You know what, if that’s where he’s comfortable, I’m not going to gainsay him.
Sleep on, old man. Understand that shower-time is going to be awkward.
Stay safe out there, readers!
-JB Swift
01/02 Old Man Indy is Sleepy
Category: Pets
11/21 Monday’s Journey to Disney (plus the current book!)
We’ve begun the first leg of our journey to Disney!
This means we’re in the car, heading for New Orleans, as it’s stupidly expensive to use our towns’ airport as the jumping-off point. There’s a hotel waiting for us down there and we fly in the morning.
This morning, however, was an adventure of getting my cats, who are adorable but very dumb, into their travel cases to go to the boarder. Penelope, the smallest and dumbest, went outside instead of her case. This resulted in four hours of trying to trap a cat who really shouldn’t be outside, eventually getting frustrated and going onto the back porch as she tries to leap off my outdoor work table, catching her in mid-flight, and fighting her all the way to her travel case.
I have a couple new scars but she’s now safe and being pampered by the boarders, along with the other animals.
Now that we’re on the way, I’m also taking the opportunity to go back to my old stomping ground of reading!
Haven’t read this one in decades, and I’m enjoying it way too much. I’m going to incorporate a few things from it into my campaign, I promise.
What, precisely, I won’t say, as the players also read these. Trust me, y’all will enjoy it!
Stay safe out there, readers! I’ll write again before we board the plane!
-JB Swift
11/2 Princess’ Hairy Revenge
Someone was mad that I let Old Man Indy take the therapeutic dog bed instead of them.
She knows she’s not supposed to be on the couch pillows. She’s also shedding, so she’s getting double revenge by adding to my chore list.
Korra’s been getting antsy in her middle age.
10/26 Wednesday’s Day Off, House-Spousing, and Old Man Casey!
It’s a day off!
I have so much work to do!
I’m being told by my wife and children to use the day to relax, but how can I do that when I have a floor to sweep and a story to write?!
I must house-spouse!
Also, Old Man Casey!
I think he’s in agreement with the family about resting.
Stay safe out there, readers! There’s a floor that needs sweeping!
-JB Swift
10/23 Daisy is not amused
I know we’re supposed to let the hamster have time to exercise in her ball, but she’s so good at finding spots to hide that she puts herself at risk of not being found and being dehydrated.
She chittered at me furiously when I found her. Not sure if she’s mad that I found her hiding spot and subsequently hamster-proofed it, or for not finding her sooner.
Stay safe out there, hamsters.
-JB Swift
10/19 Invasion of the Couch Thieves
It’s been getting into freezing temperatures the past couple nights, so I’ve been trying to round up my animals from outside. Failing finding them (you try finding dark-colored cats in the Louisiana bush after dark), I’ve set up a few crates that will serve as shelters if they come back after I’ve fallen asleep.
That said, Penelope has shown to be rather dedicated to being an indoor cat, up to and including stealing my seat on the couch.
Of course, Korra doesn’t want to be outdone by the cat, so upon trying to sit down at the other seat, I find this:
So, it’s back to my desk chair, I guess. If Apollo ever gets inside, he’ll try to take that one, and then I’ll be seatless.
Stay safe out there, readers. Gonna try getting the cat twins in the house for their own good.
-JB Swift
10/15 Main Arc Session Night and Old Man Casey
I am both exhausted and excited. It’s Saturday, so it’s Game Night!
It’s also the third Game Night in a row, and I’m realizing exactly why I am so strict about my Session Schedule holding to a bi-weekly schedule.
I’m tired and getting grumpy. I don’t like that aspect of myself showing itself in my sessions, and I worry that my players would see this as resentment or disinterest. If the past year has been any indication, I’ve wanted one thing to come across: I love being a writer and RPG storyteller. Not only is it fun, but it’s also a personal enjoyment and challenge.
(There’s a voice I’m looking forward to trying out. After hearing other Narrators try their Bith voices, which always sound like Kermit the Frog if he had espresso, I wrote a Bith into the session so I could try it out myself. It’s not great, but damn is it entertaining. Pity the players who have to indulge me.)
That said, I’m looking at the calendar and having to make a hard decision. We’re officially in USPS’ “Heavy Season”, so the mail is picking up and the parcel count is hitting offensive levels. I’m going to be extremely busy during the ‘winter months’.
For those readers who are not familiar with the Southern United States, our winter months are still warm and humid, with occasional patches of “Why is it this cold?! It’s only 50 degrees out here! Damn humidity!”
I don’t want to push myself to the point of burnout, so in the interest of keeping the campaigns going, I’m ending my Main Arc Sessions for the year on November 12th, and my Side-Arc availability on November 19th. I’ll start back up January 7th 2023 for both.
That gives me two Main Arc Session nights left for the year after tonight. I wrote this adventure to be full of interesting details and notes for the players to investigate, and the last session showed me that they’re going about the adventure with intellect and patience. Other players in the main group, those who haven’t been able to join the sessions due to their own exhaustion (two of them have infants, so their exhaustion is absolutely valid) chime in with questions over the recordings and mapping out their decisions from ‘behind the scenes’. I’ve also been complimented by how faithful I’ve been to NPCing those characters.
