Super, super busy already this month.
I want to lead off with this quote from a player in one of the city builder worlds I play in.
I know you guys don't know me, and I'm not looking for pity, but make sure to let people close to you know that you care. I've lost 2 family members and 5 friends in the last 2 months. It's really why my attendance has been a little spotty lately. i apologise, and I'll be back 100% when things cool down. Thanks.
First of all, NEVER APOLOGIZE FOR REAL LIFE.
Omg, apologizing because people died? Wow.
The kind of gaming I'm into this last couple years tends to attract older people. I play with terminal cancer patients gaming right up to their deaths at home, among many other aging medical conditions. It has never been more obvious to me than in gaming that people are dying off, bigly, everywhere. Covid and lockdowns and now failing health are wiping fellowships out so badly that the game creators have stepped up reorganizing dead spots on the city maps and offering extra special purchase deals. It's not at all uncommon for half a fellowship to just stop playing and for arch mages to suddenly go MIA. I'm a regular mage in several groups, and one of the arch mages will be going into triple bypass surgery quite soon. Half his fellowship is already MIA and I'm basically holding the line for him till he comes out the other side. If he goes MIA longer than a month or two, I might just take the few left and start another group. Without any contact we'll have no idea if he didn't survive the surgery or was away from game long enough to just let it go.
Interestingly, I happened to join one fellowship recently (I play in several worlds) where an arch mage stomped off. Here's the basic takeaway.
Archmage abandons Fellowship for more aggressively playing group.
Fellowship pouts while one asks in chat who will step up.
No one answers for two days. One asks again, begs. No one answers. I go *ahem*...
No one objects. I, the lowest ranked least senior member, slide into arch mage.
Fellowship blows up. 3 leave, loyal to the arch mage who abandoned them. No one else says anything.
We blow a tournament they are easily capable of owning.
Someone insinuates it was my fault...
I go Arch Mage MOM all over their butts and start posting the ultimate tournament strategy guide.
They are stunned to realize they're playing with a f*kng hot damn professional gamer.
We'll see what happens.
Wow, this font is horrible for italics. I have to keep bolding it.
So that and the holiday slide is upon us, which means town festivals and punkin patches and school activities. I've been to one of the bigger local HS football games, helped with a school function, showed up to birthday (more coming!), started prepping my house for holidays. We got that front deck done last time I was blogging, now we've got new blinds up on the main floor windows and I'll be getting a Christmas tree up early this year because that's what you do when medical stuff pops up with others and the winter already looks dismal. I personally know a person who just found out defcon cancer, might be her last Christmas if she makes it that long, another is going into major surgery before holidays hit and recovery will hamper festivities, stuff like that.
I know I left you guys hanging on my own stuff. I'm actually in good health, but we're keeping an eye on my liver again. I have a long history of autoimmune flare ups that finally stopped in 2014 but not before handfuls of medications damaged my liver. I was dx'd with a liver condition in my 30s because of that, and now I'm 60. Well, after that norovirus in August, guess what got triggered. Yep, there's more puffiness, so now, even though I'm feeling ok, it's time to get a baseline on stuff like schlerosing mesenteritis and liver fibrosis. If they decide I need treatment I'll likely wind up on long term prednisone, which I find unpleasant, to put it nicely.
If you've not spent your entire adult life on medications, I hope you really appreciate that. For the most part I've been able to live a pretty normal life, minus the energy for actual fun and stuff, but I still got a college degree and raised kids and held jobs through it all, sure can't complain because I could have (probably should have) died when I was 19 but God kept me here, so here I still am. I don't have cancer and I'm not in any immediate danger with my health, not actually suffering illness right now, and I'm able to eat and sleep enough to do pretty well, like run my house and enjoy gaming and a few other hobbies like my chickens. But yeah, if you haven't had to deal with years of medications destroying your body to 'keep you healthy' or something, please consider yourself lucky enough to have more power in your life to change your circumstances if you don't like how it's going. It's one thing feeling stuck with no money or from depression or a really stressful job or a very stupid situation with family, but it's a whole different story when you're medically unable for years to actually do things like drive away and go shopping or something. I mean, I can do that a bit now, but there was a long time I couldn't. Just don't take it for granted if you can.
Anyway, yeah, I'm going to get my tree up before Halloween and seriously have more fun with holidays this year because I don't know how next year will be and I don't wanna be all mopey about it. I'm presetting the mood and enjoying my family.
As noted on twitter and in many other blog posts through the years, this is my birthday month, as well. I may not be able to eat more than a couple forks of fluff when I make my birthday cake, but I'm totally making one. I don't care if the world blows up and the money fails and all of Elon's satellites go crashing, I'm enjoying my birthday month, every single day. I made it this long against quite a lot of odds and I'm celebrating. The best present I've gotten so far is ARCH MAGE MOM. 😂😂😂 omg, that is too funny. I'm so boss it's pathetic. I was born for that. I can't help taking over everywhere I go, even if it's subtle and from behind a curtain.
In the meantime, got another gallon of cherry tomatoes and some homegrown peppers from one of the kids, so I made another batch of salssssa and am using that in my continuing calorie restriction (super yummy and super low-cal) coupled with fasting one meal a day, no junk. I made a crustless ham and cheese quiche over the weekend to use up some of the eggs, and one day I made a really pretty filet mignon, so my birthday month is starting off really yummy.
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