP appointment... the finger is healing up nicely, and we've gone from full finger dressing, to half finger dressing to fingertip dressing to basically a bandaid (it's one of those terracotta coloured cloth bandaids, but it's still basically a bandaid)... and a bandaid that I can take off or swap over whenever I'm ready. Which is excellent.

I might leave it on for most of the week, just to ensure that everything is as healed up as it can be before I go exposing it to the world... I mean it looks pretty damn good, by comparison, even to last week, but it still has a little way to go.

Otherwise my chiro appointment was fairly standard, nothing really to report there.

Today was not much of anything to be honest.

We did the shopping thing in the morning as usual, and I actually got up really damn early, showered, got dressed and then tidied up, washed some dishes, etc... stuff I could have done during the end of the week but that I just couldn't be fucked doing.

We'd planned on going to the movies this week... but because the movie choices currently on offer range from questionable to shithouse, there really hasn't be much we wanted to see... and it turned out that the only thing we actually wanted to go and see wasn't on anywhere at an appropriate time. Thanks for that universe.

So we didn't go to the movies.

Instead we decided to take a random trip into the city, with no actual attached plan. Which turned out to be a good plan because we went past the Oxfam second hand book place while they were having one of their book sales. One quick trip around the block and a super convenient parking place later and we were knee deep in discounted second hand books.

And for a change I actually managed to find a few that were worth considering.

Then it was up and down the mall, mostly avoiding or attempting to avoid the stupid fashion festival shit taking up space in the mall, but not really doing much of anything else. That was followed by lunch at Burger Theory and then we pretty much called it a day.

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photo saturday: dem faces

Okay, so my brain is basically a big ball of fluff right now... so we'll see how well this works out...

As mentioned last week, this week was the first Post Soup week... which was fine, although actually making food at appropriate food times is hard. As in harder than just going to the fridge, getting out the soup and warming it up.

DnD was about how I expected... Monday's game was the last of the Tier 2 Rage of Demons season adventures I've been running sequentially, so next up are some adventures set in the same location, then an adventure I'm really looking forward to, but one that might stretch the roleplay abilities of some of my players.

Wednesday was a LOT of DnD... like we did a couple of hours finishing up the final combat from last week after we didn't actually die, then started the first couple of hours of a new adventure, then played a couple of hours of a random encounter... ending up at around six and a half hours. Exhausting, but exciting.

Then Thursday was the reduced Thursday crew (which also meant that I needed to be group taxi), which is generally quieter and pleasant because we manage to get a lot of stuff done, but I also end up doing a lot of the talking... which is fine, but sometimes I wonder if I'm doing too much talking. I mean I give other people space to do their own thing, but, I tend to be the one doing most of the NPC interactions. Granted our DM is pretty good at making sure various characters have their moments, and I know to step back in those instances, but still.

Then I went into the city again on Friday to get my dressing changed again. And it's even smaller than it was last week. Plus we (well, mostly me, but at the doctor/nurse's instigation) pulled the scab off, very carefully, but I actually got to have a good look at the current top of my finger since I sliced it off. And it looks good, considering.

Granted it also looks a little like the wound has been sealed over with a thin layer of matt plastic and the actual flesh hasn't grown back in yet... but it does look better than the giant black scab. Or when it was fresh and bleeding profusely.

Anyway...

Today was pretty average.

We started with the supermarket thing... and I had to remember to actually think of meals in my head that I could make... always the less fun part of not soup season.

Afterwards we looked through the movie listings and found a big fat nothing. I mean not nothing nothing, but very nearly almost. I don't know what the hell is going on just of late, but it's been a while since there was something worth bothering with.

So instead we went down to Marion, not with any great plan in mind, more just a general wander.

And wander we did. Mostly looking at a combination of Halloween and Christmas decorations, because while I don't give a toss about Halloween as a holiday, I do dig the aesthetic of spooky decorations.

I also managed to find a functional and somewhat decent red bow to go on my door at Christmas.

But that was really it. We stopped off and got some "lunch"... I say lunch but it was only really something to drink and something quite light to eat.

Oh, and before I forget, I did speak with The Boy not this week but the week before and we sorted things out. I'm mostly chalking drama up to me getting in my own way/head, but also partially him, just not the him I was expecting or had assumed was the issue. So things are okay... they're never going to be what they were again, that was basically a very specific time window and that time is gone, but yeah, at least it got sorted.

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photo saturday: orphanage forking

So this week felt a little more... put together I guess, than last week.

