So, while reviewing yesterday's blog post, "The Nail," in order to type comments to comments from commenters, Mrs. Andrew, my wife, turns to me and says, "What did you do and how does it pertain to me?"
After saying I was just looking at stuff for to potentially get her for presents in the future, which was a partial truth and enough truth to pass the lie detector known as Mrs. Andrew, I knew I had possible blog fodder for the future.
You see, my wife, the wonderful Mrs. Andrew, is psychic. Not fake psychic, but real psychic. Like mind-reading and telekinesis psychic. If she was in the sci-fi role-playing game she would either be being hunted by the Imperials for being psychic (in the game, the 3rd Imperium is pretty much anti-psionics - mental powers) or she'd be Zhodani (psychic led humans who fight against the 3rd Imperium.) (The 3rd Imps are basically the British Empire of the 1880s in Space and the Zhods are the Ottomans/Indians/Chinese/Russians, you know, inscrutable foreigners with weird powers over their people.) (And that's enough info about that game.)
When I met her, we were playing Advanced Dungeons and Dragons and she'd ask what roll she needed on her dice (to get an effect, or save herself, or do something properly or cast a spell or hit something) and she'd roll her dice and get it. Not miss the number needed, not get a higher number, roll exactly what she needed, almost every time. She pushed her dice. She could push other people's dice. Dice pusher. It's a real thing.
You think I'm joking? Ever know someone who was just 'lucky' at dice games? You know, the guy or gall who gets banned from the craps tables in Vegas?
Yeah, my wife.
And she can read my mind, far too often. How do I know? Well....
When I met her, I knew she loved the fondue restaurant The Melting Pot. The meat course was okay, but she loved the cheese fondue and then the chocolate fondue. We went there once early on and then for various reasons didn't go for a while.
One year, after our wedding anniversary at Steak and Ale (another restaurant that was our favorite, properly aged meats and their Brie cheese platter was to die for) I decided to surprise her the following year with, yes, a reservation for The Melting Pot. Which I made in January for said anniversary the following December (why December? Between time off from work and Grandma already being in the area of the family house and church rather than having to pay for her to fly from California to Florida just to attend our wedding, said Dec. date was a given.) What's that, 11 months ahead of time? That's pre-planning.
So comes the anniversary, I haven't said anything for the whole year, all I've said was to get dressed up and we're going out. We get in the car, we're pulling out of the subdivision, and she says, "So what time are our reservations for THE MELTING POT!" Mother-humper, Son-of-an-intact-female-dog-of-breeding-age! So I pull over in a convenient parking lot, and turn to her and ask her, oh so politely, why she thought I was taking her to TMP? She said she read my mind. Ah, poop.
That's not the only time she's read me like a cheap book. See statement of 'the lie detector known as Mrs. Andrew.' It's not just me. And it's not from visual clues. She can tell when I'm lying over the internet, from another room, without looking at me. And she can do it to other people, too.
So, yes, today (Tuesday, July 6, 2023) she knew I was commenting on her behind her back, literally behind her back as I was in bed with her and she had her back to me while I was sitting up typing comments.
And she just asked me if I was thinking about her right now, as I'm typing this. My answer? "Sweetie, I'm always thinking about you." Which she said was horse-poop but thanks anyways.
Can't win.
Damned psychics. No winning around them.
Since the infamous 'reading Bean's mind on the way to the restaurant' incident, we have moved on to doing fondue at home. Cheese fondue with homemade gluten-free bread (she has Celiac's) followed up by semi-sweet dark chocolate fondue with fruit (strawberries, maraschino cherries, banana slices, orange slices) and marshmallows. Yum.
And how much of a lightweight is Beans? I get buzzed from the alcohol in the cheese fondue mix and the orange liquor in the chocolate fondue. Some years we add a nice eiswein and I get totally ripped after one glass. Whoo! Lightweight. Then I sleep. Wake up with no hangover. My brothers hate me for that. As I have drunk pert near half a bottle of Te-kill-ya and all I did was fall asleep and wake up with no hangover. Nope.
But back to the subject, my wife is a psychic. A witch, a brouha.
Eh, it is what it is. I still love her, just have to be careful what I think within a continent's distance of her, as she'll know. She'll know...
Maybe it's just the early wake-up this morning but.....huh.... how disconcerting Beans. No mental privacy.
ReplyDeleteShe can't read everything, just some strong things. It is what it is. Then again, we've been married so long we can and have said the same thing at the same time, complete sentences, sometimes even have similar thoughts.
