Story 23Feb2022: A Better Day But With War

I was having trouble sleeping in the early morning. The night was cold, and some of the cold, as happens, had leaked into the house. I was having trouble breathing. This is the worst of the side effects, and I was up at 5ish getting it under control.

I was up and dressed very early, by 8ish, and warm enough with the heat turned on higher. I had a work meeting. I had arranged with Kate and Ryan to attend the planning meeting at 9ish. It was nice to see many folks from my department at Nike. I told them how things were going and thanked everyone for their help. I think everyone was happy to see me, and it was nice to be part of the team for a few minutes again.

Dressed and warmer now, I headed outside. The mask, a KN95, is needed before I go out to prevent a terrible cold reaction. I get the Air Volvo warm and drive-thru and have a guilty pleasure of a Carl’s Jr. Western Burger; it is very bad and so good.

Air Volvo and I drive in the afternoon Wednesday traffic to Forest Grove without incident. I am cold but not freezing in the car. I have Susie’s Thank You plaque from Oregon Sports to show her.

I reach Forest Grove Rehab and Care Center at 3900 Pacific Highway around 1ish, and Susie is there finishing her lunch. Susie is out by the nurse station and not in her room, 44A. I am freezing a bit, and the fatigue is coming on fast.

I managed to give Susie the thank you plaque, and the nurses cheered.

Susie served as a judge for years in Oregon and the Pacific Northwest and became a Silver Judge before retiring. I have spent many mornings with her, very early, driving Susie to test judging all over the area. It was our honor to support skating in Oregon.

I also shared a photo of Susie competing in 2008 skating to These Boots are For Walking.

I was home soon without any avoidance alarms going off from Air Volvo.

Of course, the war started now in Ukraine as the sun rose there in Europe. My desire for years has been to spend time in Odessa on the Black Sea; I wanted to stop by Istanbul and then pop over for a few days in Ukraine for my next big trip. According to news reports, the city was taken by an assault that morning.

I wanted to stay in Odessa, see the famous stairs, and just enjoy the Black Sea. I am deeply saddened by the war.

I was feeling better, and Mariah met me at the Golden Valley Brewery, which soon was packed, and overly so, and thus may leave my list of safe places to eat. I ate all the meatloaf and felt even better–Day 7 is usually when the chemo side-effects begin to fade. Corwin stayed behind as he wanted to cook the Blue Apron package. He enjoys the two-person meals I am having shipped and learning how to prepare them. I did this before we had the meal train and as a way for Cowin to help. I had the leftovers at 10ish with my pills, which must be taken with food, and it was, even cold, excellent.

Corwin cleans the kitchen, but the ants invade again. So I have committed insecticide today.

I tried to relax by reading and watching a movie. I saw that the new Kingsman movie was out on cable. Strangely, they could make a movie this bad. When the movie reached a new low of rewriting history and poor acting, it then did find yet another new low. My best-worst movie is Battleship (sometimes rated as low as 15%), and it is hard to imagine something worse than that; Kingsman is far worse. Don’t even start it, “ye ‘r ‘arn’d!”

I have received a copy of the game from Decisions Game on Putin attacking the west. It is an interesting interpretation of the world in 2018, when the magazine Modern War was released with the game, and sets interesting goals. In this version, Putin goes to “run-the-table” and plans to take Ukraine and the Baltic states. NATO is involved, and the battle is set as a month for Putin to reach his objectives. Interestingly, NATO can mitigate its loss of a Western city by taking a Russian city. The rules contain no nuclear options, but the game designer covers this and suggests the players can easily invent rules for that, as needed.

A distressingly good piece of work from Decision Games.

I managed to sleep after a bit, reading more SciFi and hoping the nightmare of the war would be better in the morning. I slept late until 9:30, but the extra sleep did not make the conflict disappear.