Building And Gaming

Friday I slept in as long as the cats would let me - which was not long - because I was going over to Hannah and Julie's to help with their next step in their project to make the back slope useful for gardening and other fun.
First I went to the Post Office drive through to mail my MassMutual pension information - another life milestone.

Mostly I was too busy to take
photos, but you can see the
little deck partly done

At Hanna and Julie I met their longtime pal Izzy who showed a whole lot of very practical construction skills as we developed what I would have called an impossible safe walkway around the back corner of the house leading down to the back slop gardens. They'd already put in footers and posts; our job was to build a little deck for the corner that we'd called the "Non-OSHA-compliant corner" and fix the path with shoring and a railing. Since I'd helped with hauling dirt to the gardens last month, they'd put in footers and posts and the concrete had plenty of time to dry.
We had an initial problem attaching a board to the last solid concrete step, because no matter how carefully you measure, the holes you drilled in the concrete just might not match the hole you drilled in the board. Despair! We were about to re-drill the concrete and sink more metal sleeves to match the board when I asked, in all innocence, if we could somehow redrill the board to match the concrete. How to do that when, if you hold the board up to the concrete, you can't see the concrete? Julie realized she could make a paper template by holding up a long sheet of paper (from bags taped together) and rubbing with the side of a crayon. We saved so much work using those crayon rubbing lessons from 2nd grade! (Julie might have been thinking about doing gravestone rubbings on the trip they were supposed to be taking right now that was canceled due to the virus but I was thinking of the plastic maple leaves that as a child we used for leaf rubbings - I don't know whether they were intended for trivets or to enable leaf rubbing play.)
We needed rubble, preferably rocks, concrete and cinder blocks, to shore up the path and supplement the 2x8 defining its downslope edge. Fortunately the neighbors across the street was cleaning out an area full of rubble so we got what we needed just for the hauling. I have never been so appreciative of the invention of the wheelbarrow!
I basically supplied dumb labor ("here, crank this bolt into the wall while I drill the next hole") which is its own form of meditation; there was also some creativity in with the rubble stacking. It really is an interesting problem thinking about rock shape, gravity and rain.
I got home in time for a shower before the 8pm Zoom DND game. Our group is beginning to come together. I realize I have to work on the narrative side in the episode recap; the DM had put some effort into the journal we had found but because I hadn't thought about integrating it into the recap the start of the story wasn't as epic. Learning!
I also have some issues with a plug-in affecting my dndbeyond interface; I plan to have that figured about by the next game in 2 weeks. Most of the time these days I am doing serious stuff, working around the house or helping with various nonprofits or my friends, but some straight-up recreation like this is important!