Wednesday, November 10, 2010

52 Effing Degrees

52F degrees inside the motorhome when I woke up for about the 5th time this morning. I hate this daylight savings nightmare. After living blissfully for over 2 decades in countries that didn't support it, I find it downright annoying, it messes up my body clock, because I am confused by the time.The clock on my thermometer is still off by an hour.  Oh well.

Sorry I didn't write more sooner, I was pretty ill, not getting much at all done, just hanging on, but now I am on the bend. Matter of fact I am cooking for my friends tonight.

Rumor is, that it will get to 78F degrees today. I can't wait!  But it makes it hard to get dressed with a 25 degree span in weather. My Caribbean bones are slow to adjust to these wild weather swings in temperature. I am bundled up right now, plus running the propane heater. 

There is a problem with the electrical outlet here. My dear friends had an electrician to put in an RV 30amp plug, but he put in a 220volt plug for a stove.  Maybe he thought we were moving the cook stove outdoors to the garden.

When reached by telephone, he promised to come "look at it" yesterday, as well as Tuesday and Monday, but never showed up.  I am confused how an electrician in Florida where there are thousands upon thousands of motorhomes and travel trailers everywhere, could confuse a 220volt stove plug with a 110volt, 30 amp RV plug.

Is that like meeting an astronomer that can't identify the sky?

I was trying to plug in, late at night, in the dark,  but thankfully, my plug nor adapters would fit. I would have probably burned the motorhome down, had it fit. Whew.  Lucky me.  My friend had told me the electrician claimed he put in a 50 amp plug with 4 prongs, so I had bought the adapter to convert my 30amp plug to a 50amp plug, an adapter I apparently don't need at all. I hate wasting money on something I don't need, but I can't return it either, as I bought it several hundred miles back, when my friend told me they had installed a 4 prong plug.  50amp is 4 prong and 30amp is 3 prong. 

30amp RV 3 prong plug for 110 electric for RV's

50amp RV outlet for 110 electricity
My favorite nightlight, I use in my motorhome bathroom, is actually a little clock, but it runs on it's own battery, so the time is always right, even when I am driving down the road without electricity running. At night, it glows a nice green color, so you can look ghoulish, but see your way around the bathroom in the dead of night without having to turn on the bright overhead light. I spent months looking and wishing for the perfect nightlight for the bathroom.   Sounds silly!  But the shopping choices in America are tremendous. The stores sell tons of junk mixed up with a few useful items. When I saw the little clock night light, it was perfect, as it fits in the 110 socket in the motorhome bathroom perfectly, right next to the three switches for the water pump, exhaust fan and bright overhead light. 

Luckily it was easy to reset to the newfangled daylight unsaving time. So now I go to the bathroom when I want the correct time.  Life is simple.

I checked out from the last campground so confused, as to whether I was leaving at 11, 12 or 1pm.  As long as I am whining, why do many campgrounds have an 11am checkout if the checkin is at 4pm?  There is no maid service like a hotel. Is this so they can close up and go to a leisurely lunch?  The sanest campground I checked in, had a generous 2pm checkout time. Yippie!  That makes sense to me. Not all of us are up at the crack of dawn, barreling down the highway. I've paid for my nightly spot, I want to enjoy it in the morning too, hiking the dog around, taking pictures, working on writing plus enjoying life.

Currently I am at my home away from home, parked in a friend's garden in Orlando, Florida. I've got to pull myself together, so I can help them out, make myself useful. They have 2 dogs plus they are dog sitting and my dog makes four canines.  He is clearly the most energetic and tries to engage the others in endless play.

Their backyard is securely fenced in, so after our arrival, he ran himself silly around the yard, enjoying his newfound freedom of not being tethered at all. The other three dogs are on diet food, but that didn't stop him from helping himself to their rations.

I was too sick to take him for any walks.  He was not amused, but at least he did get loads of exercise racing around the yard.  I adopted him, the end of last May, while parked here, but we left 3 days later on business. The first two days, he sat around cuddled in a baby blanket, being passed from one human to the next. He was so malnourished at the time, he had no energy to do anything else. My friends did most of the cuddling, because it was fun to have a new puppy to hold. He clearly remembered this, showering loads of affections on his human comfort aids.

At the time, I was trying to coax him to eat more than a tablespoon of food each day.  It was frustrating. Weeks later,  he finally started gobbling down food.  His energy soared.  He hasn't stopped moving since then. He is either sound asleep or full speed ahead. Once in awhile he actually is awake and still, but not for long.

I think the cold weather we went though up north, kicked in his winter fur coat. He sure needed a lot more fur, his bony body sported super thin fur when I got him.

He enthusiastically dragged me to their front door, after we had parked. When he saw his canine friends he was happy, but seeing his old human friends, made him ecstatic. He was excitedly leaping into their laps, trying to give them ten doggy kisses each.

Harley loved playing at the beach on Hunting Island State Park in South Carolina.
Even though Wolfman Harley was tethered at the beach, he did get in some run time, dug a hole, tried to chew on drift wood, got sand all over his feet and generally fell in love with the whole idea.

Ahoy!
Dear Miss Mermaid
 relies on Angels, Subscriptions and Book Sales
THANK YOU for your support.
Step One,  Make a PaymentStep 2, Sign up your Email

Subscribe to Dear Miss Mermaid
Delivered to your Email!  
Subscribe to
Dear Miss Mermaid...the OTHER Blog!
by Email  (no spam, just the blog)

***You can buy a subscription without the email updates.
Hurricanes and Hangovers by Dear Miss MermaidBuy Dear Miss Mermaid's Book:

Hurricanes and Hangovers and Other Tall Tales and Loose Lies from the Coconut Telegraph by Dear Miss Mermaid

1 comment:

  1. Dear Miss Mermaid,

    I am missing you on stormcarib.com. I hope you are in good spirits and that your health is coming along too. Just wanted to drop you a line. Emjpt yor 'walkabout'. Will you be returning to the Caribbean?

    Cheers!
    The Miche

    ReplyDelete


Life is goof!