As the day went on, I was coughing more and more. I think it was just the cough meds wearing off, and I am still tired from the flights, packing, and freezing on the USS Constitution on Sunday. The time difference, three hours, cannot be helping. I went to Safeway and got some more High Blood Pressure (HBP) versions of cold meds at 8 at night and could sleep soon. I also got holiday Milano cookies–Double Dark Chocolate–which might have helped as much as the meds!
I rose early at 7:45 and had some food, plain raisin toast with a banana, read the news, updated Quicken with transactions, and enjoyed liberal coffee made in my French Press. The taste of liberal every morning started when President Trump was elected for the first time. The coffee bitterness reminds me every morning how much work we liberals have to do and provides me with the Hope (maybe that is the caffeine, but it feels like Hope) that someday the world will remember Justice, Compassion, and the love of Community. I recommend drinking liberal coffee every morning.
Soon, I was rushing and fighting the drifting-like feeling and cleaned up, showered, and dressed. Using the recently laundered underwear and socks. Traffic was slow through Beaverton, taking thirty minutes to transverse the Tualatin Valley Highway (which even had its own wiki page here) to reach 217, which feeds into 26, which leads to 405, and gets me to the stadium area not far from Richard’s house. I was only a few minutes late, but James, coming from Washington State, appeared a few minutes later.
While we waited for James, I described my trip and said that Deborah and I were now seeing each other. Richard, James, and I start another scenario of the Second Edition of Mansion of Madness. James, who purchased a pre-painted used copy, found some pieces missing. This scenario was missing most of the boards and miniatures, but we found substitutes, and the app that runs the game provided most of the information we needed. This scenario, rated as difficult, was the first time I felt the game captured a Lovecraft modern horror feel. The sanity and health loss were slowly building and created a more subtle clock in the game–better. This was a re-animator story, and we actually, on our board, barricaded the chapel against a seemingly endless supply of zombies. Ultimately, we solved most of the scenario by defeating the main monster, abruptly ending the battle with the world facing a zombie invasion. Oops! I suspect there was a better solution to stop the zombies, but still, it was excellent and immersive. I really felt that this play was worthy of the subject. I am tempted to play it again and try to find another non-world-zombie-invasion solution.
I was tired and headed home hungry and exhausted. I resolved to cook a pork chop, got home, and talked to Deborah, who was now going home after work. I defrosted the chop, cleaned up some fresh green beans, steamed them, and then wilted them in a frying pan with butter, sliced almonds, and fresh sliced garlic. I reheated some potatoes from Costco that I made from frozen the day before.
The porkchop was fried in a metal frying pan on butter, with the chop covered with generic Italian spices and salt and pepper. Once sealed on both sides, I moved the whole into a 350F for ten minutes. With the internal temperature of 170F, it was done on time. I removed the chop from the pan, put a hot pad glove on the handle (it is 350F hot and is not fun when you forget and grab it), and added water and cornstarch to make a pan gravy that I poured over the potatoes. It was a lot of food! I could barely finish it. I finished the green beans, which were two helpings.
As usual, I watched Battleship New Jersey videos and ShipHappens (though I did fast-forward some of their endless repairs) while eating, with the history of the reactivation of the battleships and their final deactivation better explained. I remembered the argument in the 1980s that the WW2 armor was more protection from missiles and could likely take multiple hits without loss, unlike modern ships where one missile would take out a warship and two hits likely destroy the ship and kill the crew. The story, as told by Ryan, the curator of the battleship, is more direct. The US Navy had no new vessel to mount the latest missiles, and the battleship could be updated to carry them. Also, there was a dispute that the US Navy mission included using big guns to provide invasion support, and only the Iowa class, the ship class of USS New Jersey, could fit both missions. I did not know this story. The Iowa’s were finally removed from service as the new navy ships came online carrying the missiles with the Regan’s Navy build-up. Congress would not pay the two billion estimate and would not wait five years to upgrade/rebuild the Iowa class into battle carriers. The argument for the need for big guns, while disputed, was abandoned. A fascinating history of the Cold War, with the Navy mission changing from defeating the Soviet Union to facing ad hoc but still just as deadly threats from Iran and other ‘rogue’ nations.
BTW: The Russian nuclear-powered Peter the Great is the last big ship classed like the Iowas (here) in service and was the reason for reactivating the Iowa class battleship (now all museum ships).
I was slow and coughing. I was out of focus and decided to just stop. I decided to shower, put on my PJs, and read. The new book,
Thanks for reading.
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