January 13-14: Editing, walking, and Flamecraft with an agitated cat

[rowyn]

January 13

I got up around 8:30AM, and actually convinced myself to look at Be That Way in the morning, instead of spending the entire morning on RftG, Time Princess, and social media. I made some small fixes: moving a description to a more sensible place, and replacing all the placeholder names. I hadn't meant to start reading it but I kept reading several pages wherever I happened to be making fixes anyway, so I decided to start from the beginning. The list of changes is very short and most of them are easy, which makes me think that reading through it will bring other things I want to change to mind. Maybe not, though. Be That Way is a fantasy rom-com where the only conflicts are "people being annoying and ridiculous", so the plot is much less convoluted than some of my books.

In the afternoon, I asked Eliyahu if they were up for a walk. It was still below freezing outside, as it has been every day for the last week and a half. But they were leaving on Wednesday, so we wouldn't have any more opportunities to walk in pleasant weather, and at least it wasn't windy. 

Eliyahu: "Are you feeling like you either have to go for a walk or declutter more, and you can't face decluttering?"

Me: "Kind of? I don't mind decluttering but yeah, if I don't go out, I'm gonna declutter. And it would be nice to get out. We've barely left the house in the last week and a half." (We literally didn't go farther than the porch from Saturday until Thursday evening, when I finally gave up on the snow melting off and shoveled the walk.)

So Eliyahu agreed, layering on Lut's winter coat atop Lut's jacket, plus two shirts and two trousers, hat, scarf, hood, and mittens. I wore leggings, t-shirt, sweatshirt, and my winter coat.

Around 3PM, we drove off to see if the trail was walkable or if it was still covered in snow from the snowfall the weekend prior. Just before parking, I remembered that my biggest reason for going to the trail -- to get bubble tea as a reward afterwards -- was foiled by the bubble tea shop near the trail being closed on Mondays. Alas!

We parked anyway and followed the sidewalk towards the trail.  The sidewalk was not shoveled and still snow-covered. After a few hundred yards, we gave up and turned around without even reaching the trail, which I assumed would be worse. So that the trip would not be completely in vain, we walked a few laps around the arena parking lot near the trail, which was perfectly clear. The arena has a skating rink and some people were parked to use it, but no events were going on so it was deserted compared to the size of the lot. After the first lap, I stopped at the car to drop off my jacket because I was too warm. After a half-dozen yards, I went back to the car to take off my sweatshirt and put the coat back on; there was just enough wind to merit a windbreaker.

The cold really wasn't bad at all, to my surprise. My rule of thumb used to be that below 40F was too cold to walk for exercise, but apparently I'm more cold-tolerant these days.

In the evening, I listened to CoffeeQuills' stream and did multiplayer 4thewords with them while I wrote daily entries and The Secret Dragon. 

January 14

The last full day of Eliyahu's visit. They are at their limit on "time spent out of Canada" until June and have to stay in the country to retain their benefits, so I will not see them again for a while. ;__; I am not sure how visits with them will work after the move to North Carolina, either. My plan is to live with my parents and I know my parents will not be as keen on month-long visits as I am. Maybe I could rent a furnished apartment for a month so Eliyahu and I can hang out together and I'll just check in on my parents for that month instead of living with them? Which seems ridiculous, but I'm rich and can afford to spend money to solve problems.

In the morning/early afternoon, I read through more of Be That Way and drew a picture of Caliper, a goblin protagonist from the story. The goblins in the setting are cute little people, like the goblins in Alfie and Yet Another Fantasy Gamer Comic, so I've been wanting to draw one for a while. Picture came out okay but not great, so I'll probably try again. Maybe I'll try drawing a scene from the story next time.

After I finished the picture, we went for a walk around the arena parking lot again, this time with actual bubble tea reward at the end. Mm, bubble tea. :9

I joined Coffee's stream for a bit in the evening, while Eliyahu was busy with prayers and dinner. Got in some writing of The Secret Dragon.

In the evening, we played a game of Flamecraft while Lyric was uncharacteristically attention-demanding. We've played Flamecraft at least a dozen times, and Lyric had never before shown an interest in the board or jumping on the table while we were playing. This time, however, she would not stop. She hopped on top of it several times, batting at the pieces and lying down in the middle of the board and generally making a nuisance of herself. We tried playing with her, letting her outside, and giving her catnip, but she quickly lost interest in all of these things and as soon as we returned to Flamecraft, she wanted to jump atop it again. (Eliyahu also tried petting her, although she was very obviously not in a mood to be petted so I didn't). I don't know why she was so fixated on the game this time. I joked with Eliyahu that she realized they were leaving tomorrow and was demanding their attention while she could still get it.

Eventually, we managed to finish the game. Eliyahu won! We're pretty sure this is the first time they've won. \o/ I don't know what I do in general that makes me better at this game than they are. We have equal amounts of experience with it, because I've only played it when Eliyahu was also playing. Anyway, it was nice to have them win for a change, although Eliyahu is a very good sport and enjoys playing regardless of the outcome.

After the game, Eliyahu went to bed early so they could get up early for prayers. I stayed up until my usual bedtime and got some reading in. For the first time since I made the 2025 habit tracker, I checked off every habit on it. \o/

 

Comments

[tuftears]

On the subject of cute goblins, have you seen http://www.goblinscomic.org/ ? (it is a pretty epic-length comic, but updates have been sporadic of late)

It makes sense Lyric was drawn to the game, cats like warm things. It's FLAMEcraft, right? ^.^;;

[rowyn]

I love Goblins! I'm a few months behind on it because, yeah, sporadic updates for the last several years, so I don't check it very often.

[filkferengi]

I'm glad you're well-provided for in your retirement. Do you know when you'll be moving?

[rowyn]

I am hoping for April but we'll see how it goes

[filkferengi]

If you'll be within reach of Charlotte, ConCarolinas is a most excellent, fun, & friendly con. It's May 30-June 1 [ https://concarolinas.org/ ].