Today 26Sept2023

Tuesday is a work from the office, so I started at 6AM, which came too early this morning. I had read until after 11PM, and I had written some of the Dungeons and Dragons adventure text I was working on before bed and could not sleep. I work a few times at night as pain in my hands and shoulder woke me to the point where I got some painkillers–just sucks and is new. This is the other shoulder. Ugh! Morning came with me, unprepared to face it.

Rising or maybe crawling, I found my robe and padded to the kitchen to make breakfast. I opened a can of peaches (in their own juices) and unloaded about 1/2 a can with minimal juices. I matched this with cottage cheese (small curds) with some sea salt and smoked paprika. When I take my pills, I will save the other half as a snack later tonight.

I moved this meal to the home office, skipping exercises after all the pain last night, and started my day by reading emails, Slack channel updates, and then the news on the internet. I do this to be prepared for my day while eating. Next, at 7AM, I hopped into the shower, washed, dressed, collected my Nike laptop, and boarded Air Volvo. I am still using Utterly Smooth 20% Urea for my hands and feet, and I am still not showing much if any, nerve damage from chemo or diabetes. My oncologist and my oncology pharmacy told me to use it. I ordered some more that arrived yesterday and use it once a day after dressing. Urea means cow pee.

One school bus must have started early as I was stuck behind for a short time–the school buses often turn off into secondary roads to collect more children. I was still early when returning to the Swift building on the Nike WHQ campus. My day, which I will not recount here, was full of the usual and the obvious.

I found a break and headed to see Susie around 11AM. I arrived as she finished a late breakfast at Allegiance Senior Care LLC, 9925 SW 82nd. Ave. Portland (Tigard), OR 97223; phone (503) 246-4116. It was still damp outside, and a slight cold wind, so we only went as far as the porch today, and Susie had a blanket. We reached Leta, Susie’s mother, on FaceTime (Barb, Susie’s sister, was still at work, and we missed her today). Leta was still at a late lunch with friends, and they were happy to see Susie on FaceTime. Leta and Susie chatted for a while, but today was a workday for me, so it was a short visit. Soon, Susie was back inside, happy to be out of the breeze, and I left with a kiss and a promise to return on Wednesday.

I stopped by Panera Bread for an almond chicken salad sandwich and to read some Vindication Rules, a board game, while I ate. I wanted to learn how to play the Chronicles version. I did a complete read-through while I ate and tried to relax for a few minutes. I then drove back across Beaverton to the office at Nike WHQ.

The afternoon was also usual and obvious, and I will not cover it here. The project is in its last practice install before the actual install over the holidays (yes, another working Thanksgiving/Christmas/New Year). We are still sorting out some sequencing and swatting a few bugs–again, no details here.

I wanted to get my shirts from the dry cleaners, so I left early and arrived–after getting my shirts (light starch) to wear with my suit for the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival–at the Volvo Cave 4ish. I made spaghetti and meatballs for dinner. The meatballs were frozen, and the sauce was from a jar. I did this while also locating my figure painting stuff.

I wanted to paint a unique figure for Friday’s Dungeons and Dragons game: I have a sizeable Egyptian-style guy that would be perfect. I got the figure from the UK, Otherworlds, as part of a Kickstarter campaign to re-writing the old adventure, The Dark Tower: Accursed by Set, as a 5E new-style adventure. Otherworlds created figures to match the adventure. They were not cheap, and I ordered quite a few to match some of the unique creatures from the adventure. I played the original version in the 1980s and thought playing in a 5E game would be good. While I have the figures, I am still waiting for the actual adventure from Goodman Games.

I used epoxy clay to lay a tile pattern on the base and have the figure, now hand painted with a grey primer, drying and standing up. I have to mount bat wings on the figure, and I will likely drill pins for those to strengthen them. I usually now pin things to figures. They are for use and thus get bounced a bit and need to be strong. I also avoid cast figures as they are too fragile. It is sad to see a figure just break apart when used.

Once I had the basics for the figure done and dinner eaten, I sat down to write the blog.

The weather forecast has changed to a clear weekend. Let’s hope we get some nice Oregon-September weather on the weekend.

Thanks for reading!