Twisty update this time, for a good reason. I found Stealth's nest o'kittens in the bottom of an old fodder bin in the old milk barn, and actually had a few chances to look at them. Two grey tabbys, three black, all fat, happy, warm, and healthy. Since she's very protective of them, my checkups have been short and mostly just peeking in with a flashlight.
 Imagine my surprise when after seven days, I saw five pairs of eyes peeking BACK.
 Kittens generally open their eyes seven to ten days after birth, but sometimes it's a day or so longer, and usually they just barely crack them open enough to squint and blink. Stealth's are the advanced class. They blinked at me...then immediately started hiss-spatting at me to go away. I left them alone, although the hiss-spatting young kittens do is adorable in my opinion.
 Spooker's three darlings are huge. All three had their eyes open at seven days, but it was the squint and slow blink until day nine. Suck is still concerned mostly with milk, Bawler is much calmer now that he can see his family is only an inch or two away, and Carmen (formerly Whack-a-mole) is already in love with me. She hears my voice, and comes running to the edge of the nest, squeaking to be petted. A heartbreaker and explorer in the making.
 Which leads us to today. Went to town, came back, found Siren with blood on her haunches and a slimmer profile. First-time mother. Went kitten searching, and found she had given birth to three kittens inside Rosie the Basset's doghouse.
 Good place, actually, as Rosie loves cats and is only dangerous if she steps on them. The problem is that the weather is chilly, the doghouse is really just wood to protect from rain and wind, and apparently a small nest of ants is nearby. Two kittens were moving and crying, the third wasn't in good shape.
 The third kitten was covered in ants. in no small part due to the fact that Siren hadn't chewed through the umbilical cord, and he was still attached to the placental sac. She had also just wandered off from them, and wouldn't go back in.
 I snipped the cord (multitools, yay!), and mom and I took all three kittens behind the house to the warm, clean nesting box we had hoped she would use. She followed, but wouldn't go in. Spooker kept hearing babies crying, though, and would wander over to check.
 With groceries to unload, we left the kittens in the warm box with Siren nearby, hoping she would go in if we left. About half an hour later I went back to check, only to find her kittens getting colder, the third one getting dangerously weak, and her still sitting outside. I put her in the box gently; she hopped out. I put her in again...and she went berserk, tearing up my hand and running off snarling.
 So I took a chance. I put all three kittens in with Spooker, and prayed. Sure enough, Spooker sniffed them, then started cleaning them. When I went to check them hours later, all three were part of Spooker's expanded litter, warm, clean, fed, and accepted by her and her babies. Thank God for good mothers!
 Almost forgot. Siren is a white cat with small circles of grey tabby stripes here and there. So are all three of her kittens. Adorable!
 And on that note, I'm going to sign off.

Current Mood: tired

 Mom's surgery went well. There was a mixup in radiology, so instead of the five hours total yesterday, we spent about twelve hours in Yankton until she could come home. She's sore, but otherwise doing okay. In about two weeks she has to go back in to retest; that'll determine if and how much radiation therapy she'll need.
 Life on my end is...pretty much the same. No change in my seizures or meds, or even my tooth yet. I wanted to see Mom through her surgery and such before I start in on getting my minor crap fixed.
 We came home to find another dead Mystery Kitten in the same spot. Now, Spooker had her babies and they're healthy, Stealth had hers and still has them hidden somewhere WELL away from the house, Stinker was likely the mother of the first Mystery Kitten because she miscarried...that leaves Siren and Domino, and neither are showing signs of birthing or distress. Go figure.
 Other than that, life goes on. I'll probably update more later, but for now adios, amoebas!

Current Mood: tired

I've been trying not to post anything if all I have to discuss is negative things, but life hasn't given me much choice lately.

 ( Look! It's a teal deer! How MAJESTIC! )
 So there you have it, the latest news from the ends of the Earth. Stay tuned, your local news and weather is next.

Current Mood: morose

 Another fun day, yay. Massive nosebleed overnight, followed closely by another heavy seizure. I was out afterwards for nearly twelve hours; that's not so hot. My bad knee was apparently torqued pretty good, and I've been hobbling around on a crutch all day.

 Now for the fun part. My Basset Rosie is blind, so I can't just let her out on her own, and my seizures upset her nearly as much as they do me. So I took her out earlier without the crutch, thinking if I was careful my knee would hold up for the ten feet I'd be walking.

 No such luck. On the way back in, out it went, dumping me on my arm and face on the concrete patio. Cue bloody scrapes and more pain. Worse, Rosie thought I was either seizing or something and freaked out, heading for the hills. Of course, I was still holding the leash, so she dragged me easily a dozen feet across wet concrete before I could get her to stop.

