Personal

by

Cabin Fever

Today was a bit of a down day. The weather wasn’t great and the wind picked up in mid afternoon. I witnessed my wisp of a neighbour open her house door and literally fly out of the rig, holding onto the door for dear life! When I had to go out a few moments later, I made sure to exit through the cab!

It’s rare that I have a day where I don’t know what to do with myself at home, and this was one of them. I worked on my book, did some housekeeping, played my recorder, and tried to sit down with a movie and some embroidery. Nothing kept my attention.

I finally decided to just head into town to pick up a few things, coming home with all the fixings for a cozy night at home: a pizza, ice cream, and Liam Neeson (I had beer at home!). I had just finished dessert and the movie (Unknown) was getting good when there came a knock at the door. I knew what that meant!

A few minutes later, L and I were on our way to Indianola for a couple of beers and some live music. He’d also been hit by a wave of cabin fever! We had a good time chatting and watching some kids reel in fish. We didn’t stay long, just enough to shake away some of the blues. I am going to have such fond memories of that pier in my old age.

by

Returning Items From Amazon.com

I’ve been an amazon.com shopper for years. This week, for the first time ever, I had to return something. It turned out that the description on the site was missing some key information and the item was not right for me. It was only about $5, so I decided that I would try for a refund and if the return wound up being a big hassle, I would just eat the amount.

Well, Amazon won’t let me return the item. I tried to go through the return process and got a message that said I’m a valued customer, so I can keep the item AND get my refund! Wow! I’m thinking that the cost of the item and my shopping history (no refund requests ever) prompted this decision.

I will still be able to use the item, so being able to keep it is a nice bonus. And, geeze, there’s no reason to be so mysterious, it’s a recorder (the musical instrument) with an uncommon fingering style. So once I dredge up 25 year old skills on the more standard type, I can graduate to this other one. 🙂

by

Pastagate

I’ve following the Pastagate situation in Quebec closely. In short, the language police got a complaint about an Italian eatery’s menu being mostly in Italian rather than French and ordered the owner to change the menu to French or face steep fines.

There has been some outrage over this, but it’s mostly of the humourous kind, as though this was funny when it is actually terrifying.

It never ceases to amaze me how the world turns a blind eye to the fact that Quebec is overseen by a totalitarian and xenophobic government that uses fear and oppression to subjugate its citizens.

That Canada allows any of this to happen is no surprise. After all, Canada got a failing grade in human rights from Amnesty International in 2012. If it allows people to be deported to countries where they will be tortured, why would it care that a bloodless genocide is going on within its borders?

by

Winter Bounty

It would take thousands of words to explain just why Texas is such a good place for me to be this winter. All I can say is that this is easy living in a good climate and my stress levels are lower than they have been in a very, very long time.

I’m getting plenty of sun and exercise and the abundance of delicious fresh non-wintery tasting fruits and veggies means that I am eating very well. With all of that comes mostly good sleep, the kind I thought I would never again be able to have. I am very well and refusing to even think about the impending return to Canada. This is a now I want to savour fully.

Lunch today was yummy. For someone who until a couple of days ago had no use for avocados, I sure had nooooo trouble figuring out what to do with the one I bought yesterday:

IMGP5827

I just mooshed it up with coarse sea salt, some minced garlic, and the juice of half of a small lime. OMG, avocado, where have you been all my life?

After I had devoured half of the contents of the bowl, I decided to grill a small tortilla so I’d have something with which to mop the bowl:

IMGP5828

With this, I had a whole orange pepper (sliced, no dip) and a whole mango for dessert. Winter bounty at its best!

by

A Local Guide At Last

L and I drove into town this afternoon to buy fresh shrimp so he could show me how to do a shrimp broil. Surprise, surprise, the shrimp people decided not to open today! Dang! Our shrimp boil plans are postponed to Wednesday or Thursday.

We both had to go to Walmart anyway, so the trip into town wasn’t for naught (and it was really, really, really nice to have someone to carry the heavy jugs of water for me!).

L has been wintering down here on and off for 20 years, so he was able to point out a bunch of useful locations, including where to get my 30lb propane tank filled. I always forget how much propane the fridge needs, so my on board tank is just about empty. We’ll take my 30lber into town on shrimp day so I can hook it up.

Coming back into the beach, he pointed out something on the road into the village that made me groan: a laundromat! Dang! I didn’t have to drive to the laundromat in Port Lavaca!

He invited me to go to Galveston tomorrow for the Mardi Gras celebrations, but five hours in a vehicle with someone I just met doesn’t feel right, plus I have a big project due Wednesday morning. So I passed on that even though I was really tempted. And before anybody starts to get any ideas, he’s a much older widower with kids older than me! 😀

We both use a 150W panel to keep our rigs charged and he has the same problem as me keeping his laptop charged after so many grey days. His solution? The same as mine: charge the laptop in the truck (also a Ford Ranger) for a few hours a day. He says that he runs the engine for part of the time and then shuts it off, claiming that the draw from the computer battery is too small to drain the truck battery. I’m a little nervous to try that, but I just might… after moving the truck to the rig in such a way to make a boost possible if I need one! It takes two hours of truck running to full charge both my computer batteries. I did that this morning and will do that this evening.

We are beyond due for sun, but that won’t happen till Wednesday. *sighs* I’m sitting at about 70% battery capacity, so I am only running the fridge. L was an engineer for Boeing, so I’m going to ask him if he knows anything about solenoids and such. If so, I will wrangle his help to pull the RV battery, fix the solenoid, and get charging capacity back from my RV alternator. According to Harold Barre, that’s a very good method of getting the batteries to about 80%, and then you let the solar finish the charge gently so I know the effort and possible expense will be worthwhile.

Anyone know a good sun dance?