People Delight Me

[Elle]

I like having one thread for each of annoy/delight because although the annoyances frequently ask to be vented, the delights also need to be remembered. My husband has not always pleased me with his behaviors in the categories of "response to illness" and "helping avoid allergies" and "powering through just like the woman does, because come on, fairness". However, today he very kindly herded all the kids to dinner and brought me nice foods afterward, so that I could sleep off some of my utter crap feeling. My whole body feels like it's slowly shriveling up from within (which would be nice if it meant, say, a burning off of 10% of fat cells) and it suuuuuucks, so it is really nice to be babied even in a small way.

[Eliahad]

I've seen part of the choreography for the ballet we're writing for. It's beautiful, like the art director is putting his whole soul into this production. I can't wait to see what else he and the dancers have made.

[Phoebe]

A number of stressful things have been happening at work and I have been very pleased by the way many people are responding. It is impressive.

[Cazmonster]

That someone was willing to commit this text to the internet makes me happy the day after I got four fillings and some of the worst face pain I've yet to endure.

"Anyway, the catheter is now out of me, but it hasn’t left me entirely. I’m not forgetting that pain anytime soon. There are times when pain surprises you, when the shock of it is the first thing you register before the horror. I didn’t know pain had this kind of supreme power until now. I wish that all of you—men, women, children, old fogies—spend your whole lives in blissful ignorance of pain’s remarkable depth. I feel gray: my skin, my blood, my face…all of it gray and sickly. I’m gonna be grimacing for a long time, bracing myself for the off chance this pain makes itself known again. I’m just a little bit unhappier of a man than I was before."

[Phoebe]

Ooooh, I'm sorry, that does sound painful! Dental pain is awful.

[Phoebe]

Husband has cleaned entire kitchen two times in one weekend. Astonishing and there is peace in the valley.

[Phoebe]

Peace was damaged due to non-morning person making wild claims about not wanting to take any kids to school in the morning because why should it ever be his job; we may forgive or turn to sabotage. HOWEVER, the important thing is that friends are coming to visit, dear friends not seen in many moons, and so I am pleased and must figure out how to trap them in the house in the morning. So exciting! I love it when people visit. The toilet will not be working (see: do not purchase American Standard toilets, pay more, it's worth it!), but hey, it's freezing cold and we have a yard!

[Phoebe]

1. Husband fixed my taillight.

2. At work there is a hierarchy, near the top of which sits a Boss who is one in every way. I learn so much just watching this guy. Anyway, he is fucking hilarious, and today's version is, he handled a crazy, exploding mess of a Situation by sending one goofball email. I am still laughing about it. Our work here is done.

[Phoebe]

Once more on the theme of the hierarchy of my workplace: the number 2 person in our organization is pretty much the greatest thing since Hector had pups. I learn more in 10 minutes with that person than in a year at the office doing other things. It is really interesting to me how subtle differences in the way that people do their jobs and lead others can have a profound impact on the lives of many.

[Phoebe]

Walter Shaub. Basically, I love you with a great burning passion. It's tricky because I'm married and you're the Ethics guy for all time. Which is why I love you. But of course, that's unethical of me. Paradox!!! You also make me feel like my life to date is a failure because I should be doing the sorts of good you're doing, but I'm not. So although I love you deeply, Walter, we cannot be together or I would despair of living on in my useless, dumb way. I can't get too excited about the name Walter, either. And Breaking Bad kind of seized Walt for a while. He's really cute though, this Walter Shaub. He just joined Twitter. Also, I love him.

[Phoebe]

His new Twitter page has links to some stuff he wrote and that others wrote about it:

I need a Twitter account. A person who's going to run around frothing about ethics failures probably shouldn't be cultivating a shameless celebrity cult feeling about some innocent guy who doesn't deserve it, but OMG YES he deserves our love! He can't help that he was born both good AND with a beautiful face, tho. I'm a bad person. I can't help it. Trying to get a grip, really. But just look at him! Read his stuff!

[Phoebe]

Hey, did you know "Just Dance" includes an Abba song called Gimme a Man After Midnight and when you're a kid, that person is SANTA?

[Phoebe]

The internet may be restored soon!

