Day 14: Sunday 2 Phase 2

Today was not very interesting, and so I will not try to make it more than it was.

I slept into 9ish. I did the dishes and the laundry in the morning. I got lunch from Burger King (I wanted a hamburger but did not want to pay twenty bucks for one) and a Chicken McNugget (six-piece) for Susie.

I did not attend any virtual church.

I managed to paint the Titanic model and to shape a few parts that I started last night. I have filled in a few bits that need more work. As usual, the prep works continues to go on and on. The new red paint really looks better than the brown-red. I will keep working and someday I will get this one done.

(I put the model over some of the books that are published just for model builders. Notice the light pass through the portholes that will be lighted.)

I attended our church’s Charge Conference as Pastor Jefferson has been promoted to an appointed position at our church, and a Charge Conference, A Methodist thing, must be called to change is pay to match his new job. I was able to answer some technical questions on social security taxes, as a former Treasurer, while the current Treasurer looked up the budget numbers to answer another question. I was happy to be more than a witness to the meeting. The pay package passed.

By the way, I am not a member so I could not vote–I resigned my membership to protest the vote against gay rights by the church. The virus has halted the splitting of the United Methodist Church over this issue. I do try to help with specific items like cooking lunch or breakfast, replacing the gay pride flag when it is stolen, and other non-financial and non-membership things.

I then took Susie for a long drive. We had corn chips with us as a snack. We drove the length of Cornelius Pass to the Columbia River and then headed to Portland and completed the circle in Beaverton. Mariah called, and we picked her up and headed out to the Rock Creek Tavern. This is a funky, very Oregon brewpub in the middle of nowhere off, ironically, Cornelius Pass, a bigger circle.

There we sat outside as it seems safer. The staff had masks, and most customers had masks on when entering, but it is a brewpub, so most folks were seated drinking and unmasked. McMenamins, the local company that owns so many places to me, is always an experience in bad or great service–sometimes at the same time. Our waiter was helpful, attentive, and got us our drinks with dispatch. Our food too ninety minutes to arrive. The waiter knowing we must have been to a McMenamins before did not bother to explain, and we were not surprised. When the burgers and tater tots arrived, we were happy they were correct, and good or even great quality, and I paid the bill, not change for being slow, and left satisfied that our experience was not worse. I really like the beer and the atmosphere of Rock Creek, and the “food marathon” is always fun to run.

I took a nap and read some more Maisie Dobbs. I am reading book seven in the series.

I talked to a few friends on the phone. We miss each other, and we wish the infection rate was not rising again! And finally got to write this little summary.

Today the reports show the infection rate in the USA is steady on the seven-day average (it is increasing in Oregon), and more than three hundred thirty people died from the virus today. I remember crying back in March when the death rate reached this level and am saddened to be relieved to see it again to fall to less than a thousand death a day in the USA. I picked Hymn 65 from the Methodist Hymnal ¡Santo! ¡Santo! ¡Santo! (English is on the opposite page, Hymn 64).