 I finally dragged us both inside and cleaned myself back up. But after the past few weeks, I'm starting to really wonder why I bother. My health has forced me to give up my gaming, miss a ton of work, and has me damn near a cripple in my own house. Starting to get old.

 At least the game will continue. I was very pleased to hear that my players were going to keep it going; it would be a pity to let something that fun and that has that much time invested in it just die off. I just wish I could do the same for TC, but so much of it is in my (faulty) mind that only a really brave telepath could keep it running. LOL

 Something else I haven't mentioned, mainly because I've had a hard time coming to grips with it myself. My old tabletop RP group from about ten years ago broke up on friendly terms due to various reasons. I may not have kept great contact with all of my players, but I do keep general tabs on most of them. Most of them have passed away, though, and about a week ago it happened again. Chaz Habben dozed off while driving home late, and hit a patch of something, lost control of his car, and rolled it six times, killing him instantly. One other passenger was killed, and another was hospitalized.

 I guess...it just gets to me. I mean, I keep skirting the edge of death repeatedly and surviving, but there are only four members of my old tabletop group still alive. Add that to how many of my childhood friends I've lost, and it makes me wonder why I'm here, what my purpose could be. I'll be damned if I know what it is, but there has to be something. ...Right?

Maybe not.
 

Current Mood: thoughtful

 It's been a while, and there are several good reasons for it. I thought I'd do a general rundown of what's going on, just to sort it in my head as well as describe it to others.

 ( Details, details... ) So there you have it in a nutshell. I know I feel a bit better having typed it out; maybe I can rest for a while now.

Current Mood: exhausted

 General update. Started developing a sinus infection last week. Seized at work last Friday, hard. Seized again Saturday morning, average. Sunday pretty much was a blur. Saw the doctor on Monday for the infection, got antibiotics. Seized Tuesday morning, light. Spent Wednesday with head in toilet. Feeling somewhat better; time will tell.

 I'm not certain how I got on God's kick-me list this time, (though I won't deny deserving it in the past), but I'm going to be very glad to be back off of it.

 Some good came of it; I was too sick to do anything complicated, so I finished out the West Road area of Terrania. I have no idea why I'm putting this much effort into a MUD that most likely will never be fully open to the public, but it amuses me and kills time. Besides, it's good practice if I ever decide/am able to get a Time Corps MUD up.

Current Mood: sick

Today was a bad day. It actually started yesterday, but it finally snapped today.

 I've just had it with my nutjob dog.

It doesn't help that my family laughs at me about it, then tries to find excuses for why she behaves this way. She's nuts, that's why. I knew it when I got her; I just hoped she'd be less nuts as the years went by. No such luck. 

Current Mood: pissed off

 Stolen from cm1greenbear :

Rules:
Go to urbandictionary.com and type in your answers to the following questions.
Post the first definition it gives you.

1) Your name?
Ronin
In Japan, under the feudal system, a samurai who had renounced his clan or who had been discharged or ostracized and had become a wanderer without a lord; an outcast; an outlaw. a lordless samurai, esp. one whose feudal lord had been deprived of his territory. The Japanese word “ronin” (pronounced rô-nçn) refers to a roving, mercenary samurai who serves no master or warlord.  (I knew this; it's why I chose the name.)

2) Your age?
Ancient

Current Mood: contemplative

Haven't posted much the past week or two. Things have been happening, but I just haven't been in the mood to post when I've had the time.

 I haven't had much in the way of seizure activity since Christmas, which I'm truly grateful for. I've been having a lot of trouble with nosebleeds, though, and they've been fairly serious. Such is life.

 The weather's been cold, but not as cold as usual for South Dakota, which means it's only "Oh God I can't feel my body!" out instead of "My breath froze and shattered!" It's even crept up over the freezing mark a few times; a welcome change around here.

The Star wars game is doing okay, though I've had to cancel more often through the past month due to health and/or scheduling issues than I like. But real life always takes precedence. I fire up the Time Corps game tomorrow night; I'm looking forward to it with equal parts joy and nervousness. The nerves will pass, though; I'm one of those people who is nervous until things happen, then relax when they do.

 This group of gamers is a lot better than previous groups I've run with, so I'm expecting it to be a lot more coherent and less piecemeal than other runs. I'm still amazed by my players since I hit Sabrous; they act like it's no big deal, but after years of dealing with people who thought character development was five minutes of angst between combat rounds, they're a welcome treasure to me.

 Time to take Rosie out one last time before bed. I wish it was gametime already.

Current Mood: nervous

Last day of the happiness meme. *ahem* I spent half an hour playing with Rosie today. That wasn't common when she was younger; now that she's older and blind it's even more rare. But there you go, rolling on the floor being drooled on by a smelly wrinkle as she gnaws on my arms makes me happy.

