Today 3Feb2023

Sorry, I forgot the photos today as I was helping feed Susie today.

I was feeling out-of-sorts and decided to head to Wildwood Taphouse and write the blog tonight with a dark beer and friends. On the way, I called another friend to learn that the bad cold is Covid-19. This friend tested and was negative, but when he/she could not smell Vic’s Vapor Rub, it was time to test again–Covid-19. Appropriate steps are being taken now, and the household is improving.

I was tired a few times and always wondered if these were close calls for me.

Today is Friday, so it is a work-from-home day at the shoe company for our department. The rules are, growl, different by departments and sometimes by the director. I slept in a bit, having gone to bed early. I finished the novel WinterSwallows (Commissario Ricciardi book ten) and stayed up late on Wednesday to finish it. I was a bit unhappy as it dragged, but the last section was tremendous, and I recommend the book. This left me with hardcover books or ordering more brain cookies on my Kindle. 

I am reading the hardcover How to Tell a Story: The Essential Guide to Memorable Storytelling from The Moth, which is terrific. It is not a brain cookie but an excellent book on telling stories. I enjoyed the introduction and the first chapter. I have also found a brain cookie, not a very well-written one, in a new (well, some time ago) Grey Mouser and Fafhard book: Swords Against the Shadowland (Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser Book 8). This one is not by the original author and is filled with flourishes that don’t match the previous books. But, it is a new story, and while eight in number, it is set between books one and two. While a copied story and not a good one, I still like it as a brain cookie, and so if you need a new-ish Sword and Sorcery from the 1960s-70s style, here it is. 

I continued with work and followed along. As the big 7/24 stuff starts at 7:30 Sunday it was a day of catch-up and trying to slide one more thing in before the project starts running full-out. Between meetings, I made oatmeal from steel-cut oats with cranberries, some brown sugar, and walnuts added once cooked. You cook it for twenty-five minutes. I reheated some breakfast sausages to go with it. Then, I made liberal coffee to get me going in the French Press. I would do ten minutes and then run out and stir and then return to work.

I did my stretching and excises today and five minutes of Susie’s stationary bike. I am feeling better, so it is time to return to that. It wore me out for part of the morning, but I soon felt better. I got my shower in and dressed also between meetings.

I headed out near 11 to see Susie at the hummingbird house. As usual for Friday, the traffic was heavy, and I had to dodge some interesting driving. I also was passed at about 60 in a 40 mph in Beaverton. Air Volvo arrived in Tigard without incident.

I believe we had the night nurse on today, and Michelle Nixon was there too. Susie was eating her breakfast, and I saw she had some challenges and so I sat next to her and helped feed her a couple of times, and then she was able to feed herself. Susie did finish all of her Ensure, and I think she was full. I helped her for fifteen minutes or more.

Once done with her breakfast, Susie and I headed to the Social Activities room and called her mother. We talked to her, Leta, on my iPhone using FaceTime. We had a friendly chat, and Leta was headed in the evening to the church, despite the cold in Michigan, to the Chili Dinner. We soon saw the clock running to noon, and I needed to return to the house. So I left with a kiss and drove home. Today I took 217 to TV highway and avoided local Beaverton traffic on the way back. The traffic was light on the highway, but it did include some non-standard merge rules.

I returned via Air Volvo to the Volvo Cave and reheated the jambalaya from a few days ago, no seafood, watched a few YouTube videos on shipwrecks, and was late for my 1PM meeting. That was the last zoom meeting, but I had an ad hoc meeting to discuss the request to move software changes over the weekend (no way).

The later afternoon was a few crises of the moment that disappeared or moved to Monday.

With work over, I painted my second spell jammer ship model. It is getting there. I will try to make the mast and sails on Saturday morning. I am making smaller and smaller mistakes with paint. I should be able to finish the touch-up on Saturday morning while the sails are drying.

As I wrote, I went to Wildwood Taphouse to get away and write.

I was thinking I could write a better Swords and Sorcery story than what I am reading, but I don’t need another thing to write now.

The bar, The Golem’s Fist, was full of customers all looking for work, adventurers all. The drinks, a mix of intoxicants and magic, are of good quality and quantity, but most importantly to the patrons, cheap. The long-lost owner, Grey the Evoker, only his drinking mug (of cancelation) survives and is the tip jar now. Grey was never interested in overcharging but instead enabling work for adventurers. Grey only demanded they paid their bill when they were flush after some successful plundering. When working the bar before he was lost, Grey would send broke patrons (with high tabs) to explore a lost tomb, a hidden mine, or another adventure he discovered when doing his other job. Grey was an explorer and searcher for lost treasurers. He collected side trips for his customers while facing horrors he seldom described. Grey could always find a profitable adventure to help pay off a tab, but the survival rate was a bit low, “We remember our lost friends today, drinks around on the house,” was his usual call when learning another quest he initiated failed.