Kiss My Knits!

My daughter’s former kindergarten teacher has a proposal up on Donors Choose.
More about her and the proposal.

Yesterday was not good, but it ended well.

After the incident with the sphinxes and the owlbears and the special sauce, we rise to the mine level which has the resurrection shrine. Val is in the lead.

GM Vaschon: Your party continues 40′ NE and arrives at an intersection. You can travel E, S, or N.
GM Vaschon rolled 1 20-sided die: 19
GM Vaschon rolled 1 100-sided die: 77
Val: >N
Aleanghi: (Quick, run faster than nick can roll!)

We can’t outrun fate, though!

There’s been a mini-fest going on in Dragonrealms over the last couple of days. It’s a nice little event in a really cool new wedding area. Because of this, I’ve been playing more, just as a regular player. In fact, I even had the joy of dying because the network connection from my laptop to our wireless isn’t working properly. In knew in advance that the connection was shaky, so it’s totally my fault. That’ll teach me to hunt above my level. Well, it’s been a long time since I died, so it was probably something I needed to have happen again, just to keep in touch with the total playing experience. I lost a LOT of field experience, but I got back all my stuff, so I suppose all’s well that ends well.

It’s been really fun to explore new places and connect with new people. We’ve got some talented GMs, and seeing what they’ve done has made me want to get into it a bit more. I identified a few tiny little things I can do, and have sent queries off to the appropriate people to see if they mind me mucking around with their stuff. Everybody who’s responded so far has been enthusiastic. There’s not a lot of territoriality behind the scenes. We’re lucky to have a good staff who recognize that we’re all on the same team.

My husband is on furlough this week, which is an unpaid leave which his business is using to cut costs. Everybody’s having to do them; it’s not a special thing for which he’s been singled out. This marks the first time in 15 years that he hasn’t been tethered to his work by an internet connection. He’s using his time off to go camping and spend some time with his father. Em expressed today how much she misses him. It’s unusual for her to verbalize something like that, so he was able to go off on his adventure today feeling very loved. He won’t be gone long, and then we’ll have him all to ourselves for the rest of the week. His daughter is delighted by that.

As much as I’d like to work on Dragonrealms stuff right now, I have Jayne hat business to attend to first. I’ll be stamping up boxes and shipping things out while my daughter is at dance camp this morning. It’s a very busy time here, with convention season upon us.

I’ll try to get a D&D writeup out in the next few days. Until then, gentle readers!

When we last left our intrepid adventurers, they were all alive again! Except me. Also, Val’s player is back.

Val: Val slicks his hair back and mutters about his lost “toys”
Torkal: Torkal reminds Val that they were marvelously effective.
GM Vaschon: Next time the villain will lobotomize Val and make him bald
Veracity: fate WORSE than death!

Treasure is sorted, including a “hat of the magi” which nobody can identify. The DM didn’t say what it looked like, but I imagine something like the hat to the right. Aleanghi decides to try it on. Despite much ragging from the party, she does not begin to hallucinate, at least no more than usual. Instead, she appears smarter. Is this a hat of intelligence, perhaps? Lord knows our party can use all the intelligence it can get.

After the requisite looting, the party decides it’s time to get going. Apparently Palin is starting to smell. How to drag my carcass back through the water, though?
Do Dwarves float?

Bicycling, skating, gardening.

We got a bike for Em last year and she’s still not proficient at it. This is our fault, for not seizing the momentum gained from the excitement of first purchasing the bike. We debated a lot about the best method to use, when perhaps we should have picked something and gone with it, even if it weren’t the best way.

It’s not all us, though, as Em wants to know how to do everything, but she doesn’t want to do the work to actually learn how to do everything. Well, this is summer, and she wants to know how to do these things, and by God she’s going to learn how to ride a bike this week if it kills me. Which it may.

Part of our problem is that we can’t practice in our driveway. It rolls directly onto Tyvola Road, a major thoroughfare. We have to take the bike somewhere else to practice. This is also a problem, because children are required to ride in the back seat of a car, and my car is not big enough to hold her in the back seat and the bike. However, across Tyvola Road is the Marion Diehl center, which recently installed a running track. This isn’t the nice soft red stuff, it’s asphalt, so we can ride on it without worrying about tearing it up.

I stuffed some wound-wash and bandaids into my pockets, just in case, and we walked over this morning and rode. Mama’s little underachiever promptly started negotiating. “Let’s just ride three times.” I wanted to go for a set time but I don’t own a watch, so we negotiated to eight good stretches of riding. Only once did she deliberately try to ride for a few feet and then stop. I told her nicely that that wasn’t going to fly, and she put her all into it again.

We made it 3/4 of the way around the quarter-mile track. Then she felt like she was done. I opted not to push it. We’re going back tomorrow and going all the way around the track.

It was 80 degrees and it was hard work holding that seat and awkwardly running behind her while crouching. I was panting and sweating, which I think made her feel like she was working harder than she actually was, because she said she was tired when she looked just fine to me. We went back home for water and orange slices. We’ll give it another go tomorrow, and we’ll try to go all the way around the track. Em is on board with this. We’ll work up from there.

I get that it’s hot and she doesn’t want to go out. I don’t want to either. But I know she’ll feel a sense of accomplishment once she’s able to do this, and I want to give that to her. Even if I have to push her down that road a little.

Em: Do you know what my lifetime dream is?
Me: No, what?
Em: To have my appendix out!

Last week it was to be the first woman president. I guess she can do both.

When we last left our crew, Palin and Torkal were about to be set upon by possessed fleshy statue versions of the rest of the party. Fortunately, just before they attacked, Torkal and Palin managed to get the bad guy to launch into the traditional villain monologue and forestall our inevitable doom.

You got me monologuing!

GM Vaschon: When last we left our intrepid adventurers, the party of Palin and Torkal discovered the bodies of Ale, Bentein, Veracity, Val and Klyx laying dormant on stone slabs.
Veracity: Not even snoring.
Bentein: I can RP dormant 🙂
GM Vaschon: A small alcove was searched out and opening the rotted door revealed a long chamber lined with figures on both walls and a figure at the far end seated at what appeared to be a desk filled with alchemical supplies.
Veracity: Quick, shoot him in the back before he notices you.
GM Vaschon: On the west side of the wall rest 4 fleshy statues and 3 fleshy statues on the east side. Glancing quickly, you notice 1 elf, 1 half-elf, 2 humans, 1 goblin, 1 kobold and 1 dwarf.
Torkal: Torkal will look to Palin, then look around, then helpfully call out, “Hello?”
Palin: Oh, lordy, did you just call out “hello” to the villain?
Torkal: Yes. Yes, I did.
Palin: I see we haven’t lost our edge during our absence.

More misadventures behind the cut.