Friday, March 27, 2020

Solidarity and A Promise for Reading and Movie Suggestions

So a lot has been happening here...

Starting about the 1st of January, I was having panic attacks and was repeatedly unable to sleep at all for miserable stretches of up to 3 nights in a row. This went on for weeks.

I was anxious about my elderly mom, who was scheduled for a lumbar fusion operation on her lower spine.  She lives in my basement in a granny flat apartment. 

March 12, the operation was successful.  We were very lucky to get her out of the hospital before the current crisis really began to hit (for which hospital beds are prudently being freed up).  My mom started healing up and feeling a lot less back and leg pain- the reason for the procedure. I had been planning to be an unpaid Personal Care Attendant for my mother during the 6-week or more healing process, so now I feel extremely relieved that she got through this procedure so well, and I sleep waaaay better and can apply myself, much less distracted, to the tasks of taking care of her.

Unexpectedly, because of the impact of coronavirus on the local situation, I'm also taking care of my 9-year-old kid who has her own anxiety, attention deficit, and other challenges.  The governor of my state (prudently) closed the schools, and I'm pleased to see most people following the social distancing rules.  I'm glad I'm caring for my mom at home, rather than at the Transitional Care Unit (nursing home) that was recommended after her hospital stay.
 
I wish I could get my kid into D&D like JB who seems to be meeting the challenges of being cooped up in his Seattle home with aplomb but it's not yet the case with my kid- and might never be.  I got the Dungeon! board game a while back, and I tried to interest my daughter in the Rankin-Bass Hobbit but she didn't like them.  Last night, my wife and I watched the Peter Jackson Fellowship of the Ring movie, which blew us away when we saw it in movie theaters years ago, but my daughter said it was both "boring" and "scary" and gave up watching it with us before the hobbits hit Bree.

In some upcoming posts, I'll write about things I've been reading and watching and I'll talk about the pulp-esque novel (!) draft I wrote in 2019.  I like seeing in other people's blogs the books and movies they are finding helpful in beguiling this necessary tedium of sheltering in place, so I'll write about what's helping me.   I'm looking forward to reading accounts of people enjoying Gary Con and other events online rather than in-person.

Keep safe and take care.


Links to Coiled Sheets of Lead at DriveThruRPG

Those adventures I wrote?  I let broken links fester for weeks without noticing!

Hereby I apologize and fix 'em (click on the text links BELOW the pictures, please):