Monday and Tuesday

Dear reader, it has been a long time since I simply forgot to write a blog…but Tuesday was filled up with overruns and unplanned events. It was a nice day, but never got to tell Monday’s story. It is already fading as a memory; let me start…

Monday

Happy Birthday to Leta, now 98!

I rose after 7, but not too far after. Monday is laundry day (as is Friday), and I grabbed all the towels and got them started in the washer. The kitchen floor is wet. A puddle is on my new flooring! Two different streams from the sink are on the floor, and I see that I did not shut off the water in the kitchen sink, and it dripped all night. But it did not overflow. I have suspected there is a light leak, more of a drip, under the sink, but this time there is a puddle among the cleaning supplies and other whatnot that has accumulated under the sink. Puke!

I open the kitchen sink doors, and there is water, but it appears to be new. Strange. I am thinking a seal dried out while I was away and the house was over 100ºF. There was no AC while I was traveling. The sink has a window, and the hot sun would have baked it. Later, I tightened the collar for the garbage disposer I installed back in 1996 when I moved in. It was my first house repair here at Clarion Street. The original had spectacularly broken into pieces while running and was left at the bottom of the cabinet spinning back in 1996.

A few years ago, the faucet, the second one that Dad Wild and I installed on one of his earlier visits, broke off, and I replaced it. I remember I used all the putty and tape, and maybe that was leaking under pressure, I thought. I turned on the water full, and there was no flood. I ran the garbage disposal; no detectable dampness.

In frustration, I went back to write Sunday’s blog and left the door open to the sink and dried the floor. I checked, and there was no flood. The water was just a puddle under the sink. I would ignore it for a while. I would notice, as I said before, that the garbage disposal, after 29-ish years, was slightly loose. This fit with my thinking that the sink was hot during my trip to Michigan and things had taken some thermal damage. I have found houses are funny when nobody is there for weeks. Things break and change when there is no use. I had a slow leak in the bathroom when Susie had her stroke in NYC, and I was an accidental tourist (though I have never read the book by the same name). Jeff A got the job to rebuild the bathroom, which insurance did not cover as it was a slow leak.

I was glad it was small and likely a drippy leak and did not flood the kitchen while I was away!

I wrote the blog (remember, dear reader, this is Sunday’s as I skipped writing Monday’s blog until this writing), put in my prescriptions that are running out, and sorted my material for playing the Table Top (TT) role-playing game (RPG or TTRPG) Call of Cthulhu, 7th Edition (CoC). My name can be found in the books, as I and many friends, including M@ supported the new edition many years ago. I pulled down old boxes that I have not looked into for years and found all of my CoC stuff. I dug through my figures and was surprised at how few I had, but soon discovered little bags of figures I used for campaigns from years ago and added them to my 1920s store. M@ gave me an organizational box years ago with stickers still there in his handwriting, and then organized my figures. M@ loves to organize things.

(I thought of Deborah when I opened this fortune; our path together has been wonderful).

With the blog published, I shower, find new towels, and get ready to find what Monday will bring me. I have to prep for a three-hour CoC game, and I head to Happy Panda for my usual Americanized Chinese-style lunch. Matty is my usual waiter, and we are happy to see each other. I have the usual chicken with cashews, with extra water chestnuts and less celery. My order means that they have to make mine from scratch; it will take longer and comes out wickedly warm from the recent cooking. It is also a huge heap. Mushrooms have joined this order (excellent), and cabbage is missing, as is celery (great). I have time to reread the adventure I plan to play on Tuesday night, and to assemble in my mind how to play the adventure and to keep it sandboxed.

Disappointedly, M@ contacted me and Rune & Board had not advertised or even placed the game on their website. Sad. I called and, with M@’s advice, I asked Nick, the owner of Rune & Board, to skip Tuesday, as we can’t get any players, and hopefully they can get this advertised and so on. Nick agrees (it is Wednesday now and there are still no updates on Rune & Board, and I will likely pull the next date).

I had ordered a rush on some items that now could have waited. I ordered more packs of candy cigarettes since we are playing the 1920s, and while I am against smoking, it was a thing in the 1920s, and the candy, I think, helps set the 1920s mood. The candy did arrive on Monday.

I still copied, cut out, and prepared a box of materials for the game. It took much of the afternoon, and I assembled a few props (I selected one of the newer magic books to fill in for a book listed in the material I am using). All ready for next week (I hope).

I found that the frig still contained frozen and most excellent talmes and reheated two of them for dinner. They reheated well and still tasted fresh. I watched more Ted Lasso (I am in the first season). I then returned to my office and wrote memos for church paperwork that I have been tasked with and other adjustments now that I am Finance Chair for First United Methodist Church again, despite saying I would never do Finance again. Times change.

