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Late Update After A Tiring Wednesday
Jul. 5th, 2023 11:57 pmAnd, hilariously, most of the day was NOT tiring, it's just one bad thing pretty much ruined the rest of my evening, as you will see momentarily --
Work – Okay, so – work itself was not bad. My talky coworker is still out with medical stuff, and my other coworker had to leave early for an appointment, so I had the place to myself for the most part, which was fine. I did monthly reports, looked over a QC file, took a handful of phone calls, resolved some credit card stuff, put on some checks, and cleared up some weird duplicates. Nothing horrible, made the day go by pretty quickly.
AND THEN WE GOT TO THE FUCKING RIDE HOME. Basically, I got onto my usual route to get back, only to find it all backed up; learned from the radio that there was an accident on the highway right where I needed to go; figured “all right, I hate doing it, but I have to cut through the city” – and then discovered that the city was full of fucking accidents too. Or, at least, it was full of fire trucks blocking various paths and so much traffic that I could barely move. I was sitting at one light for – well, I have no fucking clue how long. Not to mention people blowing their horns and generally being assholes around me. . .what is normally about about a twenty-minute ride took damn near an HOUR because everything was so backed up. As you might imagine, I was NOT HAPPY when I got home. >( *heavy sigh* I really hope the rest of the week isn’t like this. . .
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – got on the bike a bit later than usual after the fucking hell ride above, but I did get on it, and continued with the Oxventure One Shot Wonder “Teatime Adventures!” Having successfully reached the sausage shop (and gotten Daffodil out of the sausage shop before she could cause chaos), Tabitha promptly began laying on the charm on the proprietor, offering him her hand to kiss. The “butcher” (if you can apply this term to a guy who made everything in the shop vegetarian) promptly let her know that she was very charming and that he loved her accent (Tabitha: “Thank you, I have several”), but she was barking up the wrong tree – he was in love with his work (in fact, as per his official write-up in the bit of the book we saw, he’s in fact aroace, so yeah). Poor Tabitha was rather disappointed, but accepted this turn of events. She then requested some “delicious dogs” (unlike the one outside), with the group explaining again that they were in charge of the veggie hot dogs since Daffodil ruined their previous gifts. Naturally, the sausage shop owner was keen to help, but – much like the baker – he was so busy with other things that he was missing a key ingredient – to whit, the sage itself. James commented that there seemed to be some supply chain issues in the village, which the sausage shop owner confessed was true this time of year – they’re all so busy getting ready for the planting! However, he was sure they could find some sage at the local community garden, along with the spring lettuce that would go so well with them. Apparently that combo was a BIG hit with the village last year, and the group was getting very curious as to who actually contributed those dogs. . .
Anyway! Another deal was made, sage for sage-filled sausages, and the group started out with directions in hand (well, for James and Tabitha anyway – Posy knew her way there thanks to getting seasonal flowers from the place). However, before they could make it past the town square, they spotted a scene of utter disaster – namely, Daffodil had found the magical pot for the Pot Luck and was already sniffing around for the potential treats inside. Fortunately, James was on the case, pretending Daffodil was a cricket wicket and yanking out his bat for some extra reach as he slow-mo ran up and tackled her. XD (Oh, and this finally revealed what exactly he was – a Deerkin! Which explains him mentioning hooves a couple of times.) Daffodil was very happy to see him, and James carried her over to the community garden (fortunately rolling well enough NOT to get lost), passing by a beautiful willow in the nearby park in the process. Tabitha and James paused to admire it (Tabitha because the long strands reminded her of her home in the swamp; James because the trunk reminded him of cricket bats), but Posy had no time for it because it had no flowers and thus continued on – JUST MISSING a beautiful rare flower a Hopling was trying to grow nearby on a critical one “Noticing” roll. Mike commented that Ellen was going easy on Jane, and that if he’d been in charge, Posy would have trampled the flower.
