Going back, I reached the house from Matt’s house before ten, and I had a slice of bread with peanut butter as a snack. M@ cooks us burgers with some keto buns, and Scott, who does not eat meat, has dinner before he heads to M@’s place. I just wanted something tasty, and peanut butter and toast worked. I also caught another For All Mankind episode and found it interesting to have watched the recently made prequel and how the two shows fit together. I assembled French Bread in my bread machine, always weighing my flour. The last tries were flops, and I replaced the flour and yeast since then, but I have not made anything lately. I leave it running overnight and later fall asleep to the smell of yeast. I do dream, and I am traveling again in my dream world, then returning to work. I am so much younger. Most of the dreaming details are lost to me now.
Before this, I was at M@ playing Carter the Great, my sorcerer/bard, as we descend to the bottom of Hell to learn the secrets of how to destroy an unholy relic. We are also rescuing lost souls. Tonight, Ulysses, my wizard gnome who invented a way to make fried abyssal chicken that has flavor in hell (where all food usually tastes of ash and dust and does not satisfy), not KFC but UFC, soul will be rescued from damation. Without spoiling or risking copyright violations, I will say we rescued what was left of Ulysses and ran from most combats. Scott’s non-combat monk was beat up and had to be healed. My character and others staged a fake robbery and the resulting fight, and even sang during the pretend robbery while a real robbery was being committed by Scott’s character. Fake blood, multiple rounds of “combat,” and the rest had us finish up the whole recovery before we ran out of gaming time. Off to the third level of Hell!
We had a problem in the restaurant, as Ulysses was suffering from irony, a tool for punishment in hell, and was built into a golem tasked with being a short-order cook. We finally intimidated the owner into giving us the golem, which we then had to violently and dramatically disassemble in the marketplace. Since it was Hell, it counted as entertainment and broke up the monotony. Scott is enlarged and dragging our boat out of harm’s way. My figure, in blue, is facing a bone devil, and that went poorly, nearly killing Carter in one set of hits! Jack’s character is in a nightmare. Scott, sort of a Flash-like character, ran us out of the battle. The devils had objected to the moral outrage of one of our characters (not Carter, who is a charlatan and sees Hell as just another place full of opportunities for his special skills).
Before this, I rose closer to 8 than I will admit here; I made coffee and started to write the blog in my office. It was partially cloudy, which would burn off to mostly sunny. The wind is back, the harbinger of fall, from the high desert, East to West, and colder than the still air. The cold, heavy air flows into the Columbia Gorge, then blows west over the Portland hills, bringing cold, sometimes freezing, air to the valley. Sometimes called the Coho winds. The rains, pushed out a day, are now predicted to start on Wednesday and last a week.
I write, finish the blog, have some chai pudding (I used too many chai seeds, but I will try to get it right next time), and then dress and board Air VW the Gray. I dress in tan slacks, a biz shirt, a sweater vest, and a brown butterfly tie from Deborah.
I still need a haircut.
I usher and listen. Brian, our organist, is out at his grandchild’s first birthday party. The praise band manages, and Eric K does a nice solo too. Dondrea, tired from running 17 miles in Hood-to-Coast, is doing her usual directing and then steps up to give the sermon too.
Her theme comes from Matthew’s story of his calling with the other tax collectors, 9:9-13. And Dondrea reminds us that Jesus called out mercy, not sacrifice. It is better to eat with and forgive sinners than the best sacrifices of time and treasure. While Z, the liturgist today, read the text listing the sinners, I amused the folks in the back by adding Methodists to the list, especially Carl, who was near me. Being in the back, unseen except by the folks up front, is a special advantage of being an usher.
Dondrea pointed out that we often feel special for all our work and attendance at church. But maybe we should be out there eating with sinners and bringing mercy these days. Mercy should be our focus.
With that, and some easy-to-sing hymns, we broke for coffee. I helped to put the money away and then headed out. I was soon home after committing a caloric disaster at Carl’s Jr. and a Western Burger. I was tired and rested a bit at the house. Corwin stopped by to pick up a package, then made pizza. I headed off to M@’s.
And that takes us full circle. Thanks for reading!
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