Saturday is often busy as I connect with people who work on the weekends, but I was once again without any morning items and thus could go slow. But it was the last of Standard Time, and best to get going. I completed the blog by 10:15. I made some mistakes, and, as usual, I discovered them after I published. I quickly fixed them.
I talked to Deborah a few times and texted “Good morning” when I started my morning. We enjoy connecting at the start of my day and when Deborah finishes her day. It is important to us.
I wrote, listened to music, and reviewed the impact of President Chaos-Battleship on my IRA. I sipped my coffee (thanks, Dondrea, for the excellent brew), the darkness and bitterness reminded me of the US econmy which is showing signs of stress with falling employment numbers and now spiking oil prices.
I have lost all my earnings from last November in my conservatively invested IRA! Rising interest rates, huge increases in gas and heating prices, and increasing Federal deficit spending usually spell a deep recession. Ugh! Buckle up!
Aside: I remember as I let the bitterness fill me from the coffee that President Bush ended up as a one-term President after the same issues and starting a war; his party thought him unbeatable. Bill Clinton got two terms, even raising taxes in a recession and imposing retroactive taxes. I remember those tax years and paying lots; yikes! But there was a balanced budget.
After my musing, I showered, applied all those creams, and so on (no cuts while shaving). I dressed and boarded Air VW the Gray with a 60-something percent charge. I had talked to Michael R, and we agreed to meet at 1 to have lunch and chat. Today, we did not have enough time to play a wargame, Class of Wills: Shiloh 1862. I did teach Michael R the card game Flip 7, and we played a few rounds (he won).
At the Broadway Grill in Portland, I had the calzone (more like a folded pizza) with meatballs. Michael R had a Mad Greek salad. I had their beer, a favorite, Mr. Toad’s Wild Red. It is dark red with hints of IPA’s strong flavors.
I dropped Michael off at the OMSI MAX Station to catch the train to his next appointment. I headed over to Lucky Labador; the EV scored a parking spot in their lot. I got another beer (it seemed like a two-beer day), got a bowl of peanuts, and tried to focus on editing a Dungeons & Dragons adventure I want to publish at DriveThruRPG. It was hard to get back into editing and rules for 5E D&D.
At 5:30, after getting a bowl of soup for dinner, a passable corn chowder, I headed to Richard’s. There I was early, and the game was Museum. I had not played it before. It is a complex card-matching game with three matching processes that I never got straight in my head. Kathleen had it down and won, followed closely by Richard, then me, and then Laura. Our scores at the bottom showed our confusion as we expected some things to score that did not. Still not a bad game, but I think it’s hard to teach and would take two or three plays for me to get it. Others, like Kathleen, got it right off. I thought the game did not flow well, and I have played better games. Still, I would play it again.
We played a favorite, Quacks of Quedlinburg, with Kathleen taking over the teaching (Laura did not know it, and I had to be reminded of a few rules). Richard got lucky and stayed that way, but I chased him. Richard actually won every pull! The game is a pull-from-a-bag, push-your-luck game. I played conservatively and never exploded my caldron. We played the basic setup, and it was fun. We agreed that next Sunday, I will bring Grand Hotel Austra (now advertised as an Expert Level game). We will play with the add-ons, Let’s Waltz.
I drove home after talking taxes with Richard. I then, getting there about 11, set all the clocks forward that do not change themselves (my phone and computer) and then went to bed (after updating my creams). I read not more Hornblower (the next book has little nautical stuff but a historical fiction escape story), but returned to Eric Cline and his book on the translated text from finds in Egypt. It is an excellent book, Love, War, and Diplomacy: The Discovery of the Amarna Letters and the World They Revealed (2024). I soon was nodding off, stopped, and slept. I do not remember dreams, but I must have been delivering clay tablets in the dream ancient Middle East.
Thanks for reading.
Alohawild (Michael Wild's) Website 