Ellen promptly ruled that, because Posy didn’t notice the flower and point it out, JAMES trampled it instead trying to keep a grip on Daffodil. The poor Hopling was distraught, so James quickly turned to some cheering-up magic (as his mending magic explicitly didn’t work on any living things) to make them feel better. . .and then showed off his negative one Personality score by initially refusing to let them pet Daffodil. XD He relented in the end, though – and good thing too, as that is when the gardener-in-charge showed up. After Posy conducted a bit of business with them (three dozen daffodils on the usual account), the group informed them about their search for herbs and lettuce. The gardener pointed the group in two different directions –
And the decision was made to split the party! Mostly because James and Tabitha reasoned that lettuce wouldn’t be hard for even non-gardeners to identify, it was just leaves, but sage was a very SPECIFIC kind of leaf, and thus it would better to leave that sort of thing to Posy. Posy agreed, and the two groups went off in different directions. Tabitha and James fortunately found a lovely head of lettuce very quickly, but then the problem of how best to dig it up presented itself. Tabitha asked if James had thought to keep any of the cleverlies for himself, and Ellen allowed Mike to do a bit of “Blades In The Dark” flashbacking for it – turns out he had thought to sneak some, but Daffodil got into them. However, James saw an opportunity and tried to direct Daffodil to dig up the lettuce for them! This was a contested friendship roll (as Ellen pointed out, dogs love to dig, but don’t always enjoy being DIRECTED to dig) –
Which saw both parties roll nat 20s. XD Fortunately, James’s modifiers put him JUST over the edge, and he was able to coax Daffodil into digging up a perfect head of lettuce, with minimum dog spittle. XD Tabitha claimed their prize, and the pair lavished Daffodil with praise for redeeming herself from earlier.
Posy, meanwhile, was on the hunt for sage – and attempting to use Floral Friendship to seek it out! However, a bad roll meant that the sage KNEW why she was trying to commune with it and wasn’t responding. It didn’t get to hide for long, though, as Posy made a very good gardening roll and spotted it right away, and used her nice sharp beak to snip off the tops. As this is SUPPOSED to be a very nice game about very nice things, Ellen decided that initially the sage was like “well, if I’m going to perish, at least I’m going in some brilliant sausages,” and then realized that Posy’s snipping was more like a haircut, as she didn’t target the roots. Posy then did a little kitchen magic to check the soil and discovered the sage could use a drink – and on an EXCELLENT noticing roll, found a water can full of filtered water with cucumber and lemon grass. The sage was thrilled with this spa treatment, and Posy let her inner Prudence come out with a bit of “See? So next time when I call, answer.” XD (Mike noted it had NOT taken them long at all to return to form. XD)
So yes, spring lettuce and sage acquired! The trio met up by the willow tree, then – after a discussion about whether or not they could fit in a tea break – went and delivered the sage to the sausage shop owner FIRST, then headed to the milk bar for an afternoon cuppa while they waited for the sausages to be done. We’re in the home stretch of this cozy little adventure – we’ll see how the veggie dogs turn out tomorrow!
