photo saturday: shrine

Life continues.

Which is kind of all you can say about the world right now.

I made pseudo minestrone soup this week. I say pseudo because I didn't use a recipe, I just threw a bunch of things that seemed like they should be in minestrone in a pot, and declared it good.

And it was good, to be honest.

There only ended up being one online game of DnD this week. And that was the Monday edition of the Friday game. And my character absolutely should be dead.But we have a kind DM. I mean, I say kind, she still handed us our asses. But nobody died.

And my character got into an argument with the new character, which was great... because big juicy roleplay is always great.

Wednesday's game was called off on account of birthday. Honestly, a birthday that should have been mentioned way, way earlier than it was. Or rather an inability to play because of said birthday should have been mentioned earlier. But, it meant I took a week off, and that wasn't the worst thing in the world.

And interestingly (or whatever), now that I think about it, the Friday game was also called off by a birthday. But a birthday not of one of the players, but one that removed half our group. So the remaining half (and by which I mean me and the other guy) still got together on Discord, talked shit and just hung out for a few hours.

Otherwise Friday was just plain weird.

It started off with me getting a little emotional over random YouTube videos... yeah, I know... but it's what happened. And it was fine, I did it, then I got up, started making the bed and just found myself crying again. I wasn't especially sad, I wasn't emotional at all really, but my body just had other plans.

So I cried while making the bed. I cried while having a shower. I cried shampooing my hair. I cried right up until the point I brushed my teeth. Because, it's hard to brush your teeth and cry. And it's not like I cried solidly that whole time. It was just clear that my body had plans that didn't include me.

Very weird.

I have a feeling my body just had a build up of stress hormones and needed a way to dump them before I needed to go out and do things in the world.

Because that was the other part of the day. Going into the world. It started with a trip into the city for my chiro appointment. I considered just taking the car, but ended up deciding on the bus. And wearing gloves. Because gloves.

I had the whole bus to myself. Except for the driver, obviously. But it was still weird. As was being in town for the first time in... I dunno, four, five weeks. Whenever my last chiro appointment was. And while I wouldn't call it "deserted" by any specific definition, it was definitely sparse.

So I did the chiro thing, wandered along the Mall, because I just wanted to see what everything was like.

Sparse.

I came home, shared the bus with one other person.

And then, because of today's half-day public holiday, I went to the supermarket. Alone. On a Friday. At noon. On the day before a half-day public holiday.

Yes, those of you paying attention will understand that while necessary, it was a bad idea. I mean it wasn't a disaster, but too many people, and not enough of them seemingly paying attention. To what they're doing or what other people are doing to be honest.

But I did what I needed to do, got my stuff and stuff for Ma... if it wasn't for the current state of the world, it would have felt very much like the bad old days after Ma was recovering from her shoulder injury.

Then I came home and made bread. Because Ma still came down this morning, but we didn't go shopping, so I decided to make bread. Turns out I haven't made bread at all in almost 30 days (not counting the hot cross buns)... and I haven't made bread to actually share with people in around 40 days. And I missed it. Both the making and the sharing... but mostly the making with the intention of sharing.

Anyway, Ma came down in the morning, we ate bread, watched crap on the YubTubs and whatnot and then she headed off home.

So yeah, life indeed continues.

Current Mood:

photo saturday: scientifica legofica

Day 562...

Into this fence or fortress, with infinite labour, I carried all my riches, all my provisions, ammunition, and stores, of which you have the account above; and I made a large tent, which to preserve me from the rains that in one part of the year are very violent there, I made double - one smaller tent within, and one larger tent above it; and covered the uppermost with a large tarpaulin, which I had saved among the sails.

Fun fact... I just discovered that Daniel Defoe, author of Robinson Crusoe (above), was deathly afraid of full stops... his writing seemingly having very, very, very few of them.

Yeah, I was doing a bit... but I can't get over how dense his writing is. That whole paragraph is one fucking long run-on, semi-coloned sentence. Wow.

Anyway, moving on...

This week's attempt at chowder was... serviceable. I got distracted while it was cooking and may have left it on the simmer for longer than was necessarily good for it. It was fine, but not thrilling.

I did attempt making hot cross buns. It was likewise serviceable. Even if I should have left them in the oven for another five minutes. I don't know if it was just the recipe that was a bit m'eh, or it was me... but I won't be using that one again.

Monday, Wednesday and Friday were all online DnD nights. Monday and Friday was our regular Friday night game (you know what I mean)... and then I ran something on Wednesday. I'll be honest, I don't love running online. Or at least when it's audio only. I think I'd just feel better if there was video. Especially for that group.

Alas, no. I had done a lot of set up in Roll 20, the platform we've been using. So at least that worked well.

This coming week I'm running the second half.

Thursday was Haircut Day. Correction, Thursday was supposed to be Haircut Day. I cancelled it. On the down side that does move the "I'm gunna do something drastic to my hair" Doomsday Clock five minutes closer to... you know... drastic.

