Tag: monkeycat towers

I got up and went shopping even earlier, since I didn’t even have the excuse of needing to wait for the bookstore to open. I guess that was like being awake at a reasonable time? Anyway, I’ll claim I slept okay even though I felt lethargic later in the day.

Played: Zoomwarts, at long last. You’d think a game with only two players plus a GM who has no life would be easy to schedule, and yet… Bella and Rosamund and the lizards have found most of the students and conned a hapless psychopomp into helping them escape, but now two of the four are unconscious and a partially-overlapping two are trapped in a cave full of slugs and bubbles with an evil octopus who hates them.

Played: Among Us. I am still terrible at this game, and also after playing like ten rounds I have never been an imposter, but I will keep playing because it makes people happy.

Played: Uno Flip. What name should we give to the most greenish of the colors on the dark side of the cards? Ayse maintains it’s teal, but it doesn’t seem blue enough to be teal to me.

Read: The Maid I Hired Recently is Mysterious vol 3 (Wakame Konbu): Still has no socially redeeming value, but the bystander who ships the two leads has finally suggested a name to give to their feelings.

Written: 505 kitten words, resolving the Existential Dreads and bringing me to 3414/3000 for the week so far.

Why is it so hot? Is “June” any kind of excuse?

Marith is dead from always being stressed by work and never sleeping, so no Zoomwarts, but I went over for dinner and playing with Nonny, and there was some impromptu roleplaying about a tea shop in Texas, with murder and zombies. Maybe I should make Jus go to Big Bad Con and GM in my place.

Trying to switch to Firefox, but I have so much stuff already in Chrome…

Read: Beware of Chicken (Casualfarmer): A random Canadian guy is isekai’d into the body of the lowest-ranked guy in a sect of cultivators and goes off to start a farm far away from martial arts bullshit. This works about as well as you might expect.

Read: Starfish (Lisa Fipps): Novel in blank verse about a tween being bullied because she is not thin enough for people and developing better coping strategies with the aid of therapy.

Read: Komi Can’t Communicate vol 19 (Tomohito Oda): Oops, looks like that side of the love triangle has been resolved.

Read: Hitomi-chan is Shy With Strangers vol 4 (Chorisuke Natsumi): I like this better than Furi-san, maybe because Hitomi seems more legitimately scary, but it’s still wearing a bit thin.

Written: 105 words. Brain, why?

Why is there so much temperature? I didn’t order this! At least the customers were mostly quiet.

Played: Zoomwarts. The lizards and their mammalian sidekicks made it back into the land of the dead, to rescue everyone!

Eaten: Coq au vin and kale salad.

Watched: The Slayers 4-5: Attack of the fish-creature! Also joke which caused Jus to die of mortification, which fortunately will never be brought up again.

Written: 286 kitten words, for a total of 4119/3000 so far this week.

Marith was very flat so we didn’t have any Zoomwarts today. I did go over to help eat dinner and get hugs, and also explore the wider world of ice cream. I have long (well before the current pandemic) suspected my sense of taste is just not as good as most humans, and I think this confirms it. All the ice creams were good, and the olive oil ice cream definitely had a unique texture, but I clearly didn’t experience them in the same way as non-defective people. Still, deviled egg ice cream!

Written: 509 kitten words.

Gaming cancelled due to plague (not that plague) at the Gollubs’, so I slept in without having to reset my alarm repeatedly, which was more restful than some alternatives, and then did a huge amount of nothing, including eating fried food and reading the archives of Pterrible Dinosaur Drawings. Eventually I went over to hang out with Ayse and Jus and Nonny for a while,

Watched: The Owl House 2.5-6: Horrible children! A conflicted villain! A horrible monster! Kisses!

Read: FAIL

Written: FAIL

I don’t actually need to shop for groceries until Monday, but I ended up buying some less-perishable stuff because I had to go to the bank to get quarters anyway, and then the bookstore is right down the street, and I didn’t have to be on call until the afternoon…

A few weeks ago, Nonny wanted a “My books are calling and I must go read” shirt like mine, which was I was finally able to deliver. Now we’re Book Buddies.

