missizzy

My family had our Christmas get-together a week later than planned today. Mom and I went over to my sister and brother-in-law's house, where we watched the highlights of Mamdani's inauguration (first time I've actually seen him speak, and he's certainly good at it), ate some good chicken, mashed potatoes, and mac and cheese, and then opened presents. Lots of practical ones, especially for my sister, who needed a lot of various articles of clothing, and I now have a working table lamp in a spot where I really needed one. Also, of course, books. Mom got me a few Mary Beards, and I also got the third volume of The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation. (Just in time, too, since I've started the final ten episodes of The Untamed.)
The tree will stay up another week; mom wanted to keep it until at least twelfth night. Then we are left to try to cope with 2026 as best we can. I've got a plan or two towards that end, though how they will unfold, it is currently difficult to know.

My sister is sick, and her symptoms are downright alarming, especially her saying she can't smell anything. She and her husband had Covid once, a couple of years back. Did a real number of them; it was weeks before they were functioning normally again. Although he's apparently recovered from whatever he had last week.
We were supposed to go over to her place and have Christmas with them today. Not sure how long that's going to be delayed. Although that in itself is not completely a bad thing, since mom's gift to him actually hasn't arrived yet, and now she's revealed she's gotten extra surprise gifts for us that haven't arrived yet either.
Also there was freezing rain this morning. I think it's above freezing right now, but apparently there's still a wintry mix going on. It's been good holidays for staying at home.

This has not been a good week so far. It's been bitterly cold out the past two days, our router broke yesterday morning, and though Verizon sent someone to fix it this morning the wifi's still being a little testy, and apparently my brother-in-law is now sick. Not to mention I spent much of today discovering exactly how cataloging giant OCLC introducing AI into their system is just going to create more work for us catalogers, since we can't rely on the records involving it to be accurate.
It's supposed to warm up starting tomorrow, though. Good thing, too, since for the second week in a row, my D&D group is meeting to try to figure out where we go from here. Last week the number of players officially shrunk down to three, though one of them has now invited a couple of his friends to join us, and the DM decided to abandon the current campaign and start over. I've got to think up another character. Maybe a rogue. I don't know. Last week we also finished the "Death House" short adventure he ran for the three of us, only revealing in the end it's actually the opening adventure for Curse of Strahd. Which he was not now going to run for us without warning, he was quick to say. Though honestly, if I ever do play it, I will likely use the gnome cleric I created for the Death House. She feels like the right kind of character to use for that.

I'm not sure I'm going to be able to continue making these singing vids. I think I made more attempts at recording this one than I have any other, and I kept devolving into coughing, or other difficulties. This is literally the only time I got through the whole thing.

So, after a long delay due to the spiteful behavior of the dentist my mother left because it was her botching things that started this situation in the first place, my mother finally went today to get her broken denture fixed. And they couldn't get the screws out. She is now home and recovering from their failed attempt; it's very much a good thing I took today off. We don't even know what course of action we're going to take next at this point.
Tomorrow, so long as she's up to going, we will be going over to my sister's house to have Thanksgiving with her, her husband, and his family. With nine people present, it will be the biggest Thanksgiving dinner I will have ever attended, with people neither of us have seen in years, three of whom we only ever met at my sister's wedding over a decade ago. This may be interesting, though honestly, I'm hoping not.

At the end of last month, when we all put our leave in so the front desk schedule could be made up, I took leave for a number of days because I had a lot of use/lose hours and the distinct possibility of being unable to take any of them in December due to being furloughed. Now, of course, I won't be furloughed, but the days off have still been scheduled, and now I'm off today, and will be working only three days next week and two the week after.
I'd like to be mad at the Democrats along with everyone else. But I honestly wonder if holding out would've done any good anyway. Trump was only getting nastier, and the media was basically allowing him to blame the shutdown on the Democrats, with too much of this country's population not even knowing their health care was at stake. And that the government's only funded until the end of January even raises the question of if they're hoping to simply stage this fight again later, with the the Republicans having now outright let the subsidies die more in the public eye, the SNAP benefits safe until September, and much more Epstein-related material released. (And I would not be surprised if the party brass made this decision. That *all* the senators who voted to end it are the ones not trying to get reelected makes one wonder if they were merely the ones who agreed in the backroom to take the fall.) Tactical retreats in wartime are a painful, casualty-heavy business.
I was actually looking forward to streaming, but I've now seen enough in recent days to think now might not have been the time anyway. I'm very much leaning towards trying it at some point, but maybe next year. Heck, maybe I'll just end up getting furloughed in April, and I'll do it then.

