Monday Morning, and the Things that Keep Us Going

So... it's Monday again, and I'm still tired. I didn't do much of anything on Saturday, and I did housecleaning and then the youth D&D game on Sunday and I'm still just... ugh. (We played in masks, because the youth are all back in school and our governor -- wretched ghoul that he is -- is fighting tooth and nail against letting anyone establish rules for community precautions. It's still not as safe as I'd prefer, but we're trying.)

So instead of dwelling on the relentless parade of horrors, fears, and impending disasters, I'm trying to stay focused on things that make me happy. We'll be playing D&D tonight; two groups of our characters have teamed up to fight an ancient white dragon that's been enchanted to kill the person who stole the magical artifact it was guarding. 

It should be do-able -- the dragon shouldn't be able to kill all of us before we kill it -- but it's definitely possible that some of our characters might die, and even with eight of us going after the thing it's not going to be easy; dragons are ridiculously powerful. We've spent the weekend preparing our strategies, and I'm looking forward to seeing what we can do. (My True Elf horizon walker, Ruin, will be using a magical bow with a fire enchantment to attack the ice dragon at range; my half-dragon paladin is just planning to try to get close enough to hit it really hard with his sword. He's immune to cold damage, which means that its breath weapon doesn't affect him, but that won't stop it from tearing him apart if it gets the chance.) On the plus side, we're a powerful enough party now that anyone who dies can be brought back.

And, of course, I've got plenty of things to keep me busy at work: I need to finish an upgrade that I started on Friday.  (It's on a test system, so leaving it in place over the weekend wasn't an issue -- but damn I wish this system just did reliable installs. I am working directly in the database to make updates to the SQL tables in order to make the upgrade work, and I should not have to be doing that -- or even have to know how to do that! A well-designed program would not require me to reprogram it on the fly.) (I have written -- obliquely -- about this program before.)

We're creeping up on October, and I'm getting ready to set up the zombie gnomes in the front yard. 

My hair is currently layered in black, silver, and red; this makes me happy. (It also drives my former boss, our assistant CIO, slightly crazy but that's really just a bonus.) 

I have a ridiculously over-the-top mug (resin) that looks like it was carved from a horned human skull, and another that looks like an ossuary. I love them both deeply. 

And, of course, there's always music.

What's keeping you going as we head into this week?