#365Gratitude: Chicagoing easily

A few years back when I went to Chicago for CAPcon, I had pretty much The Worst Day of Travel Ever™.  It was filled with canceled, rerouted flights, delays, airport hopping, bad taxi rides, and lost luggage.  

That's why I was so happy when I had the exact opposite day traveling to visit my Auntie Squee.

Everything was smooth sailing.  I left the house with time to spare, got to my prepaid parking without incident, found an actually lovely restaurant by the gate at which I had a healthy, delightful salmon salad.  Then I boarded without incident, had an easy flight during which I had a funny conversation with my row-neighbor about being a pescatarian (which she had never heard of, and at first thought was perhaps related to being a Presbyterian).  I assured her otherwise, and said that maybe I might seek out some nice presbyterian food when I got to Chicago.  

Then I got off the plane, passed the cheese hats, and went right into the loving arms of my Squee.  That's a good day of travel, right there.

#365Gratitude: MOAR CUDDLES

Man, Yang is just really bringing it with the cute, lovey, huggy-touchy stuff lately.  He's always been a lover ever since I got him (when he was 10 weeks old), but now that he and his sister are eleven years old, they're both just so affectionate.  They love me, and they love Missy, and I love them.

#365Gratitude: Everyone needs a Chum... And a Missy

So lately, Missy and I are back doing the World of Warcraft thing again.  We like playing it with our girl, Katiebug.  It's a nice thing-to-do-together-at-a-distance, and we're really enjoying it.  We rolled new toons, which is WoW-speak for creating new characters. 

They're all pandaren, big anthropomorphic panda bears.  Think Po from Kung Fu Panda.  Mine's a healer-spec'ed shaman named Hôgô.  (It's a munge of the Japanese word Hogo, or 保護, which means "protection".  I'm the medic for our little troupe.) 

There's an aspect to the game that Missy is really into called "battle pets".  It's like this meta-game-within-the-game.  As you travel from place to place there are these little animals all over.  All sorts of animals, like rabbits, squirrels, vultures, exotic birds.  You can pit a team of three pets you've already tamed against these animals in the wild, and if you beat them, capture them. 

The whole thing has flavors of Pokémon, and collecting stuff, and a lot of the battle pets are just adorable.  No wonder Missy digs it.  She loves collectibles, and loves cute things. 

The other night I was upstairs in my home office, massively catching up my gratitude backlog, while she and Katiebug were playing, and she stumbled across something very very cool.  She shouted upstairs to me, "Hey Mako, you've got mail. ". (Because she got me a present!)

I bet you can guess what it was. 

The pet's officially called "Left Shark".  Isn't he ADORABLE? 

She rushed upstairs to see if I'd opened the in-game mail, and then we both decided together that I just had to name him Chum.

When I run around in the game, Chum air-swims next to me, in the most adorable way.  He's just precious, and I really, really love him. 

But not as much as I love my wife.  

#365Gratitude: Yip, good friends

My friend Frankie knows I LOVE Avatar. My car is even named Appa, just like the Avatar's flying bison. 

He sent me this picture over social media the other day. 

A plushie Appa is flying through a house, held aloft by a bunch of white, helium filled balloons.  This is an excellent idea. 

I really love my friends. 

#365Gratitude: Cat cuddles

I don't know why, but my boycat Yang has really been up in my grill lately.  He's all over me!  I'll come home from work, and lay on the couch, and he just sort of insinuates himself upon me.  He will lay down on my arm, or my chest, and shove his face in mine and just send crazy amounts of cat-love-beams right at me.

Yo, it's time to love me!

I'm not complaining, it's awesome.  I love him!