At 30 minutes before the end of my work day, the fire alarm goes off. I was so tempted to just go home. But no, I waited and sure enough the alarm was shut down with 10 minutes yet to go. I stopped by the little store to get some stamps as I left work and when I stepped out, it was raining.

No big deal; I had my emergency umbrella and it wasn't raining hard. When I got to the bus stop the benches were still dry; sheltered by the trees. I sat down and waited. I had missed the bus but it was only 10 minutes or so until the next one. Then the rain came down harder, and harder, and harder. The gutter in front of my overflowed into a low spot in the sidewalk. And I huddled under my umbrella.

The rain tapered off. After a bit, I brought my umbrella down, hoping to drip some of the water off of it. The sun was shining of course, and the light reflected off the puddles to the west was absolutely blinding. A bus stopped in front of me and I idly watched people get on board, my eyes drifting to the back of the bus, where it was raining. Not three feet to my west, it was raining lightly. In front of me, nothing. And the sun was shining brightly. I put my umbrella up as a parasol to give me shade. And it rained to my west.

My bus came, about 20-some minutes late. But it came. That's when I learned that the ends of my hair had gotten wet from the rain, not quite covered by the umbrella. Welcome to summer rain in NC.

Family: I finished the letters but I can't find what I did with the stamps after I bought them. I looked where I thought I put them & they are not there. Each letter has a little tatted heart in it.

Gaming: Today we played another 2 Greyhawk Ruins adventures. One was a mystery; it started in an earlier adventure. We found one, maybe 2, more clues but did not find out who killed the two people or what the connection is. It was still fun and the way the second one ended was just too funny. The final big bad was finished off by a summoned giant celestial bee. And it turns out that we were able to do a favor for the god of bees, etc.

We would have gone to supper afterward but with gas prices (thanks price gougers & the panicky reacting to Hurricane Ike hitting Galveston) we just didn't dare risk it. As it is, we gave Diana a ride so that it reduced how much she'd have to pay.

I was really tired last night. I slept just over 9 hours and even then had trouble really waking and dozed for a few more minutes.

Tatting: I finished the Valentine Heart by Martha Ess. I did mine in variegated red (red to almost black- garnet) for the block-tatted heart & green for the lacy edging. It turned out pretty good & I only drew blood once trying to get the hook through a lockjoin.

Chris's game tonight. So we have to move the old tv, it's still in the middle of the living room floor. The TV died the second Wednesday that I was out of town. It was death by fire (there were flames involved).

TV: We went TV shopping this weekend. We're looking at 30" to 42" and no larger. That's the biggest that will fit the space that we have. We know what we're looking for, just shopping around for price.

Movies: Went to see Dark Knight & the 3rd Mummy movie yesterday. Dark Knight is a very good movie. It's going to be interesting to see what they do for the next one. It's going to be hard to top. They set a very high bar. Mummy was about what I expected. It's not quite as good as the first but it was a good movie.

Greyhawk Ruins: We did another two adventures on Saturday. They went pretty fast. Part of that was that we got lucky. A couple of well-placed spells really shut down the opposition.

My sunburn has finally stopped peeling. Yay?

Tatting: I worked a little more on the Checkerboard doily, from Tatters Treasure Chest. I don't think that I really like it though, pity that. I really want to work on AnneB's dragon. I just need to finish at least one project.

Doily that I gave Louise:


I've almost caught up at work. Now I'm starting the actual, current work. Again, yay?

One picture from Vacation (one of the few that looks good enough to share)

Saturday's game of Greyhawk Ruins went well. Rosemary's healer was able to be effective in combat (empowered cure moderate wounds does bad things to undead). Kash, my ranger, is 4th level. I decided to stick with ranger for 4th & take fighter at 5th.

We were planning to go to Firebird for Rosemary's late b'day supper but they had 2-hour wait. So we went to Red Lobster; net gain - half an hour. Chris is talking about running L5R again. Supper was nice, we socialized, ate and Rosemary opened a couple presents.

Sunday Chris & I played Age of Empires. Mom & Dad both called, that was unusual. Then I got sick. Really sick. Chris fixed the washing machine, well, it works anyway.

I'm stuck at home today because I fear going more than 30' from a bathroom. Yeah, being sick really sucks.

tatting: I did more of the snood, about half of the 4th rounds.

books: I re-read Willing, All Night Long, The Grand Sophy and most of Holidays are Hell.

clothes: Saturday was jeans & wench t-shirt, yesterday was tank & sweatpants. Today is more of the same.

Poem for today
Crunch of frozen ground,
Frost-limned grass snap
Under trudging feet.
Monday workward bound,
Half-moon rising
Shares the sky
With the dawning sun.
Wintry air bites
At open skin
Nipping me awake.


Gaming most of the weekend. We did the next 2 parts of Greyhawk Ruins on Saturday. Then we took Diana out to supper for her birthday. The t-shirt was too small so I'm going to have to return it & order a size larger. Sunday it was Rosemary's home game. We had a short fight & Mike's character really pissed mine off. Note: Mike did not piss me off. Amber is mad at Dratsab.

tatting: I finally started Jane's Tat It & See. I got through Day 7. I don't think that it's an elephant because she's already done one, but it's distinctly elephant-shaped at this point.

