Daily Update, November 5, 2023

    I got to bed almost 15 minutes earlier than my earlier times for getting up, so I set the alarm that much earlier for this morning. I called Uber after breakfast, and they came and took me to church. I had a nice talk with the driver, a man who lives out in Puna, but wants to move to town to be closer to his wife's work. Since she works not too far away from me, I tried to suggest places that might be cheaper and not too far from her job. {Smile}

   I got to church, spotted Auntie Barbara, and sat down beside her. The service had begun at 9 am, but I was just in time to hear the entire Gospel reading. That meant I got the full sermon, offertory, and communion, too. I was glad I got that much, considering they started a whole hour earlier than the usual 10 am, and I often have trouble getting there by 10. {Smile}

   The early start was because the bishop had come to help us celebrate our 120th anniversary of becoming a parish. They had some musicians playing nice Hawaiian music -- yes, that's a specific style even here, not just any music. They also had a huge spread. I couldn't try everything; I didn't have room. I particularly tried to go light on the desserts, trying to take small piece, and avoiding anything with much frosting completely. Tomorrow's blood sugar reading will tell me if that plus avoiding snacking both in the afternoon and evening were enough. {Smile} 

   Auntie Barbara took me home afterwards and visited with Mom. She, I, and our main nurse sang a few songs, but Mom didn't sing along on any of them, not even Happy birthday, which she seems most likely to pick if she'll choose. Then I said goodbye to Auntie Barbara. {Smile} 

   I ate dinner with Mom and read to her before that. I started with scripture and thoughts about it. Next, I continued her niece's long family Christmas letter from 2021. After that, I finished 'The Flower Garden," showing her the rest of pictures, and saying a little about each one. Then I read a couple of short stories from _365 Bedtime Stories and Rhymes_. I finished with the 5th of November's story from _366 Stories for Bedtime_, "Hungry Bluetits." In the abandoned garden, things had been left untouched all summer, and the grass and weeds were waist high, making it a perfect place for birds and little animals to make nests. The bluetits mad made a nest in an old apple tree, and even had a second family later in the summer there. They still had a young bird in the nest when the frosts came and killed the insects they like to eat. What could the parents feed their young one? A neighbor lady saw the young one with its hungry, open beak, and fetched some scraps she left nearby. Soon the little bird learned to fly and find its own food. {Smile}

   I did my arm swinging exercises and my head exercises while waiting for Uber to come take me to church. Then I did my walking exercises, my leg exercises, and one of my sitting arm weight training exercises after I was done teaming for the evening. Next, I did my warmup salsa dance set. Then after a break, I did my less structured salsa dance set, followed pretty quickly by my arm resistance exercises. I did my other three sitting arm eight training exercises after a break. I just didn't get to my standing arm weight training exercises today. {Smile}

   I read comics and an article or two to wind down after coming home from church. Then I hopped into City of Heroes: Homecoming. Paradox greeted me with the news that they were waiting for the early long large-group event, so I went ot wait too. I discovered Pierogies there, as well. We chatted as we waited, and then ran the event. After that, the three of us teamed up. I suggested running a couple of early high level story arcs. We did the first pretty quickly and got into the second. We did most of it. Pierogies hoped to get credit for most of it, but he forgot to do something with the second, so auto completed it, as they say for getting credit without actually doing it. Then he was late enough getting into the third, so we ran it a second time, since you can't auto complete two so close together. Then we ran the last one. Pierogies and I got particularly nice rewards. Paradox chose another reward that's by no means bad before he saw my instructions about which is best. but now he knows. They needed to run it again for Pierogies, but he was too tired to do it right then, and I had to dahs off to read to Mom, starting slightly later than I like, but not too bad. {Smile}

   After dinner, I started writing this, then hopped into City of Heroes: Homecoming. Paradox said they had their character parked where they could accumulate stuff while they worked on something else, so I joined a task force that was being advertised. I was over halfway through when Azurette invited me to different task force. I said let me do this one first; I was two and a half missions from the end, but I wasn't sure if it was two and a half, or three and a half, because of some missions having the same name. To my delight, she was still recruiting when I finished, though she filled the last couple of spots as I switched characters and joined, so we started fast. That one went well. She wanted to do another, but one teammate wanted to tour her base first, and she loves to give tours, so we did that. Then we did the other task force she wanted to. That took me right up to exercise time. {Smile}