Tuesday with Challenges

Tuesday started as most do with my alarm waking me way before sunrise, and I slowly rose to find my way; I did sneak in 30 minutes more, but fell asleep only a few minutes before the second alarm (or so it felt). Coffee was not ready as I found the kitchen (it has not moved, but on some days it seems further and a more complex trip) before the timer and pushed the button to start the mechanical summoning of the dark wake-up juice.

The dark flavor (from Kalamazoo and a gift from Jeanne) reminds me of how much work we liberals still have to do to find Justice with Compassion in the USA and keep it. The song reminds us, “We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered.” And hopes soon we will come “Out from the gloomy past, ’til now we stand at last where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.” I stip the better waters and have hope for the future, but sometimes I hear those words, “How long!” Song is here.

But I had little time for thinking about all that was going wrong! I downloaded my transactions into Quicken to keep my investments up to date and ensure they haven’t been captured by the various forces of darkness. Nope, just boring stuff. Bills paid. I then turned to the NY Times for an update on the chaos that is today’s news. Again, teargas is flowing in Portland, this time from ICE. Yesterday, a judge restricted the use of teargas to only life-threatening situations. The videos of children being gassed by ICE seemed to upset the judge.

I read other news, trying to understand Wall Street, with the exception of the goldbugs and silver crazies, everyone is just watching strange waves of up and then down. My IRA balance, held and invested by U.S. Bank Wealth Management, rises and falls like the tide now, a 5% tide. I called my advisor, Sam, and told him I would prefer more exposure to the EU, but that was only a mild suggestion. He and I agreed that it is impossible to understand Wall Street right now, and our conservative play with the tide is best for now. No changes.

I harvested my Ford and JPMorgan stocks and transferred the cash to my savings account at U.S. Bank, which pays a lower rate but is very liquid. I am pushing off the day when I need to withdraw some cash from my IRA to live on (with tax consequences). I plan to give Sam and friends a long window of investment earnings before I need to take some earnings for expenses and travel with Deborah.

Before all the investment stuff, I showered, put on more anti-rash stuff, dressed, and all that, and soon was in Air VW the Gray to Richard’s house in Portland. Beaverton traffic was slow, and Portland drivers were changing lanes with confidence in their faith. Most must have been assured that their soul were in good balance, or the next life was a good option, because some vehicles were driving as if there was nothing to fear. But somehow still being below the speed limit the whole time! I managed to reach Richard’s place without loss of paint on the leased EV.

James arrived a few minutes later, coming from Washington State, and soon we took on the mantle of our characters in the board game Tainted Grail. We were optimistic we would make progress on our chapter (the seemingly never-ending chapter 7, notoriously hard to complete, according to what we have read on the Internet), but we made an error and supported the wrong side. This will not shorten our chapter! We found an area we explored before, but now, with properly updated characters, we can dive deep and make a map. We wandered the game board, playing from 9:30 to 1:30, crossing it twice. Only a little progress was made. But we did get more supplies and further developed our characters. Maybe next game!

We packed up the game, using the manual save process, to return next week. Next, I drove back across Portland, still dodging self-assured “It is good with my soul” drivers on the bridges and ramps. I was filling in for a distracted driver as Mom Wild’s facility (in Michigan) called while I was driving. Mom had fallen and was in the ER.

I listened, then called my sister, who didn’t answer, and sent a note saying she was in a medical thing. I then used the hands-free to send a rather lengthy text. Linda found her way to her mom and soon took over. Mom Wild needs some physical theropy was not badly hurt. Details are not mine to share.

I arrived at home, made lunch-dinner from an insanely spicy lamb vindaloo frozen dinner from Trader Joe’s. I added a dollop of sour cream to ease the pain. It was good.

Laundry was folded and put away. Dishes done. But the choice of cleaning, writing with solo board gaming won out. I wanted a break with some social interaction, too. Off to the local Wildwood Taphouse, but I took smaller-sized beers. I am conscious that I need to buy calories for good value. An average flavored good beer is not enough, I need to buy those calories with something excellent, or not drink it.

A few small groups were meeting and enjoying a few beers. I had been missed, and they were happy to hear I was well. They remembered I was traveling much of the end of 2025, and they remembered Deborah, and they were happy to learn we were still traveling together and happy. Like the song, “everyone knows your name.”

I sat at the bar and edited my Dungeons and Dragons adventure. The base of the text is good now. I am fixing some wooden wording and unclear passages, but it is ready to use. Just more polish. I have to resist Grammarly updates as some usages are game-centric. Lately, it takes out commas and then puts them back; repeat.

I get a few more pages done and finally enter the encounters, the part that is actually played. I added notes about my last play for the next DM. I am thinking of a few improvements to suggest for the last encounter and add some drama. More to follow.

I also read the rules for the board game, Plague of Dracula, one of my new solo games. It uses a deck of cards with a uniform distribution of random numbers instead of dice. This means that luck is much reduced, and there is a discussion in the rule book that the feel of the game will be changed if dice are used (which, while over large usage will generate a uniform distribution, but in small sets can be quite uneven). I later read that the game uses AI-generated art. Hmmm. I used that too for the pictures of my Howard stories, but not sure I should just delete it and make it just text. More Hmmm.

Aside: I have suggested for years that two-person wargamers use a list of computer-generated but perfectly uniformly distributed values and put away the dice. They can make multiple sheets and cross out used numbers. Changing the sheets at major breaks in the game (for example, a new day in a full Gettysburg wargame). One can ‘game’ the list a bit, but if sixty or so numbers per sheet (1-6, ten times, and then randomly mixed) makes this difficult, and keeping the numbers under a sheet of paper to prevent seeing the next one, is all you need to remove most of that.

I finished my two beers, small ones, some pretzels, and let the pay-if-forward wall pay for much of my drinks. Wildwood lets folks pay extra and put the money toward someone else. In my case, there was a colon-rectal cancer survivor $12. I gave a 25% tip on the remaining tab.

At the house, I punched and bagged Plague of Dracula and watched a how-to-play video (with corrections) on Board Game Geek (BGG). I printed out a revised rule set dated only a few days ago. I updated a link in BGG for these rules. I nodded off at one part, but managed to get the general idea. I saw there are quite a few entries on rules, and the game designer, Mike Nagel, is answering them. Excellent.

I make some salami, cheese, and a few crackers for a snack (no dinner), then watch more YouTube videos from the late-night comedians. I get much of my news from this, since doomscrolling is now considered too harmful. The fact that the U.S. Justice Department, in the release of the newest section of the Epstein Files, left naked photos of young women and the names of the victims while blacking out names and photos of Trump (that were obviously him), which is outside the law and rules required, just hurts too much. I hear those words again, “How long?”, Rev 6:10 echoing Psalm 13. Indeed, how long?

I enjoyed a more friendly YouTube and read more rules. Finally tired to go on, and tired of the world, crawled into bed, and felt the warm bed, and slept. I did not wake until sunrise.

Thanks for reading!