Tuesday Still Recoverying

I slowly ramped up on Tuesday. I remember that in the series Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Universe, Arthur Dent admits he could never figure Thursday: see here. I am finding Tuesday to be like that for me. I just can’t seem to transition to the work week. I am always starting late on Tuesdays and writing all morning on Tuesdays. I was up late and did not start serious writing until after 9. I found the last banana and a NYC bagel with cream cheese worked for breakfast with locally roasted and ground coffee made in my French press. I wrote all morning. I also read the news, mostly political but with strange, happy notes about the economy and all happy news for us liberals. My Quicken updates took longer; Tuesday seems to have accumulated the changes for the weekend and Monday.

I was not done until about 11 and then showered, shaved, and so on. By noon, I was dressed and ready for the rest of Tuesday. My lawn service started to make noise with leaf blowers and mowers. One of the folks was trimming a holy bush that Glenda tried to kill years ago. We exchanged some words, including Muerte, and the bush is finally gone. Until I stepped on a few holy bush leaves, I liked them. Ouch! 

Our weather is cool and dry with overcast skies, and we Oregonians are happy and all but dancing. The morning smelled of the sea, and the smoke drove back to the east again. No more being bleached by the California Sun! Maybe it will rain soon! That would make our week!

I got out a jar of pasta sauce, something I had not used before, Trader Joe’s Bolognese Style: Tomato and Beef Pasta Sauce. I found a pound of good ground beef in the freezer and used the LG microwave to defrost it (without cooking it in the microwave). I boiled water and heated the sauce in a pan, got out a non-stick frying pan (thanks, Steve), and was ready to make a heavy lunch. I found some mushrooms, also from Trader Joe’s and also in the freezer, and added them to the ground beef. I got the beef to start getting brownish, and the mushrooms added a bit more beef-like flavor. I then carefully poured the sauce into the frying pan and stirred and cooked it on low heat. I undercooked the rigatoni pasta. Which always sounds like an opera to me, which was perfect for this meal: here.

I might have had three bowls. I called Corwin and invited him, who is just over Covid, to enjoy a free meal. He was there about 3, and he chatted for a while until 4ish. The day already vanishing for me. I headed to Big River Coffee in Air Volvo. There, I wrote up some events at our church involving why we have elected to have opioid overdose drugs and training. I shared a first draft and then headed home.

Instead of reheating some pasta, I wanted fried chicken (which I don’t cook because of the mess) and got a spicy meal at Popeye’s. I had one piece of chicken (I could not eat more), mashed potatoes, and a little pie (I received that for giving $1 to Popeye’s Fund to help people). While eating, I watched another episode of last year’s episodes for Sandman, episode four. This is one of the best episodes, with Dream having to fight a battle of wits with Lucifer Morningstar and setting up for the darkest episode, number five. I was not ready to do five again.

It is still bright outside. I walk my long walk to the creek and back, getting my count up to 3,500+ steps for the day. My left foot complains some, but I am not winded, and my back pain is not bad. Many folks are out walking in the cool overcast day.

Back inside, I returned to SMS Derrflinger 1916 and continued with the near-impossible task of putting pinhead-sized coal lids on the model’s main decks. This time, I only lost one when I cut it, and it disappeared when it flipped away. I am getting better and can balance the one-millimeter circle of etched brass on the scalpel, place it on the glue on the deck, and move it into the circle where it goes. I take a stressful thirty minutes of putting on all the rest on the main deck. Another bunch of coal lids go on the higher deck, but I have yet to mount that as I have to replace gun barrels and mount the guns first. I am happy to let the glue dry.

I return to reading and Berlin in the 1930s after a shower, The Last of Mr. Norris. In the story I am reading, which seems so real, the drunken parties in Berlin are now revealed to be spies spying on spies and passing on false information. Everyone is a communist or a sympathizer or at least professes that alignment in the author’s Berlin. I tried to finish and read until late but still did not finish. At the end of the story, the Nazi takeover has happened now. The leader of the communists has been murdered, and others are on the run or imprisoned, starved, and beaten. The teller of the story notes how different his street now looks, decorated in red, white, and black. Fear is constant. Christopher Isherwood’s story is strange, and his storyteller is somewhat cruel in his depictions, but it is still excellent once it gets going.

I soon fell asleep, waking twice to prove hydration and then up at 5:30 because I was cold even in a 71F house.

Thanks for reading!