Paducah is in my autocorrect now.
I’m in the tiny regional jet on the way back now. We were delayed because the incoming plane lost a wagon wheel in Chicago. From the air it’s basically farms, but I can see the river which defines the border between Kentucky and Illinois I think. Or rather what on a map is called the river but is really just a temporary definition considering all the wet land and scour marks on both sides. Right now there is a giant whorl indicating the indecision shown by the now-anthropomorphised river as to which path it feels like taking this decade. Lately it has been influenced heavily by a flood wall built by Paducah which basically doomed Wherever Illinois to being part of the river.
A rare bridge looks exceedingly fragile among a giant wash of indecision. A barge looks anchored for all it’s upstream movement but the white and brown churn behind it suggests it will get somewhere eventually. A power plant and settling pond are on some future headline about being overcome by an “unexpected” flood.
I ate the pretzels this time, and since the plane is basically empty the cute flight attendant gave me the cookies too and this turns out to have been there right answer all along. They’re maple and crispy and probably don’t contain any more calories than I will burn off running through the Chicago airport, or at least that’s what I am telling myself. They claim to be Byrd’s Famous Cookies and who am I to argue with them? Especially when I don’t have internet or their current marketing data.
Regardless, they get 2 Maksas up. I had to think for a while about the appropriate amount of Maksas, and exactly how many represent the available scale. I’m still undecided. It might be 50.
Last week my friends (hi!) surprised me with Maksa Chaksa which they found at an Indian grocery store. Also another thing whose name I forget but am totally looking forward to trying. Probably Tuesday.
Today we went to a western store in search of a fantastic shirt. We found instead fantastic boots and saddles and all sorts of things which were not shirts, among some pretty OK shirts. We went there on the direction of a girl who saw me trying on a fantastic shirt in an antique shop. It was a tiny bit too small in the forearms else I wouldn’t have been seeking the opinion of a teenage girl and her mother and would be telling the story about buying the shirt instead.
Which would just be “I bought a fantastic shirt”
Instead I have the same number of shirts I came with.
I did buy a lamp that’s a robot. Or a robot statue anyway. But I’m going to have to have them ship it for me since it won’t fit in the tiny overhead bin.
Speaking of the overhead, I’ve been wearing a thumb brace all week. I badly hyperextend my thumb jamming my bag into said bin on the way here. Fortunately I was able to with it on and managed to get a lot done this week. We shared lunch which was salmon and tacos and burgers and hot dogs. Not all at the same time.
After all four of us finished working we sat down to play Charterstone. We played all 12 games of the series, which took all week. It’s a legacy game which means there are components that change along the way. Stickers that get applied, things that get named, hidden boxes that get opened. At its heart it’s a worker placement game where each player has a part of the board they can influence to help build an “engine” across the story arc of games. Even the rules change pretty significantly, and player choices determine what is available. It requires a lot of attention but if you like this kind of game and can dedicate 12 games over a reasonable period of time with the same players, I do recommend it. I won’t spoil any of the surprises but there are some clever ideas
We flew DIRECTLY over downtown Chicago which was cool, then looped around a baseball stadium where the Cubs or White Sox are playing.
Landing soon. I think I am going to make my flight but it will be tight.