Played: Zoomwarts, although not very energetically. Jus had a sleepover last night so of course very little actual sleep occurred, and Marith is always oppressed by work.

Eaten: Japanese food, but it wasn’t great. Or maybe I was just wrong about that being what I wanted. I’m not sure about this whole “eating” thing, TBH.

Read: The Gulp (Alan Baxter): Five linked stories about an extremely creepy town on the Australian coast and the horrible things that happen there: fungus, mutation, ancient dreams, inbreeding, eyeball eating, murder, the usual fun stuff.

Read: Babalon’s Hangover 2 (various): 100+ pages of horrible things, places, people, and happenings for the doomed, decaying world of Mörk Borg.

Written: FAIL.

Skipped looking for new manga to rush through grocery shopping, so I could get to Ayse and Ken’s in time for Eurovision! It’s finally streaming legitimately in the US, so it has a real start time and everything, and we had a very nice afternoon. Even Marith showed up, although Eurovision is not her thing, and we ate frittata and something involving garlic anchovy olive oil to dip veggies in,

It is no surprise that Ukraine won, but their entry was actually good, so that’s fine. Much more surprising, the UK came in second, getting possibly more points than in every previous Eurovision combined! No one knows what to make of that. There were too many ballads, but also bangers like Moldova. Norway was the Maximum Eurovision this year with the masked banana wolves, but Australia and Serbia were also up there, albeit in completely different genres. France was totally robbed, their entry was a banger. Spain was okay, but did better than they would otherwise due to the butt floss visuals. The American presenter was very fabulous and had angel wings.

Nonny showed me a bunch of Splatoon stuff, and eventually I played a little Zoomwarts with Jus and Marith, and then Dave kindly fetched us burgers from down the street and we ate and played three-square until it was time to disperse.

Played: Zoomwarts! Bella and Rosamund and the lizards seem determined to find out what happens when you blow off Bellatrix Lestrange-Riddle’s explicit instructions. I’m sure that will go well for them, especially if I manage to prepare for their expedition into the land of the dead.

Read: “Min Zemerin’s Plan” (Katherine Addison): Short story set around Witness for the Dead.

Written: FAIL. I did not accomplish anything after I got home.

Marith had to get her mouth fixed today, so I went along to keep her from wandering into traffic when they threw her out still full of anesthetic. It was all fine, just time-consuming. I managed to do a little work before going over to Ayse and Ken’s for the Amerivision finale, so I guess it all worked out, or something.

Eaten: Sushi! Apparently I joined in the grand tradition of ordering too much.

Watched: American Song Contest 2022 ep 8: What are these juries smoking?! Or perhaps better asked, who are they to be so out of touch with America? (10 regional juries assigning 12/10/8/… points like Eurovision, then 56 states/territories doing the same thing and almost turning the list upside down.) We were all very sad when the 70s soft-rock guy from Washington topped the jury chart, but then AleXa won with “Wonderland” because every K-pop stan in the US voted for her or something, so it was all okay. They had the regional jury representatives videophone in to announce who got the 12 points, just like Eurovision. Not all the reps (all previously-eliminated contestants) had the proper Eurovision spirit, but it made me happy.

Played: Living room soccer.

Read: Beyond The Eyes Of Mars (Glynn Stewart): 12th in the series where FTL, stealth in space, and antimatter production are all literally magic. The heroic Martian navy is still cleaning up breakaway factions of the great revolt, and still learning increasingly horrible things about the rebels (which possibly should have been obvious to readers, but I don’t think was telegraphed at all). Also something that came up as being extremely important about 6 or 8 books ago was finally mentioned again, although none of the viewpoint characters knew the significance.

Written: FAIL.