I am enjoying this group far too much to let simple exhaustion from me drive them away from the table.
This is also to say that though I will be closing down my Sessions in mid-November, I will still be (trying) to make daily posts and adding on to the pages for the campaign throughout the Heavy Season. It’s a bit like therapy for me to sit down and add to a universe instead of stewing on the antics of management.
Don’t worry, I won’t take the remainder of the year off from writing altogether. I might have my month off in April next year, but I won’t know until next March and see what Tax Season looks like.
I’m off to handle up on house chores and finalizing details for tonight. I’ve asked Old Man Casey what he’s thought of my challenges so far:
He’s unimpressed and wishes luck to my players. I think.
Stay safe out there, readers!
-JB Swift
10/10 Laundry Cat!
“Curiosity killed the cat” is an old line that I sometimes have to deal with at the house.
Specifically, keeping Penelope from climbing into the dryer during the laundry chore.
She climbed in three times while I was loading the dryer. She’s lucky I’m paranoid about her surviving this world, or she’d be down a life and extra poofy.
Pray for this cat, folks. She’s fine, just dumb.
Stay safe out there, readers.
-JB Swift
10/10 Federal Day Off and Catching Up (Plus Old Man Casey!)
To my players and readers, you’ll be happy to know that for the first time in over a month, I’ve had a full-nights’ sleep.
To Votosh Khall (played by Ben): I’ve rested, now stop worrying about me and let me go about my terrible habits of pushing myself too hard.
That said, it’s Columbus Day here in the United States. If you’ve studied enough history, or if you know enough history from the Native American tribes in the Indies and Eastern United States, you’d refer to today as Indigenous People’s Day.
Brady and I used to love debates about this holiday, namely because we did know a lot of the history surrounding this holiday and Christopher Columbus.
Trust me: it’s Indigenous People’s Day. I’d rather have a day to honor the People than that greedy goof.
On a purely practical matter, however, it’s a Federal Holiday in the United States. As a Federal Person, I’m allowed a day off! And management can’t say a damn thing about it. Granted, that means Tuesday will be horrendous as the mail actually does stop for the day, but as it’s also a half-day for me tomorrow (thanks to a prodigious amount of paperwork), I can avoid that headache after 1:30PM tomorrow!
Now, what do I do on such a day? Apparently, it’s sleep for nearly 11 hours straight. Even the kids respected this. That’s should tell me something, but I’m electing to ignore it.
What I will be doing is catching up on the vast number of chores the house needs, including the writing here at my desk. Mardek’s Side-Arc needs finishing, and I’ll be plunking away at it before I get to anything else in my “Writing List”, including the plot for the upcoming Main Arc Session this Saturday.
This is to mean: if I don’t, I’ll be winging it on Saturday and you should pray for my players. Me telling a story that I haven’t thought out fully beforehand is… well, dangerous for those involved.
Sidenote: the “Post Updates” project was accidentally done first, as I logged on to see that the last week of posts had formatting issues and stayed in the “Drafts” section. But they were easily fixed in way less than an hour and published in order. Apparently, there’s a problem between uploading pictures from my phones’ camera roll to my blog posts and writing out the posts themselves on the tablet. That’s just my luck with technology.
This list will be added on to throughout the day as I find other sections that need writing out, but that’s only a small part of what needs doing today. The yard needs cleaning up, the floors need sweeping (daily, really, as this house is a house of shedding, be it dogs, cats, or the hamster), and the Old 4Runner needs maintenance.
Lots to do, and I’m too damn cheap to pay somebody else to do any of it. So, off to work (housework) I go!
As a consolation prize to everyone who wanted to read through my hyping myself up for my house-spouse duties, I’ve snagged a couple photos of Old Man Casey.
He’s still playful, but when you’re an 11-year-old dog, the playing is a bit low-key.
To think that I’ve tried to take this dog camping. He’d rather a couch and Netflix.
Stay safe out there, readers. Happy Indigenous People’s Day.
-JB Swift
09/20 My Last Day Off for a Long While and Essay-Writing (Plus Casey!)
Don’t let the title mislead you: I’m still working on the Sidewinder Stories!
I just keep remembering that I have other things to work on, and occasionally I fall asleep.
I’ve been noticing a tendency during the sessions for my players to debate over the sources we use for the timeline. Me being me, I have only one real way to handle such an occurrence: Writing!
How often these essays will be posted, I can’t say, but I will set up their links before I write them out so players and readers will know that I’m listening to their questions and will make the effort to answer them.
As the evening is settling in, I’m getting ready for what will surely be a form of revenge from management: overtime. I won’t be seeing a less than 11-hour shift outside of Sunday for weeks.
With that, I’ll see to adding a little to the stories before bed. For everyone that’s made it to the end of this, I present Old Man Casey!
Good night and stay safe out there, readers.
-JB Swift
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