Playing Catch-Up: This and That, Here and There

It says here that today is Thursday already–a week since Thanksgiving! I’m so far behind, I may never catch up. But I’m going to give it the ol’ bloggage try.

Last Wednesday, before the holiday weekend began, I took a couple hours off work and had a couple moles surgically removed. Public Service Announcement: If you have any moles > 1cm in diameter, dark, with even slightly irregular edges, have your doctor or a dermatologist check them out. Mine were about 1.2 and 1.8 cm; the dermatologist was emphatic when she first saw them: "These HAVE to come out." The pathology will probably show some dysplasia, but the doctor was confident all that’s left is good healthy skin. (I sure hope so! The itching is driving me nuts!) 

On Sunday, we had the first all-guild clear of Shadow Labyrinth, to include downing Murmur. What a rush! I know that’s old-hat to many of you, but for us, it was the first time we’d cleared a 70-level instance. A week or so earlier, we cleared all the way up to Murmur (including, of course, the First Key Fragment for Karazhan for those with the quest), but five wipes at the big guy (on top of all the earlier wipes) convinced us we weren’t ready. (Damn you, Illidan!)

Sunday, slightly different group: Warrior tank, pally off-tank, two BM hunters for DPS (yes, I topped the damage charts) and our Disc/Holy priest (who dinged 70 right after Ambassador Hellmaw). We had our share of wipes going in (including, I’m ashamed to say, an ignominious goof by yours truly: Opening the Book of Fel Names before taking on the boss. All I can say is I was confused.), but only two wipes on Murmur. The third attempt was truly a thing of beauty (AND a lot of good luck). I was never hit by Touch of Murmur during the entire fight, and my cat, Talon, also stayed alive during the entire fight. Thus, we were able to continuously provide massive amounts of sustained ranged DPS for the entire battle. When Murmur went down, we were all at 80 percent health or better–awesome job by our healer, tank, off-tank, and DPSers. 

Tuesday, though, a lot of that goodwill seemed to evaporate: Our Guild Leader, her husband, and their closest friend decided to leave the guild. (Our guild leader is also a very close personal friend of mine: No friendships were broken.) They why’s and wherefore’s aren’t important: We all wanted to minimize or eliminate any drama regarding the move. They felt it was the best thing for them, and I wish them only the best with their new guild, and fully expect to be questing with them again, and often. As a result, though…Kestrel is now the Guild Leader. I’m still not sure how I feel about that.

In both Asheron’s Call II and Horizons, I was "second-in-command" of one of the largest guilds on our respective servers. I didn’t mind that position, as I was able to avoid most of the (little bit of) drama we encountered. In an even earlier life, I was a guild leader in a "multi-realm" guild in Shadows of Yserbius. *sigh* Way too much drama there. Fortunately, our guild is small (around 14 members or so, I think), we’re friends or friends of friends, for the most part. So I think I can deal with it for now. But for the moment, I’m going to let the dust settle, then try to take the pulse of the guild with respect to "Where do we go from here?" Many of us still want to complete our Kara attunement and get into Karazhan, but I think we also recognize we will need help. Fortunately, we have members with friends in other guilds, so we think we should be able to manage that. But for the time being, we still have lots and lots of 5-man work to do, so that will be our focus.

But I expect I’ll go back and read with much more interest, a lot of the "how to" guides on working with guilds that some of you have written.  

Finally, to end on a high note: A week ago, Osprey’s Cooking skill was 1. Today, thanks in very large part to the dedicated fishing prowess of guildmate Swissy, his cooking is now 363! And loving it! Those daily cooking quests, where he gets 8 Golden Darters, are great!! He should never run out of raid food, and he’s also supplying some of our non-cooks with stam food as well. 

WHEW! What a week. But I now feel a bit more caught up…until tomorrow.