Day 121: Busy Saturday

I slept into 7ish and rose slowly as I had no morning tasks. I found the coffee and used the French Press to turn the grounds, Equal Exchange French Roast, into a liquid that tasted strongly liberal. I made a NYC bagel (thanks, Joyce) with cream cheese. Yes, liberal coffee and NYC’s flavor: perfectly leftwing. Makes me smile on a cold grey Pacific Northwest (PNW) morning.

The blog for Friday was long because I was enjoying writing again; it no longer seemed like a chore. Writing is like that for me. The muse comes or not, but the blog must be written, as that is a discipline. Pumping out 500-2000 words daily to the public is excellent practice. Most days, it is a pleasure.

Evan, my usual gamer opponent on Saturday afternoons, was out of town and had items to do today. The morning, while cold and slightly overcast, began to look like a nice day. I stripped the bed and put the bedding in the LG, and it recognized it as bedding and offered the Bedding setting. I pushed start. Nice. Less than two hours later, it had washed and dried the bedding while I wrote. It played (since I could load software changes to the LG now on my iPhone) Beethoven’s 9th when done. It may be true that I did the laundry to just hear the new setting!

After writing, I sent through all the transactions loaded in Quicken for the last two months and checked them. I found quite a few I had miscategorized and corrected them. There was only one mystery transaction that I just assigned to what I think it was (it was not enough to make me care, and I know I did something with the vendor). I then took all the paper bills, statements, pay stubs, tiny paper receipts, and other jetsam floats and put them in my notebook. I punched holes into most of them and put them in the binder or slid the receipts into a page protector in mass. I am not taping that stuff to paper. I had forgotten to finish February and did that month, too. Lastly, I print out a transaction report and a net worth report for the month, punch it, and add that to the cover for the month.

I also emptied out my inbox, a physical inbox of papers to be filed, and started punching and putting the items into a new notebook for April. I have recycled Susie’s judging notebooks, and they are smaller, so they hold a quarter (three months) of paperwork. While boring and way beyond my comfort level for personal accounting, I am dealing with too much money and too much complex tax handling to not keep nearly perfect records.

I updated Quicken with the selling of Nike stock from the stock purchase program and then, in US Bank, sent a payment of most of that money to cover my travels and the new appliances. I have lost my US Bank card, which has not been stolen. It is probably somewhere in the house or under a seat in an Air Volvo. I watch everything, and there has not been a transaction since I lost it. If I can’t find it today, I will order a new one.

I did the dishes again. I ordered another battery thing as Corwin loves mine; when he delivers food most nights now and earns about $25-50 an hour (before taxes and expenses) from Uber, he must charge his phone. His old beater truck has no USB stuff, so the battery thing works. I found it useful on my recent trips and keep it in my gym bag, which is a travel bag and overnight bag (always ready).

For Corwin, it is most nights driving food to make money. He has trouble with cash flow and had to borrow a short time from friends for gas. Hopefully this will pass as he builds up some cash reserve. I have passed on charging him rent these months as I would rather have him working than paying me. Hopefully, he will soon pay off the truck, acquire the title, and then own the truck. I have urged him to save as much as he can for a down payment for an excellent car to be an Uber driver and provide more profitable passenger service. I suggested the dreaded Prius as it is roomy, electric-hybrid, and seems to be what many folks are going with.

Corwin is a new driver, and the insurance on his truck, a beater, is over $1000. As he gets a good record, he hopes this price will go down. I have asked him to share his insurance details with me to see if he had a collision on the truck, which is likely an unnecessary item, as the annual cost would be more than the payment for the truck being totaled.

This was discussed over lunch, and I bought it at the local Mexican place. Corwin, still bodybuilding, ate the huge plate while I had a three-item combo. Our waiter, who I have known for years now, son’s family live in Israel, and I asked after them. They are fine, and he talks to them every week–he admitted he has to know they are OK every week. He thanked me for asking.

Wistfully looking at The 649, we took Air Volvo back to the Volvo Cave. I then ordered the mess of books in the bedroom. Next, I took Air Volvo to be fueled ($4.55 a gallon, a crime committed by the oil companies, and remember, we have no sales tax in Oregon) and washed. The pollen and tree sap were covering the windshield.

Air Volvo stopped at the Volvo Cave, where I collected a grocery list from Corwin. Toilet paper was highlighted as we were done with one full roll. I spent an hour or so collecting groceries at Safeway and only strayed from the list a few times. Corwin asked for body wash without specifying the product, and thus, he is now using Old Spice Dragon Blast. My large cart did get the stinkeye as folks seem unwilling to wait for a family-sized purchase to go through the checker–how strange. With over $230 of goodies, I returned to the Volvo Cave, and Corwin and I unloaded, and Corwin put most items away.

I loaded up our new smaller-than-I-expected plastic storage solution from Amazon with baking items that have been sitting on the floor. I have tossed or recycled small things, and I am noticing I can use flat surfaces again. I continued to try to transform the house from looking like a nick-nack gaming book store blew up.

I had planned to skip all gaming today but decided to check if Richard still could include me after I had passed. He could. So 6PM PDX gaming!

I had yogurt and a banana as Corwin had mopped the kitchen floor, and I could not make much for a quick dinner. I was fine. I then headed into moderate traffic with Air Volvo and crossed Portland to Richard’s place in about thirty minutes—not bad. Today, I saw two cars on the side with mattresses blown against the barriers. The one car had a box-springs-sized hole in its grill. It looks like someone was going too fast or did not use enough rope. I have never seen this mistake before!

We played the new remake of our favorite board game, Wingspan, unsurprisingly, with it replacing the bird with mythical dragons, Wrymspan. Kathleen is a super expert at Wingspan, and she was down for this, being a fantasy fan. Chris had never played either and so was interested in what was all the hype about. Richard had played a few games already. I was unprepared and so had to be taught like Kathleen and Chris. I was excited to see how this remake worked.

This is an excellent game with less focus on luck and more on the process. Also, all the steps have been rethought to make them more transparent and controlled. Definitely a plus. The dragon focus, resource scarcity, excavation, and exploration (new to this game) really tightened up the game, and the ability to get coins to play a longer turn all made this, I think, a better game than Wingspan. Recommended instead of Wingspan!

I nearly caught Kathleen (I am lucky if my score is 1/2 her score in Wingspan) by being below ten points from her. Richard played what he said was his best and most lucky game and beat Kathleen by twenty. Chris did well and was below me by ten points. I had an unusual collection of end-game scoring items that almost caught Kathleen.

Chris left, and Kathleen, Richard, and I played a fun and quick card game called Pilot. I won the first hand, and Richard and Kathleen crushed me in the second game. Richard won after playing an impossible-to-get hand. It was fun.

I drove Kathleen across Portland to her home and then took Air Volvo home. There were no extra mattresses to avoid, and I arrived with the paint and grill unchanged in Air Volvo. I had a cold roast beef, cheese, and coleslaw sandwich as I was hungry and needed to take my pills, which are best with food.

I read some more Sherlock Holmes carefully, watching the cadence and word choice in the original. I was tired and soon slept.

Thanks for reading.