As long as we’re careful what we feed them, nope! (The less said about the time a guest gave the cats some pizza the better).
Of course, dogs don’t give you half-killed “presents” or yak up hairballs on the carpet, so you win some lose some either way.
I love cats. We had two wonderful companions. Shadow loved me. She would wait all day until I came home from work and stick with me as a great companion. She was also the most agile acrobat I have ever seen. Kita was a rescue cat. She refused to come in the house. On the worst winter nights, she would carefully enter the garage if we left it cracked so she could leave whenever she wanted.
Both were amazing creatures. I have lots of stories. Maybe it would make a good IF story?
I’d play it!
Autumn ran that delightful Goncharov gamejam, and someone had submitted a TTRPG into it- so Jinx, Manon, Autumn and I played it for two hours today! It was so much fun! We scheduled it in to play again next Saturday! The GM-less system really works nicely.
They played canon characters, I brought in one of my favourite original characters (Joel, normally a mafia member in superpower AUs, so he was a good fit in for the scene) and we had a little meeting at the train station between the cast, (after some silliness about picking out the kind of car Joel would have drove them in) and the start of a party scene where we slandered the pope, I forgot gay marriage wasn’t a thing yet (because it’s been legal as long as I’ve been able to remember, so it totally slipped my mind), and Goncharov and Anthony (another OC of mine, the husband of the Devereaux mafia’s don) got into a hissy fit off together.
Here’s some mementos from the session:
A poorly done edit of Joel’s truck, because I wanted it to be red:
The ‘seating’ table arrangement for all of us to keep straight the left/right mechanics:
Oh! And some old (a few years at this point) art of Joel:
And some silly doodles of quotes from me from our session:
I spent some time (about 2 hours and a half) painting a new portrait of Joel, to match in with some of the events that happened at the party from the Goncharov TTRPG session. I’m pretty happy with how it looks! Lately, I’ve been doing a handful of more full body shots and experimenting with poses in my artwork, but up close headshot portraits and painting skin is one of my favourite indulgences and comfort zones in art. I’ll put it under a spoiler for some mild blood imagery.
I solved Counterfeit Monkey!
(With minimal hints from the outstanding Invisiclues by Dan Fabulich. Thank you @dfabulich! I went back and read your Hints-post in its entirety after finishing the game. Superb work! Counterfeit Monkey Invisiclues Hints)
Woo me too! Although I did it a week or so ago, so I win.
Wearing one of the skirts I thrifted today! I feel so cute in this one, it’s a purple plaid pencil skirt, it’s sooo cute!
Wait, no way? I have a purple plaid skirt too- though it’s wool and vintage to the 80’s. I’m glad that you feel cute in yours!
Yes Phil. You win.
Here’s a sticker and some change for the candy shop. Now don’t you go gobbling it all up in one go, won’t you?
Ooohh! That’s so fun! I’d love to see that skirt one day if you don’t mind my kitty crumb!
I went stark-raving-mad on this public forum about neural network intelligences, and nobody shut me down for it, or compared my excited conjectures to Soylent Green!
(Yes, this actually happens. A lot. If I had a dollar for every time someone tried to mock me by comparing my interests to “Soylent Green”, when the topics are literally unrelated and incomparable, then I wouldn’t have to look for a job. I was once explaining the Boltzmann Brain Hypothesis, and someone was like “Gurrrrrl shut up; this is like Soylent Green.” Like what??)
(Also, why does everyone pick that movie?? It’s a statistical anomaly!)
Anyways, (salt aside,) I’m extremely thankful that I was given space to go off about one of my interests that I’m usually hesitant to talk about, even if I was a little off-topic.
I ran across Autumn Chen streaming a playthrough of VESPERTINE on accident- I wasn’t sure if the Goncharov games would still be being streamed when I hopped in, and wound up right in the middle of a reading of mine! Talk about happy coincidences.
ETA: The stream was super fun. There was a heck of a lot of talent in the Goncharov gamejam submissions! Next Sunday aroundish the same time is the tentative plan to watch some more!
My most recent AMFV piece was mentioned in this week’s Critical Distance!
I very much enjoyed reading your thoughts on the matter.
And despite your repeated apologies for going on an off-topic ramble, others were actively engaging with the subject, sometimes jokingly, sometimes seriously.
I thought it was a great exchange.
Thanks again for joining the stream! This was my first time streaming so i was probably very awkward (somewhat more so than usual). I am planning on streaming the gonch games until i’ve played/read all of them, at the same time next Sunday.
I saw the cutest little baby being pushed in a pram and when he saw my mask (it’s pastel pink and has My Melody on it) he said ‘BA?’ and cooed while waving a chubby fist as his mummy took him off to the daycare on campus. He had a little blue bear hat on with ROUND little ears. SO CUTE!
I also saw a sparkly silver bow on a little used stairwell entrance that’s mostly a route taken by the elevator maintenance personnel. I love the festive spirit that floats around this time of year, and I’d like to imagine one of the night shift workers popped it up for his coworkers in the morning to see, or vice versa. Probably not, but it’s harmless to imagine.
A boy about my age- all on his own, was furtively feeding one of the campus squirrels a peanut from what appeared to be a cup of them in his hand. The odd thing was it was still shelled, but he seemed to be in a hurry off to the Engineering building, so one wonders if he was shelling peanuts as a morning snack…? Or if he had expressly brought some along for his squirrel friend. Either way, very sweet. Sometimes people are so nice without anyone to see, and it’s really endearing.
Oh! And an elderly Golden Retriever was so happy about being taken on a walk, she was mouthing on her red leash as if to walk herself. So adorbs.
Your positive day is a good start to my day. 
You absolutely radiate bubbliness!
What a fun morning you had, and what fun that you so enthusiastically tell us all about it.
Love the silver bow on the staircase. Great image.
An earlier post about cats has led me to start an new game using TADS 3 with the new version of Adv3Lite 1.6 that Eric Eve just released.
A good day. My muse is singing.
