8hyenas

I am really tired of coughing. It's definitely improved some, but I seem to be stuck on a hump where I don't feel terrible, but I'm tired and I can't quite get rid of the cough. Especially in the morning, I cough my face off, sometimes to the point of gagging. My voice seems to be stuck in this somewhat raspy/squeaky phase that is deeply annoying when I'm on the phone. I'm so glad today is Friday.

Last night, I made the halibut and got some sides from Fogo de Chao for dinner. The halibut was a little overcooked and dry, so I'll have to watch that next time it comes in our seafood box. I think next month is shrimp and Cod, so that'll be good. That, I'm definitely going to beer batter. But that won't come for a couple of weeks.

UPS was SO annoying last night. I don't know why they put a time on the order. "Oh, it's 100^ going to be there between 2-4pm!" It finally arrived around 8:15pm. If they'd tell me that up front, I'd prefer it. But we got Jess' teas, though a chunk of them ended up being rooibos tea, which neither of us is particularly fond of, so we may be passing those off to people. The downside of getting sample packs, I suppose. Hopefully, coyotegestalt and poisontaster like rooibos, because they're probably getting a care package.

The crab feast also arrived, which is awesome. It's probably going to be a Sunday afternoon crab feast, but that'll be okay. As long as I get to stuff my face with some Dungeness, I'm happy.

I've become a hype person for our vacation. The whole reason I got them is because we have a crab feast in Ketchican, and I wanted to make sure everyone liked Dungeness, since only Jess and I had ever had it, I think. I know my sister hadn't, and I'm pretty sure BIL has not. Plus, it's a little piece of Alaska to help get them excited for the trip. Probably not needed as everyone is pretty excited already.

I've been watching videos of our new room at the Pan Pacific. It looks lovely, and the club lounge is very nice. I will probably take advantage of it, for breakfast and maybe afternoon and evening snacks. I also and considering an evening swim while we're there, weather dependent, of course. It's early may, so it might get up as high as 75 or 80, or it may stay stubbornly in the 60's. To be fair, we swam in the 60's in Disney, so it's not necessarily a dealbreaker. They have this gorgeous rooftop pool where you can swim overlooking the city of Vancouver, which sounds amazing.

Tonight, I believe dinner will be steaks and garlicky brussel sprouts. Tomorrow, no clue. We've got chicken and beef aplenty. Probably chicken. Oooh, or cream of crab soup. I do have a couple containers of crabmeat I could use. Blue crab, as opposed to Dungeness. Though if I wait, I could 100& use the left over Dungeness to make soup stock. Hmmm. I will think on this.

One more day of work til the relaxing weekend. We've got our Arvandor game on Saturday, which I'm looking forward to. It should be super fun. The party just started a fight with the evil empire's king, some body guards and a mage. They've already run a gauntlet of Dracoliches, so they are depleted on spell slots and resources, so this should be good.

I got the email that they're almost done with the typeset and art for the last book of the Monsters of 'Murka game that I kickstarted. I'm looking forward to it, though my enthusiasm for a satiric America is slightly dimmed by current circumstances.

I'm so tired of the news. I go on Bluesky and it's just a constant barrage of bad news and stressful news. I'm trying to limit my consumption because it just stresses me out and depresses me. But at the same time, I don't want to miss anything, so I still sneak on. The world is a shitshow, film at 11.

It makes me nervous about vacation--will Canada let us in for our cruise? Will we have problems coming back into the US? Considering our demographics as all cis-passing white folks, we probably won't have any issues, but the intrusive thought is there.

Okay, time for me to consider the merits of putting on pants. I don't really feel like it, but I shall. Leggings and a t-shirt for the win. Everyone have an outstanding Friday!

It's Thursday, or as I like to call it, Friday Eve. We're getting there! I'm really looking forward to relaxing for the weekend. I feel like that might help clear out the last of this crud. I'm defintely doing better, but I'm still coughing a bit and my voice varies between semi normal, gravel filled and hoarse and squeaky, sometimes all in the same sentence. It's annoying.

Yesterday was another busy day, though I spent some of it making outbound calls to fill in some slots and get some patients in sooner. Still, I kicked so much ass. One of my favorite things is playing tetris with the schedule. Sometimes, you'll have a 1/2 hour slot in a few days, and then two half hour slots with a patient in between them. So you're going to call that patient and move them. Preferrably to the earlier slot, but if not at least up or down 30min. So you end up with a 60 or 90 minute slot. I have very good luck at getting that 90 minutes. Case in point yesterday, where I opened up two hours (which coincidentally was how much we needed for a patient's MRI).

I got a bunch of clothes delivered from Thredup, which are all pretty nice. There's two pieces that weren't what I expected, so they go into the donate pile. Then, there's one I'm not sure of. But what I definitely got out of it is two fleeces, a cute orange cardigan, a swim cover up and a little black purse for the vow renewal that I absolutely love. Need to have my room key and inhaler with me when I'm out of the cabin.

Then, after work, there was an exciting thing. I was sitting and relaxing and I got a call from a 604 area code. Which is Vancouver, CA. I knew this from setting up stuff for the Alaska trip. So, I picked up. It was our hotel, the Pan Pacific calling to offer an upgrade for our room. Previously, we were staying in kind of the bottom tier of rooms. Still gorgeous, because it is a 5 star hotel, but their basic room. They offered an upgrade to the Club level for $50/night. I of course said yes. So now we're going to have breakfast, snacks, sodas and appetizers in our club lounge. I'm looking forward to trying it out. Looks like it's very nice. So that made me happy.

Something about speaking with an actual human made things feel more real. Like holy shit, y'all, I'm going to see the Pacific Ocean! It's been three years since we had a really good vacation at Disney, so this is very exciting. I've never seen another ocean, always the Atlantic. Even when I went out of country, I saw the other side of the Atlantic from the plane that took me to Scotland.

Today, I shall work, it will hopefully be a less busy day, and I will have some interesting projects.

Today, we have two packages coming. First one is from My Ireland Box. I had gotten my sister a box from Ireland for Christmas, but I ordered it too early and a lot of the baked goods had gotten moldy. (I wasn't sure about shipping time with the shit that was going on with the mail and tarrifs, so I ordered in November.) The second box is from Sitka Seafood. The Dungeness crab that came with our last monthly box was so good that I ordred more. We're going to invite the BIL over for a full out crab feast. It should be delicious, but I'm a little nervous about where we're going to put them while we wait for Feast Day. I need to get some good butter for dipping.

Payday was yesterday, so I paid all the bills this morning, whoo. It's nice not to have the car payment. I still owe money, but I'm paid up til 2027. I just keep putting some money down every month, so hopefully I'll have it paid off early next year. But the internet and car insurance are good.

I didn't end up doing the halibut last night, so I'll have to do that today. I wish I had a beer, so I could do a beer batter, but it's such a pain to order it and wait for delivery. It takes forever to get here. I could just run up the road to a liquor store and grab a six pack, or to the slightly further one and get an individual beer, but that seems like a lot of work. I'm excited to try halibut, as I have never had it before. I may just bake it, we'll see how it goes. I need to get some tartar sauce and lemon. I might make a lemon butter sauce. I'll source it from the internet how it's best to cook it.

This weekend, we have one game on Saturday and nothing else. That's probably for the best, since my voice is so unpredictable. I can get through DMing one game. Plus, it's Arvandor, which is a small party, which makes it a bit easier. Less talking over each other. There is one currently scheduled on Sunday, but that's dependent on how poisontaster is feeling. And I'm not GMing that, so I don't have to talk nonstop.

Okay, time for me to hop off, and consider getting dressed. Everyone have a stellar Thursday!