2. Continue writing “The Joker And The Queen”: Check – a very pissed-off Kelman has shown up to provide the group with one final obstacle to overcome – and while everyone is very happy to tell him that they’re not putting up with his bullshit anymore, as it turns out, he is NOT on Alice’s universal hit list. Though he is slated for death. . .nobody’s gotten a chance to make the first move yet, though, as Smiler’s marmalized group has just been pulled into the action. Kelman is trying to get Miles to listen to him and do his bidding again. . .anyone else think they can see where this is going? XD
3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: One-third check – still only have the time for one video per day, but at least it was a fun one – yesterday’s GrayStillPlays and “When the postal service gets unlimited budget,” aka Gray plays Crash Delivery Car Destruction! This game is a return to the “send your vehicle from your starting line across a landscape full of destructible hazards in hopes of reaching the other side of the board, earning money from everything you smash up and all the inadvertent tricks you do along the way” genre of mobile game, complete with upgrades to speed, fuel for your boost, and the money you earn from smashing into stuff. This one just happens to have a cuter art style than normal and a theme of delivering packages to your destination – though given that your cars include a delivery van, a Lamborghini, a dump truck, a couple of hyper cars, a monster truck, and a plane, all of which can and will get smashed to pieces as you progress through the boards, I don’t think those packages are getting there in good condition. XD Gray had a lot of fun testing various vehicles against landscapes such as a cute pastoral hill above a city, a volcano somewhere in South America, a snowy mountainside, area 51 (complete with UFOs!), and a cyberpunkish cityscape – surprisingly, the dump truck proved to go faster and have better aerodynamics than most of the “regular” cars. The plane had them all beat, though. And of course, Gray was able to show off the power of money by boosting his speed and fuel to utterly ridiculous levels. He completed a couple of the boards in a single shot! It was just some good, silly, breakable fun – kind of what I needed after this afternoon.
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check – reset the Victor Luvs Alice queue speed to one; threw in a post of Smiler-themed gif “stamps” for Thursday; updated my “Valice Anniversary” master post with some favorite pictures of both Victor and Alice’s original wedding and the recent Valicer wedding in the Chill Valicer save for Friday; and updated my Song Saturday “Lights Down Low” post with “yes this now also has Valicer vibes” for Saturday! So I’m finally good for the rest of this week on that blog, yay. And trust me, best thing I could have done for my mood was get those Valicer wedding pics sorted – just gives me such joy. :)
So yeah -- shit ride home knocked my afternoon rather off-kilter, but at least I got all the most important stuff done. And had cake, because Dad's birthday. (Oh, and yes, he's very happy with his new big-screen TV -- damn thing is HUGE O.o Mom is insisting we watch BTTF on it over the weekend because it'll be like being at the movies, which, frankly, I think she's onto something. XD) And now I have to get to bed and hope to hell that tomorrow's commute is not anywhere near as hellish. *nods* Night all!
Work – Okay, so – work itself was not bad. My talky coworker is still out with medical stuff, and my other coworker had to leave early for an appointment, so I had the place to myself for the most part, which was fine. I did monthly reports, looked over a QC file, took a handful of phone calls, resolved some credit card stuff, put on some checks, and cleared up some weird duplicates. Nothing horrible, made the day go by pretty quickly.
AND THEN WE GOT TO THE FUCKING RIDE HOME. Basically, I got onto my usual route to get back, only to find it all backed up; learned from the radio that there was an accident on the highway right where I needed to go; figured “all right, I hate doing it, but I have to cut through the city” – and then discovered that the city was full of fucking accidents too. Or, at least, it was full of fire trucks blocking various paths and so much traffic that I could barely move. I was sitting at one light for – well, I have no fucking clue how long. Not to mention people blowing their horns and generally being assholes around me. . .what is normally about about a twenty-minute ride took damn near an HOUR because everything was so backed up. As you might imagine, I was NOT HAPPY when I got home. >( *heavy sigh* I really hope the rest of the week isn’t like this. . .
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – got on the bike a bit later than usual after the fucking hell ride above, but I did get on it, and continued with the Oxventure One Shot Wonder “Teatime Adventures!” Having successfully reached the sausage shop (and gotten Daffodil out of the sausage shop before she could cause chaos), Tabitha promptly began laying on the charm on the proprietor, offering him her hand to kiss. The “butcher” (if you can apply this term to a guy who made everything in the shop vegetarian) promptly let her know that she was very charming and that he loved her accent (Tabitha: “Thank you, I have several”), but she was barking up the wrong tree – he was in love with his work (in fact, as per his official write-up in the bit of the book we saw, he’s in fact aroace, so yeah). Poor Tabitha was rather disappointed, but accepted this turn of events. She then requested some “delicious dogs” (unlike the one outside), with the group explaining again that they were in charge of the veggie hot dogs since Daffodil ruined their previous gifts. Naturally, the sausage shop owner was keen to help, but – much like the baker – he was so busy with other things that he was missing a key ingredient – to whit, the sage itself. James commented that there seemed to be some supply chain issues in the village, which the sausage shop owner confessed was true this time of year – they’re all so busy getting ready for the planting! However, he was sure they could find some sage at the local community garden, along with the spring lettuce that would go so well with them. Apparently that combo was a BIG hit with the village last year, and the group was getting very curious as to who actually contributed those dogs. . .
