Today, like most days, I have too many things to do. The addition of stretching and exercises, while not a lot of time, requires focus. So I felt a bit rushed and pressured yesterday, and I am pressed for time this Sunday morning while writing the story for Saturday.
Today I will write by events and then explore before and after.
The first event was writing my Dungeons and Dragons Adventure. I finally finished most of the editing of the entry text and started on the encounters. The first text describes the adventure and what is happening, and I needed to realign it to what I wrote in the encounters. Some of my ideas changed, and earlier ideas were best forgotten.
I started editing, revising, making it harder, and better connecting the themes of the adventure. Encounters are the part we play in Role Playing Games. Imaging your adventurers walking down a hallway in some lost complex is interesting, and we used to map all this out, often spending hours of time mapping and drawing. But the encounters are where the action happens and are most of the adventure. For the in-between events, I minimize as they use the time that is better used on encounters. We only get so much time to play games, so we should use the time for fun things.
The encounters are primarily rooms in last tombs with horrid traps and undead protectors, trying to convince a librarian at an arcane fantasy library to let you “borrow” an ancient tomb in exchange for a pile of gold, or sneaking in to rob a sleeping dragons favorite cup. It is the part we play and usually involves a conflict and often combat with all the sword swinging and blasting magic one comes to expect in Dungeons and Dragons.
I managed to finish all the encounters I needed on Sunday. I also started on a special figure I need. I used my Dremel to make a few adjustments and glued the McDonald’s Happy Meal figure to a Dungeons and Dragons large creature base. I also got some cloth glued to the new figure to see if that would work. I think it will be good. Just have to finish it on Sunday (this Sunday morning, I finished the rest of the application, and the work is drying now).
The adventure is 33 pages long, over 21,000 words and about 1/3 done and edited. Another 1/3 needs to be edited more, and the last third remains to be written. However, it writes faster now that I have much of the story finished and aligned.
The next event is seeing Susie. I dressed and was ready in the mid-morning. I had cereal with milk and liberal coffee from my French Press. I got into Air Volvo, adding the board game Brass: Lancashire to the collection already in the car. I planned to play games Saturday evening at Richard’s house, and he might want to try the other Brass.
I reached the hummingbird house without incident, avoiding the traffic in Old Town Beaverton; today is the tree lighting and Christmas Festival. It was still morning, so the traffic was not building yet, and I was quickly and without losing any paint at Susie’s place.
Susie was comfortable in her recliner in the shared living room. Susie had already had breakfast. Susie decided that she would stay inside today. I got out the Advent Calendar, and we opened day three. Inside the small door was some small hard candy–not safe for Susie. I had one and decided I could not give one to Susie–perfect for choking!
Next, we moved to the social room, and I set up the screen and plugged my Mac into the screen. Then, we watched two Christmas shows: Rudolf and The Year Without a Santa Claus. Susie stayed awake for all the shows and sang along to some of the songs.
Susie was feeling better but still having some tummy issues. Likely that was breakfast settling now that Susie is eating more. Evan, who joined us in the second show, told me he thought Susie was more awake, and her speech seemed better.
I paused one show, and we called Leta, Susie’s mother, on my iPhone using FaceTime. We all chatted for a while. I try to connect Susie and her mother daily using FaceTime so they can see each other.
Soon the shows were over, and Susie was looking tired also; it was time for lunch (we did two fifty minutes shows). So I kissed Susie goodbye, and Anassa took over, the nurse aide for the weekends, and was getting Susie ready for lunch when I left.
The next event was getting a birthday dinner for my mother, Barb Wild, in East Lansing. Unfortunately, my sister is ill with the stuff going around, so she could not take mama to dinner at her favorite, Bravo. Linda sent me a text with mom’s usual selections and suggested that Uber Eats could handle this. Thus, I ordered dinner for Barb Wild while with Susie (Susie got to wish Barb a happy birthday) between movies.
Evan and I had food and drinks and played a board game, Architects of the West Kingdom, at the taphouse, The 649, one of our usual haunts on Saturday. I connected to their WiFi and watched the status of the food on my Mac. The driver got lost.
Chris, the Uber driver in East Lansing, called me. I then proceeded to give directions to the unit in East Lansing. I managed to remember the way; it has been years since I have been there. Success! The food was delivered. More surprisingly, I ordered the right stuff. Excellent. Mom has a nice dinner.
After playing two games of Architects (I have described the game in the last few blogs, so I will forgo covering the game here) and beating Evan both times (just lucky in the first one), I headed to Portland.
The last event was playing with Richard and Shawn. Shawn and Richard are good game players; I would be crushed–as usual. We played again, the third time in a row, Weather Maker, a new game from a Kickstarter (again, I have described this game in last Saturday’s blogs and will pass on explaining it here). I made a few mistakes and could not find my grove, and I did not improve my best score. This time we played semi-cooperative, and Richard got the Nobel Prize and ended the game. I felt we had found the heart of the game, and everyone had a lovely time. Shawn, his first time, had a great score.
We did not take up the board game Brass this time.
I headed home and was back at the Volvo Cave without incident, except for me passing a semi on an on-ramp to a bridge on the tallest ramp in Portland! The ramp was two lanes, then reduced to one land; the semi started to pass me on the ramp! I was going fast after that and got in front of him instead of being crushed or knocked off the bridge! I don’t like bridges, and the ramp, I call it the Space Shuttle Launch Ramp, is higher than the bridge and is tilted. So a bit exciting trip home.
At the Volvo Cave, I had a bagel-like product with cream cheese and some capers I added. I need to take food with my pills. So I turned on the next episode of Wednesday on Netflix, did my stretching, and then took six minutes on the stationary bike. The next episode was fun; the teenager angst is something I don’t need but fits the show (and the audience). I still recommend it.
I went to bed after that and fell asleep. I had a terrible nightmare and was awake at 1AM–I can’t remember what was in the dream. After that, I managed to sleep again. I woke at 4AM and was about to get up and write this blog when I woke at 5:45. I was about to get up, and then it was 6:45, and I did get up.
Thank you for reading.
For the third day of Advent, I will pick these silly songs: Miser Songs.
Alohawild (Michael Wild's) Website 