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I don't know the last time I stopped. Between Skotos work, Bitmark freelancing, Mechanics & Meeples writing, house preparation, move preparation, and supporting Kimberly I've been constantly doing something for months and months and months. I mean, don't get me wrong. I block off the last hour before bed as reading time, so that I have some chance of sleep, and I do still have my scheduled games, and I hike and I bike, and Kimberly and I watch TV together. But the work has always been there, always looming, always demanding that I take some time out and do something. Every, single day.
But Thanksgiving is one of the two days of the year where I traditionally set all work aside, including both my regular job and my "fun" freetime work, and so I was able to do that on Thursday, and then continue it on to Friday and Saturday. Which would be my three days without work. Don't know the last time I did that. Even on vacation I often do Designers & Dragons writing or editing in the evening, after everyone else has gone to bed. (But perhaps it was when we visited the Big Island last year, as it was a big familial adventure, and I didn't worry about much else.)
Kimberly and I have two traditions on Thanksgiving: eating and marathoning a TV show.
The eating occurred at Trader Vic's down in the Emeryville Marina. It's the fourth year in a row, I think, that we've eaten at a buffet rather than cooking (a prepared meal) ourselves. Trader Vic's continues to be not as good as HS Lordship's was, primarily in the desert and seafood arena, but it was still a delicious and enjoyable dinner out.
As with the last two years, I sherpaed all of Kimberly's food back to her. This time around, however, they placed us soooo far from the buffet that she didn't even get to see it. So I was reporting back things as I remembered them every time I returned from the long trek.
Mashed potatoes and gravy are often the highlight for me. And that was the case here, plus the chilled shrimp and crab and the little cheese blintzes and crab ragoon and the chocolate ice cream. I ate too much, but Thanksgiving comes but once a year.
The marathoning was American Crime, also for the third year in a row. It was a brilliant, blunt, thoughtful, insightful show about American culture (and crime). We managed five of the eight episodes on Thanksgiving and one more since. Weneed to finish it up in the next few days, before Kimberly's hospitalization.
Friday I'd scheduled a Pathfinder ACG game with Eric L., Mike B., and Sam. I was particularly excited about it because it was our chance to try out "Curse of the Crimson Throne", the newest PACG adventure path, and the only one we haven't played.
It was quite fun, showing off the potential of Pathfinder ACG where the Core Set fell short (literally) because it didn't have enough cards. We managed character creation plus three sessions over the course of about six and a half hours. Whew!
We won't finish that one, but I hope we can play at least once more, in December.
(And a new TODO: review it!)
And then Kimberly's cousins showed up. That was Misty, Misty's husband James, and April, coming down to see Kimberly after they'd heard about her health problems.
I'd met the two women before, April at her wedding in 1999, Misty when she picked up something from us while working for an animal rescue organization a few years ago. Meanwhile, Kimberly had grown up with them.
We tried to have dinner at PF Changs down in Emeryville on Friday night, but found a 1.5-2 hour wait, as we hadn't been able to make reservations, not knowing either when they'd show up or when I'd be done with my game. So we settled for California Pizza Kitchen instead.
Everyone was quite nice, and we had an enjoyable evening. They're all good folk who I'd be happy to spend time with again, so I made sure to extend invitations to stay with us in Hawaii, after we land there next year.
On Saturday morning we saw them one last time for breakfast at the Rose Garden Inn, where we'd gotten them rooms, our guest room being disassembled. (It's actually been disassembled for a few years, because with the creaky doors and floors in our house, it just wasn't working.) The breakfast was subpar, including extreme bacon rationing and lukewarm eggs. But the staff didn't seem to care to charge Kimberly and me for it like they'd said they would, so that seemed a fair exchange. (And apparently the rooms were nice, which was the most important part.)
We were done with familial obligations by 11am or so, and last year I would have figured out somewhere to walk, to at least get some exercise and fresh air despite the rain that was by now regularly falling, our storm doors finally opened.
But I'm just out of fu**s this year. If I don't get out and about much this December, in the cold and rain of the end of the year, no big deal. We'll have hot and rain by January, which I much prefer. I've really never loved the hiking or biking or walking in December, but do it because I don't want to lose out on the exercise throughout the winter. But, as I've said to some folks, this is going to be our abbreviated winter. On January 1st, it (hopefully) ends.
So the rest of Saturday, I just lounged around the house, reading and sleeping. NOT WORKING. When the rain finally let up for a few hours around 4.30pm I went and got groceries and Taco Bell. And that was it.
Today, it's been back to work. I was picking up supplies for Kimberly and the house. We've been doing more culling lately in Kimberly's office and the kitchen, and between that and piles of packaging for the lamps we recently had installed, garbage got out of hand. (Even with most of the culls being left outside to be picked up by students or the homeless.) So I now have bonus refuse bags from the library. And I ordered my last bit of furnishing for the house (a few new curtain rods) and pushed on getting some other things moving. And got back to my Bitmark freelance work.
