Whoof, what a difference nearly four years can make! Let’s catch up a little.

CATS:

The little monsters are four years/almost five years old now! They grew up so pretty:

It’s been a heck of a roller coaster with them. Have they settled down/cuddled up? Not really. They like to sit near me, but Maddie (fluffy) will only curl up next to me if I’m awake in bed (she does NOT sleep with me). Allie (tiny) will solicit attention, but she wants to PLAY more than cuddle. If I’m lying on the couch, though, she’ll curl up behind my knees, out of petting distance.

After a disastrous attempt to adopt a third cat who WAS a cuddlebug (he has been rehomed and is living his absolute best life away from my girls), I’ve learned to meet them at their level, and it makes the times they do choose to come close all the sweeter for it.

Also, after about a year of litter box issues with Maddie, some coaching from a very good cat-knowledgable friend, and a judicious use of gabapentin once medical issues were ruled out, Litter Robots have truly saved the day. We’re now on 6 weeks of no pee on the carpets and I couldn’t be more relieved.

JOB:

On the work front, I was laid off unexpectedly this summer and today is my four month anniversary at my new job doing B2B collections. It’s decent for fully-remote work, and I’m finally starting to find my groove with it with the goal of hanging in for the required year until I’m allowed to look elsewhere in the company and find a better fit for my skillset. I’m not used to a lot of outbound work, but it’s a job instead of a gap in my resume, and I work with a decent team of people.

Work is work. Enough said. I’ve never had a career path, just a series of jobs.

GAMING (video):

I’m still playing and replaying the Horizon video games series (Zero Dawn, The Frozen Wilds, Forbidden West, Burning Shores) and love all of it. The next game likely won’t be hitting the stores until 2027, but I have more than enough to amuse me until then.

Other games include:

• Ghost of Tsushima (I love Jin Sakai as much as I love Aloy)
• God of War / God of War Ragnarok (I haven’t finished Ragnarok but love the story and characters)
• Jedi: Fallen Order / Jedi: Survivor (Cal Kestis is my very favorite Jedi)
• Rise of the Ronin (unfinished but LOTS of fun)
• Epic Mickey: Rebrushed (amazing blast from the past!)
• Star Wars Outlaws (still finding my way through this but I’m digging it)
• Lego Horizon Adventures (absolutely precious)

GAMING (tabletop):

My Pugmire campaign is coming to its thrilling conclusion over the next two sessions! I’ve had so much fun bringing my group of Very Good Dogs and one Intrepid Cat through their adventures. They are poised to vanquish the Bad Dog who usurped the throne and restore peace and balance to the kingdom. I hope to make it exciting for my players and be a campaign to remember.

I’ve been looking at my various sourcebooks and wondering what to run after this campaign is done. I’ll have to talk to the gang about it, see what kind of game they’re looking to play and see if what I have will sufficiently cover those aspects.

As a player, I’ve been enjoying playing Ember, my Tabaxi Artificer, in a D&D campaign run by someone else in our gaming group. Here she is with her Steel Defender, Bruce (art by Pugcrumbs):

I finally get to play a furry character! It’s been so funny that, when I get a chance to be a player and get to indulge my little fantasies, I end up doing something different. I love bards. I’ve been DYING to play a bard, but when this game came up, I decided on the Artificer because it’s a spellcaster I’ve never tried before. When I get to design her Steel Defender, I have the chance to make a mechanical panther, or big dog, or dinosaur, or even mimic a machine from Horizon Zero Dawn, but I end up with a spider.

This happened in a Humblewood game where I got to play a Beastmaster Ranger. My character could have had a wolf at her side, but instead I picked a boar. Boaris was a faithful companion, but I’m not sure why my subconscious tweaked my choices for these two characters. I’m sure that’s a question for my eventual therapist.

WRITING:

I’m still writing fanfiction, and have several works in progress (WIPs) that I’ve been poking at and shaping over the years when I’ve felt the creative urge. Given the stormy political seas, that energy also has its ebbs and flows. I haven’t found a new fandom to write in, so I’m sticking with my H50 idiots, McDanno. I have plenty of AU ideas to keep them occupied. I’m also committing to finishing my one Sterek WIP, my dog show AU. If one of my favorite authors can finish her amazing fic 13 years later? I can take a few years to finish this one.

In response to a challenge from (of all people) my physical therapist to write some original fiction, I did that for NaNoWriMo one year, with a concept inspired by one of my existing fics. That’s yet another one of my WIPs that’s currently being polished from NaNo “words is words” chaos into a readable first draft.

Speaking of NaNo, after the awfulness revealed last year I’ve stopped participating, and our local writing group now does their challenge in October. It’s a shame seeing what I thought was an awesome organization have the seedy underbelly that was exposed in 2024. I’ll keep my t-shirt quilt made of all my NaNo shirts, and I have one poster in my home office, but I’ve tossed my posters that I hadn’t framed yet and took all my NaNo stickers off my computer. I’m still part of a great writing community and that gives me more inspiration and energy than all the NaNo swag.

And I think that’ll do for my first foray back into blogging! Stay tuned. I’ll try to update more with book/TV/movie reviews as I have the time and inspiration.