Story 2July2022: Busy Saturday

The morning started with me waking up alone in the house (Corwin moved out and spent his first night at this new place) at about 7ish. It was, as predicted, an overcast day, with temperatures in the 60Fs (15.5Cs) until the later afternoon. Breakfast was yogurt and liberal Free-Trade coffee (I am about 1/2 thru my locally sold case of coffee).

On going through the holiday weekend, work started again at 8 with status meetings. Nothing for me so far but to watch. I did get asked to approve something as an emergency, but my good friend Mariana did the approval and kindly sent me an email and a text that the issue was handled.

I wrote Friday’s blog, often interrupted by Zoom meetings, following along on Slack channels for important messages, and getting showered and dressed. It took me until 10:30 to get the blog posted. I was rushing to see Susie, getting there nearer to 11 than the 10 I had hoped for.

Arriving, skipping the 20MPH section of Beaverton using Allan Road instead, at Hummingbird House without incident, Susie was just finishing her breakfast of oatmeal and milk (slightly thickened and the oatmeal blender’d). Soon Vanessa, the nurse today, had Susie in the spare recliner in the activity room. I set up the screen I keep in Susie’s closet and the Apple laptop to play the next movie: Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore. Susie has not seen it before.

Susie called her mother on my iPhone, and uses FaceTime to see each other. We try to do this every day. First, they chat for a while. Next, after the call, we start the movie. Susie falls asleep holding my hand, watching the movie a few times. She is tired and also happy to be there with me holding her hand and just falls into a restful sleep. I am rushed for time, so I stopped the movie at 1/3 at noon; Susie was falling asleep anyway. We will continue it on Sunday afternoon (unless there are other crises of the moment at the shoe company).

I head home, stop by Walgreens (our Rite Aid is closing, so it is time to use the close-by Walgreens), and get some wrapping paper. I wrapped my copy of the Scooby-Doo Haunted House game, including a Hot Wheels Mystery Machine Van, and painted figures for the whole gang with the addition of my spare H.P. Lovecraft figure I just finished as the villain. Matt (M@) is having his First Retirement Party, and I thought he would love this as a retirement gift (he can now say as an old guy, “It would have worked, except for those meddling kids!”). He loved it and was happy to receive my punched copy. I have only played it once with Susie. Events have prevented Susie from playing again.

Aside: The whole gang and Scooby-Doo are available at Hassle-Free Miniatures, in metal, in the UK. Freddie is missing his neck scarf (I added it), and the girls are a bit curvier than drawn in the animation but look good. The Mystery Machine can be found online as a Hot Wheel collectible. The van is 1/2 scale compared to the minis but fits on the game board. Hassle-Free also offers a post-apocalypse version of the gang.

I made it to M@ party with the gift and masked only 15 minutes late. I was the only one masked, and soon, I was drinking various adult beverages and eating various snacks, so the masked came off. For the first time, I was comfortable not wearing a mask in a crowd. I was happy to see everyone. Many I have played Dungeons and Dragons at M@ house and have not seen, due to the pandemic, for three years. It was the first time I had seen Niki, M@’s wife, since the last party at M@’s house before the pandemic.

“We made it,” was the comment I heard a few times. Everyone was happy to have the pandemic receding, and lives were being put back together. However, I did notice that all of us are grayer and have new lines on our faces. There was also the slightly haunted look of survivors that I have seen everywhere. Yes, indeed, we made it.

As I mentioned, I had at the party one item from work, but Mariana handled it. I was checking the Slack channels and my email all through the party. Soon, it was 4ish, and I needed to go and call into the next Zoom status meeting. I hugged my gamer friends, so happy to see them, and took Air Volvo home without incident.

The status called soon over, nothing for me, and I was doing laundry and doing the dishes. I had a ham sandwich before heading to M@’s, and there, I also had a burger–it was soooo good. After that, I was not looking for dinner. Later I had some cottage cheese and some canned peaches. I saved the other 1/2 of the canned peaches for breakfast.

I returned to assembling the game insert and organizer for the game Root. Now, in just my limited copy, three boxes and a vinal rolled matt, I wanted to use the insert to maybe get rid of one box. This is a lot of gluing and assembly. So I stopped and started through the night.

I folded and put away the laundry. Then, I ran the clean cycle on the oven. I am not that happy with the self-cleaning features of this Maytag oven. I cannot get the window clean.

I missed a message from The Smiths at 9:45 to watch Obi-one Kenobi together. Instead, I watched my DVD copy of The Ninth Gate. This is an old fav of mine and I like the book: The Club Dumas. This is by a favorite author: Arturo Pérez Reverte. I got about 1/2 and then went to bed about 10:45ish with my phone on loud. I read The Law of Root (the rule book). No calls. I was asleep before midnight.