Day 255: Tuesday of Trials

Even the pizza was late. Dominos sent me a make-up eMail after my Pizza was more than 15 minutes late. Today had many trials.

A huge box was delivered today from Amazon. The pack of furnace filters I ordered–I am out and try to have a few spare. A four-pack of 16x25x4, but instead, it is a 20x25x4, which is huge and not something I can use. I have already asked for a fix, but Amazon did not make this mistake; it was one of its vendors, meaning I have to wait for them to decide something. So I have a huge box with no filters.

Amazon had a good special on Instant Pot that I have always wanted. So I ordered one for the holidays for me and the household on Sunday. It was delivered today. So I unwrap it and follow directions, and it fails and gives me an error code C8. This means the pot has detected a non-standard pot in the pot. I am beyond disappointed as I have followed directions. I find their website and put in a trouble ticket (?!) with photos.

I do manage to not break it or to burn myself with the C8 on the Instant Pot. I unplug it after I get it open from the first run and do the test rerun. Perfect. But, because I could not cook dinner while this was in the way, I ordered pizza (see above for how that went).

I did receive one of my board game orders today, Twilight Imperium 4 Extension: Prophecy of Kings. This is the long-awaited addition (and some corrections) to the #1 4X-styled board game (4X: eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, & eXterminate) from Minnesota’s Fantasy Flight Game. One imagines you must live where it is freezing to design a space empire game! Few games make it to version 4 and then add on an extension, but Twilight Imperium is one that we expect, as they said in Harry Potter, great things–terrible great things.

The base game, Twilight Imperium 4, is like running the wrong side of Star Wars. You are the Evil Sith Lord, but five other (now seven other) would-be empires are forming too. They will do anything to be the greatest, just like you. This six-person game is a massive race to win before the other would-be empires stop your evil plans. The rules are huge, and the game heavy in the details of running your empire and how to defeat or even ally other empires. It is the game you spend half a day playing and then another crying in your beer. The extension offers more options now, but I have yet to win in my Portland gaming group.

I cannot play this until after the virus is solved.

I also replaced the faucet in the kitchen. Corwin and I discussed it, and we were concerned that the tape job on the old one would not be enough. I went to Ace Hardware and bought the same faucet I installed with dad on September 20, 2010 (I found the photo). It took an hour. The old one came out easy, but the new one was harder to install, and I had to get two wrenches to attach a hose. It was easy after that, but a lot of muscles are saying, “what was that?” now.

I also found the first working suction cup handle, MHI Safe-er-Grip. I put one of these on the shower walls, and I cannot remove it by pulling (some levers lock and unlock it). Susie now has safe handles in the shower. I went back and bought two more! I do not know what to do with the one I got from Amazon that is unsafe–I put in a negative review that they have yet to approve. Hmmm.

But today is about trials. The occupational therapist wants the glass doors removed from the shower in the master bath. Well, I hate ’em glass doors. Can I remove them–I think I can? I did remove the two (yes, only two) screws that hold the top on, and I can lift the whole assembly out. It is a lot of glass! I will wait for some help before I do that, and I have a shower rod ready!

My paperwork is in for my leave to help Susie. The insurance company that Nike uses has not yet acknowledged my faxing and mailing of the documents to them. I will have to manually upload each page tomorrow if they still refuse to acknowledge my documents. Yes, the trials go on.

The president had an emergency news conference today to announce that the stock market broke 30,000 today. He took credit for that and thanked everyone for working in his administration. I also received an eMail from RiteAid saying they are ready to distribute the Covid-19 vaccine and will keep us informed when we can get it. It is free to anyone, the eMail said.

Susie has physical therapy tomorrow. She was tired today from the exercises. She did a lot more today than the previous days.

We will keep going. It is getting better each day. It is not easy.

As the president said, the US stock market has never been higher. Nike stock is steady at about $134 now. My 401K is now showing more than a 15% return for 2020.

The deaths count is more than two-thousand one-hundred today in the USA from the virus. This is a rate we have not seen since the terrible times in April.

I went with one I know, Where He Leads Me, as it just seemed to fit today.