Mu mu* wall.

Large Dragon: Ohanaveth, my turtle based, done by my little sister as a gift
Knit Dragon: Nadeeth, my little lady dragon made by a player in New Zealand. (It also has a sparkly knitted egg not pictured.)
Blue/gold Cord: K'vvan's Arroyo Wingsecond knot, done by a friend in New Mexico to commemorate his most successful rank
Centipede Army Badge: Comissioned by fellow Ansible player to commemorate the first army I ever commanded there
Eage: Nod to the ethnicity of my first character ever
Green Glass Dragon: Bought on whim (because I love my green Nadeeth okay?), shattered by students, then after two years of searching replaced
Bee Beret: Made by @thesuntsar for Norwood to represent our beret fad

And finally: Norcat! Made by @Crawfish.

Anyone who says muing is just a game misses some of the point. I have cherished memories of the people and places I've played.

I've been in love with the singleton kitten, Calypso, we've had for a few weeks. She loves our Senior cat and our younger cat has reached a semi-peace agreement. Moreover, she adores me and follows me around the house like a puppy. The other day my husband texted saying he couldn't find her, but when I came home and said her name once she came stumbling down the stairs at sleepy full speed.

But my husband wasn't as sold. Caly is a but jumpy, and isn't as found of men. So I've been crossing my fingers and doing my best not to press. There wasn't room in the shelter for her ANYWAY, so there wasn't a rush.

Today husband watched her fall asleep veerrryyy slowly by our senior cat, and then wake up every time Kiva moved to see if she needed to move too. Out of the blue husband announced, "She's home forever."

So as soon as I get into the shelter to fill out the forms and pay the fee, this fluffball will officially be ours forever.

Welcome home Calypso.

Alright, thread necromancy.

This morning I was able to go in and grab "essentials" from my classroom. I had heard they were packing up stuff, but I wasn't prepared for what I walked into. They are literally ripping it apart and packing it up to be able to deep clean. (Imagine how you would feel if someone came into your house and moved everything you own, that is how hard seeing my classroom torn apart felt.) There were bits and pieces of student work littering the floor. My books were stacked willy nilly. I take two + weeks of unpaid time yearly to set up my room every year, and seeing it destroyed made me realize that... we weren't going back. This face to face year was over. Even if we did end up back and may for the final weeks it wouldn't be instruction time, it would be an attempt to heal time.

Then a few hours later I got the phone call I knew was coming but... hoped wouldn't. Schools are closed for the rest of the academic year. We will continue to teach using distance methods but for the most part this year is just... done.

And I'm not ready to be done. I've been closer to this class than any I have taught in my ten years. (Actually, this year is my ten year mark.) They are weird quirky kids full of problems. I have a bunch of kids who came to me lacking social skills, and who had very negative experiences with school. Somehow the way I run my classroom clicked with them though, and they have been happy. Their academic growth is THROUGH THE ROOF. More than anything though, they have friends.

And all of that is done now. I can't hug them any more. When they get frustrated with work I can't immediately be there to catch them and reassure them. For some this will be fine. They have AMAZING parents who are able to be there. For others though, they are with an aunt, or being bounced between families. The only stable place they had - school - is GONE. The hug they knew they could get daily from me is GONE.

So I'm sad. I'm beyond sad. I feel like my heart has been ripped to pieces, and there isn't anything to fix it.

I held her like this for a half hour.

Then she woke up so I put her down assuming she wanted to play with her siblings who were going spastic near by.

Nope. She wasn't done cuddling.

It isn't cats but look at what my older sister made me!!

I can't wait for the sun to go around the other side so I can see it back-lit directly.

When someone rolls composure after your pose.

There is a husky mix that lives in the townhouse right behind us. He walked by me all polite yesterday while I sat on my porch so I asked to pet him. Then today when he came around the corner he assumed he already had permission and trotted onto my porch for pets.

10/10 good boy.

These are really hard times right now. I don't think many of us really want to think about what is going on around the world, except that we can't really ignore it whatsoever. Thankfully, we all have places we can go wherein, for short bursts of time at least, we can immerse ourselves in a totally different world.

So to every single game runner/Admin/Wiz/GM/Whatever Else You Are Called, Yes, I Do Mean You (and specifically Arx's AMAZING staff)

These games being here means the world to me right now.

We brought baby Calypso to my sister's wedding with us and this is her happily sitting with my brother and his service dog Levi. This is the first time since his accident (17 years ago) he has gotten to hold or pet a cat since most won't sit this serenely.

I got the intervention job I wanted!!! Basically, I get to build the role from the ground up!!!

@ganymede

ALL the kitten pics! I can do that.

My favorite foster TikToker never has kids in her videos, and I have always respected her EXTRA because of that.

EDIT:

ALSO, my husband just got a new job after a 3 month hiring process. It's for a local county sheriff's office, so he had to go through the same background screenings they gave the officers, multiple psyche evaluations, lie detector, drug test, etc. It was a lot!

But now he has a start date and we're really excited for this opportunity for him to make a Colorado wage.

@ganymede

I keep getting started by being @atted in your post and then I go "Oh, that isn't about me, move on."

I'm not sharing this information with my IRL yet (except my older sister, because I trust her to be zipped up about it), but my husband and I just submitted all the paperwork to start the process to become foster parents.

It's all the PRE paperwork, like background check authorizations, financial disclosures, documents that we understand we need to not be discriminatory (seriously, the number of times we signed "Yes, we won't discriminate against LGBTQ children/youth" is a sad sad commentary on how common it is that these kids ARE discriminated against...) etc.

I'm really nervous about it, especially since hubs and I haven't ever had kids of our own.

I just wanted to tell someone so I told y'all.

Randomly surprised today. Fireworks are a hot button issue on Nextdoor. Every week someone posts complaining. Usually, I don't engage, but there has been a LOT and last night one went off at the same time as one of my fosters was having a hard time in the litter box. It made them and a sibling jump. The mess was bad enough I had to give this poor baby a bath.

So I posted that the fireworks were hard on my poor fosters. Someone posted a flippant reply. I waited a few hours and replied that I understood people want to celebrate but that I still felt empathy for my poor babies and that I felt their comment was heartless.

Thus the surprise!!!

They APOLOGIZED and wished my kittens well.

There is some small hope left guys.

So... I forgot to post that I brought home 5 more kittens!

They've been here long enough to have finished quarantine and joined Hansel and Gretel in the big kitten room.

So now we have one 7-kitten pile, with poor Tortie Gretel feeling so sad for being the only non black baby.

Names: James T. Kirk, Kathryn Janeway, Jean-Luc Picard, Christopher Pike, and Benjamin Sisko (Collectively the Captains)

The tortie is Gretel and her brother is also black, Hansel.

Bisexual =/= promiscuous or not monogamous!

You love and commit to whom you love and commit!

My foster fail Calypso is SUPER SAD about all the time I am spending with the kittens. She was meowing sadly outside the door. Thankfully the less favored human came to take care of her despite knowing he is the less favored. I've got the best husband.

@il-volpe

Grumpy one requests a manager!

Hansel (black) and Gretel (tortie) are four weeks old and healing from being super sick really nicely, even if I do have to force feed them at times because their anti-biotic can cause icky tummies and loss of appetite.

@devrex said in RL-Friendly Game Design:

@L-B-Heuschkel does a great job of GMing async and making it really fun and I'm not sure what his techniques are there or what he's doing differently that I'm not doing (or if he's just wired differently as a GM) but.

I think it's just that they HAVE TO DO IT or they'd never RP. You grow into whatever restraints you have to.