I took a load of books to the Used Book Store. I picked up 4 with the store credit plus I bought Season 1 of Lois & Clark (since I didn't get it for Christmas). Now I need to get rid of the books that they didn't buy.

My copy of Witch Hunter still hasn't arrived. It looks like it won't ship until the company puts out their next product, which is supposed to be sometime this month.

books: I finished Accidental Vampire, read The River Knows and re-read Wait Until Midnight. The latter 2 are from the Used Bookstore.

I did a few more rows of the ribbon yard lattice scarf. It's starting to look like something. I'm still not 100% certain it's like a scarf.

clothes: t-shirts, jeans, tennis shoes & sweatshirts this weekend. Today it's white turtleneck, new dark red corduroy vest, black jeans, black suede shoes, black tatted earrings (the ones that I made), black stone ring, hematite ring, & black plastic bangle bracelet.

I am such a liar. First passenger I spoke to on the bus, I completely & bald-faced lied to her. She asked how I was and I said, 'fine'; okay it was a social lie. Cause I'm so frickin' tired & depressed that I was choking back tears on the walk home. She didn't want to hear that. It took me over an hour to try and find the energy to fix something to eat.

I only worked half-day yesterday & that helped me get through today. Despite not sleeping for shite (love that non-drowsy cold formula, don't you; so non-drowsy I can't sleep at night), I felt more rested than I had in days. I don't know what it was but by the time I got off work, I could barely drag one foot in front of the other. I tried to do a little retail therapy but couldn't even manage that.

Now, I turned to a computer game to cheer me up & it screwed me. It's a real-time game & it suddenly jumped 790 years. Needless to say, everything was dead but what I had in storage. I was hoping to get some money for in-game improvements, too. I've submitted an error report. We'll see what they say.

Greyhawk Ruins is tomorrow. Chris is staying with Rosemary tonight. He's going to try to get her to sleep. She's been literally worrying herself sleepless over her grandmother, who's very ill. I'll be catching a ride with Diana.

Re-read This Heart of Mine and March Upcountry. I think I re-read something else but I don't remember what.

I think that I'm going to run out of yarn before I get a full scarf out of that white/color yarn. Don't know what I'll do with what I've got.

I really need something to pull me out of this funk.

site of the day: Every word that you get right, donates rice.

What a weekend. Friday night sucked. I mean, there are a few ways that it could have been worse, but it takes effort to find them. Everything was going smoothly, until the 3rd bus never showed. I waited for 2 hours, in the cold & dark (sun set 30 minutes after I arrived, no streetlights, temperature dropped, next to 4-lane road with moderate to heavy traffic). I was dressed okay for a 20-30 minute wait. Not for a 2-hour one. My toes were starting to get numb when I finally gave up, made arrangements, and headed for the nearest warm building.

books: Venus Versus Virus vol 2, Key to the Kingdom vol 2, re-read Knight of a Trillion Stars and read The Raveled Sleeve Friday night.

Saturday was the Greyhawk Ruins game. It was at Richard's and Kathy wasn't feeling well. As a result, I ended up with a lap full of baby for a perceptible percentage of the game. It was less important for me to take notes than it was for Richard to be able to run the game. Due to technical issues, we only got part of the way through the 2nd adventure. We'll finish up as much as possible this upcoming Saturday. At least Kash got to 2nd level (time to start using 2 swords).

We did manage to stop by FE on the way home (so I picked up my Manga order). I've only read 2 of them so far.

Sunday was Rosemary's cookie party and the last Forgotten Realms game of the year. First we baked cookies to send to her grandmother (who isn't feeling well). She probably won't be able to have any but at least she'll know that we were thinking of her. We had mulled cider & mulled mead to each with the cookies & chips. We started playing after the baking. It was a nasty little fight.

After the game, Kathy, Richard & Mya joined us for supper. Rosemary got lasagna, appetizers and sides from Olive Garden and we chowed down. We had a great time, good food & great company. For dessert we had tiramisu from this great new deli that opened near Rosemary.

I still didn't do my laundry.

tatting: I started Jane's tree & realized that I need some way to get the beads onto the picots for the joins. I'm not sure what to do next.

Clothes: Saturday & Sunday it was jeans and tennis shoes. Saturday it was a Geoff t-shirt but Sunday I wore a turtleneck & my holiday vest. Today it's black slacks & shoes, same belt, watch & hematite band, onyx pendant, black stone ring, black knit top embroidered with white Roman numerals & gold studs, triangular white shell earrings rimmed in black (I've never worn them before) & braided hair.

Today it's Mace. We played an intro LG game this morning. I played my Greyhawk Ruins character for the 2nd time. Her name is a little complex so I use the nickname Kash. The GM & the other players appreciate that. It's her last non-Ruins game.

