Saturday was a cool, damp day with just Oregon Mist all day. When Air Volvo was parked on a street in Portland, the mist coated it with drops, but the ground near the vehicle was dry. It might have climbed over sixty, but it never felt warm. I wore my coat. The ten-day forecast has a few sunny days, but as usual for this time of year, the sunny days are fewer and fewer. Soon, there will be none. With Susie’s passing and the darkness, I will be watchful for light-starved depression–it is a thing here. The sun will not be back, except for a few exceptional days, until July (or May, like the past super-warm three years).
I was up at 7AM with my alarm and vivid but forgotten dreams. I then rose with some vigor and made coffee, liberal and in the Frech Press, a banana, and a few store-bought madeleines that the ants have missed. I sprayed the vents in the bathroom and the office with Raid to slow the ants. Ugh! I spent the morning writing a longish blog, including describing my battles with the malaise that is grief. As I have the time, I try to more fully capture my feelings as I know it helps to share them, and others may be helped in their own fight against depression and mental pain. Your mind is injured by events just like your body and brain are injured by a fall or a car crash.
I finished the blog, and then, feeling better and the colors coming back into the world, I popped into the shower, followed by dressing, and headed outside. Air Volvo is still outside, but I hope to soon change the garage from a reserve storage area to a car park. I boarded Air Volvo and headed to the hummingbird house. But first, I stopped at Shell for $4.79 (remember, no sales tax here) and let the folks there pump my gas (while we have made it legal to pump your own gas, it is not at a discount, and they were not busy). Next, I stopped by Target and bought some flowers to bring to Anassa, the weekend nursing aide, and flowers for Vida, a spouse of another resident who inspired me, and we always shared thoughts on care and process. I was still too early, so I headed to Srider’s India Imports–a strip mall place I have driven by for a year and wondered about.
The store was tiny and had no produce, and I saw it had a small room for clothing–nothing I wanted but the spices and ginger-garlic paste were there. I collected the bags of spices I knew I would need and found smaller bagged amounts that were perfect for me. The store owner, calling herself Davis (a shortening of her name), was happy to have a customer and sell me a few bags of stuff. She is an older woman, proud in her store, and authoritative without being intimidating. Her English is perfectly accented; her Indian-American words highlight her smile and show her years as a store owner in the Pacific Northwest. She shared with me that she retired from another store, also hers, and then had nothing to do with herself–she opened this little store to have something to do and to connect with people like me. I recommend a visit to her store for some spices and a chat. She reminds me of so many store owners in India; it’s a treat to shop with her.
After loading my spoils in Air Volvo, which grew fragrant with spices, I headed to the hummingbird house. I arrived and soon was chatting with Anassa, who loved the flowers; I just hung out with Anassa until Vida, who visits her spouse most days, came just after noon. She was happy to see me.
Vida is my hero. She has cared for her loved one for five years and many in facilities. She sold everything in California to come to Oregon, where their children could help. We talked about many things and gave each other encouragement. I saw my future in Vida and planned an indefinite stay for Susie mentally and financially. Vida and I shared a few tears, a hug and exchanged flowers for a kindly written message in a card.
I would usually stay at the hummingbird house for hours to visit Susie, watch a movie or show, and see the park. Sometimes, a trip to the mall was a chance for a bit of shopping and for Susie to pick out flowers to bring back. But she was not there, and I was soon on my way to Portland to meet Evan at Rogue Ales.
There was no traffic to slow me, and soon, I was parked in SE Portland on the street. I carried two board games into the brewery: Istanbul and Arnak. I opened a tab and saw that Ruben was on special. It was too big for me to finish! Evan showed up when I gave up on the last bits of the sandwich–bring lunch and dinner. Evan decided on the board game Istanbul.
I have the Big-box version that contains all the add-ons, but we played the base version in the first game. Evan soon remembered how to play and did well; he was one ruby (the game is about managing resources and position to get five rubies–for two players–purchased with various resources) when I won the game by getting my fifth gem–the gems are little pretty rough red plastic bits. We reset and added in the Mocha & Baksheesh expansion, which makes the game a bit slower and provides coffee as an additional resource and four more locations. The game changes from good to excellent with the expansion. Planning and a winning player must do things that help you gain gems in multiple ways. I won by two gems in a fast-learning game. With more beer and some food, we decided to play again. This time, Evan pushed me pretty hard–he used coffee and some resources to use Baksheesh to generate a gem about every fourth play. Still, this highly caffeinated plan was not as fast as collecting various resources and using the resources to gain gems from the Mosque locations and the Sultan’s Palace, and selling resources at the markets to make cash to buy a gem (look, I wrote a Lovecraft-like sentence–long). But it was close, and Evan managed a fifth gem on his last move (the round is completed when someone gets the last gem), forcing an opening of the rules. My pile of remaining coins gave me the win as a tiebreaker. Evan was disappointed as he thought he had me–but it was an excellent game played well.
We still had time, and I put away the games and brought out the Game of Kings: Chess. Evan was white this time and opened with a standard pawn in front of the queen. I built a line of pawns as black and developed my pieces. Evan exchanged a bishop for a knight newly developed knight on the edge and castled too early, in my opinion. I noticed he was attacking between the rook and bishop and decided my king looked safe in the middle. While it would make Lasker cry for my mistakes, my pawn structure was enough to hold my center, and my bishops, dragon style, were pointed from the center at white’s king. After checks and some exchanges, Evan, still having his queen, took the bait (that rook looked deliciously unprotected) and checkmate. Evan should have exchanged the queens and used the holes he spent so much time creating in my pawns to get it back. But still, I had to be careful as Evan was ready to pounce on any mistake.
I paid the bill, said goodbye to Evan, and headed to Richard’s. We played a game I did not know, Voidfall, a new Kickstarter super premium game, $340 on Amazon, mixing space empire 4x play, and resource management. A scenario book allows setting up play for competitive, cooperative, easy to hard, and various player counts. The pieces were the best I have seen, and this game sets a new insane level of quality expectations now. There were a vast amount of rules to learn and complexity along the Lisboa or Weather Maker level, but it flowed well. There are more than ten different races and other complexities in a setup that took Richard about thirty minutes.
I enjoyed the game, losing to Richard, who understood the scoring better (of course), by more than 100 points. The empire-building and combat to remove the corruption forces was without dice (perfect!). I look forward to playing it again and with more than two players. We played without interaction in this scenario, but I imagine a battle-centric scenario could be a kick to play.
After that, I left after talking about figure painting for a while with Richard. He is having some issues with his figures, and when I was home, I sent Richard pictures of a few products I use to dilute paint and paint-on primer. After that, I had an uneventful trip on Air Volvo. I was tired and nudged a few curbs, but the stupidly high on-ramp and bridge on the way home had me fully alert. There’s nothing like wet cement five stories in the air to wake you up–better than coffee! I soon was home, looking at the mail, and climbed into bed after putting around midnight. My tax bill was up about $100, and my house, according to the tax people, lost $20K in value (Oregon limits the speed at which they can increase your tax bill, and I am still being slowly adjusted). I received a thunder sound device for models to match Evan’s lightning light system. Excellent.
I took my meds and finally slept after 12:30.
While playing the games, the depression and sadness abate, but after the game, it crashes back. That is hard, making me not want to play or do anything. I resist. My allergies are exploding, and I use my inhaler often; this also makes me slow. I tire easily, but I can push through it.
Thanks for reading.
If you want an excellent Adult Care facility, please consider Allegiance Senior Care LLC, 9925 SW 82nd. Ave. Portland (Tigard), OR 97223; phone (503) 246-4116.
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