What's Been Going On

So here's what's been going on that has caused my posting to be sporadic, and it's not especially organized, but here it is:

In November of last year, my wife lost her job. Steph made more on her base rate than I did on my overtime rate, so her losing her job triggered all kinds of fun anxiety and panic from me.  Thankfully, she qualified for Unemployment and we were able to stay afloat.

She was out for five months. Even with a good chunk of cash in savings, it wasn't easy. But she is now gainfully employed once again.

In December of last year, the owner of the company for which I work sold the building. It was not immediately clear if he was going to move the Seattle office or shut it down. Seeing as I was already having anxiety-related issues, this didn't help.

My office is moving, not shutting down. That move is ... not convenient.  My commute has almost exactly doubled in terms of distance, and has probably tripled or quadrupled in terms of how long it's going to take.  We're moving this weekend.

A good friend of mine passed recently, as well.  He'd had cancer, and then beaten it. And then it came back, more aggressively and in an inoperable way. His funeral is this weekend.

Steph and I are cat people. In January of 2017, our 18-year-old Ramses passed.  In August of 2017, our 18-year-old Feina passed.  We'd adopted another cat in mid-2016 to cushion the blow of one of the older two passing (because we knew they wouldn't last forever). And it helped. Daisy is the best-behaved cat I have ever met.  With Steph getting ready to go back to work, we adopted a new cat so Daisy wouldn't be bored and lonely all day.  And Daisy's first reaction was hissing and swatting - both at the new cat and at Steph and I.  That was a surprisingly emotional blow.

Daisy is getting used to the change. She's still not pleased, but she's no longer angry at Steph and I. We think.

The new cat (Nefertari) looks like Ramses and acts like Feina did (only a bit more energetic).  I'll eventually get her to hold still long enough to get a good photo.

On the gaming front, I think I'm probably done with the Demo Monkey gig. It was good while it lasted, and I met some truly awesome people while doing it, but it's a lot of work.  Instead, I'm going to focus on the game(s) I'm hosting and running. Realizing that and setting it aside was tough, because I've been a Demo Monkey for a significant chunk of my adult life.  On the other hand, maybe some day I will attend GenCon as a member of the general public instead of working.  I enjoy attending conventions (as I learned at Origins last year).

My roleplaying mostly vanished over the holidays. In fact, I roleplayed twice in November, and then there was a gap until February.  So a lack of roleplaying lined up almost exactly with Steph's unemployment.  My next few weekends are looking to be full of some fun gaming, too.

So ... yeah.  That's what's been keeping me away from the keyboard.  And I'm going to continue to be spotty here until after we figure out what the office move is going to do to my sleep schedule and things stabilize a bit.  I realized after I read my Dusk City Outlaws post a few weeks ago that I'd rather run silent than post something bad (and that post was not good - sorry, all).

I'm not giving up. I'm not walking away.