It’s been a very difficult week here at the Dragon’s Roost. We are still getting used to our dogless existence and, quite frankly, it sucks. There are so many little reminders of loss. The worst is walking through the door and expecting Tesla to be there. I’ve combatted this by simply not leaving the house.

Of course, that’s nothing new.

There is absolutely too much room in the bed (something made worse by the fact that The Mrs was sick for a few days and camped out on the couch). I have had to get used to eating the last bit of crust from my peanut butter sandwiches. There is no one to get up at 8:30 to remind us that we are old and need to go to bed.

All things considered, it has been kind of hard to concentrate on much. Fortunately the HP Lovecraft Film Festival started streaming on Friday, so I have been spending a lot of time watching movies (on my laptop because as mentioned above, The Mrs had taken over the couch).

I also got to try out our new snowblower. The driveway at The New House™️ is really, really long and my back is really, really old so I finally knuckled under and picked one up. It’s not really all that strong, but it does cut the shoveling time down quite a bit and almost totally eliminated the post-shoveling recovery time. I avoided getting a super strong one with a metal auger because while that would have made short work of the snow, it would also have done a number of our crushed asphalt driveway.

Listening To: The Fisherman by John Langan. I kept hearing amazing things about this one, so I snagged it from the library. It’s a slow burn, but full of compelling imagery.

Currently Reading: Sadly, I haven’t been able to focus enough to actually read anything this week.

Current Obsession: When not cleaning of shoveling snow, I’ve been camped out watching material from the film festival or Harley Quinn.

This weekend features our last two shows of 2025.

Friday night (the 12th) we will be at the Triple B (Books, Bourbon, and Bar B Q) at Perfect Scenario in Saline, MI.

The next day, Saturday the 13th, look for us at the Mistletoe Market at the REO Marketplace in Lansing, MI.

We have also been making plans to do some panels at Confusion and Penguicon next year.

I don’t usually go into detail about my extended family because I’m one of those paranoid people who doesn’t want to put everything on-line, but I do want to take a moment to congratulate my niece on her acceptance into her first choice college.

I received an excited text to the family group text last night. I immediately congratulated her and told her how proud we are of her. Then I had to sit down and my knees instantly turned into dust. This is the kid of my kid sister. Oof. It was bad enough when she started driving!

My own age isn’t something that I think about normally, but it is something that has been rearing its ugly head a little more often in the form of little (and sometimes not so little) physical reminders. My morning meal consists primarily of pills to combat various ailments and conditions. This was made painstakingly clear a few weeks ago. The Mrs has been volunteering for various studies at the hospital that she works at. Basically she is part of the control group for one type of research or another. She had some blood and skin samples taken, had an ultrasound, had some weird scent gathering machine sniff her or something. This seemed like pretty easy money, so she provided the phone number to call so I could get in on the action. Turns out that some of the medications I am on prevent me from being a candidate for these studies.

Yes, you read that right. I’m too decrepit to be part of a control group.

Gotta say, that stung a little.

I think part of the problem is that for some reason I never thought that I would live past my twenties, so the fact that I have gone way beyond that comes as a shock. Until I sleep wrong and throw out my back or stand up after a long movie and have my knee give out. Then I’m like “oh yeah, that’s right.”

Still, I’m doing my best, and that’s all anyone can ask, right? It’s like I have always said, you are only as old as you feel.

And that’s why I’ve been getting the senior discount at Denny’s for decades.

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