Went this morning just after the polls opened. Last time I went they were having technical difficulties, but this time I was in and out within a handful of minutes. There were a few other people coming in, probably people like me trying to get it over with before work. Three of the six races in this area only had one candidate; the Republicans still aren't bothering putting anyone up for delegate here. I think I might have gone to school with the only candidate for sheriff, but his first and last name are both too common to be sure.
No harassment of anyone. It's possible they might have not arrived yet, but also we're still a largely white middle class neighborhood. Still, I'm honestly wondering if I'll ever vote again now. You just don't know anymore.

I have now confirmed that the new modem can have two computers directly plugged into, and located the hole in the wall my dad made back in the day when we didn't have wifi so it had to be ethernet cables. My sister is hopefully coming over later today to help move the furniture, though my mom may insist we get professional help with the plugging in of the cable.
I also finished this yesterday, the unexpected new final fic in the Vaxleth series I wrote years ago:

Title: Sunrise Soon
Fandom: Critical Role
Characters: Vax/Keyleth
Disclaimer: My deepest respects to Liam and Marisha.
Warning: Character undeath
Note: New final installment in my Vaxleth series, taking place at the end of Campaign 3.

( Vax'ildan isn't exactly concealing his return from the population of Zepyrah. )

So I'm doing it too.

Rules: How many letters of the alphabet have you used for starting a fic title? One fic per line, ‘A’ and 'The’ do not count for 'a’ and ’t’. Post your score out of 26 at the end, along with your total fic count.

A: Ant-Woman, Daredevil, and the Wasp (Daredevil/Ant Man)
B: Back Where I Belong Now (Agents of SHIELD/Guardians of the Galaxy)
C: Close (Aubrey-Maturin)
D: Declaration (Avengers)
E: Even If We're Just Dancing in the Dark (Punisher/Daredevil)
F: From One Unwelcome Visitor (Daredevil)
G: Gazing Up (Vox Machina)
H: Her People (Avengers)
I: Improvised Rescue Mission (Daredevil)
J: Just to Play My Worries Away (Guardians of the Galaxy)
K: The Kill List (Pan-MCU)
L: Lunches (Daredevil/Jessica Jones)
M: Melissa Bowen, Four Hours Later (Cloak and Dagger)
N: Nebula, Seven Hours Later (Avengers)
O: Obituaries (Daredevil)
P: The Prodigal Daughter as an Outlaw (Star Wars:Republic comics)
Q: Queen Ramonda, Three and a Half Hours Later (Black Panther/Avengers
R: A Riverbank on Riast (Star Wars prequels)
S: Sacrifice (Avengers)
T: Tonight it All Lies Still (The Mighty Nein)
U: Up in the Cold North (Bells Hells)
V: Valkyrie, Three and a Half Weeks Later (Thor)
W: We are the Lucky Ones, Dear (Iron Man/Avengers)
X: Xavin, Three Weeks Later (Runaways)
Y: Yeah, You Bleed Just to Know You're Alive (Vox Machina)
And I don't have any fics whose titles begin with Z! You would've thought the MCU would've provided such a character for my post-Snap series at some point. (The Valkyrie and Xavin ficlets were both the only titles starting with their letter.)

So it's 25/26. I have a total of 485 works posted to AO3, which includes podfics and a handful of other items that aren't written fics.
For the letters with more choice, I've largely gone whichever fic I think my best work (some were very hard choices), though I tried to get a little variety of fandoms in. Even if it seems a lot of my work and a lot of my best work remains in the MCU.

And I am still writing about the characters from my first Baldur's Gate 3 playthrough. This fic was inspired by the prompt on the Tav-ern of Tales discord "Karlach Gets a Hug," and is mostly about said companion, though it is very much Sara Tully's Karlach.

( Embrace )