I rose late on Thursday, getting started after 8. I made liberal coffee, Equal Exchange packed in their Portland location, and yogurt and an orange cranberry scone I made from a very out-of-date mix. It is perfect. I write slowly and am often distracted by the news and other items on FaceBook and YouTube. I take my antibiotics and change my dressing three times a day for the incision on my belly, covering it with an antibiotic cream also a prescription product. My sister sent me a few boxes of anti-dry month lozenges that seem to help, too. It takes me until 10 to finish the blog. I take my next shower, rebandage, shave, and so on, and dress for the day. Today, I picked the Empire State t-shirt.
For lunch, I find the frozen salmon patties from Trader Joe’s and fry them in a small non-stick pan with butter. I also cut up the last of the Brussels sprouts and heat them in the pan with butter. I cover the pan, add some water, and let the steam cook the salmon through. I remove the top and let the water cook out. I add capers to the pan and let that cook with the butter and the salmon. I turn the patties a few times.
I cover the sprouts and repeat the same trick. This gets them cooked through. Remember, steam can be very hot as water turns to steam at 212F (100C) and then can be hotter, so it cooks top-down while the pan cooks bottom-up. I then remove the lid to let the sprouts cook dry and let them burn a bit. I like them a bit burned.
I heated a hamburger bun for the first patty and ate the second one with a cold bun; I was hungry. The capers, butter, and heating them thru make them perfect. The Brussels sprouts, black in places, are done late, but I still get some with my second salmon patty and bun.
I head to the Cedar Mills Mall in Beaverton. Air Volvo gets me there without any surprises. It is hot and sunny. When I left, I turned on the AC at the Volvo Cave (set to 70F), and it will likely be on for the next few months. The mall has been decimated by the Great Recession and the Pandemic, and Powell’s as an anchor does not bring in many shoppers to the Mall. The food court is empty, stripped spaces. There are a few hair and nail places and a Lego place. I walk inside, at least the AC is still in place, and find a table.
I looked up the rate, and I found a website that claims the rate is $2 a square foot a month for this mall. I calculated that a tiny shop of 5,000 square feet would then cost $10,000 a month plus the initial build cost of likely $100,000, with a break-even date of November. I imagine it would take six months to open. This means that starting in January, you would need $160,000 to open. Since 3/4 of sales are in the last quarter (holidays) and assume you can sell with a profit of 10% annually, a high expectation, it would take until the following year’s holiday to get into the red. Yikes! Deep pockets, indeed, for a small shop. I can see why so many shops are empty now.
Besides daydreaming about my electronics/gaming/history books/robot store, I returned to my laptop (which I carried into the mall and worked as a weight to carry) and returned to writing. The sun was on my table, and soon, my black Apple was almost too hot to touch. I moved to a more shady location and continued to edit and revise. I am working on my Dungeons and Dragons adventure for 5E, which I wrote and played a few times. I plan to publish it, too.
I managed to revise the introduction and align it with the shorter adventure. I had written a longer two-step adventure with a third part yet to be written. But when I went to play it, I was given only two nights, so I cut it to just the first part and a new ending. It is now 26 pages long and plays well for three gaming sessions. It can fit two sessions with some discipline on the DM to move things forward.
I headed to the theater and sat waiting for Jake and chatting with the ticket scanner (we don’t take and rip anymore; instead, we scan). They let me sit in the AC (it was over 90F/32C now) while I waited for Jack to join me for Fall Guy on the matinee prices (yay!). We talked about movies and how much we loved the new Mad Max movie and that it should have come out before the previous one as it leads directly to that movie. I did a bit more editing.
Jack arrived on his bike, and I bought the tickets ($9.50, senior). We found our seats and had E row to ourselves. The movie started after lots of content and previews. The movie Fall Guy dragged at the start, and I feared it was a loss, but it slowly dropped the long talking bits and turned to more and more action. You began to cheer on the show and the making of an insane SciFi movie that was the main plot point. At some point, you forget how silly all of this is, and you just cheer on the stunt people and the explosions. They even have Lee Majors appear–the original Fall Guy, and he gets a great moment. While not a good movie, I was laughing non-stop at the final trailer for the SciFi movie the story is about making. So, it is a good laugh if you ignore the first part.
Air Volvo reported 99F (it is not accurate) when I climbed back in after seeing Jack off on his bike. When I returned home, the AC was comfortable. I opened a can of tuna and added it to a romaine salad with cheese, croutons, and sunflower seeds. Amazon delivered an Amazon Basic Bread Maker, and I started it by making French bread that finished at about midnight. When I learned that you turn the basket to unlock it, I found melted packaging still in the machine. It was not a loss, and it came out without issue. Corwin pronounced the French bread good. Corwin plans to buy the bread machine from me (at a slightly reduced price) when he moves out at the end of June.
My new copy of the SciFi magazine, a real printed one, Analog, came in the mail today. I spent time reading the editorial article (I had to stop as I got depressed from the issues, valid as they were, were exposed) and then enjoyed a story of steam engines (nuclear powered) on a future colonized Mars running the new rails. I read and waited for the bread to finish, too curious to go to bed yet. I also needed to delay my bandage change as I had been late changing it. And it was a good excuse to stay up late.
With the bread done and approved by Corwin, my tastes were still off from the thrush and dry mouth. I rebandaged and went to bed in my PJs. I soon fell into a peaceful sleep that lasted until sunrise around 5. Yesterday was the Summer Solstice, and the sunrise was early.
Thanks for reading.
Alohawild (Michael Wild's) Website 