Anyway! Another deal was made, sage for sage-filled sausages, and the group started out with directions in hand (well, for James and Tabitha anyway – Posy knew her way there thanks to getting seasonal flowers from the place). However, before they could make it past the town square, they spotted a scene of utter disaster – namely, Daffodil had found the magical pot for the Pot Luck and was already sniffing around for the potential treats inside. Fortunately, James was on the case, pretending Daffodil was a cricket wicket and yanking out his bat for some extra reach as he slow-mo ran up and tackled her. XD (Oh, and this finally revealed what exactly he was – a Deerkin! Which explains him mentioning hooves a couple of times.) Daffodil was very happy to see him, and James carried her over to the community garden (fortunately rolling well enough NOT to get lost), passing by a beautiful willow in the nearby park in the process. Tabitha and James paused to admire it (Tabitha because the long strands reminded her of her home in the swamp; James because the trunk reminded him of cricket bats), but Posy had no time for it because it had no flowers and thus continued on – JUST MISSING a beautiful rare flower a Hopling was trying to grow nearby on a critical one “Noticing” roll. Mike commented that Ellen was going easy on Jane, and that if he’d been in charge, Posy would have trampled the flower.
Ellen promptly ruled that, because Posy didn’t notice the flower and point it out, JAMES trampled it instead trying to keep a grip on Daffodil. The poor Hopling was distraught, so James quickly turned to some cheering-up magic (as his mending magic explicitly didn’t work on any living things) to make them feel better. . .and then showed off his negative one Personality score by initially refusing to let them pet Daffodil. XD He relented in the end, though – and good thing too, as that is when the gardener-in-charge showed up. After Posy conducted a bit of business with them (three dozen daffodils on the usual account), the group informed them about their search for herbs and lettuce. The gardener pointed the group in two different directions –
And the decision was made to split the party! Mostly because James and Tabitha reasoned that lettuce wouldn’t be hard for even non-gardeners to identify, it was just leaves, but sage was a very SPECIFIC kind of leaf, and thus it would better to leave that sort of thing to Posy. Posy agreed, and the two groups went off in different directions. Tabitha and James fortunately found a lovely head of lettuce very quickly, but then the problem of how best to dig it up presented itself. Tabitha asked if James had thought to keep any of the cleverlies for himself, and Ellen allowed Mike to do a bit of “Blades In The Dark” flashbacking for it – turns out he had thought to sneak some, but Daffodil got into them. However, James saw an opportunity and tried to direct Daffodil to dig up the lettuce for them! This was a contested friendship roll (as Ellen pointed out, dogs love to dig, but don’t always enjoy being DIRECTED to dig) –
Which saw both parties roll nat 20s. XD Fortunately, James’s modifiers put him JUST over the edge, and he was able to coax Daffodil into digging up a perfect head of lettuce, with minimum dog spittle. XD Tabitha claimed their prize, and the pair lavished Daffodil with praise for redeeming herself from earlier.