This afternoon we played the core special. It's basically a 2-rounder game that we played in one round. We played out Cattails & there was another one at the table. It was an APL 14 table and we pretty much took the table. The other CatTail went negative but I had Delay Death prepped & saved "her". I got to use one of my Blessed Relief cards. We finished up about an hour after the round was supposed to finish, but then again we started late.

We sat around while Chris & Rosemary updated their characters; they both leveled. We sat around and socialized while we did so and finally headed for supper & to walk Duncan almost about the same time that the evening round started. As we were leaving, someone commented that a second table of Witch Hunter had been formed. We were three of the players. So we had to hurry to our hotel, Rosemary walked Duncan while Chris got food from McD's and I changed character stuff.

We got to the game about half an hour after the game was scheduled to start. But that's okay. They knew that we were coming & were waiting for us. Again, Witch Hunter is lots of fun.

We are starting to have some running gags. M'sieur Rumor is guilty of much and Louis really likes his clothes. Katherine is charming and Richard is, well, English.

tatting: I have made a couple snowflakes & given one away.

books: I've read a couple tatting patterns & that's pretty much it. Other than some game stuff.

clothes: black suede shoes, blue jeans, grey Gran March t-shirt over long-sleeved burgundy t-shirt, same watch, Celtic triangle pendant, Celtic earrings & ring, flower band, ~rope ring, braided hair with Celtic hair elastic at top.

Knee still hurts but not as much as yesterday morning (I can go up & down stairs, bending it, without screaming agony). I even walked from FE to Jimmy Johns for lunch yesterday & survived. I was limping a little bit by evening, but still. It was better than it had been.

Movie: Went to see the Harry Potter movie last night. It was only showing at 7pm, didn't really get started until 7:15 (7:30 if the credits are included in the movie running time), and out of the theater by about 9:50 pm. The girl playing Luna is indeed, reallllly good & Mrs. Umbridge was perfect. Their casting staff is excellent; not just on the main characters but on the bit parts as well (like Nymphadora).

The trailors for Enchanted make it look interesting. At first, it looked really cutesy, then they had a clip of the cleaning scene. The fairytale princess calls upon her 'forest friends' to clean the NY city apartment. Picture this: rats using toothbrushes to scrub the toilet. 'Nuff said.

news of the day: Homeowners make a grave discovery

sight of the day, or rather yesterday: men's shorts that look like a pair of dress slacks cut off just above the knee & hemmed.

tv: watched a lot of G4's San Diego Comic-con coverage. From 300 to 123,000 (sold out on Friday but at least that many) in just 38 years. We also watched some of 1st Season Buffy on DVD.

reading: I read the prequel comic to the new series The 99. Okay, so it's new in the US.

Gaming: with Chris's help I have the plots for my Ironclaw games this weekend. Now I just have to write up NPC's and organize the information. I also wrote up Caskashihar "Cas" Mil'Tiaion, my Greyhawk Ruins ranger.

One of my co-workers is back from visiting his family. His father had a heart attack a couple months ago & then they found cancer. They couldn't operate until his father's heart condition stabilized, which was last week. The doctors operated but were unable to remove all of the cancer. It doesn't look good for my co-worker's father, but the family is waiting to hear what the oncologist has to say.

clothes: black ~slippers, jeans & belt; white polo, no jewelry (woke up late thanks to the late night) & my clip watch.

Greyhawk Ruins: Now that that documentation is out, I finally, really, started working on my wood elf ranger. The actual character creation is easy. However, I'm also looking at planned advancement (taking a level of fighter at 4th level, that sort of thing), instead of catch as catch can. That involves looking through books for feat options, deciding what stats to bump at 4th & 8th (I'll worry about 12th when she's higher level than pre-1st).

For some things I'm going to use options. For example; at 3rd level, take Power Attack OR take Improved Weapon Familiarity (so all her racial weapons qualify under her martial weapon proficiency). I want to see how the adventures go before I make a final decision. So far, she has a strength of 16 and a dexterity of 14. But, I may change that to reduce her strength & increase her dexterity, or reduce her dexterity to 12 & increase her constitution to 14.

tv: Ninja Warrior & a rerun of Criminal Minds while I was reading & working on my character.

Gaming: Mutants & Masterminds tonight, which I remembered this morning. Lacking a gas cap, I don't want to drive to Raleigh. So I'll be taking the bus & asking Chris to stop by & pick me up. I've sent an email to Diana to see if she can give me a ride but I doubt that she'll be getting off work early enough for that work.

sight of the day: ferns growing from a vertical surface (they have roots, where are they?).

books: I finished Caught Dead in Philadelphia last night. It was a short book but not a bad mystery. This morning I started We're Just Like You; Only Prettier by Celia Rivenbark.

tatting: I finished the size 12 ecru by tatting two butterflies, one much smaller butterfly & one single ring flower. It was really too humid to do more.

clothes: black ~slippers, black slacks & belt, magenta & black check shirt, paui shell ring & pendant, silver hashmark band, hematite bang, lilac AnimalRescuesite silicon bracelet, black hair elastic (ponytail), & chain mail earrings.