We started off with what was definitely the last soup of the season, and very probably the last time I make that roasted tomato soup recipe... it's good, but it's just too rich.

Then DnD was fairly low-key over all, even though I could very easily have wiped out my whole party on Wednesday (and didn't by having one of the bad guys sit down on the unconscious body of one of the players while propping her feet on another body. They won out eventually though, but I did get to reduce the intelligence score of one of them to 0 for a brief period. Which was fun.

I also got to pay forward something another DM did to one of my characters by taking off his character's finger while he was flipping off the bad guy.

Also, the DM on Wednesday almost nearly wiped out the whole party when everybody but one person failed an important save at the end of the adventure. Fortunately we figured a way around it (with the use of a magic item), but it was touch and go for a hot second there.

Then Thursday we got back to our "regularly scheduled programming" and returned to our Underdark adventures. I always like those sessions becasue there is a LOT of roleplay... not just because of the nature of the story but very much about the way we play. And it's the first time we've all been back together where everything just worked properly. The DM and one of the players got into some deep roleplay, I managed to engage everyone else at various points, even if not for very long. And there wasn't a lot of fucking around, which I appreciate.

Otherwise I had my haircut on Thursday, which was pretty much the same as always, with the possible exception that we went a lot more silver with my hair... not perfectly or exactly the way that I thought it might look, but in the right neighbourhood.

Tink's older daughter was around, and I swear that she's currently 7 going on 13... or at least with the required amount of attitude for a 13 year old. Not that it overly bothered me, but I think Tink will be happy when school holidays are over.

Then Friday it was time to get the dressing on my finger changed again. I really cannot wait until I can type properly with all 10 fingers... this 9 finger typing is getting on my nerves.

But it was a quick in and out, the finger is looking much better, part of the "scab" already came off (although I have a strong suspicion that it was just scab that had formed over undamaged skin because of how the dressing was done), and they've downgraded the dressing again from the big plasticy kind to a small cloth dressing. Which is good and bad, because it's a little like I have a small pillow strapped to the end of my finger right now. And I have to be more careful about keeping it dry.

At least it's an improvement.

Afterwards I had a little wander around the city and ended up looking at various Christmas decorations... because, yes, we need to do the Christmas decoration thing in October... which was sarcasm by the way.

Today I was on my own for the supermarket portion of the day... which meant it was headphones on and speedy shopping... I'm also pretty sure I didn't buy enough stuff to actually makes meals for the whole week, but we'll see what happens, I may have to improvise.

I had enough time before Ma arrived to put everything away, do some washing up and catch up on some other bits and pieces I needed to do.

We had (unsurprisingly, given the photos in this post) plans to head out to the Fork on the Road in Unley later in the day, but that gave us a bunch of time this morning, so we headed into the city so Ma could go and ask at the Apple Store about an issue with her phone, and then I could show her a bunch of stuff I spotted when I was in town on Sunday.

The Apple Store visit was remarkably simple, and to be honest, I think their suggestion was the right one, Ma has been using the same charging cord since we got the phones and changing to a new one is probably going to fix the issue.

Then there was some general wandering looking at various Christmas departments (because, yes, I am part of the problem)... looking at some stuff, not really buying much of anything to be honest.

That was followed up with a quick visit to Dymocks, but then we headed off to Fork.

A very wise woman once said "timing is important"... and thus it was that while we could have tried to get a parking spot out on the street when we got to Orphanage Park in Millswood we tried our luck and managed to get a spot in the park with no trouble at all.

I will say that the Fork on the Road events aren't as exciting as they maybe used to be. Don't get me wrong, I still love that they happen and I love going when we do... but I just feel like they used to be... I dunno, more interesting. Or at least there was a wider range of stuff... I dunno.

But in this particular case the location was good, the range wasn't bad and the crowd wasn't bad.

We started off with a Boerewors Roll, a South African sausage in a bun basically. Not bad, but there's not many ways to screw up a sausage in a bun. Following that was Bubble Tea, because I always like Bubble Tea. I still wanted something a little savoury so ended up getting some samosas and naan from Beyond India, then finished it off with loukoumades from the Honey Puff Lad (which may have previously been the Honey Puff Ladies, I'm not entirely sure).

I'll be honest, I really should have gone with the smaller serve of loukoumades... too much of a good thing is still too much. I didn't even finish them all off while we were there, I brought some home with me.

So that was, as they say, that.

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