I followed my Tuesday routine today, walking along the riverbank path to Alton Baker Park, timed so that I could go to my 8am appointment. Thanks to Daylight Savings Time it was darker for the first part of the walk than it had been for the past few weeks.
In Pokémon Go I had advanced the Team Go Rocket questline to the point of fighting Giovanni. I found a non-decoy encounter with him at one of the pokestops in the Owen Rose Garden. But at first I didn’t have a good answer to his shadow Kingler, so I didn’t have any protect shields left to fight his shadow Entei. I only tried a few times since I didn’t want to be late. After my appointment I stopped and tried again. This time I realized that the Hitmonchan I was using to take down protect shields in the Persian fight had a lighting type charge move in addition to her Power-up Punch, and that it would be super effective against the Kingler. That combined with a Meganium in my second slot let me take down the Kingler before it could get off a charged move. I still had trouble with the Entei, but I looked up the recommended counters and saw that a Rhyperior with Surf was supposed to be reasonably effective. I unlocked a second charge move on the two Rhyperiors I already had at max level for use as Rock-type attackers and one got Surf so I took that in as the third pokemon in my squad and was able to take down the shadow Entei.
