Yesterday, Patti and I were celebrating my 20 years of working at Disneyland. Today is my 21st anniversary from my hire date. Yesterday, Patti was hanging out with her favorite cat characters. Today, I am hanging out with one of my favorite actual cats, Archie. He was hanging out on our porch, and I was hanging out with him. I was petting him and making sure he had enough food and water. It wasn’t time for his wet food, but we like to get him to eat whenever he is willing. He is still skinnier than we would like.
Something distracted me and I lost track of Archie. I turned to see where he was and stepped right on his tail. Archie let out a screech like I’ve never heard from him. He ran to the corner of the porch and under a small table. I called him, apologizing for what I did, but he just looked at me with fear in his eyes. Patti bought him a little stuffed cat toy of Lamb Chop to match the other Lamb Chops of the girls in the house. I put it near Archie and to my surprise he put his paws on top of it. It was as if he used it like a child who comforts themselves with their favorite stuffed animal. I left him to continue calming down from his trauma.
I had some time, so I worked on the spice rack in the kitchen. When I last worked in it, I wanted to secure it more to the lazy Susan in the corner. We previously bought a piece of wood that I trimmed to fit in between the lazy Susan and the spice rack. It took me several test runs, but I finally got it to fit nicely and keep the spice rack in place. I attached it from inside the circular part of the lazy Susan by putting two small pieces of wood that I could screw into. This was just another problem I had to logic my way through.
Once I secured it, I added a finished piece to the top of the spice rack so it would be flush the lazy Susan swinging door. Getting screws into that little piece was going to be difficult. There was only a small space at the top of the spice rack, and I would have to screw at an angle. I found screws that were just the right size to screw it in place without coming out the other side. I had a long clamp that I held the wood piece in place while I screwed it in place. Even screwing at an angle didn’t move the wood piece. When I took the clamp off, it stayed in place and looked like it was made to be there.
A few years ago, I started listening to some LitRPG audiobooks. They are as if you took a role-playing game and added a story to it. There is usually a computer interface that the main character interacts with. Playing Dungeons and Dragons is the best example of a world the story would take place. When I was a kid, I wanted to play Dungeons and Dragons, but I didn’t have enough friends to do it. Now I could kind of play those games as a fantasy story. It’s also close to playing an RPG game on a computer or gaming system.
One key to listening to LitRPG is the narrator. They must have distinct male and female characters along with making a list of character statistics interesting. The statistics usually come at the end of the chapters, so you can skip to the next chapter if you’re tired of hearing them. I don’t really play video games like I used to, so these books scratch that itch. The best part of these books for me is their length. They are usually 10-20 hours per book in a series. Between each book in a series, I usually listen to a memoir. I need actual stories from people’s lives to balance out the fictional stories. Many people at my work also listen to LitRPG books. We compare good stories and readers. Some people suggest dramatic books to me, but I use those suggestions as an example of what not to read. I need humor in my stories. There’s enough drama in the world. I don’t need drama ruining my entertainment.
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