Posy, meanwhile, was on the hunt for sage – and attempting to use Floral Friendship to seek it out! However, a bad roll meant that the sage KNEW why she was trying to commune with it and wasn’t responding. It didn’t get to hide for long, though, as Posy made a very good gardening roll and spotted it right away, and used her nice sharp beak to snip off the tops. As this is SUPPOSED to be a very nice game about very nice things, Ellen decided that initially the sage was like “well, if I’m going to perish, at least I’m going in some brilliant sausages,” and then realized that Posy’s snipping was more like a haircut, as she didn’t target the roots. Posy then did a little kitchen magic to check the soil and discovered the sage could use a drink – and on an EXCELLENT noticing roll, found a water can full of filtered water with cucumber and lemon grass. The sage was thrilled with this spa treatment, and Posy let her inner Prudence come out with a bit of “See? So next time when I call, answer.” XD (Mike noted it had NOT taken them long at all to return to form. XD)
So yes, spring lettuce and sage acquired! The trio met up by the willow tree, then – after a discussion about whether or not they could fit in a tea break – went and delivered the sage to the sausage shop owner FIRST, then headed to the milk bar for an afternoon cuppa while they waited for the sausages to be done. We’re in the home stretch of this cozy little adventure – we’ll see how the veggie dogs turn out tomorrow!
2. Continue writing “The Joker And The Queen”: Check – a very pissed-off Kelman has shown up to provide the group with one final obstacle to overcome – and while everyone is very happy to tell him that they’re not putting up with his bullshit anymore, as it turns out, he is NOT on Alice’s universal hit list. Though he is slated for death. . .nobody’s gotten a chance to make the first move yet, though, as Smiler’s marmalized group has just been pulled into the action. Kelman is trying to get Miles to listen to him and do his bidding again. . .anyone else think they can see where this is going? XD
3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: One-third check – still only have the time for one video per day, but at least it was a fun one – yesterday’s GrayStillPlays and “When the postal service gets unlimited budget,” aka Gray plays Crash Delivery Car Destruction! This game is a return to the “send your vehicle from your starting line across a landscape full of destructible hazards in hopes of reaching the other side of the board, earning money from everything you smash up and all the inadvertent tricks you do along the way” genre of mobile game, complete with upgrades to speed, fuel for your boost, and the money you earn from smashing into stuff. This one just happens to have a cuter art style than normal and a theme of delivering packages to your destination – though given that your cars include a delivery van, a Lamborghini, a dump truck, a couple of hyper cars, a monster truck, and a plane, all of which can and will get smashed to pieces as you progress through the boards, I don’t think those packages are getting there in good condition. XD Gray had a lot of fun testing various vehicles against landscapes such as a cute pastoral hill above a city, a volcano somewhere in South America, a snowy mountainside, area 51 (complete with UFOs!), and a cyberpunkish cityscape – surprisingly, the dump truck proved to go faster and have better aerodynamics than most of the “regular” cars. The plane had them all beat, though. And of course, Gray was able to show off the power of money by boosting his speed and fuel to utterly ridiculous levels. He completed a couple of the boards in a single shot! It was just some good, silly, breakable fun – kind of what I needed after this afternoon.
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check – reset the Victor Luvs Alice queue speed to one; threw in a post of Smiler-themed gif “stamps” for Thursday; updated my “Valice Anniversary” master post with some favorite pictures of both Victor and Alice’s original wedding and the recent Valicer wedding in the Chill Valicer save for Friday; and updated my Song Saturday “Lights Down Low” post with “yes this now also has Valicer vibes” for Saturday! So I’m finally good for the rest of this week on that blog, yay. And trust me, best thing I could have done for my mood was get those Valicer wedding pics sorted – just gives me such joy. :)
So yeah -- shit ride home knocked my afternoon rather off-kilter, but at least I got all the most important stuff done. And had cake, because Dad's birthday. (Oh, and yes, he's very happy with his new big-screen TV -- damn thing is HUGE O.o Mom is insisting we watch BTTF on it over the weekend because it'll be like being at the movies, which, frankly, I think she's onto something. XD) And now I have to get to bed and hope to hell that tomorrow's commute is not anywhere near as hellish. *nods* Night all!
