I rose closer to 8 than 7 and was soon drinking reheated coffee and back in my office writing and trying to reassemble the previous day into a narrative. The narrative this time was a bit disjointed, but that was a new way of writing it. It is important to try new things and also to get it done. Writing and publishing every day is not easy, but it has its own pleasures. The mental exercise and writing practice are always good. I only regret the time, as there is always something to do in the morning that gets missed. But still, it is worth it, I think.
Focus was messy, and a pheasant appeared in the backyard. I did not know we had them. Dondrea looked at it after I called her with a what-is-that photo. Yup, the usual pheasant, and they are hunted here. I had no idea and did not expect a pretty male in the backyard.
To me, it looked like he was wearing a collar with a bow tie. A formal affair on the lawn!
I had a few other distractions and was reading more election news. It looks like Alaska, after running voter-ranked updates, will still go blue. I talked to the church, and Wendy was waiting for me. I tried to rush. I got the blog out with a few last-minute inclusions that I pinned at the end. I could not pull on the threads of memory and get one continuous story. Instead, I would find another thread that seemed unconnected to the others. I pasted them in instead of rewriting again.
I published the blog by pasting a link on Facebook and emailing others. Some have subscribed and get an email when I publish. I also have some fellow bloggers who get my blog as a suggestion from WordPress. I peek at their sites. They have excellent sites. I do not see many that post more than once a week. Hmmm.
I shower and all that. I next head to the garage. Air VW the Gray now under a safety recall and cannot charge over 80%. This cuts my range by 50 miles, to 250-ish on an 80% charge. And while annoying, the 80% charge is faster, as physics means that the next 20% takes the same time and power as the first 80%. The lost power generates heat, and it seems this heat has, in a few cases, been too much. I unplugged it at 81%
Aside: In cases of excessive heat, some batteries in an EV battery pack balloon. This then crushes other batteries, causing them to short, releasing all the power stored in them immediately and starting a fire that cascades into shorting more and more batteries. Kaboom. It is like lighting off a gas tank in a conventional car. Releasing all the power in all the gasoline at once is bad too.
I head to the church, and Wendy is happy to see me. Jack C and I use the cart to move the 4,900+ mass-mailing postcards. The USPS only takes up to 5,000 in a submission. Last time we did this in three batches, but this time Wendy has split it into two uneven parts for the 9,000+ cards.
The cart catches three times, as Jack C and I struggle with the larger mass. We dump them three times, but manage to reassemble them back into the proper batches. We get them to the cargo hold and then out again, but the cart hits a bump, and we scramble. It would have been funny to watch. Like Red Green doing a mass mailing for Possum Lodge; we both had suspenders on (for those who need a reminder of who this is here). While I filled out the forms, Jack explained he was wearing his extra-strong suspenders so we wouldn’t get plumber’s crack. The mail guys were dying laughing. They accepted the mailing, and I took Jack C back to the church, returned the cart, and gave Wendy the receipt. Done!
I headed off to return my shirts at REI and soon was chatting with the clerk about Brazil and our trip. I have found that REI staff love to talk about travel, hiking, and their product. I found three new shirts, light material, for the trip, XXL and a bit stretchy. They fit. Added to my pile of things for Brazil.
I then went to Jersey’s Mike for a sub. I like the Spicy East Coast Italian. I walked in, said I was there to enjoy their excellent sandwiches, and they told me that they were out of lasagne and other pasta dishes (they don’t have them). They offered me a bread-and-lettuce sub to take to a nearby Italian pasta joint for a lasagne sandwich. I chose my usual instead and had it cut into quarters. I ate just a quarter and saved the rest for later.
I returned home and tried to stay calm, as I have a Dungeons & Dragons game, the first one in about a decade at the house, and picked up a NY-style take-home-and-cook pizza with a plain salad. I got the game ready and set up my usual start of a graveyard and did my bad Scottish accent (trying to channel M@’s acting skills while playing DM for our games) when Emma, Mariah, and Joan S showed up at 6:15-ish to play.
Mariah had some basic ideas, and Emma was an expert player. Joan S was new but rolled more 20s than I have ever seen. Emma created the characters for everyone and handwrote all the information in perfect tiny handwriting.
I had my tree collection, and soon the story started with Emma poorly negotiating a price to clear the local graveyard of “shinnagins” from some passing necromancer. They headed there with their 15 gp paid in advance (it was so cheap that even the town leader, Jim, paid it now) and soon discovered an animated skeleton was loose in the graveyard.
They decided to take it from a distance, as Joan was a rogue and was good at it. Also, Emma was playing “laser cleric” and started blasting from a distance. But while Joan S perfect 20s continued on her hide rolls, this left only two targets for the undead, which produced a hit on Mariah’s barbarian orc.
A rush and more long-distance shots, and the undead creature was re-deaded. But more started to crawl out of the ground (I have specially made figures for this look, but they are mummies; still, they looked the part). The battle continued, and soon more undead were popping out of the ground like weeds. The cleric, Emma’s character, tried a poison spell (but failed an intelligence check; these undead are immune to poison, being animated bones). The blasting worked better the next time after the undead missed the second time (I was not rolling the 20s that Joan S was).
Cultists were found to be hiding in the ruins of a chapel (I wish I had taken a picture of the setting). The DM was surprised by how fast they were dispatched; Joan S’s character was unstoppable. With that done, I practiced with new D&D players. It was fun and helped everyone get used to the play and the new characters. Everyone had a good time and got their turn in the spotlight. Prefect.
We started the Caverns of Tracia campaign, an original 1970s adventure that has been converted to 5E, with a fast-forward to the dungeon crawl, as the travel and finding are less interesting, I think, than just walking down steps into a lost complex, the meat-and-potatoes of old school tabletop role-playing games (TTRPG). The adventurers hired someone to carry their light. Joan S has a human who cannot see in the dark. I had a light-bearer figure (another TTRPG, Frostgrave, has special figures, including the cultists and the light-bearer we used).
The adventure started with them not scaring the bats (I rolled my first good roll, but it was for the light-bearer). We ended after the players had the crap beat out of them by lizardmen, with one lizardman already injured by a previous encounter. I should have reduced the number to two, as monsters are, despite their low rating, too strong for 1st-level newbie adventurers with 20+ hit points and 20+ attacks.
We stopped with the lizardmen, realizing the puny adventurers weren’t the usual bad guys and might be willing to heal their wounds, and called a halt, as they had bloodied the adventurers.
And with that, the players, Emma, Mariah, and Joan S, headed out, wondering what would happen to them next Thursday when we start again. I put the dishes in the dishwasher and ran it. I managed to resist pizza, but I did have a bit of salad. Later I had some cheese with some pickles, as I seemed hungry tonight.
I started a new spy show, Black Doves, set in London, after hearing Keira Knightley, who stars in it, say in a BBC interview celebrating the release of season 2 that it was a crazy fun show. In the interview, with her now playing a spy and doing fight scenes, she said she was ready to take over the role of James Bond. I watched three episodes and didn’t go to bed until after 12:30. It was fun and recommended.
I soon fell asleep and woke up once. Thanks for reading!
