Today 29Oct2023

I am up early Sunday morning to heat a ham for today’s church potluck. I could not find my favorite, a spiral-cut ham, and thus, I am using a regular ham and will have to carve it; ugh! But I am getting ahead…

The morning started with having dreams I don’t remember and being surprised to wake up after 8AM. Joyce, Susie’s aunt in North Carolina, sent more NYC bagels from Zabar’s, but they were lost, and another shipment is now headed to me. Instead, I had a slice of freshly made no-knead bread and a banana to go with my liberal coffee in my French press for breakfast.

I wrote the blog the previous night, so I went slow and tried to enjoy a pleasant morning. I tried to assemble the model of the building I am making for Richard for his Suburbia. I am always so optimistic when I start a model, and I thought this one would come together with ease. It did not. I broke a part, which forced me to assemble more to mount it repaired than I wanted before I worked out the lighting. I also drilled some of the supports with an electric drill and cracked one, but not seriously. Goodness, this is turning into a major project!

I painted the outside with off-white (Mummy Robes from Army Painter), using a brush and diluted paint. I wanted to not have brush marks, so I went with very wet, light coats. I had sprayed “white” Mr. Hobby’s Surfacer on the parts, so the paint just colored the model something, not a stark white primer. I decided to paint the window frames, and my brush made a mess of it. I will need to mask the building and then touch-up (a light off-white will not easily cover a Gun Metal color from Army Painter) light issues. This means I will not finish this soon.

I glued some clear, bright LEDs into the supports, which I will power with the 2023 coin cell holders I have inbound from Amazon. I forgot to remove the paint before I glue, thus gluing to paint, and one part keeps falling off. Generally, I started to remember all my modeling skills, how hard model building is, and why it takes so long. I will take my time and do this one right.

I do my Quicken checks, and eTrade refuses my download from Quicken, hmmm. I am locked out from any transactions until I contact eTrade. This is not expected, as I just received money from the insurance company, and I am now transferring it to my regular checking. eBanks are sensitive to money laundry, and, being from Oregon, I need to show that this is not profits from a natural business like illegal (at the federal level) mushroom sales. I found someone, Penny, in some far distant call center for Morgan Stanley (eTrade is Morgan Stanley), who has me take photos of the insurance letters and death certificate. That is not enough, but the insurance company answers their phone for Penny on the weekend (wow!) at yet-another-call-center in some distant land and agrees that my transaction is from them and legitimate. My accounts are released, and I celebrate by spending another hour trying to invest some of the now-approved cash into something that pays interest. I managed to get 1/4 of the money (all I want to lock down) to buy a US Treasury for three months. Lastly, I put in the transfer only to cancel it as I saw that the previous one (I got a note that it failed) was still in progress, and not wanting to double the transfer (and exceed the transfer limit), I canceled the newly entered transfer. Yikes! I will see if this one will clear on Monday.

I cleaned up and dressed. I always use Utterly Smooth 25% Urea (cow pee), as advised by my Doc and the oncology pharmacist. My numbness is not getting worse in my fingers and toes. I do not know if this works or why it would work, but it is not expensive, so I continue with it. My hands have never been smoother.

I took Air Volvo to Fred Myers (owned by Krogers for those in the mid-west) and could not find a spiral-cut ham, so I bought a hefty $25 ham. It is a lot of ham. I will have to carve it on Sunday morning after I heat it through. It’s not as easy as I like it for a church potluck.

Returning to Volvo Cave, I stored the ham in the frig; next, now running late, I headed to Portland. I picked the Lucky Labrador today for gaming, beer, and food for this Saturday afternoon, and soon, having no traffic to mention, arrived and parked in their parking lot. Perfect.

I had their excellent BLT with perfect bread and freshly cooked bacon with mayo. I drank two beers there, resisting my need to self-medicate from grief by enjoying more than a glass every other hour. Evan and I played Vindication, with Evan surprising me with what tiles he included in the game. We played our usual game, and luck was with Evan; he pulled ahead by 11 points when the game unexpectedly ended. I also got low-scoring monsters and lost two companions to poor rolls as I tried to raise my score; ugh. In the second game, I got the companion that gives you two more points for every companion. So soon, I was twenty points ahead, spending most of my time repeatedly getting companions (four or more points a turn is good in Vindication). I also vindicated myself to add some more points and have options. Evan should have headed out for more high-point-generating locations–I had vindicated in case I needed to change tactics, but luck kept many of these places undiscovered and in the Scum Bag. I won by about ten points, tripping the game end by having lots of companions, with Evan finding some points on mastery to improve his final score.

We were running out of time, so we did a rushed game of The Lost Ruins of Arnak, but we could not finish the game. The scores were close, with my landing the top points for research, but Evan was ahead on defeated guardians. We had one round left when we put the game away. I was 15 minutes early when I left, but I forgot to pay and had to drive back and pay. Traffic was light, and I found a parking spot in front and managed to pay and leave in minutes. The area was full of people now dressed for Halloween–there must have been some dance parties starting (no kids). This made me twenty minutes late for Richard’s game.

It was Kathleen, Richard, and I tonight and the board game Voidfall. This game, which I like, is a military 4X (without the one X for Exterminate, as you cannot be eliminated by rules) redressed into a worker placement game with engine-building. It has the weird technology trees you see in many 4X games, but also the point cards that you acquire and most of the points to win. I scored last as I am not very good at collecting bonus cards. I also tried to follow the military for my race, but that was not quite right as the game is worker and engine-building. Kathleen almost caught Richard, whose score was nearly double mine. Still, I like it and will try to learn the bonus card part next.

Air Volvo took Kathleen home with me, discussing gaming and other good distractions. We spent a while in her driveway talking about Lord of the Rings (LOTR); I would like to try the role playing game (RPG) of LOTR. Kathleen tried Dungeons and Dragons 5E (5E) almost a month ago with Corwin and me. She enjoyed. So, she would like to try LOTR 5E. So will see if we can do that. A chance to play hobbits in The Shire!

Air Volvo managed to reach the Volvo Cave without incident. I was dodging people and cars in Portland and did get honked at once when I noticed that the lane I was pulling in did not have room for Air Volvo as someone drove in the middle–it was not a one-way, but we escaped without losing paint.

My packages arrived from Amazon, but still no bagels (likely on Monday). I went to bed, setting the alarm for 6:30 to bake the ham and carve it before church. I fell asleep a few minutes into reading. I dreamed about the book before I realized I was asleep while holding my Kindle; I put away the Kindle and slept.

Thanks for reading.

Added later:
I am still feeling sad, and I cannot find that much pleasure in doing many things. I enjoy doing them, but afterward, I feel sad as I miss Susie and feel strange to forget that moment while working on a model or playing a game. The colors are faded, and the food taste is a bit less. I feel like I am in a dream–disassociated–and want to wake up and find Susie happy next to me, and the sad dream is over. Tears come here and there. It is hard to move to the next thing, but I do, like a mental syrup or the leaded limbs of a dream. I can see why folks slide into drugs (including alcohol) as they want to escape not from the grief but from noticing the dream-like world. I will try to get more exercise and keep doing things I like. I suspect the disassociation feeling will remain, but the episodes will become shorter and shorter over a year.

I just wanted to include what I am feeling. Thanks for reading.