Sunday Morning Coffee – August 30, 2026

So here we are on yet another Sunday. The sun is shining (more than it was yesterday), I’ve had my coffee and a stroopwafel and I’ve done three (!!) loads of coffee, and my famous Guinness Sloppy Joe is cooking in the crock pot because I’m feeling lazy today. So pull up a chair and I’ll pour the drinks and we can talk about the week that was.

This week was a tough week to start off thanks to the post-concert blues, which seemed to get even stronger Monday and Tuesday. But there were highlights of those days that brought me joy, like finding videos of some of my favorite songs from the setlist, watching the humming birds outside my work window, and my brother Charlie saying there might be some extra YAY/NAY signs floating around thanks to one of my nephews (fingers crossed one shows up!). I also found an online template to create personalized souvenir tickets, which Krystal has said she’ll print for me.

I must emphasize that the humming birds were very grateful with the change in sugar water, and one of them seemed to throw its tiny beak back and gleefully swallow down the nectar. It may have also helped that I also gave the feeder a good scrubbing.

There’s nothing quite like the feeling you get when something is freshly cleaned.

And I feel that myself this week as the cleaning schedule coincided such that the entire house was cleaned top to bottom by Thursday evening, including floors and facilities. It feels fresh and clean and I love it. That’s not to say we live in uncleanliness otherwise, but I do have a hard time mopping the floors as much as I might prefer – but that, too, is my own fault as I just need to update my mop and perhaps the mop bucket as well.

Now, if I can only figure out why the downstairs faucets and such wipe clean easily while the ones upstairs get calcium/lime/rust scale at the drop of a hat – or drop of water, in this case.

I celebrated with a chocolate mug cake:

Tuesday morning I woke up to discover I had forgotten to set any of my alarms, and so while I wasn’t late for work, I was an hour behind my usual routine. I had hoped Tuesday would not be a second Monday, but that was the day we found out Dolly Parton had passed, and while I was out walking, I saw some mushrooms:

Tuesday night was a D&D night, and I haven’t got the notes all up on the wiki yet, but I have updated the images for K2 and Leaf of Autumn. Two highlights of the session included the fact that after many months of sporadic attendance due to life and changing schedules, we had 5/6 players at the table – and we’re looking forward to everyone being able to be back soon. The other highlight for me was when my character Rustle did a massive amount of damage. Thanks to two other players placing debuffs on the enemy we were fighting (a Monstrous Sea Serpent) and additional damage effects provided by the other two players all combined with my own favorable dice rolls, Rustle did 87 points of damage in one round using his fists, dealing a combination of magical bludgeoning, lightning, and necrotic damage – on par with someone casting a third-level fireball!

I want to get some art for Rustle, but I need to find someone able to do some subtle work since Rustle is purplish-black and wears dark armor/clothing. Just like with K2 and Leaf, when the right artist comes along, it’ll all work out.

Speaking of D&D characters, the other day I took a nap and woke up with a character idea fully formed in my head. I have no plans of setting aside any of my current characters, and I don’t think this concept will fit with the currently running campaigns, but again – when the right campaign comes along, they’ll be ready – just like Leaf was ready when Kai needed to leave the party.

This isn’t the warforged character I want to base on Will E. Badger from Hoo-Ha Owl’s Pizzamatronnic Jamboree as seen in Gravity Falls. There’s still some things I haven’t quite hammered out for them.

Let’s see . . . this week my SIL Julia and brother Leroy sent me a text asking what MCR songs I’d recommend. They’d read my post and wanted to listen to some of the music I’d mentioned. They asked for five songs but I gave them six:

• “Demolition Lovers” (Bullets)
• “Helena” (Three Cheers)
• “Welcome to the Black Parade” (Black Parade)
• “Famous Last Words” (Black Parade)
• “S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W” (Danger Days)
• “The Kids from Yesterday” (Danger Days)

I thought it was really nice they asked.

Wednesday we found out about Tim Curry, and so I’ve started watching the movies I’ve got with him in it – though I may have already watched Rocky Horror and Scooby Doo and the Witch’s Ghost multiple times daily . . .

These photos show Tim Curry in

• Scooby Doo and the Witch’s Ghost
• Clue
• Muppet Treasure Island
• The Hunt for Red October
• Annie
• The Three Musketeers
• The Cat Returns
• The Color of Magic
• Scooby Doo and the Goblin King
• Rocky Horror Picture Show

Friday at work was Convocation, which meant most of the workday involved an all-staff meeting, but they also provided an Italian-style lunch.

Friday night Krystal and I went to see a local production of The Shark is Broken, a play about the making of Jaws, and it was simply fantastic. The set may be the best I’ve seen here in town in 20 years, and the cast and crew was spot on in their staging, design, and delivery. I laughed SO MUCH. Of course, we took a few of our own sharks to watch along with us.

Saturday morning I went shopping and nearly found myself in a downpour of rain – except that Past Me had left both a long raincoat and an umbrella. After the groceries, Krystal and I went thrifting and shopping and went out for lunch at Buffalo Wild Wings before getting back home around 3:00 in the afternoon. We had lots of fun looking and came home with a few items, among them a new-to-me desk lamp for my office, a small bundt pan, and a lot of used DVDs (we also ordered a new DVD player online since one of ours has stopped working altogether).

We did not buy the Throne of Johnny Depp or the Plague Fork.

I spent the evening reading; Krystal spent hers resting.

And now here we are on Sunday, and in addition to the things I’ve already told you, I’m also getting caught up listening to podcasts. Right now Old Gods of Appalachia is playing.

What about you?

What are you up to?