Or else I'm just going to end up looking like Worzel Gummidge.

Otherwise, not much of anything else. I genuinely didn't leave the house between getting home from the supermarket last Saturday and dumping a bunch of recycling in the bins downstairs on Friday afternoon.

So there's that.

Today was actually a relatively chill shopping trip. I mean people are still intensely ridiculous and don't pay attention, but that notwithstanding, it was fine.

I'm aiming for a minestrone soup this week... or at least a pseudo minestrone.

Otherwise everything was fine, we got back here, watched some YubTubs once again. And then around noon Ma wandered off home.

Current mood:

photo saturday: blue layers

Leaving the house is stressful.

I know, I know, Captain Obvious, newsflash, film at eleven. Still true though.

So... I made beef stew. Not perhaps the most artful or well constructed beef stew. I maybe added a little too much flour to it later in the process to try and thicken it, plus I added the last of my brown rice. But not quite soon enough so that first bowl on Sunday night, it was still a little undercooked. I mean once I reheated some of it the next day it was fine. But still.

And I totally fucked the pearl/pickling onions. By which I mean I ended up slicing them in half to make them go further and they just dissolved into individual onion pieces. Ah well.

The beef itself was beautiful and tender though. And it wasn't the worst. It was just distinctly average. Which is perfectly fine. It's not like I got bored with it.

Anyway.

There were three DnD games again this week... our Friday game became both Monday and Friday, and we finally finished off the punishing series of adventures on Wednesday.

Monday's game might have been a mistake... and I say that only because one of our party died. Like dead dead. The character obviously, not the player. And I surrendered the rest of the party to the bad guys because what the hell else was I going to do, we would all have ended up with new characters otherwise.

So then on Friday we had a possible chance to bring him back, or rather we had the opportunity to say our goodbyes and his player then made a decision about whether or not to bring him back. He chose not to, which is fine. But now we have to create new relationships with this completely new character. I'll be honest, I don't hate the new character, it made contextual sense, but it's just gunna take a while before this new character finds her niche.

It'll be interesting though.

Wednesday was an exercise in frustration. I mean these last three modules have been an exercise in frustration. But when the final session is essentially one big combat encounter and you get stunned for basically the last, I dunno, 45 minutes to an hour maybe. I mean I started off combat with a big boom and knocked a big bunch of health off some of the final bad guys, but it was a super frustrating encounter anyway, and then not being able to do a damn thing was doubly so. I mean it mostly was the fault of my dice and/or random chance. But still.

At least we're done with those adventures now. And those characters are now essentially the highest level any of us have that we're still playing (basically they're about the same as the ones we just finished playing the Out of the Abyss campaign with).

But I'm going to run the next adventure, which may go for between two and four sessions, depending. But it's one I've run before, and I like, so we'll see how badly these particular friends manage to fuck it up. Because they will. And I'll punish them appropriately in game when they do.

Thursday was... not usual. After being pulled over the other week for a non-working brake light, I needed to take my car in for a service, and to get the light fixed obviously. So I set out early, dropped the car at our usual mechanic and then waited for Ma to show up and give me a ride home.

I don't like outside right now. Outside is where other people are.

But I did some outside, then we came back here, did nothing much really. We put a movie on that I mostly ignored and fiddled around with the laptop. And then the mechanic called around lunchtime and we headed back, I picked up the car and we went our separate ways.

So not very much really... but you know, outside.

Which brings us around to today. Saturday and the supermarket.

I pseudo realised (in so much as it had probably already occurred to me, but I just hadn't spent any time on the thought) that right now shopping is the most stressful thing I'm doing... actually that most people are doing.

And of course people who don't usually shop first thing on a Saturday morning are thinking to themselves "hey, I'll go in early and get things done first thing". Which is a great idea if dozens of other people weren't having the same thought. So there end up being more people than usual... and those people aren't all thinking clearly because everyone's brains are fried right now.

So I might have very politely told off a couple of women early in the trip for going the opposite way around the supermarket. Yes, yes, I know. But the supermarket put up a gigantic sign in the entryway asking people to do it, and, you know what, I'm shopping with a woman in her 70's, so you better follow fucking directions and abide by social distancing. On the up side, at least one of those women then inform someone else who was going in the wrong direction, so, you now what, my work here is done. I know most people aren't doing it on purpose, see earlier comment about fried brains, but sometimes you gotta poke people gently from a safe distance.

The unfortunate thing was that we then kept running into the same two women, but I'll live with that.

I also took a moment to tell the woman assigned to the self-serve checkouts that her bunny ears looked fabulous, because they did. And it seemed to improve her day, so that's good.

Anyway... we both went in with the solid idea that we weren't going to buy as much stuff... and somehow about half way through I think the wheels fell off that idea. But we did find some face masks. Very expensive face masks I will say, but I feel better having them.