Instead of sleeping in, I got up at the usual work time and walked to grocery shopping. The sun supported me in this by mostly not coming out until I was done, so thanks! More walking to get lunch and finish off the parts of my shopping list that could be done on the way. Then I was on call, so I did a little work stuff until I realized I had started off completely wrong and gave up to go to Ayse and Ken’s for pizza and hugs. Marith was flat, so that was more walking, and then a lot of playing foursquare in addition to socialization. A surprisingly full day, even if we didn’t get any anime or gaming.

Read: Nettle & Bone (T Kingfisher): A little grimmer than many T Kingfisher books, maybe, but full of possessed chickens, fairy godmothers, sturdy practical women, muscular men with tragic pasts, terrifying underground labyrinths, and all the other paraphernalia of fairytales.

Written: FAIL.

What the fuck, Democrats? We elected you to stop this shit, not stand around wringing your hands and pretending bipartisanship has been a thing in this millennium!

Did some work to keep the capitalist machine feeding blood to its fascist masters. But I didn’t enjoy it!

Eaten: Tasty Vietnamese food.

Watched: Amerivision semifinals part II, up until the point where Nonny threw a temper tantrum about not getting to stay up indefinitely late. We’ll have to watch American Samoa’s entry and the final jury results another time.

Written: Continued FAIL.

In the morning I went to watch Nonny run approximately a million laps for fundraising at his school, as Jus did in years before. It was a pretty nice day for being outside, aside from minor tree orgies. I didn’t manage to eat breakfast or lunch, but I did manage to go grocery shopping, so whatever.

Watched: Slayers 1-3. Jus and Nonny are old enough to appreciate it now, possibly because everybody loves explosions and antiheroes.

Eaten: Dandan noodles and velvet chicken with snap peas in lemon ginger sauce.

Played: No Zoomwarts, Marith is too flat.

Words: FAIL

The new system is in place at work. Eventually it will even be complete!

Watched: Amerivision semifinals, part 1. Since we are watching at the time of transmission (I don’t think it’s “broadcast” any more), we get to vote, although only Ayse has an NBC account, so we only got one vote for the whole party. Our rule was “no haters” so we didn’t give anyone anything below a 5, but only “New Boots Goofin'” and “Wonderland” got the coveted 10.

Eaten: Cronchy chickens. Also fancy shortbreads.

Played: Not so much twirling, fortunately.

Words: FAIL.

The cleaners were here at 7:00, so since I was already up, I bit the bullet and walked to grocery shopping, came home, took a shower, and got lunch, all before 13:00. Unfortunately there was then chaos so I didn’t know what to do next for a while until visiting got planned, but it was still a productive morning.

Watched: Amerivision ep 5, final round of the qualifiers. Finally we got California’s song, which used the power of sexy young women but was somehow defeated by Michigan’s teenaged singer-songwriter. I think we’ll come back in the popular vote, though. Semifinals start on Monday!

Eaten: Santa Maria tritip, pinquito beans, rice, salad, corn with peppers.

Played: Spinning. So much spinning. Possibly ill-advised after the eating, but all’s well that ends well, right?

Read: Spy x Family vol 7 (Tatsuya Endo): I’m not entirely comfortable with a secret policeman being a sympathetic and even comic character, but then the leads are a James Bond-style “spy” and a professional murderer, so it’s not like the violence isn’t inherent in the system.

Words: 517 kitten words.

Even earlier meeting. Customers. No brain.

Watched: Amerivision week 4 (which is actually last week, because last week we didn’t watch). Double Washington action! Laser-dispersing bodysuits! Twins! The 70s!

Eaten: Greek food.

Read: False Value (Ben Aaronovitch): Peter vs techbros with what even Douglas Adams would have said was an unhealthy fascination with Hitchiker’s Guide.

Read: Tales From The Folly (Ben Aaronovitch): A collection of short stories and vignettes, which are cute but don’t necessarily add much.

Words: FAIL.

No gaming, Jeremy is down with the Gastrointestinals, so I was able to do grocery shopping. Ill wind, etc. Marith and I still went over to Ken and Ayse’s for delicious Easter dinner.

Eaten: Delicious Easter dinner, including ham and glazed shallots and many deviled eggs.