 Now shoo. Nothing to see here.

Current Mood: tired

Happiness Day Seven: Taking silly pictures!

...Damn. I hate trying to get these to work. Here's the album.

s56.photobucket.com/albums/g172/TheGreyRonin/

Happiness is: My water thawed. I can now flush my crapper again! Also, I found a box my ex mislabeled and stored in the wrong place thatwas full of collectibles I thought I'd lost years ago. Score!

Current Mood: cheerful

 Yes, I know I missed yesterday. I was so busy with my happy thing that I forgot to post. So you get two. Yesterday was solo ops. Gaming is my anti-frown.

 And today? Um... the winds have let up, so my house isn't a giant ice block. Or at least, not as much of one. (Pipes are still frozen, though.)

And now for something completely different...

interview meme

1. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me."
2. I will respond by asking you five questions. I get to pick the questions.
3. You will post the answers to the questions (and the questions themselves) on your blog or journal.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions. And thus the endless cycle of the meme goes on and on and on and on...
Thieved from cm1greenbear

- What's Nazir's story? He is a crotchy old hermit yeah but what's something neat about him we never got to see in action?
 In Sabrous canon, or not? In Sabrous, he's just a crazy old mage. I've always figured he was responsible for the intelligent squirrels in the Pine Barrens because he got lost once and bored.
Out of Sabrous, he's done it all. Crafty old fart that he is, he's been a general who led wars, negotiated truces, and has been married several times in his thousands of years alive. The senility is just an act. Mostly.

-do the foxtrot with darth vader on youtube or sponge bath a hutt
Foxtrot. I actually only know two kinds of dance: ballroom, and wild white guy flailing to music. (And I rarely do either.)

-favorite junk food?
Hard to pin down. I'm practically a living garbage disposal, and it depends on my mood and cravings at the time. I'll go with salted, shelled peanuts, because I tend to go overboard on them when I have them handy.

-if one of your cats learned to fly and talk at once and asked you for a cape to fight crime, which would you hope it'd be?
Rogue. She's currently the only one with more than two brain cells to spare. And because she'd mete out justice in the most painful ways possible.

-has mantid bought you a utilikilt yet cause she should :D
Nope. No kilt yet; and I won't wear one in winter.

Hm. That wasn't too bad. But now I have to go see about unfreezing my pipes. Later!

Current Mood: tired

I'm late, I know.  Best happy thing: good friends.

Happiness meme day dos!

 Work was good today. No racist redneck bullshit, no brainless locals asking obvious questions, and I got to hand-shovel snow for about an hour. Light, fluffy, easily moved snow, so it wasn't backbreaking work, just a pleasant workout.

Current Mood: content

Happiness meme from cm1greenbear .

 I'm supposed to post shit that made me happy each day for eight days.  Hmmm...

I took Rosie to the vet, no cone, no stitches for her wound, and the funky lump on her one leg isn't a nasty cancerous tumor but just a benign growth common in older dogs and harmless. Also, she behaved perfectly before, during, and since. There. Happy stuff.

*wanders off grumbling*

Current Mood: cranky

You may have noticed that I don't post very often. There are several reasons for this: I'm not by nature a very outgoing person, I tend to lose track of time quite often, a lot of days there's just nothing worth posting, etc.

 Lately it's been the last reason mostly, and my health. Yesterday morning I had a pretty heavy seizure, and managed to bang up my left arm pretty good. That sort of thing tends to make one less sociable. Doesn't help that I had two more heavy seizures back-to-back this morning.

There's nothing I can do about that. Either the medication is keeping my seizures from being worse and these are the ones it misses, or it's not working at all. Only way to find out is to stop taking it, and I'm not quite willing to do that yet. 

On the other hand, some good things have been happening lately. The Star Wars game is going well, and it looks like the Time Corps game will be a blast too. The unfortunate outbreak of distemper in my cats has come and gone, and they're all healthy and happy once again. They're also finally old enough to get distemper shots, so the next week or so the vet will be stopping past if the weather holds.

 Speaking of weather, there's a blizzard watch and warning out for us right now. It was supposed to have begun earlier today, but now it's been pushed back to early tomorrow morning. With any luck they'll revise it once again and we'll be in the clear. I don't mind the cold, but there are limits, and -45 Fahrenheit windchills are well past my limit.

Work on my custom figures has ground to a halt for now. It usually takes at least three days after I seize to get full fine control back; that puts a dampener on ultra-detailed painting.