DeleteOlvera is up early today. I know whereof ye speak, good sir. My x was a "reader". That's what I called her. She could read most anyone like a book with a glance. And she could read minds from people she knew... even across country. I don't think she could push dice, at least in 37 years I never saw it. But she could zap. Put a thought in someone's mind across a room. Usually had to have line of sight. Yeah, I didn't like that much. I'm a simple human and as stubborn as a good Southern Gentleman should be. Made for some real weird situations*. I grew to trust her word implicitly regarding other folks. Her grandfather was a curandero and brujo. Wicked man. I think some of the reading ability came from all the abuse she suffered as a kid. The rest of it is a family trait. I've seen it too often to discount it. Truly, there is more to this world than we can see.
ReplyDelete*Just imagine seeing two people having an argument across a room without saying anything. She'd throw a thought and I'd reject it. Weird.
Yes, it is weird. People poo-poo psychic powers, but they've never married a brouha so they don't know. I know some of it may just be micro-tells and other non-verbal signs, but there's just too many times, like the reservation, that aren't explainable via body language.
DeleteBright side? She isn't River.
ReplyDeleteWell, River was kind of hot, especially covered in blood with edged weapons in her hands, so... well...
DeleteMrs. Andrew likes her knives, she does. And her camp axes, she does...
Beans, the Traveller Boxed Set was a great game. It had some of the best skills mechanics I had seen prior to that point, it used (wonder of wonders) 6 sided dice - although to be fair, I did treasure my "roll 1-4 for your dagger hit against the fire giant - it had a variety of classes, the alien races were credible, and some care and thinking went into the technology, society, and setup of the galaxy. And, they were all in those very small books that made them unique among the 8 x 11" role playing modules everyone else used. You are right in that the DM had expend a lot of time and energy in making the universe as there were not always a lot of details. I do think that as they went on and succumbed to the need for more specialization in their skills and classes, they undercut the basic simplicity of the game. I would argue the first three module - The Kinunir, Research Station Gamma, and Twilight's Peak - remain among the best modules they produced. Also, the simplicity of the books - all black with a band of color - was rather stylish.
ReplyDeleteSigh. Like most of the games of the era, it left a lot to imagination and inventiveness. My sense now from looking in from the outside is that everything is now highly systematized. Perhaps it makes for more clarity, but I would not find it as satisfying.
Yes, the rules were rather easy to use. The follow-on books added a lot of complexity that just got... complex. The Scout book actually had rules for developing whole star systems, from the type and size of the stars to all the planets and many of the satellites. Which was cool as you could make a whole game just on one overly developed star system without jump technology.
DeleteThe game did teach me vector analysis, and I used calculus to find that the game designers couldn't do math for squat in reference to their starships and the interior layouts.
Later versions of the game got so complex that they became unusable. Though one version was translated into GURPS (generic universal role playing system) so that your GURPS Traveller character could conceivably run into your GURPS pseudo D&D character and your GURPS Wild West character. Kind of makes me wish I had picked up GURPS rather than spending too much money on AD&D and Traveller and such.
Oh, well, I spent beer money on games.
Regarding the pointy dice, back in the 3rd grade while running to the bathroom I stepped on a Jack & got the pointy end stuck in my heel. This was Hawaii in the early 60's & we went to school barefoot, well my mom made me leave home with shoes on, at school you had to leave them at the door.
ReplyDeleteA physic wife? That could be interesting...
Very interesting, it is, to have a 'sensitive' as a wife. Weird, but it works. There are days she says, "Stay home" and I do and we find out bad things happen at where I was going or on roads that I was travelling on. Those are the really strange ones. Could be coincidence, but it happens way too often.
DeleteJacks suck. Stepped on one also. But the 4 sided caltrop of plastic is truly murderous.
In my younger days, I dated a woman that once casually out of nowhere said "I'm a witch". Raised eyebrow. "I was born one. It runs in the family". (Urge to guffaw quickly quenched by the mental image of a doll looking remarkably like me being stuck full of pins). Best not to take chances...
ReplyDeleteThe Missus Herself has no desire to see what's inside my head. It's pretty chaotic at times.
ReplyDeleteSandy Eggo Sitrep - Day 3 - 34.5 hours logged. I'm getting too old for this. My life is pier, hotel, pier, hotel ... rinse, repeat.
But hey, it's beautiful on the waterfront. Longer AAR when I RTB next week.
Kirschwasser, Himbeergeist, etc....when consuming these types of alcoholic beverages that have been chilled outside during a German winter to the point of being very viscous, practice extreme caution. They go down smoothly.... but after several, you will probably have difficulty standing and navigating.
ReplyDeleteCletus