A Steaming Heap Of First Day Of School Blog Fodder

1. Today is the first day of school. It's just quietly working grownups and NO TV ON at our lovely little home. And kitties.

2. Speaking of the kitties, two of them have now been spoken for and will be leaving us today. We rescue, we foster and we facilitate responsible cat ownership. We are not cat ranchers. We'll be down to a mere five cats -- three resident adults and two foster-age kittens.

3. Yesterday, I did something I wish I would have thought workable three months ago. What has changed is that the esteemed younger son is behaving much more responsibly. I took note of his respectful tone of voice and his compliance with my reasonable requests to keep the TV volume down, and I was trying to think of a reward to recognize this positive change.

After I caught a glimpse of one of our kittens wandering across the living room floor, the brainstorm hit: I handed him my digital camera and gave him a short lesson in its basic use.

His first solo pictures were of course the kittens. I also gave him a bonus course on how to use iPhoto on my Mac to import and enhance the pictures he takes.

4. Pathfinder Society at the Squirrel: New season, new characters, new adventuresome fun. We are up to four tables and well over twenty players now. I'm playing a pacifistic goody-two-shoes cleric healer and having a blast.

I've also been toying with some additional fun to play character concepts for Society play.

• Mezzo d'Foppe, the fabulously flamboyant actor-bard / duelist / fashion plate.
• Lo Ping, a monkish mobile speed daemon / two fisted acrobat / master of chop-socky philosophy.
• Rob E. Slay, alchemist. Cooks up his extracts, bombs and mutagens like any PF alchemist. For (ahem!) flavor, add Profession (Barbecue Cooking). Occasionally he confuses his cooking and alchemical ingredients.
• Rogue, a half-educated transplant surgeon. He only learned how to remove organs with a knife, not put them back.
• Monty, a scarlet-clad Inquisitor with a penchant for comfort and stealth. Why stealth? because if he is using stealth, nobody expects him . . . .