Sunday was a strange day as I was up late, after 8, and was going not slow but unhurried speeds. On Saturday, I purchased items at the Vancouver Farmer’s Market to make a nice salad to take to Dondrea, and Z. Dondrea would make her pizza (pesto and various cheeses and meats), and then we would teach Dondrea how to play Wyrmspan. Dondrea would text me later, asking to start at 1 instead of noon. It was a lovely and lazy morning.
I made liberal coffee, which I have been drinking almost every day when home to remind me that liberals must be vigilant from the day Trump was elected President. Yes, liberal coffee, including Fair Exchange-certified coffee, often supports the rain forests—anything to help after the challenge of seeing Trump win. The price of freedom, as written on the National Archives building in Washington D.C., is being ever vigilant (my memory is that the quote was written on this building, but I could not find a site on the Internet to verify this), and I take this warning seriously all my life since seeing the words in Washington D.C. The coffee is a good reminder.
Aside (with respect to both sides of the politics): with the exception of Jan 6th and the document fiasco, I would say that, though I do not agree with most (maybe all) of Trump’s policies, he was effective. He cut taxes for corporations, gave trillions of dollars to people for COVID-19 and to support the economy, ensured that high-tax states would no longer get matching federal tax write-offs (see above link; costing me over $2,000 and more a year), and used that savings to cut taxes for high earners (California, New York State, and New Jersey homeowners took quite a tax beating). He improved the lives of all real estate investors with changes to expense handling. That is pretty effective. Again, I cannot say I enjoyed any of this and would love to see it repealed, but it is the new tax world in which we have lived here in the USA for almost five years now.
(Yes, I am in a more thoughtful mood this Monday morning while writing this).
Returning to Sunday’s outline, I wrote a long blog as Saturday was busy. My legs were sore from the long walks on Saturday, and my weight was circling around 234 pounds. My incision stopped bleeding and appears to finally heal, and I am hopeful that the Bell’s Palsy is starting to fade (I still can’t wink my left eye, my test for improvement). My tastes are still off, and the thrush damage is still there, making eating more of a chore than a pleasure.
While still in my pajamas, I cut up heirloom tomatoes, carrots, lesser-pedigreed lettuce, and celery. I tore the lettuce and used the whole head of iceberg (my favorite, coming from the US Midwest of the previous century, where we did not even know there were different types of lettuce). We even grew it (unlike Oregon, where all you are doing is feeding slugs if you try to grow lettuce unless you take extreme protections–copper tapes, poison, and traps). I added croutons (Olive Garden brand) and wrapped the salad for transport.
I dressed, changed the bandage, and was ready to cross Beaverton in Air Volvo. I checked that Wyrmspan was in the cargo hold and put the salad on the floor of the business class seats. While I did see Beaverton’s Finest, I took Farmington to Hall to avoid the Pride Parade-blocked street and soon was at Dondrea’s house without any opportunities to help offset the cost of running the City of Beaverton.
Dondrea finished the pizza on the grill while Z and I chatted about their trip to the old West (in the strange history of the USA, West can mean the USA Midwest and states in the same column (as it was West in the American Civil War) or the Old West in the Dakotas and Utah (and other states in that line), or here in Oregon, Washington, California, and Nevada, but usually we are called the USA West Coast. Z liked the Old West reenactor city (the name I forgot). Pizza ala Birdie (Dondrea’s nickname) was excellent.
Dondrea was overwhelmed as I went over how to play Wyrmspan and was not sure she would like this game. Z and I reassured her that the game flowed and that, soon, the turns would work for her. And they did, and Z and I watched as Dondrea filled her dragon caves with high-value dragons (wyrms, if you like) and needed little direction for the three remaining rounds of the game. The score was harsh; Dondrea pulled a 113 to our matching 54 scores! We were crushed by a newbie. We split the remaining salad and I headed out at 4:30; Z had youth group.
Air Volvo drove to Matt’s house, and after a moment of drama, I found my character sheet in my Player’s Handbook. Oops. We completed our Spell Jammer campaign today with the final battle against the slaver lord. We first had to unlock the access, and this required us to face a petrification monster. Before we could act, two members of our four-person group soon were statues. I prayed to my god of war and was granted back spells to undo this after our fighter, who is hard to kill or petrify, had done away with the monsters. It was a close thing!
As a writer of adventures in Dungeons and Dragons, I know that some encounters will hit a group of adventures in their weakest areas. It is hard to predict which ones will do that. I write various encounter types when I create an adventure and know that each play will be different. I am surprised when I play my adventures when encounters do this, and often, you only see it once. Matt was surprised that he nearly took us out with a minor encounter. It happens. We recovered and went on to the big boss.
We went with the strange tactic of splitting up and attacking different targets, usually a recipe for disaster, but we correctly guessed that the bad guys had blasting area spells. My evil cleric was targeted over and over as I had used up my high-level spells blasting. I managed to draw off a large group of bad guys. I even called down a fireball from a party member on myself. I lasted with one hit point (actually recovering from a death save), and my high armor class (I am wrapped in plate and shield and shield spell from a ring) saved me for a while. I was killed and dismembered.
Our efforts slew the mage and redirected the ship from our allies. The slave lord was taken out by the plainest of spells, Heat Metal, on his armor. With the mage slain, he had no allies to save him, and he cooked. The rest was the usual run-away exercise as the bad guy ship fell apart. My cleric was brought back and was given new armor (slightly discolored from heating) from the slave lord. Other items were distributed by need.
We are now starting a new campaign, and we said goodbye to one character while my cleric turned good in the new setting (it fits better for the next adventures and gives me more to do). Scott is now a bugbear scout, and I am a good cleric of light (not an evil cleric of war). It was a good finish and restart for some of us.
I returned home after coming back to get my wallet that I had left on the table. I had a snack and went to bed late after reading for a while. There was no bleeding! Yay! I showered and slept.
Thanks for reading.
Alohawild (Michael Wild's) Website 