I'm making some version of chowder this week. Probably more of a corn/pea/general vegetable chowder, I mean I do have some chicken in the freezer, so I could add that, but who knows.

Once we got back here we faffed around a little, then Ma just headed home. Because what else is there to do right now.

Current mood:

photo saturday: verticals

Every time I got to start one of these posts of late, all I can think of is this fanciful Tumblr post about very long queues while visiting the supermarket in the lead up to a snowstorm from 2016...

Day 27: we have created a new colony, hidden among the dried goods and Italian import section…we hear rumors of a similar colony in the frozen food aisle, perhaps we might trade with them.

Day 32: we sent a band of our people out to try and establish contact with the Frozen Food Peoples…they did not return.At night we hear screaming and tell ourselves it is the wind.

Night 33: It is not the wind.

The full version is worth reading.

So clearly, I've gone around the bend, yes? Honestly it's kinda hard to tell right now.

I did, however, decide completely on a whim to bake a chocolate cake at 4pm the other day. Don't ask me what day, they all run together for the most part. And then yesterday I got up out of my chair and started rearranging three shelves in my pantry. I mean it was good because I was able to work out what the fuck I actually had. But then I swapped all my remaining plastic containers for glass jars. That may have been a mistake, given the relative space I lost, but glass jars make me happy, so there's that.

Also, without context, this has made me smile a number of times this week, and I'm therefore recommending it to almost everyone I speak to.

You know how I regularly say that there is a day in March that starts out with me wearing shorts and ends with me in a hoodie? Well after a couple of false starts, that week finally appeared. Very late being the last week in March/first week in April, but better late than never.

But let's try and keep some sense of normality and backtrack to the start of the week.

Chicken noodle soup this week... using one regular chicken stock and one Thai noodle soup base. Not bad. Spicy enough to be interesting, but not overwhelmingly so.

I baked bread on Monday night, because having it with soup was more important than having it for Friday night.

If I do that again this week, I might make a whole loaf... although the fact that flour only comes in 10kg bags at the moment is slightly problematic. I mean I'll do it, don't get me wrong, but it'll only be really, really useful for as long as the yeast lasts.

This week there will be beef... something. Probably closer to stew, but aiming somewhere between soup and stew.

Monday night, Wednesday night and Friday night were all online DnD nights. Of the three, Monday was the best logistically... in so much as we had video chat AND online maps. Wednesday we had voice chat and maps. Friday we just had video chat.

Weirdly, my Wednesday character, one of my oldest characters, is on a bit of a downward spiral right now. I didn't make a decision that was going to happen. But the DM asked us questions at the start of the game during the last couple of sessions about our character's state of mind and what they were up to, and my character made some interesting choices. Ending up with her spending at least a couple of weeks taking a room in a festhall (ie brothel), drinking, fighting and fucking. Interestingly, while there isn't a ton of info on the place, I did find this:

The Velvet Doublet: A festhall that caters to the wealthy. Known to satisfy those with exotic tastes.

Yep, that's right up my girl's alley. She has a bit of a thing for the exotic ladies. And she's absolutely swimming in coin.

Anyway... the adventure was... frustrating maybe... I dunno. The combination of the enemy type (I'm pretty sure the adventures were chosen specifically because they exploit our weakness as a party, low intelligence stats), and if we'd run them as three 4 hour sessions, that might have been fine, but it's been five 3+ hour sessions with another to go, so by the end of this module I will be very much over it. Plus I'm playing with characters who do ridiculous amounts of damage, like 'totally broken, why does this fucking ability even exist within the game, wtf' amounts. And for some reason it's getting on my nerves. Not that they're annoying with it, but when me, as the spell caster, only casts like three spells in a four hour session, it's a bit frustrating.

I'll live, I mean compared with everything else going on in the world, it literally isn't important. It's just that when everything else is out of control, you look for those little things you can attempt to control, right?

Anyway.

Friday night's session was a short one, but we're scheduling another session for Monday to make up for it. And we might do that for the next few weeks, given that we've been all over the shop for the last little while, understandably for the most part, but still.

Today was a study in me being a judgemental bitch. Which is my default state, but when you have announcements at the supermarket that say "hey, we put big blue arrows on the floor, you should follow the arrows", and 90% of people do that... I'm going to be a judgemental bitch at the other 10%. Because stupid people who think the rules don't apply to them.

Otherwise, we bought more stuff than we should have. It's not even like we're "stockpiling", it's just that we keep buying more stuff than usual. Which is a problem. I think. I honestly don't know.

Remember last week when I said I had that human moment with the woman at the deli counter? Yeah, happened again with the same woman today, and turned into a very surface level conversation, but it was still nice. And the girl on the checkout was a little spitfire, but I liked her. I think she might have been mid-complaint about stupid people when we got there, and I always enjoy that.

Anyway, my weekly excursion over, we headed back here, did the usual YubTubs thing and then Ma headed home.

Welcome to the next six months, basically.

Current mood: