Today started about 7ish this morning. Susie had physical therapy today at 10, so I had to get going early if she was to be ready. Susie was going about 9ish.
I received a call from the insurance company for Nike that they have approved my leave. Today is, in fact, the last day of my leave. Thursday and Friday are holidays for Nike WHQ. Interestingly, my request is until this coming Monday, and they approved me until January 3rd. A last-minute approval!
The PT guy, replacing our previous gal, pushed Susie hard and had her standing up and sitting five times in a row three times. He also helped her walk down the hallway and back without her walker. Lastly, he had me toss a stuffed animal at Susie to catch and throwback ten times. Susie was exhausted when he left and took a nap.
I had chili for lunch. Susie was happy with a scone. I started on the laundry. I also watched some more of Hunters on Amazon Prime. This is a Hollywood story of Jews fighting Nazis. The last couple of episodes are not working for me. It is just too fanciful, and the main characters are less sympathetic.
I did more editing of Howard in Amsterdam. I had to get some tea as the editing was putting me to sleep. This is my story of my hero in Amsterdam and is based on our visit there for Christmas.
Expedition Unknown was the only thing I saw on TV that was interesting—the show on Egypt was well put together and fun to watch, but I knew most of the findings. I know about the archeologist’s new findings on Hatshepsut, the famous woman pharaoh, and the archeologist Nefertari’s new thinking about Nefertari’s identity. The next episode I watched was about the Mayans. I did not know much about the Mayan’s lost first historical period as that was not in my long-ago world history classes. It is a newish finding. I really like watching the new Mayan sites being discovered.
The next episode I watched was about The Secret. It is a treasure hunt still on-going for hidden boxes buried in the USA in the 1970s that I did not know about. Three of the boxes have been found. The treasure hunt is based on a book of the same name; Josh, the host of Expedition Unknown, says that their story about The Secret gets a lot of mail, and he has searched for the boxes for years. They did this as a follow-up episode. It was fascinating, but I am resisting buying the book and starting my own search!
Switching to board games, I also opened a few of the card decks in Twilight Imperium 4: Prophecy of Kings board game extension I received in the mail yesterday. I wanted to learn some of the new changes. I read the new rules yesterday, all of them. Much of the new stuff is in the components and not in the rules. I discovered the new technology cards and cannot wait to try them out. The new planets, all on cards, in the fictional universe, also looked interesting. For the base TW4 board game, the extension is quite a lot of internal change. Again, I need Covid-19 to end so I can play this. It is best with six players, something I cannot do in a pandemic.
Dinner was an experiment. I partially defrost a couple of pounds of skinless and boneless chicken thighs and then set-up the Instant Pot to cook them. I found a recipe on the Internet that called for 1/2 an onion, some garlic, seasoning, and adding two cups of water. Set the cooking for 14 for frozen chicken thighs. I was skeptical that the Instant Pot, after the C8 errors and using mostly frozen chicken, would not ruin the food, but one has to learn. I did forget the salt (I try not to use it anyway). The chicken needed salt, no surprise that, but even eating it with just steamed green beans from the microwave, it was still a good dinner. I got Susie to eat a lot, and she needs the protean. So it was a success.
So far, the Instant Pot is working and was my first pre-Black Friday purchase. I also received an email from the board game Vindication designer, Marc, one of my favorite game designers from the local area. They had a special update for Vindication going on for Black Friday. I tried to use the link on the email last night, but the website’s servers failed under the load. I tried again and again, but the problem did not clear up. It was a time-out in the underlying infrastructure. I found this intellectually interesting and tried to work my way past the time-outs, but I finally gave up. Later today, I finally ordered my copy of the update to my copy of Vindication.
So now I am on holiday, not leave. I do not feel like I have to be doing something all the time now. I always felt I needed to be doing something because otherwise, I should be back at work. A sort of guilt and I got very tired some days. I am trying to pace myself and try to enjoy the next four days. I plan to return to work on Monday, working from home. Susie will still be my focus. Nike has granted me leave until next year if we need it.
The US stock market retreated a bit from the highs. Nike stock continues to fly straight up to more than $135 today. My 401K reached it lowest point in May this year and then climbed to add 50% back reaching a positive growth for the year of about 16% now.
Today more than twenty-three hundred people lost their battle with the virus in the USA.
I do not remember doing this one before, Camina, Pueblo de Dios. This is in the Methodist Hymnal, #305, and in English, this is Walk On, O People of God.
Alohawild (Michael Wild's) Website 