Tuesday with games

Tuesday is my day to travel to Portland to Richard’s house for an early board game. These are cooperative board games with storylines. James brings the game from his collection, and now we are playing, with an app to control the play, Tainted Grail. This is a cooperative team game with a dark theme of SciFi and Fantasy set in a re-write of the Arthur legends. We had not played for a month as I had travel, The Machine repairs, and then some summer breaks from Richard.

Air VW the Gray is ready to take me to Portland after I clean up and dress. The blog was just started, and I saved it. I take my Apple with me. I left early at 8:25 and managed to reach Richard’s early, the first time in a while. The driving was slow, but once off Highway 26, it went fast. I will try to start by 8:30 now.

(Yes, I play the Druid Maggot).

We had some trouble remembering the rules, but my usual DM thinking, years of running games, helped me recall the play, unwind the previous session in my mind, and explain some points. We soon were back into the game, though I did tell some stories of my travel in Iceland, and that led to James remembering some hiking in California. We spent the morning and into the afternoon finding our way in this dark simulation of a haunted and magical land. My character took a beating. Richard had built up his character with many items and was now quite powerful, able to handle many battles by himself. I joined in a few and managed to help a few times. This gave me more experience, which is the currency to increase your character, but not any new items. I need six experience markers to establish an ability that is constantly appearing on combat cards; until then, I have many actions I cannot take in battles.

We explored the world, and we were of two minds (mine and Richard’s). I believed we needed to move East and re-establish our starting location. Richard thought we should explore, fight, and strengthen our characters, and learn new secrets of this world. Both ideas do overlap, and I do explore and fight when I can. While the game is slow going for my taste (few think of D&D as fast, but compared to these board game RPGs, my play and DM-ing is rocket fast). We reached the end of the turn, and it was 2PM, and that was enough for me. We packed it up (there is a ‘save’ process for the physical game).

I parked on the street in Air VW the Gray, and walked over. I was happy that folks in Portland were now honoring the crosswalk (I remember having to walk out and halt traffic for Susie before). I found a table at The Broadway Grill and ordered a meatball-including calzone, The Spicy East Coast. This was great with their heavy Mr. Toad’s Wild Red beer. This is a favorite of mine, but I did get a bit dizzy as I got the beer before the food. I finished the blog and talked to Deborah a few times. The food was great, and soon I was headed home in end-of-day traffic.

Once home without any challenges or missing paint on the EV, I reviewed my financial items, cleaned up some transfers, and added my new Delta Amex to Quicken. I also tried to buy a Treasure Bill, but later learned that my account number had changed at US Bank for my savings account. I forgot they had changed it after my bait-and-switch rate expired, which made me unhappy. Oops. It was the end of the auction, so there was no way to correct it. On Wednesday morning, I connected with the TreasuryDirect help desk and got some things corrected, but that will be in the next blog.

Linda sent me pictures of her frig pickles. She has a large harvest of cucumbers, and I suggested she peek at Joshua Weissman’s cookbook (I gave a copy to Meg for a questionable choice of texts for a then twelve-year-old). She followed the recipe and process and produced an excellent-looking set of pickles. She did question my aging and brownish now pickles (they are great).

There was an earthquake, and I called and texted family and Deborah to let them know that the resulting tsunami would hit here, but I was not near the coast and would not head there. Hawaii had chaos as they had no idea how bad the waves would be; the waves did little damage and caused flooding, and I watched online as the waves hit. I went to bed when the event was not too bad (the waves were about a meter tall).

I choked on a glass of water and inhaled some of it. This caused me to start coughing, which seemed to stay with me. It was hard to sleep. I had another terrible dream where I was trapped, crawling through narrow locations and suffocating. I wake, and I am drowning in the air. I get up, find my emergency inhaler, have some water, and take some ibuprofen to reduce any swelling. I am wheezing now. Ugh!

I sit in the living room chair and try to nap, which I manage to do, and then I get a text from Deborah. No problems from the tsunami this far inland. At sunrise, always thinking of Dad Wild when I see another sunrise, I head back to bed, manage to not think about wheezing, drowning, or breathing, and sleep until 8! I wake with a cough, but it is an irritation and lack-of-sleep cough. Not COVID-19 or a cold.

Thanks for reading. I am glad to see another day and a sunrise.