[El Jefe]

My players in the Wrath of the Righteous campaign. This is who delights me.

They are just starting the Siege of Drezen, intent on retaking a lost fortress-city from the demonic hordes. They are facing a combination of mass combat encounters leading several different Crusader armies, as well as a series of party-size encounters before attempting to fight their way through a massive, dwarven-constructed citadel held by Abyssal forces. So I show them the map of the city, and start giving them the rundown on what they are facing.

And they suddenly latch onto two things that aren't even a thing in the book for this Adventure Path. There's a throw away line about how scores of harpies and flying demons hang out on the rock formations that stand above the city on the plateau known as Drezen. So of course, a ton of debate and questions goes down this path. It is literally meant to be nothing, just a one-off line. And now the group will have another mass combat encounter that fits in rather nicely with a planned Mythic individual encounter. There's also some artistic license map artifact showing a large building on a rock formation overlooking the southern edge of the city. It's not even mentioned in the book, but they keep asking what it is, and wondering how they can use it to their tactical advantage. And I spit out some off-the-cuff line about it being an old fane to the native Sarkorian (native barbarian people who originally held this area before the demons) gods. And they just run with it. So I now have another great individual encounter to build that will serve as a nice post-script for the end of this book. They fucking rock.

[Phoebe]

Hm. Your players delight me too, I guess.

[Phoebe]

In hurry to get to work early today, picked a lane at the stoplight. Noticed driver in front was a very old guy closely resembling Michael Gambon, and he was smoking a Pipe. A Real Tobacco Pipe. He was just chilling, very relaxed, smoking with left hand and driving with right. Shit, I said internally, I'm in a hurry. No worries: dude shot out of the stoplight and took his little sedan straight to 70 faster than seemed possible. Damn. Delightful.

[Phoebe]

Husband did something fabulous at work, as usual, and I can't go into detail but basically it's nice that he is consistently awesome at what he does.

As I sit here in the snowy residential street waiting to intercept my child on her walk home, a truck has gone by about 50 miles an hour through the snow, followed by a small car doing the same, and I watch them sliiiiide down the block. Well, this is not the right thread for such observations.

Anyway back to the awesome. A guy I work with pulled a really awesome move the other day for which I now respect him about 10 times as much as I did before. This is also good because you want to respect your coworkers. The person I work with the most is also being particularly well-behaved and pleasant lately. I have never before considered we might actually become friends but maybe there is hope for us being actual friends. I'm still not sure about that. My husband is not a fan of the other husband/wife combo and doesn't really see us hanging out with them. But then, what is the alternative? People he works with? You can't really relax fully around them. Okay here comes the bus wish me luck getting back through the snow!

[Phoebe]

It's about all I can do to sit on my hands when people I work with make hilarious typos in their emails that need a zinger pun in response. OMG, help!

Today a woman - I use the label lightly - in the grocery store was letting her very tiny tot trail along behind her alone very much farther than I was comfortable with even as a witness, much less as a mother who once had tiny tots. The tot was, like, not even up to my knee, that's how tiny, and very new to the walking game, and wearing socks, which caused it to fall down splat on the slippery floor a few times. I am not sure the mom even saw these falls because she was (high? drunk? stupid?) wandering far in front with her cart and another child of dubious grooming. If that had been my tot 1 or tot 3, it would have been GONE to another zip code by then. However, the People Delight Me part of this is that, while I was first unconsciously and then deliberately blocking the aisle with my cart so that other people wouldn't come past and accidentally run down the tot before it could catch up to the mom, another man was having the same thoughts I was and actually went over and offered a finger to the tot, who reached up and grasped it, and then he walked this little child a very long way for a very long time, behind the mom, all the way to the checkout, so that the child would not be lost/damaged/kidnapped or whatever the hell could have happened there. It was one of those situations where you're like, should I go pick up this kid and return it with a comment like, um, this one looked lost? And I would have done so if not for being contagious with illness that might be worse than the kid being lost on the floor alone, so I was truly delighted by this old duffer who took care of the business. Poor kid!

[Phoebe]

Walter Shaub. Swoon.

[Tahlvin]

Saw this yesterday and thought of Phoebe and Dwyn:

Someone on reddit photoshopped ladies from art into office settings: