wickedwords

I got a wonderful story in 痛いのは嫌なので防御力に極振りしたいと思います。| BOFURI: I Don't Want to Get Hurt so I'll Max Out My Defense. (Anime)  fandom.  The show is cute, about a young girl who must have extraordinary luck being talked into playing her first MMORPG by her best friend, and the wacky hijinks that ensue.  The story feels like an episode, and Maple and Sally's relationship is front and center as the first Christmas event in the game rolls around.  Very sweet, very cute, and I enjoyed it a lot.  

All I want for Christmas is Loot by Tren

Meanwhile, I wrote a Hidden Legacy series story for sadlikeknives, where Arabella Baylor becomes Stephen Jiang's bodyguard.  sadlikeknives and I matched on at least 3 fandoms, and as I had just finished Emerald Blaze in the Hidden Legacy series, I had to write about my favorite snarky character in it, Arabella.  Again, I envisioned a novel that had to be cut down to a short story to meet the deadline. :)

Part Time Bodyguard by rachael sabotini (rache, wickedwords)

I lost most of this week to the election.  I got the basics done - dishes, groceries, meals, laundry -- and I slept most nights thanks to melatonin and 'relaxing sleep sounds' before bed.  However Tuesday night was terrible, and I could not sleep that night;  I got maybe 4 hours with the stress, and anxiety dreams waking me up again and again. I spent most of Wednesday avoiding everything and read a book.  So when I woke up Thursday and things were better, I was able to work on picking my life back up again, including going to my online Tai Chi for Better Balance class on zoom.  Today I felt almost back, though I still didn't get everything I wanted to accomplish completed.  What I did was good enough.

Here's hoping that things improve a little more over the weekend.  

The group Lar was working for terminated all of their contractors at the end of June, and we got maybe three business days notice that it was happening.  Our healthcare coverage ended then, but on Lar's last time contracting through this company, we got a month's grace on converting over to COBRA.  The process of ending the coverage is automated to align with the end of the contract, but they overwrote the info so we paid it out of the last check with the company.

This time due to the short notice -- along with the standard COVID stuff and the fourth of July holiday -- coverage ended on the 30th and we only found out because I renewed my prescriptions today and went to my dentist appointment.   We've being e-mailed versions of the forms we have to fill out, so we should have everything straightened out today or tomorrow.  But it also means we will most likely have to pay out of pocket for the stuff I did today, and get it all reimbursed once we can confirm that we are set up for COBRA, which should be retro to the first of the month.  

it's annoying, and it makes me anxious, and that is pretty much par for the course.

 Last week, I made green french lentil picnic salad.  I love making this for warm weather days, as it's cool and tart and the whole thing sits for a day to soak up the vinaigrette that I make for it.  The trick is to get the lentils just right, so they aren't too hard or too soft after resting for that final day. 

Lar and I chatted as I worked, cutting up the vegetables and both of us sorting through the green lentils to make sure it was all good after I pulled the bag from the shelf.  But something went wrong this time, and while the lentils were soft enough to be called cooked, they just weren't right.  There was a grittiness to them that I didn't remember, and it lacked the favor and punch that I expected.  "Maybe it needed more time," I muttered to myself, and I could not get past the fact that it just wasn't what I wanted. 

Today, I went to the cupboard to get the bag of green peas for the split pea soup I planned to make tonight.  The only thing I found was a bag of green french lentils instead. :)

 ( Can I remember how to do a cut tag? )

The first of March, we decided not to go out to restaurants anymore because of the coronavirus spread in the community.  Since then, My life seems to consist of cooking, cleaning, books, and netflix, with a small amount of exercise to break up the day.  So far, the star baking items have been:

Week 1: Larry's Naan bread
Week 2: Yellow cake with Chocolate Frosting
Week 3: Tie - Berry pie and Banana bread
Week 4: Old Fashioned Oatmeal Cake with Broiled Coconut Topping
Week 5: Tie - Rosemary, Sea Salt, and Olive Oil crackers and Larry's Homemade Pizza dough (New York Style)

I still have a pre-made pie shell, so that might become either a quiche or I might do a pudding or custard based pie.  Or I could go all out and try a pot pie instead! 