Because there's still much to do be done in the next 30 days.
And Kimberly's surgery looms.
But Thanksgiving is one of the two days of the year where I traditionally set all work aside, including both my regular job and my "fun" freetime work, and so I was able to do that on Thursday, and then continue it on to Friday and Saturday. Which would be my three days without work. Don't know the last time I did that. Even on vacation I often do Designers & Dragons writing or editing in the evening, after everyone else has gone to bed. (But perhaps it was when we visited the Big Island last year, as it was a big familial adventure, and I didn't worry about much else.)
Kimberly and I have two traditions on Thanksgiving: eating and marathoning a TV show.
The eating occurred at Trader Vic's down in the Emeryville Marina. It's the fourth year in a row, I think, that we've eaten at a buffet rather than cooking (a prepared meal) ourselves. Trader Vic's continues to be not as good as HS Lordship's was, primarily in the desert and seafood arena, but it was still a delicious and enjoyable dinner out.
As with the last two years, I sherpaed all of Kimberly's food back to her. This time around, however, they placed us soooo far from the buffet that she didn't even get to see it. So I was reporting back things as I remembered them every time I returned from the long trek.
Mashed potatoes and gravy are often the highlight for me. And that was the case here, plus the chilled shrimp and crab and the little cheese blintzes and crab ragoon and the chocolate ice cream. I ate too much, but Thanksgiving comes but once a year.
The marathoning was American Crime, also for the third year in a row. It was a brilliant, blunt, thoughtful, insightful show about American culture (and crime). We managed five of the eight episodes on Thanksgiving and one more since. We
Friday I'd scheduled a Pathfinder ACG game with Eric L., Mike B., and Sam. I was particularly excited about it because it was our chance to try out "Curse of the Crimson Throne", the newest PACG adventure path, and the only one we haven't played.
It was quite fun, showing off the potential of Pathfinder ACG where the Core Set fell short (literally) because it didn't have enough cards. We managed character creation plus three sessions over the course of about six and a half hours. Whew!
We won't finish that one, but I hope we can play at least once more, in December.
(And a new TODO: review it!)
And then Kimberly's cousins showed up. That was Misty, Misty's husband James, and April, coming down to see Kimberly after they'd heard about her health problems.
I'd met the two women before, April at her wedding in 1999, Misty when she picked up something from us while working for an animal rescue organization a few years ago. Meanwhile, Kimberly had grown up with them.
We tried to have dinner at PF Changs down in Emeryville on Friday night, but found a 1.5-2 hour wait, as we hadn't been able to make reservations, not knowing either when they'd show up or when I'd be done with my game. So we settled for California Pizza Kitchen instead.
Everyone was quite nice, and we had an enjoyable evening. They're all good folk who I'd be happy to spend time with again, so I made sure to extend invitations to stay with us in Hawaii, after we land there next year.
On Saturday morning we saw them one last time for breakfast at the Rose Garden Inn, where we'd gotten them rooms, our guest room being disassembled. (It's actually been disassembled for a few years, because with the creaky doors and floors in our house, it just wasn't working.) The breakfast was subpar, including extreme bacon rationing and lukewarm eggs. But the staff didn't seem to care to charge Kimberly and me for it like they'd said they would, so that seemed a fair exchange. (And apparently the rooms were nice, which was the most important part.)
We were done with familial obligations by 11am or so, and last year I would have figured out somewhere to walk, to at least get some exercise and fresh air despite the rain that was by now regularly falling, our storm doors finally opened.
But I'm just out of fu**s this year. If I don't get out and about much this December, in the cold and rain of the end of the year, no big deal. We'll have hot and rain by January, which I much prefer. I've really never loved the hiking or biking or walking in December, but do it because I don't want to lose out on the exercise throughout the winter. But, as I've said to some folks, this is going to be our abbreviated winter. On January 1st, it (hopefully) ends.
So the rest of Saturday, I just lounged around the house, reading and sleeping. NOT WORKING. When the rain finally let up for a few hours around 4.30pm I went and got groceries and Taco Bell. And that was it.
Today, it's been back to work. I was picking up supplies for Kimberly and the house. We've been doing more culling lately in Kimberly's office and the kitchen, and between that and piles of packaging for the lamps we recently had installed, garbage got out of hand. (Even with most of the culls being left outside to be picked up by students or the homeless.) So I now have bonus refuse bags from the library. And I ordered my last bit of furnishing for the house (a few new curtain rods) and pushed on getting some other things moving. And got back to my Bitmark freelance work.
Because there's still much to do be done in the next 30 days.
And Kimberly's surgery looms.