Story 6March2022: Busy Sunday

Going backward just as a way to make the story more interesting, I slept early Sunday night as I was cold and just wanted a warm bed. I was in bed around 10PM listening to Kink.FM Lights Out that has returned, but just for Sunday night. Lights Out started with the Alan Parsons Project Tales of Mystery and Imagination (Edgar Allan Poe) “The Raven.” I had not heard this for years as my college roommate had a copy of the album. I was thus happy to listen to Lights Out. Kink.FM picked unusual music and made me think of adding these to my collection and reminding me, like the Alan Parsons Project, of music I had forgotten.

While listening to Kink.FM, I was reading the new physical copy of a book. The smaller print is hard on my aging eyesight, and I may have to get some cheaters to read this. I am enjoying The Words That Made Us: America’s Constitutional Conversation, 1760-1840, so far. Words matter to me as a would-be writer, so I thought I would try this 800+ book (it is hard to hold up while reading) on words. Still, I am worried as I have found the so-called constitutional scholars often to be so far on the right that they use the false narrative of exact meanings to justify strange political positions.

I have managed to get through the introduction and the first hundred pages of the text and, while not a Space Opera page-turner, the writing style and the content have been fascinating. There are also footnotes, plenty, and long quotes from John Adams. I bought the hardcopy to have easy access to the footnotes (nearly impossible on a Kindle to access footnotes and read a text without getting lost). So far, the writing style and word usage are rather old-school (i.e., using sextupled instead of six times), and I like that so far. Something new.

Before this, I took my 10ish pills a little early as I no longer needed to perfectly space out the chemotherapy and had the other half of a calzone that I got for lunch a few days ago as my second dinner with pills. I also read some news and watched more Nerd of the Rings videos on YouTube. Nerd of the Rings channel had a new video on what would happen if the Tolkein bad-guy Sauron acquired the One Ring instead of the ring being thrown in the Cracks of Doom and destroyed. The show covers what J.R.R. Tolkien wrote about that and the likely outcomes. So if you, like me, like to nerd out on LOTR material, this is the channel for you.

I spent the early evening before getting home playing Dungeons and Dragons at Cory’s house with Matt DM-ing the Witchlight new material. I had a 2nd level monk whose focus was brewing more than being a good monk. I had imagined this character more of a role-playing character than a combat-focused creation. I got to enjoy a bit of the fantastic fair that is included in the storyline. Matt bought all the extras from the Beadle and Grimms, making the game a visual feast. Matt has multiple groups playing the same material, and he may reuse the material later.

Without giving anything away, we then fought a battle outside of the fair. The first battle we handled without much trouble. Matt had the figures for the creatures that were fantastic. Unfortunately, the subsequent encounter killed one of our characters. We were effectively surprised by the powerful creatures, which usually means bad news for 2nd level characters. We also split between the monsters and thus split our attacks, a terrible strategy hoisted on us by being surprised. Soon the close-up fighters, including my beer-brewing monk, spent five rounds of combat just rolling death saves. Our ranger and bard moved back at the start of combat to be range fighters and managed to finally put a creature to sleep. I ended up playing a giant snail, having to look up the specs for the beast online on my phone; we had acquired the beast earlier and learned that the snail had twice the hit points and did more damage than any of the 2nd level characters! It was attacked and fought and brought down the last monster with the ranged characters still firing from a distance.

Karen’s rogue failed the last death save and could not be recovered. A sad loss for us.

Moving to the start of the game, everyone was happy to see me as this was my first appearance in the new campaign and the first evening that I was feeling up to a game. I even drove myself. We all wore masks as protection for me. The next game is about day 12 in my chemotherapy cycle 3, and I may not be able to play as I am usually still weak at that point.

Before leaving to play Dungeons and Dragons, I made a ham and cheese sandwich for dinner. Corwin was cooking some pork chops for his dinner. He then added them to some ramen.

Before the sandwich and being home, I was with Susie at Forest Grove Rehab and Care Center at 3900 Pacific Highway, Room 44A. Susie was back in bed, and I was there about 1ish. Air Volvo did have one set of alarms on the trip in, but I managed to avoid the issue, and the polite but insistent alarms stopped.

We connected at 1:30 with the church group meeting hosted by Joan on Zoom. I moved Susie’s head up and got the mic near Susie (I use the earbud mic for the laptop, but its speakers by setting this in the preferences for my Apple). The church folks were happy to see us, and Susie did try to be included in some of the discussion of Dr.Rev. Wayne Weld-Martins’s sermon that Sunday. Susie was pleased to be included.

Before this, we managed a short FaceTime with Susie’s mother, Leta, on my iPhone. We had to shorten that call to be on time for the church meeting.

Before this and before driving into Forest Grove, I had stopped by the house and had a roast beef and cheddar sandwich for lunch. I warmed the beef and cheese in the microwave on a plate and then added bread. The sandwich is as good as you get anywhere as I bought excellent thinly sliced meat at Whole Foods.

Previously, I went to church, and due to sleeping to 8ish and a broken traffic light on the TV highway, I was the first person late to church after the reopening. A dubious distinction that I still adopted. I sat in George’s pew. George has been gone for some time now, but we all remember him sitting there for years. George gave more than a million dollars to a local hospital and the organ replacement for our church.

It was communion Sunday, the first Sunday of a month for typical United Methodist churches, and thus an elder is required to give communion. This means that Dr.Rev. Wayne Weld-Martin was officiating today and did a sermon on the question he was asked once, “Did Jesus Have to Die.” It was a good subject for lent, and the music matched some of the somberness of lent.

It was nice to show for church, but I did have to remind nearly everyone to keep their distance. I cannot afford a cold, flu, or Covid-19. So I will be masked into May and keep my distance. I did chat with folks at a distance. It was good to be a bit safely distanced and social.

I set the alarm to wake at 7:30 but resisted this until 8ish making me rush the whole morning and regret the size of the blog. It is about 90 minutes or more to write the blog, often breaching two hours. That is a lot of time to commit every day in the morning, but I think it is good to record the day and my thoughts.

I miss playing Richard and the PDX folks, but I am still weak, and I will likely be feeling better until Tuesday and Wednesday as I am nearly a week out from chemo. Not days we usually play, so gaming with my almost impossible to beat friends in Portland will have to wait. I do miss them.

Thank you for reading, and I hope the typos and some of the wooden writing that I cannot blame on Apple or Grammarly are not too troubling.