Played: Nonny Dance Contest, which gets Nonny some exercise and lets the grownups sit around like lumps while they cheer and clap and play music on phones and do Howard Cosell impressions.

Read: Whispers Under Ground (Ben Aaronovitch): This one doesn’t seem to have been edited as much, or maybe I just don’t remember it as well.

Words: FAIL.

I was on call all day, which annoyingly prevented me from going grocery shopping, but the customers remained quiescent.

We did go over to dye eggs with Ayse and Ken and fam, and also eat delicious Thai food and exercise Nonny. No gaming or anime, though.

Words: I think I figured out how to upload and link the thing I’m not currently revising. Also, 303 kitten words.

Watched: Amerivision, part 3! I liked Louisiana’s entry the best, but perhaps I was the only one who did. Nonny has very definite opinions on what’s rock vs mere pop-rock.

Eaten: Korean delivery.

Played: Basketvolley? Maybe just monkey in the middle.

Read: Dragonbreath: Revenge of the Horned Bunnies (Ursula Vernon): Summer camp with jackalopes.

Read: Dragonbreath: When Fairies Go Bad (Ursula Vernon): Christiana is surprisingly okay with traveling through Faerie. “It was an hallucination” is an all-purpose excuse, I guess.

Read: Dragonbreath: Nightmare of the Iguana (Ursula Vernon): The inside of Wendell’s head is actually pretty much what you’d expect.

Read: Dragonbreath: The Case of the Toxic Mutants (Ursula Vernon): Diplomacy!

Read: Dragonbreath: Knight-napped! (Ursula Vernon): Just because knights and dragons are both endangered species doesn’t mean they get along.

Words: FAIL.

Jus and Ayse have to go ziplining tomorrow, so Jus and Ken had to play D&D today, so there was no Zoomwarts or anime. Unrelatedly, my gaming for tomorrow is also cancelled.

For no detectable reason, my ankle decided to start hurting like I had twisted it, in response to checks notes sitting down for 15 minutes. Also my esophagus jammed for several minutes. I guess I got “Roll twice and suffer both results” on the Wandering Decrepitude Table.

Eaten: Chicken stuff. Also kohlrabi-carrot stuff and dinosaur kale.

Played: Pool Noodle Battle Royale. Treachery is mandatory.

Watched: RWBY 1.5. I had forgotten that Blake and Yang were the first to meet each other’s eyes. Also Ruby and Weiss, of course.

Words: 529 kitten words. No revisings.

Eaten: Delivery sushi, which is not as great as fresh sushi, but still very luxurious.

Watched: Amerivision, part 2! I think agree with Dave that the songs this week were slicker than last week, but the Oregon guys had proper Eurovision spirit.

Read: “Girl Oil” (Grace P Fong): Social expectations about Chinese diaspora women + magic beautifying potion with side effects = tragedy.

Read: “The Last Truth” (AnaMaria Curtis): A thief has to sacrifice her memories to open locks. Funny how her contract is almost up at the same time there’s almost nothing left…

Words: FAIL. No time to write, must get up early tomorrow.

Cleaners came at 7:00 this morning, so I had to get up, but then I took a nap thing, or maybe was just a huge useless lump for a while. I managed to shop for a grocery and then visit friends to get hugs, though.

Played: Zoomwarts. Bella isn’t dead, nobody is a vampire (although Emily is also not alive), the ministry is taking credit for saving the day, the surviving eight and a half students are going on winter break early, everyone else has been sucked into a pit to the underworld. Maybe we’ll stop here and let Ken run D&D so Nonny can fight monsters, or maybe Bella and Rosamund and the lizards will have to go get everyone’s soul back.

Eaten: Tasty kebabs, tasty feta-cucumber salad, tasty chocolate splenda cream pie. But we do also love Ken for himself! Really!

Watched: Love, Chunibyo & Other Delusions 1.9: No parasol will protect Rikka from Nibutani talking about feelings!

Watched: Azumanga Daioh 1: Still ridiculous! Also, the fluffy temptation of wheat.