While not getting enough walking or other exercise, I was tired from jet lag still (now that I am 60+, it hangs on longer, or maybe it always did) and tried to read more Rex Stout, and I did laugh a few times as I enjoy the high jinx of the detectives in this early Nero Wolfe story. I finished the laundry, discovering I had forgotten about it.

Aside: Rex Stout’s characters, including Nero Wolfe, are not in the public domain until 2030, at least.

I soon slept.

Tuesday

I had only plans to play ISS Vanguard at Richard’s house in Portland on Tuesday, but my day started to get complex.

I rose after 7, closer to 8, and started my day and not the blog, as I knew I would need to leave at 8:45, and I did not get up at 6ish to write it before leaving. I usually write it at Broadway Grill in the late afternoon with a late lunch and a beer or iced tea (depending on how I am feeling about weight loss or if I had my limit of about two a week when not traveling). I checked my funding and was happy that US Bank Wealth Management, after a week, discovered what went wrong and deposited my IRA withdrawal in my checking, and I paid my bills for the start of the month (my Social Security payment is mid-month on the second Wednesday for reasons I do not know).

I downloaded my transactions into Quicken, made adjustments, and then was reading the news (depressing), and my email  (mostly deleting), and before I knew it, I was running late. I did manage to talk to Deborah, who got her car back (after getting a new alternator and other related bits) before I hit the shower, dressed, and all that (including adding those creams, as psoriasis is still resisting in some areas the Kung Foo of Skyrizi). I soon, running about ten minutes late, got to enjoy Air VW the Gray again (trying to not confuse driving Air Chevy, which had a more conventional set-up, with the VW controls) in Portland Tuesday morning rush. The usual thirty-minute trip was extended to forty-five, but I arrived as James (who owns the game) and Richard started the setup.

ISS Vanguard is a simulation of being part of the crew of a starship with elements of running the ship and then exploring as a classic Star Trek away-party. There is a strong storyline and apps to run to avoid endless reading from a logbook (though it is helpful to have a backup to the app). We followed the procedure to start a new mission, and we carefully (it took us about 90 minutes to get going) read through and assembled our crew (I play the engineering section, Scotty if you like). We have one section, Recon, we pass around each play, and Richard had it this time (Richard is Science and James is Security).

(This is the setup for an away mission; Richard had awoken a huge machine)

It took us a while to remember the flow, and there were lots of rechecks until we selected a mission. We then simulated our flight down (it was rough) and then landed on a planet. As Engineering, I had mining equipment and ran mining and planet-related choices in mostly one location. While not exciting, it was very immersive as I ensured we completed our tasks. Richard went exploring, and James then followed.

While the details cannot be written here, ISS Vanguard is all copyrighted stuff; it was immersive, interesting, and exciting. James’ character did not survive the wounds received on the planet and was our first loss in the game.

The game ran very long, with me leaving at 3:30 and Richard and James still following the “save” process. Barb C and Emma C contacted me while I was playing, and we were to connect at 4 in Beaverton at the Carts near City Hall. I was late after enjoying late-afternoon traffic and getting stuck on the Bridge for a while.

While I am not terrified of bridges, I do not enjoy them. The fire truck on the bridge did not improve my mood. It crossed the bridge (there was no issue on the bridge), and its heavy weight flexed the bridge a few inches. An experience I do not care for.

I also heard from the church that they had an issue with the safe. The thing uses a battery, and after years, it has finally died. You must use a key to open it. There was a lot of back-and-forth, and I called. Finally, the next day, the safe was back and running with new batteries and locked again.

Barb, Gordon, and Emma were running late, and I, now at the carts, had plenty of time to finish my church paperwork and spent the hour enjoying the outdoors under an umbrella and the energy of the crowds to get my paperwork going. With a new time, I went to find a beer to celebrate the paperwork, and waited. It was a glorious day to be outside (the partially cloudy weather cut the blazing sun) and, being the Pacific Northwest, the clouds did spit some drops. Never trust a cloud here! You will get soaked!

Barb, Gordon, and Emma appeared, and we had a great meal with brewed products to help enjoy the delicious food. Nothing was repeated, and everything was good (and not too overpriced, but never cheap). We missed a great time for a photograph. We talked about travel and gaming, and enjoyed our chat. We will connect again on Wednesday.

I returned home, watched more Ted Lasso, and then went to bed still feeling the jet lag. I totally spaced writing the blog and went to bed.

Thanks for reading!