Wednesday, February 5, 2025

Market Mysteries

 


Why do tangerines and clementines only seem to come in bags of twelve? This two-person household isn’t always up to the challenge. We’re working our way through this batch, but we must not have moved quick enough on the last bag, which offered gray moldy surprises on several of the last few.

 

And why is it so difficult to find one-pound bags of carrots (many of them horse-sized)? I realize that, unlike tangerines, carrots have an impressive shelf life, but there’s a finite amount of room in my fridge’s vegetable drawer.

 

I also don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask for smaller packages of chicken parts. My grocery store will often only put out chicken thighs in packs of eight or ten pieces. Again, limited room in my freezer for the extras. Added to that, I’ve noticed it’s almost impossible at this same store to buy one pound of hamburger. All – and I mean all – “pounds” of hamburger there weigh in at 1.28 pounds, a crafty way of getting us to buy up.

Sunday, February 2, 2025

Travelers

 

Sunday – my day to change the bed. Which set me to thinking –

        We were with friends of ours and they happened to mention that their daughter’s job involved travel. Thinking it was probably visiting branches of a company or clients of some kind, I asked what it was that she did for a living.

Saturday, February 1, 2025

Booked

 




After the most excellent suggestion by River  (thank you again!), My Guy and I took ourselves to the Goodwill book store. 

Thursday, January 30, 2025

Wearing Dead People's Clothes

 


          For someone who hates to pay full price for anything, our little town in Florida can be a breath of fresh air. Not only is there a TJ Max/Homegoods right up the road, the place is blanketed in consignment shops.

Saturday, January 25, 2025

Morning Yoga

 After scanning the huge selection at the also huge YMCA here, I thought I might have found a yoga class. It wasn’t as though there weren’t several to choose from, but at this point in life my yoga abilities aren’t what they used to be, although I’m not at the chair yoga stage.

Friday, January 24, 2025

Words to live down

 In a movie or television show when a fatherly type sits knee to knee with a younger character and imparts words to live by. Not my family. They had plenty to say, but I can’t remember anyone sharing their philosophy of life or offering any thoughts to steer me on the right path.

Wednesday, January 22, 2025

Housebound and happy

 


After the drama of the past weeks, I’m thrilled to report that today is delightfully dull. No weird texts, no inroads into the bank account, no frantic calls from the credit card people, and nowhere in particular to go. Bliss.

Tuesday, January 21, 2025

Organized Chaos

 


      Today, in a pre-emptive strike against future insurance claims, we will begin receiving visits by a team of inspectors who will troop through all 132 units in our complex to catalogue the state of our windows.

Monday, January 20, 2025

Our even less excellent adventure

 


         The retrieval of our car from the lineup of all the others from the train transport gave me pause.

Sunday, January 19, 2025

Not so excellent - Day 2


Our trek to Florida takes three days – as opposed to the madcap days of our 60s youth, when we did the drive in two fun-filled 12 hour days.

 This year we decided to try the auto train, in which our car, loaded to the gills with My Guy’s paints, computer, and tax documents (yes, he’s been a finance guy all his life but it would be more restful to pay someone else to do our taxes) would be shipped along with the other 144 autos doing the same thing.

          There is some irony here in that we still had to drive the first portion down to Lorton, Virginia since the northern infrastructure has bridges too low to accommodate the taller car transport trains. And the first day is often the most traffic-heavy, bringing us through New York state, Baltimore, and around Washington D.C.

       

   Still, aside from the possibility of horrific death on the highway from a tire blowout at top speed, it all went well and we loved the hotel. It even had a spectacular breakfast for free, with omelets on demand.



          We were glad we’d booked our own little cabin, especially when we saw these poor souls clutching pillows and blankets in the terminal. I assume they were going to spend the night sleeping upright in standard seats.

      

    

We finally boarded, and bumped our suitcases up the teensy stair to our cabin. We stood in the doorway, a little aghast at the size of it. At least there was a nice long couch and we presumed the slab against the ceiling would come down to form a bunk.

 

And yes, we had our own bathroom, but flashes of the night before’s hotel room with its roomy tub and huge sink area passed cruelly through my mind. We both immediately resolved to continue the rest of the trip dirty, rather than shower by sitting on the commode while waving a hand-held sprayer about.


          Being a complete newbie to all of this, I panicked a bit over the sleeping portion. Where were the pillows, the blankets? Maybe that family covered in bedding knew more than we did. I eyed the towels in the eensy bathroom as possibilities for make-shift pillows.

  


        But hurray! The steward popped his head in to ask what would be a good time for him to make up the beds. At 8 o’clock I stepped into the corridor (two people in the room was tricky, three would have been a Marx brothers skit) and he worked his magic, tucking in sheets efficiently and leaving 2 flabby pillows.

         

I thanked my December return to yoga when it was time to climb the ladder into the top bunk. I was the chosen one - there was no way we were going to get all 6 ft 2 inches and hefty build of My Guy up there.


          Up was no problem, and I learned I could manage down pretty easily if I put one foot on the sink. The scary harness to keep me from plunging to my death in the night was a little off-putting. But it was the coffin-like environment up there that got to me, without the ability to sit up, since the ceiling was literally no more than 10 inches above my face.



          Dinner was quite good, although it was two long cars away and involved grabbing hand-holds to pass from one car to another as the track roared on beneath us. Especially tricky for My Guy, for whom a sidewalk can sometimes offer a challenge.

          And surprisingly, we slept fairly well, but we were happy to be reunited with our car the next day. Summary? Never again. It was more expensive than driving and still took three days to reach our destination.

Saturday, January 18, 2025

Our not-so-excellent adventures into January

 


So, December went well. Too well, I suppose since I didn’t enter one word into this blog the entire month. Funny how dangerous it can be to step out of your routine.