Watched: RWBY 1.4: Sproing!

Played: Zombie ball tag. If a zombie catches a human, they turn into a zombie, but if a zombie gets hit by the ball three times, they turn into a human. Seemed to be reasonably well-balanced in that sometimes the humans won and sometimes the zombies. Also not nearly as contentious as Sneaky Statues.

Words: 554 kitten words about nothing in particular.

I took off work today, because my managers keep telling me to take more time off, and it seems as good an excuse for a holiday as any. Ayse insisted on taking me to kittens and lunch; how was I supposed to resist? The kittens were very rambunctious, which made it hard to befriend them, but they were adorable anyway.

I went home to vegetate for a while, and then went to Ayse and Ken’s for delicious Thai food and friendship and non-cursed frogurt and then Amerivision. It was actually Eurovisiontastic, despite our worries! Not all the acts understood how to use the stage, and there were a probably excessive number of half-dressed backup dancers, but overall it was properly campy and had a good variety. Oklahoma K-pop was good, the pink one with the keytar solo was good, fire was good, cowboy boot rap was just weird. There were some technical difficulties and I stayed up too late, but it was lots of fun. Nonny also got to stay up late.

Words: FAIL. I meant to do some writing during the afternoon, but instead I did pretty much nothing. It was not an auspicious start, but it was very on-brand.

Realized it would be better to go grocery shopping on Monday, since I don’t need workday lunches until Wednesday. Stayed in bed until noon.

The sky is doing us a precipitate. I approve.

Ayse and Ken and family had some kind of human socialization thing, so we went over so late there wasn’t any Zoomwarts or anime, but there was food and hugs.

Eaten: Pulled pork sandwiches! Also salad and beets and fennel and hugs.

Played: Assorted running-around games.

Read: Aposimz vol 2 (Tsutomu Nihei): Main character is getting more allies, some of whom might eventually even like him. Also, many more shockwaves.

Words: 421 sad kitten words.

I didn’t really get up earlier than usual for grocery shopping, but I did it with less whining, so that’s good, right?

On-call in the afternoon, but the customers were blessedly quiet.

Read: Rackham Vale (Brian Saliba, Craig Schaffer): An OSR sandbox based on (and including many examples of) the art of Arthur Rackham, featuring many faeries of various scales, mutant alligators, curses, ambitious witches, and party trees, among other fey goings-on.

Played: Zoomwarts. Surprisingly, trying the same plan again worked better. Everybody got killed, but some of them got over it, so that’s good, right? Possibly we’re going to start alternating Zoomwarts with D&D run by Ken, so that Nonny can fight monsters.

Watched: Love, Chunibyo & Other Delusions 1.7-8: Beach episode! But more importantly, we find out what Rikka’s deal is. Also, both positive and negative examples of romantic behavior which may be of use to Jus now that she is a middle-schooler and practically a teenager.

Eaten: Ribs! (Also brisket, burnt ends, collard greens, etc.) Apparently Jus took a break from wanting sushi 24/7 to demand ribs, and nobody was going to object.

Played: Laser tag.

Watched: RWBY 1.1 for Jus. She liked it, and we aren’t even to the trauma part yet!

Words: FAIL. I did a little revising because I figured out what one of the slang terms should be, but not very much.

I should have gotten up much earlier, but was too useless. I guess it worked out in the end, though.

Sought: The lost art of conversation.

Eaten: Fried chicken, shaved fennel, salad with home-made ranch.

Played: Underhand dodgeball and sneaky statues.

Played: Zoomwarts, at long last! We played late into the night because Marith doesn’t have to work tomorrow. In fact, she is on vacation! But that did not help Rosamund, Bella, or the lizards, because their plan to destroy the magic circle was foiled by a simple forgetfulness potion! Muahahahaha!

Words: 406 kitten words.

Although I was on call today, I managed to have a fun day anyway by staying within 15min of my computer and only getting texted once. Whee!

Played: Minigolf and air hockey. I am terrible at minigolf, but we weren’t keeping score, so nobody knows exactly how terrible, and that’s like winning, right? Also I got to display my maturity by not asking if it was my turn to putt every time someone else went.

