We did the walkthrough yesterday and we are signing closing papers in a few hours. Yesterday we got the utilities scheduled in our names so that makes me feel like it's more real and there won't be some scary last minute "the owner has decided not to sell" fiasco. Spouse got to see the house for the first time yesterday and he seemed quite pleased. Without the owner's stuff it's shabbier - there's a grimy wear mark on the wall where the couch used to be and the sloppy paint application is more obvious. Little dusty cobwebs in the corners. But 95% just needs a deep cleaning and maybe new paint. I am excited. And glad it is a small house.

Spouse has a coworker who has been in a hotel TWO MONTHS because she can't get a place in anchorage. There's not much housing available, due to time of year or general market circumstances or both. So it feels like we got stupid lucky to snag something that isn't crap, because with a va loan, uncle sam won't let you buy a dumpy fixer-upper, and at our budget that's mostly what you get. The houses for rent that accept kitties run significantly more than our mortgage payment. I really hate to see pets become a luxury item, especially in alaska where so many people struggle with seasonal depression. A cat or dog can make the difference between being functional and giving up. But landlords don't want to take the risk of damages. I don't like the trends i see in housing. People have been scrambling to buy because it does feel like a window of opportunity is closing. The world is getting colder and corp landlords don't care about their tenants quality of life. Caring interferes with the smooth collection of profit.

Have we bought into the fomo mania that everyone will forget about by the end of the year? Will the narrative switch to "those fools who bought in early 2022 surely regret buying at the top"? Alls i know is, we needed a place for our stuff and a backyard for Cat and the time was right for a house. We weren't in time for the lowest mortgage rates, but at least we're not on the hook for 5%+. Maybe house values will fall and we'll end up underwater. But it's a good little house and i know we will be here at least 4-5 years. Spouse's govt job is stable and unfortunately bad times means more job security for him. If a recession is on the horizon, we are in a better spot than a lot of people.

Speaking of spouse, he's thinking about taking a temp assignment to go work back in the City for a couple months. Yes, back where we just came from, with the horrid traffic and lulus and the humidity. They need bodies to work on a certain ongoing massive investigation. Someone from alaska has to go and nobody else seems keen to volunteer. Plus we have a personal interest, since spouse was there. I told him as long as the cats and i weren't still squatting in temp living quarters, he should go. They'll put him in a hotel and give him a rental car, it'll be way swankier than our old apartment. He knows the area and there were some coworkers he didn't get to say goodbye to. Why not? Plus he will be out of my hair and i can fix up the house without him questioning my Vision, ha ha. Sounds like win-win to me.

The bummer is we've started a 5th ed DnD game. Just had the first character creation session. Spouse is playing a dwarven cleric, we've got a kobold rogue and a kobold bard (clutchmates), and i'm the heavy with the dragonborn fighter. We can hand-wave his character away for a few sessions but he was so excited to finally get to play again. Skype/zoom isn't the same. Supposedly covid has people doing all these virtual meetings and it's "just as good" but that's a fucking lie. Between tech issues, connection issues, the availability of distractions and mental work it takes to concentrate, it's def not the easy solution it has been pitched as. I've no idea how teachers have managed (probably poorly - and that's not their fault, it just sucks). I've done hundreds of hours of online rpg sessions and they just aren't as good as in-person. We have a tech savvy group and everyone shudders at the idea (probably because they have virtual work meetings that burn out their tolerance).

I have not played much DnD at all. Any decent roleplayer gets exposed to enough DnD vicariously to get the gist, but it's been a very long time since i played a system that even uses a d20. I can't compare/contrast 5th ed to previous versions. So far so good, though. I was able to give my character a twist and give him a "guild artisan" background, just to play counter to type and make something fun. So he's kinda like a graffiti artist who is good at smashing heads. I like that the system is flexible enough to make it possible. A system that doesn't let you do frivolous character shit is no good, and a gm(dm) who doesn't spotlight the absurdity of min-max characters is missing great story opportunities. Honestly, sometimes the best aspects of a character are their deficiencies, because that's how they connect to others in the party. Okay you're a fancy smart wizard, but you can't cook. The fighter makes the best stew you've ever eaten. He's illiterate and likes to point out what a puny weakling you are, but you better cover his ass in battle or you're eating nasty rations, sad burnt toast, and shitting yourself shamefully behind trees for the next 50 miles. New roleplayers get caught up in building the "optimal" character, but that's for chumps. All the best fun is in what your character sucks at, and the surprising hidden talents they do have. (Plus even the best character on paper is still at the mercy of the dice.) A system that allows you to make a more rounded character is therefore more interesting and better. Oh i love smashing heads in combat, i do, but there has to be good interaction between combats too, or you may as well just browse on your phone until the next big bad shows up (or play a video game).