No Coffee, No Tan

I woke up alive.  Checked the dog for a pulse.  Whee!  What a great day! There was a cup of leftover coffee, so I heated that to drink while I put on a pot. This was around 4 or 5am. I like to be up in time to watch the sun come up, just to make sure I am really really alive.

Horrors!

I was out of coffee. Well I had enough to make about one cup. I was SURE I had another can around here.

While searching for the coffee, I reorganized the entire pantry. It's not very big, it's rather small, but I figured if I couldn't find the coffee, then it was time to dump it all out, then put it all back in nice, neat and orderly.  I had a mountain of rice, so I measured it out into 1 cup sized baggies. While sorting through stuff I came up with some creative ideas for  dishes, so I started cooking those up. This lead to doing a mountain of dishes, both before and after cooking.

Being single and eating at home 24/7 can be tedious. So I like to cook up a pile of stuff, then fill up the refrigerator. That way I have my own version of fast food. Only this way it's super healthy stuff. My fridge is tiny, so filling up my fridge is pretty easy.

Still no coffee.

Well, I am out of fresh salad fixings anyhow. I am down to a sack of Vidalia onions and 2 ears of corn for produce. Which, when I make a salad for myself, I make two and stick the other one in the refrigerator to eat the next meal or next day. Just don't use chopped tomatoes, as they will wilt the salad in a heartbeat. Either use the tiny whole tomatoes (grape or cherry sized) or store the chopped tomatoes separately.

Guess I may have to drag myself to the store after all. It's only a half hour away. Just take down the awning, crank down the antenna, unplug the cords and hoses then drive. Sounds pretty simple I guess. Oh there are 3 breakable things to secure, one being the glass carafe for the empty coffee pot *SIGH*.

I built a velcro strap for that, so I can just strap it to the appliance. Since the coffee maker is built-in (hangs from an upper cabinet) it is secure for travel already. It's 17 years old and still making great coffee. Now the little velcro strap keeps the glass carafe from crashing to the floor. The other 2 breakables being my slim little 10 inch TV that I move around. I just use a jumbo spring clip to secure the tiny TV base to the dining table. I shove the laptop into my dresser drawer with the clothes for padding, this keeps it safe.

And change out  my pants.

Somehow, I managed to spill at least three-quarters of the coffee mug on my  clean while pants. At least I was dressed. But what a shame, to put on clean white capri pants and a clean blue tie-dyed top, only to spill my precious coffee on it. How that happened I am kind of fuzzy on. I was still sleepy, shuffling back to my bed to sit in it, gaze out the windows and enjoy my coffee. But I picked up the cup and I guess the coffee just took a flying leap, landing on my trousers.

Maybe I should just toss the pants out all together. They were bought second-hand, have served me well a few years, but they seem to be getting thread bare. Now one leg is covered in coffee.  Even if I clean that off, the pants do look like they are past their expiration date. Now that I change out of them, I notice there are other faint stains here and there. Well, I am just cleaning out junk all over. I have newer pants, let me put those on and toss these out.

Oh and I don't want to haul garbage to the grocery store, so out the door with that too. Gee wiz, let me straighten up the patio while I am out here half asleep, craving coffee... at least I am dressed.

The other day the park ranger with 2 other volunteers showed up while I was naked. Oops!  Normally I get dressed as soon as I wake up. But it was mid-morning, the park was empty, I decided to shower. As soon as I was undressed, the phone rang, so I was sitting at my table (indoors, thank goodness) talking on the phone au naturale when suddenly the park ranger races up my driveway with two people she wanted me to meet.

I bolted for the bedroom, closed the door, while frantically looking for clean clothes, as the ones I took off, had already been stuffed down in the dirty laundry basket.

Meanwhile I hear them knocking at my door, wondering how long does it take someone to answer the door to a mini-motorhome?

I felt bad making them wait so long for me to find and don clothes. Either they never saw me naked or pretended they didn't see. Whew!

While I did visit many nude beaches in my younger days of sailing the Caribbean... I surely wouldn't want to be caught naked without my jewelry, hat and  a tan...  Ha ha ha!

I kid you not. At the nude Caribbean beaches I went to, it was fashionable to wear loads of jewelry, a hat and a tan. Oh, those were some fun days.  The freedom of swimming without a clammy bathing suit. Being able to bake dry without tan lines. Traveling with the galactic sarong. I would wear a sarong to the beach, take it off, hang it and my hat in a tree, go swimming, come back, spread out the sarong, lay down, cover my face with the hat, bake dry, then shake out the sand, get dressed and go home to my little old sailboat.

Back then, I knew what all my neighbors looked like naked and they had seen me plenty of times, because just about everyone in the harbor, would hop in their dinghy to go around to the next bay that had a clothing optional beach. The way we saw it, this saved us a mountain of wet swim suits and wet beach towels. Just grab a sarong and head for the beach.  Whee!

You know, I've heard rumors they are going to eventually have us all fly naked and go to the movies in the nude. However, Homeland security is sure some fool will find a way to hide a bomb in their belly button, so the whole program has stalled out for now.

So back to the wheel estate being devoid of coffee...  I walked the dog, then furled the awning, unplugged the umbilical cord so we could go shop. I decided to hit the grocery store that is famous for odd bargains. It was a Wednesday too. There is no set day when they do things but mid week seems to yield more bargains than any other time. It used to be things were marked "Managers Special" and it was usually dented cans, bruised produce, cheese or meats about to be past  dated and so on. I didn't see any foods with the "Managers Special" stickers.

Darn!  That shoots  a big hole in my budget.

Then I noticed the produce department had several items marked "Reduced for Quick Sale", so I lucked into some real bargains on tomatoes, cucumbers, corn and lettuce.  At the dented can bin I found tomato soup and Barbecue Sauce  "Reduced for Quick Sale". I could use either of those in one of my bean pots.  I saw another lady pawing over the bargains, so I raced at breakneck speed to check out the dairy department where I found some "Reduced for Quick Sale" cheese and yogurt. I threw that in my cart as fast as I could. WOW!  I sped over to the checkout, totally out of breath by now.  I wanted to beat that other shopper to the punch.

I was heaving and dripping sweat from jogging around the store, but still had to unload the cart.

The cashier said "Are you OK?  Do you need some water or some help?"

Meanwhile I was frantically dumping my cart contents onto her counter, while wheezing and gasping for air.

"Yes *gasp* I am fine, *gasp*  just that  *wheeze* I  was in a big *gasp*  hurry to get  *wheeze*  here because *gasp* of the *wheeze* "Reduced for Quick Sale" items."

She stared at me like I was speaking Swahili with a Romanian accent.

So I took a deep breath and spoke up again:

"Well? *gasp*  Was I quick enough for the reduced item sale?"