Milkman come in!

This weekend was bunny_hugger's parents' birthdays. Both of them; they had the good order to have birthdays in successive days. We only went the one time, all that would be compatible with bunny_hugger's work schedule. At that, bunny_hugger had to take a bit of time away so she could do her daily walk. (I've not been walking outside, to minimize strain on my feet, although I will walk around the living room for something like exercise.) Lucky that she did, too, as in the park nearby she spotted someone with a car stuck in the snow, and was able to be part of the team digging the car out (using a walker cane) and pushing the car out. So she had a useful day.

That's not to say I did nothing useful, or even had a bad time. I was just me, hanging around and happy to be there and cracking up when, at one point, her father asked Alexa, ``Is y a vowel?'' Alexa processed this question and answered (something like) ``According to Patent Filing Online dot com, bottles can sometimes be used to contain liquids''. You never expect Zippy the Pinhead to happen in real life. (I can sort out what Alexa probably did, which is parse the question as having ``why'' and ``bottle''. Finding a authority to reference to explain what a bottle might be used for, though? That's glorious.)

bunny_hugger's mother made dinner, a rarebit casserole, which we always like and which inspires me to think I should make that myself sometime. She used a little bit of the 12-year-old cheddar gotten them as a Christmas present and, though she said it was just a bit? It mattered a lot. Really, really good flavor. Lesson about what a little bit of quality material will do. She also made a cake for dessert, a vanilla (bunny_hugger's father's choice). It may seem like a lot of work for your own birthday, but understand: she hadn't heard the Mexican place in town had reopened after renovations.

After dinner we resumed our Mice and Mystics game. We had been in a precarious spot, with three rooms to get through --- each with a fresh set of adversaries --- and not much margin before game time would run out and we'd lose the chapter. Which, uniquely, the game book said we should not replay, and should instead go on with the failure reflected in whatever chapter came next. Fortunately, my character was going in with an advantage: if he attacked a villain lower on the initiative track, they'd have less defense. Unfortunately, he got put at the bottom of the track for two of the following three rooms.

Still, we had an uncannily good progression, from there. Good strategy and lucky rolls combined to get us through two rooms uncannily fast. We had two special items to use and we were ready to use them, too. However, one of them --- the assistance of the barn owl --- we could only use in two of the three rooms (the above-ground ones) and we guessed wrong about the room we might use it in. The second --- a levitation spell --- we were ready for when I realized we could use the fishhook and thread we've had a while now for the same purpose and surer survival. Well, we did use a special item, a magic trick to get the villain --- in that room, a snake --- to ignore one character. And, to our disbelief ... we won. We barely advanced the game clock, and we only forgot the special advantages each of our characters had a couple of times. It was amazing.

bunny_hugger finished the day with a round of updating her parents' software and reassuring them that an e-mail from realapplestore@scamemailserver.crook was not related to their calling the Apple Store for help in something recently. Successful day all around.

Let's peek back in at the Turner-Dodge House a little now.

Peeking inside a closet to see a round in a puzzle game where you have to, I don't know, deduce the luggage combination from environmental clues? Something like that. Or maybe the tuxedo's about to attack.

This Christmas tree isn't just decorated with houses. It's also got a carousel ornament that's at least very close if not identical to one of ours.

Atop that tree, it appears that Santa's had what they call a Controlled Flight Into Tree.

Trivia: The International Olympic Committee announced the 17th of February, 1968, that South Africa had been reinstated in the Olympic Movement. Protests and threats of boycotts of the Summer Games from athletes and African nations threatened to overwhelm coverage of the last days of the Grenoble games. The International Olympic Committee reversed its reinstatement of South Africa. Source: Encyclopedia of the Modern Olympic Movement, Editors John E Findling, Kimberly D Pelle.

Currently Reading: Asteroids, Clifford J Cunningham.

PS: The Plan, and How It Will Go Wrong, or, why my A-to-Z didn't resume this week.