Played: Catch. It’s a classic for a reason!

Eaten: Muslim Chinese food. It was really good

Watched: Love, Chunibyo & Other Delusions 1.6:

Played: Super Smash Bros. I am also terrible at this game. I just try to face somebody who’s not on my team and mash the basic attack button until I get kicked off the edge three times. But I’m willing to be useless if it makes Nonny happy.

Read: FAIL

Words: FAIL

Marith is still too sick to do things, so I made my way over to Monkeycat Towers all by myself. I mostly remembered how it works!

Eaten: Pozole! Ken used a new recipe! It was super-tasty! Possibly I should not have eaten a second bowl of it right before playing time, but how could I not?

Played: Ball tag, noodle hockey, volley-soccer, shrieking, doll fashion design. No Zoomwarts, because Marith has the Illness. (No, not that illness.)

Watched: Love, Chunibyo & Other Delusions 1.4-5: Dekomori vs Morisummer!

Read (to Nonny): Meet The House Kittens and A Bridge Too Fur (John Patrick Green): Adorable kittens try to get into the construction business, but no one takes them seriously because they are too adorable. Then they need the help of some dogs, because water, but cannot take the dogs seriously, because dogs. In the end, many people learn better!

Words: 422 kitten words.

On call, but nothing happened, so that’s good.

Played: Zoomwarts. Bella is probably not a vampire yet! Less clear about Baby Lizard.

Eaten: Assorted tacos from the taqueria that the burger place turned into for lunch, and then carne asada burritos for dinner.

Played: About 5000 steps of assorted roughhousing.

Read: The OP Lich Is A Returnee vol 2-4 (Stuart Grosse): Mostly infodumps about the magic system, interrupted by the OP Lich steamrollering anyone who puts themselves in her way.

Words: FAIL. I’d say I used up all my creativity on Zoomwarts, but that’s making an assumption that’s probably not borne out by evidence.

I have finally taken a rapid test. It came up negative, so there’s a distinct possibility that I don’t currently have COVID!

Played: Zoomwarts, in person. I oppressed Bella and the lizards a lot, but they did make progress toward their goal of everybody not being dead. Except the vampires, who were definitely dead.

Eaten: Leeks! Romanesco! Lemony chicken potatoes!

Played: Steal the ball, by any means necessary!

Read: Between Kings (WR Gingell): Everything was very confusing in the first book, but now, in book 10, everything is actually wrapped up, even the things that we only discovered in the middle books. Victory: Pet!

Words: 331 words about kittens.

Didn’t do much during the day, although at least my shopping expedition yesterday gave me the knowledge to warn other people that Trader Joe’s closes early on NYE so they should go shopping sooner rather than later.

In the evening I got dressed in normal-person clothes and transited over to Monkeycat Towers for a party. Earl and Cat are hiding from Omicron, and Marith has to start work at 03:00, so it was a pretty small party, but cozy and full of friends and feasting and kitties and geeking about Cursed Princess Club.

Eaten: Cheese fondue, roast duck (by Ken, who doesn’t even like duck, but does love Ayse), and chocolate fondue with cocoa cream cheese balls. None of it was healthy, but a bit of indulgence to see off 2021 is okay. Right?

Played: Laser tag, lightsaber thwacking, noncompetitive Dizios, and Roll for the Galaxy. Jus won RftG, crushing me like a space insect.

Words: FAIL. I could have been writing all day before the party, but instead I was lounging in bed and then reading CPC.

I was not much more useful today than yesterday, but it was an actual holiday, so that’s okay, I guess? Marith and I went over to Monkeycat Towers to help them eat Christmas food and play with presents. It was extremely nice despite Nonny being full of mucus.

Eaten: A very nice ham, many leeks, assorted other vegetables, coffee panettone.

Played: Othello, Gnomes at Night, Nerf target shooting, and something that involved running around yelling “there’s a ghost! get it!”.

Words: 388.