Day 115: Sunday

Going backward, I just started writing today’s blog after returning from Matt V’s place, where we play Dungeons and Dragons twice a month. Or lately, when we can. Matt and our players are all busy, and getting a Sunday night free for role-playing is hard. We have met for over a decade, maybe two for some of us. Matt grills beef and no-meat burgers, or nothing in the case of our vegan players who eat at home. We have a meal and play 5E, the current version of Dungeons and Dragons. There are rumors of a new version, One D&D, but it appears to be more of an extension than a replacement.

We are playing the add-on Spell Jamming, which is Fantasy mixed with Sci-Fi and involves flying ships into space in an impossible bubble of air and gravity. Tonight, we fought a new threat to our space from void space. I play the evil lawful (often known as Lawful Effective) and help blast and fight our way through a massive collection of lycanthropes. I did have to use the Remove Curse spell to prevent my cleric from joining the lycanthropes! It was a fun game, and one of us was temporarily changed into a T-Rex!

It was a fun night of gaming. We will likely get one more game before I face brain surgery on 20 May. We discussed what I was facing, and help was offered. Let’s plan for a positive outcome.

Before this, I had a late lunch with Corwin at BJ’s. The bartender, Jillian, whom I have known for years, was our waiter and bartender. I had noodles, and Corwin, my suggestion, had the prime rib. I did have a beer and a few bites of Corwin’s dessert. I took Corwin back to the Volvo Cave and rested until 4:30 when I needed to head toward Matt’s place.

Before lunch, I was at Best Buy. There, I bought an expensive laundry appliance. LG makes a washer and dryer combo. There is only one door, and it does the whole thing in a few hours. Getting rid of an appliance forever and LG’s product and lower power consumption seems a total win. The new appliance costs more than replacing the washer and dryer, installing, and hauling away. It seems the right thing to do. Neal, the sales guy, and I managed to get that ordered, and it will be delivered and installed on 10 April.

I was disappointed when I tried to replace the stove (I am unhappy with the current one, which never stays clean) as none of the ones I liked could be delivered before mid-May. Neal and I looked again, and I found a GE two-oven stove for much less that fit all my requirements. I am still not going with induction, but I am going with a smooth top and convection. I also looked at dishwashers. I looked at one, but Neal suggested an LG, and I picked one out that was also 1/2 the price I was looking at.

In the end, the lesser stove and dishwasher could be delivered and installed on 15 April, and even with haul away, it was thousands cheaper. Neal was happy to write that up.

I put extended service on the laundry, but I am unsure of that item.

Before this, I was at First United Methodist Church, and our pastor gave a lecture as chairperson for an NGO that is trying to stop human trafficking in the East on what he saw and the terrible story of human trafficking in Asia on his last trip. It was a departure as it was more of a real-world and social ill, but I think the appalling human cost he described was worth the investment. He did the slides and storytelling and showed me how to avoid scam calls. The human trafficking was for call centers, scam centers as he called them, that are stealing vast amounts of money. People are forced into crime and calling. A terrible story.

Before this, and it seems to pale against Pastor Ken’s talk, I was driving on TV Highway and saw the donut shop, made a U-turn as there was little traffic on Sunday morning, and got a donut and fifty donut holes to bring to church. Z and others were happy when I put them out before the service (even Ken had a few).

You will find Ken’s story here in our recording of the service. Recommended.

I rose at 7:30 and wrote all morning long. I was able to clean up and dress in time to get donuts. I did have a banana and liberal coffee while writing.

I slept well.

Thanks for reading!