Friday we ordered take out for the first time in three weeks.  I'd seen an article interviewing the owner of the mexican restaurant at the bottom of our hill, and he talked about the rough time they are having -- they have 2 restaurants, and 5 people working on take out and delivery orders but they aren't turning a profit.  So we decided to order something last night, and Lar picked up.  We descended on the enchiladas, corn chips, and soft tacos like we were ravenous wolves or something.  Or at least cats that didn't think they'd been fed for a day.  It took us maybe 15 minutes to eat, and oh, it was so, so good.

However, it did break through a mental barrier I had: We picked up Starbucks this morning too.  We're going back to eating at home, but it was like the high from a couple of 'cheat meals' when you're on a diet.  I think that's the only way to explain how it felt.

 My house is about 5 miles from the Life Care Center of Kirkland, and J's father-in-law lived there for awhile.  My little city of Redmond had some of the first responders help with the mass evac of the facility, so we are at 3/4 staffing right now.  The mayor declared a state of emergency to get help with that, but needless to say, the city government is being incredibly cautious right now.

Such as: I usually go to Tai Chi on Thursdays - but all of the senior programs and city classes with more than 10 people were canceled as of last night. It's going to be on a week-to-week basis that they decide whether or not to close. I cannot imagine that they will reopen next week, or that I would go if they do.

Still planning on individuals coming over to the house, but we are no longer meeting friends at restaurants. I do have one final fast food outing scheduled for a friend's house, where we will pick up and eat at her place to minimize contact with workers.  Not the best, but we've got two months (more or less) of build up to go through before we get to peak; at the moment, the risk of infection is low, so one final hurrah.

Lar has been advised to work from home as much as possible; no one should go into the office.  We are going to have to figure out a place where I can put my computer as his con calls are already loud and annoying to me.    Maybe it's time to reclaim the living room from the cats, and set myself up with an office there.

Per the research I've seen, it looks that the bulk of the infection spread outside of china will hit around the early part of summer, right when we have scheduled our trip to England.  I am waiting a couple of weeks to confirm that expectation, but if it happens, we will probably cancel early so we can get something of a refund.  We aren't flying United, but given that the company is already canceling international flights into April, I think that we might not be able to get there by June anyway.  I do have trip insurance, so I could wait until something happens that actually prevents us from going and make a claim then, or I can do it this month and have everything settled.  Argh.  Decisions. 

At least the taxes are done.  No refund, but nothing to pay either.  One more worry down.

We de-cluttered our Christmas stuff this year before returning it to our storage area under the stairs, aka the place that Harry Potter lived.  We repacked and eliminated four ancient shoeboxes and an entire plastic crate of stuff.   We kept the stockings that my mom made for us while she was alive, and donated the ones we bought for ourselves when we first got married.  The handmade ones had more feelings attached.

I finished up several books over the last couple of months, in part because I finally retired and we took a long train trip to the Grand Canyon, (which was amazing!) I think I', going to have to break the books into two groupings, as I read a lot more than I expected.

#21: Storm of Locusts (The Sixth World #2) by Rebecca Roanhorse
I enjoyed this book but didn't love it as much as I did the first one, which I have to admit is a pattern with me. Probably due to the way the universe is widened out to encompass more post-apocalypse societies, while the main relationship and main culture from the prior book stayed in the background. Still a good action plot and good characters and world building, but in expanding the world, I missed seeing more about relationship fallout from book one.

#22: Sapphire Flames (Hidden Legacy #4) by Ilona Andrews
Sapphire Flames is interesting because it shifts the series protagonist to the second of a set a sisters, rather than either of the main characters for the first set of these novels. Still a romance, with a young protagonist and her more experienced love interest, and still very light in tone despite the body count. Interesting contrast to storm of locusts, as this book doesn't try to widen the universe really, just dig in to more detail about the way the world works. Still Houston, still genetic magic, same family trying to make ends meet, but very different problems. Also I have a completely made up slash pairing in this universe, and I got a whole arm touch between the two of them, which made me happy.

#23: Hounded (The Iron Druid Chronicles #1) by Kevin Hearne

Wow. Yeah. This was recommended to me as 'like the Dresden novels', and while I can see the same types of patterns in it that match up between the two series, this one doesn't even bother with terrible relationship building and even try to do anything with the female characters, other than strip them and have sex with them right away. Plus I really want a better term for 'authorial wish fulfillment/fantasy so strong that it lights up every chapter in the book and makes me uncomfortable', but I don't have one. Just...No.

As that catches me up to where I was before my train trip started, I'll stop there.  I still have so many books to read!