Mia is growing up to be a healthy but strange-looking tomcat. He's tapered from front to back, with a very thin, long neck, a flat head, and an odd-shaped face. Someone dubbed him a "possumcat"; I'm starting to agree. He's on my lap right now, purring. He spends a lot of time there, and is by far the friendliest of my three indoor cats. Trouble is still a big, spoiled baby, but he isn't very physically affectionate. Rogue, of course, is still only halfway tame, and there are still days that go by where I never even see her. 
 A quick pic to show El Possumcat: i56.photobucket.com/albums/g172/TheGreyRonin/MiaDec12th2008.jpg

Not much else to say for now. I'm going to try to eat soon, and hopefully feel better in time for game tonight. See you next update.

Current Mood: drained

And the reason why? Crashes. Spore has been crashing for me every time I reach space stage, and every time I play space stage, after about fifteen minutes to half an hour. Not only crashes, but forces a full restart on my computer. Annoying, but I can live with it.

 Suddenly, though, it has decided to crash every time I play it. I can access online content or create creatures/things fine, but if I try to actually play a game, it crashes while starting up. Luckily, there's a patch.

 ...Or so it seems. You see, I'm on dialup. Reeeeeeeally sloooooooow dialup, and no choice in the matter because I live in West Bumfuck. But what that means is that the Spore patch, which can only be downloaded through the Spore program, takes fourteen hours to download. Literally, as in, I start downloading, go to bed, wake up, do my daily chores, go to town, shop, eat lunch, feed my animals, then come in and wait for the last half hour of download time. But yay, it downloads!

 I click "install", and it says there's an error, download again. I've done this three or four times now, finally found instructions on how to manually install the patch. Good. I can stop chewing my monitor.

 I download again for fourteen hours, patch fails, I go find the patch, click to run manually...and it tells me it's already in use. By Spore, of course. So I close Spore to run the patch...and it deletes the patch .exe.

 After several hours of swearing and thinking murderous thoughts, I've calmed down. There's a chance that I should have right-clicked it to make it install manually that I did wrong...but I don't want to tie up my computer for another fourteen hours straight to test it.

 On top of this fun series of events, I've lost another cat. Mama Mo was given to me along with two kittens over a year ago. The previous owner had no clue on her age, but they said she was fully grown when she wandered into their property two years before. Apparently she was older than anyone suspected; yesterday she curled up to go to sleep and never woke up.

 I never really had a chance to get to know her very well; she was prone to disappearing for a week at a pop every couple weeks. But when she was around she was usually friendly to me, and a good hunter. I'm going to miss her.

 Not much else to be said. Weather's getting cold again, with a good chance of hitting Deep Cold by the weekend. Maybe I'll get frustrated enough to try getting the patch again.

Current Mood: frustrated

Here we are again...
 In the past week I've been plagued by seizures and their side effects. Thought I was in the clear after a great but tiring day at work yesterday, went to bed last night hoping for another day like it today. No such luck.
 I woke up very early this morning, and felt something was wrong. Couldn't lie back down, so I called my dad, he came over, not long after I had what he described as "a short, pretty brutal" seizure. Came up out of it six hours later, and now I'm sitting here with an obnoxious kitten on my lap.
  Supposed to work tomorrow; I'm just hoping I can heal enough and stay focused enough to do so. Right now work is the main driving force for me; it pays the bills for everything else, so it's the most important concern.
 On a different track, I finally finished the Cliffs of Insanity for Sabrous. I overlooked a minor but important detail that had to be edited, which sort of takes away from my intended design but makes the area more usable for other players. Others enjoying it is the purpose, so it's cool, I just wish I'd thought it out fully before adding it in.
 Meanwhile, Terrania is sitting waiting.  It's sort of a funny thing, really. Terrania may never go fully live, but it's a good outlet for ideas that won't fit elsewhere. The problem with a mind like mine is sometimes you can't get the ideas to just stop.
 Time to think about eating and drinking, I suppose. With any luck, tomorrow will be a better day.

 Not much to post today; Woke up, got dressed, went to work, came home. The wind shredded stuff all around my place, so when it lets up and I get a day to myself without work, I'll likely be working outside.
 The snow went around me. Sucks, but in the west it drifted over highway overpasses and that half of the state is still mostly closed down and without power, so I can't complain too much. Enough white to make things look better is all I really wanted anyways.
 Fairly certain Rogue is pregnant again. I'm hoping so; one more litter for her, then off to get fixed. I'm just wanting to keep her and Trouble's bloodlines going.
 I know I'm pretty paranoid, but I'm expecting to get sick soon. For the past two weeks at work every person besides me has been hacking, sneezing, coughing, and missing work from illness. I figure it's just a matter of time. *chuckles*
 Huh. I guess I did have stuff to say after all. Well, off to tinker a bit before not-sleeping.
 

Current Mood: exhausted