How Was Your Day?

Today was a good day for the most part. I slept in—well, after I got up at 6 to feed the wailing masses of fur bellies, then returned to my happy bed—and took my time getting in gear. The child next door must have still been sleeping, or maybe it wasn’t home. Whatever the deal was, there was no noise coming from next door and that was fine with me.

I had no particular plans for the day, except maybe to watch the second video I had rented. I decided to save a ton of money on cable. I went back to the free basic cable that comes with my apartment and re-opened my account with Blockbuster. Since I don’t watch movies every day, it makes a lot more sense. Besides, with the cable you only get movie channels if you pay extra for them. Then, whatever movie channel you have (i.e. HBO, Starz) has a hundred different versions, and they’re all playing the same selection of movies in the same order, with maybe a 30-minute variation in the timing. What exactly ARE you paying for there? If I want selection, I’ll go to Blockbuster and walk the isles like a stalker until I find what I want, or something close enough to the mark.

Anyway, back to what may have been my point. I chose to pop in the second video and discovered that it was a 2-disc movie—on one disc. How cool can you get? Just like the old vinyl LP’s where the grooves are scratched on both sides, they can put media on both sides of DVD! Whodathunkit?

So I popped in the video (Net Force with Scott Bakula and Kris Kristopherson) and was enjoying it when my cell phone surprised me by ringing. Drop everything and find the phone. It used to never be more than 5 inches from my hand. Now I have to go hunt for it because I can’t remember where I sat it down last.

It was my friend Deb asking if I wanted to go to the beach. “How soon,” I asked. I was trying to scope out if I could get some more of my movie watched before she got here. “About 5 minutes. Throw on your suit and some sandals and meet me in the parking lot.” Well, I wouldn’t be watching the rest of this right away. I really need some sun on my poor beached-whale legs. Especially since my face and arms have gotten so much sun. The two ends of my body look like they are not on the same body. So I put extra sun block on my arms, and slightly less (but still sun block) on my legs, hoping to play catch up. It SEEMED like a good idea at the time. But, later, I discovered I had blossomed quite the rosy red rump. Aloe gel is my friend.

Deb and her son, Holden, were in the parking lot, waiting next to the dumpster when I got downstairs. I climbed in the Vanilla PT and we cruised out to the beach. This was the beach that is part of the Nature Preserve at the Kennedy Space Center. There are several (maybe a dozen?) different parking areas for the beach, most only large enough for 10-20 cars. You park and walk up a boardwalk/stairway thing to cross the line of palmetto-covered sand dunes and there you are on a beautiful beach—without 8 million tourists.

Deb and I carried most of the “stuff” while Holden directed us to the correct place in the sand, first marching us to the edge of the water to see how far up on the sand it was coming, then finally climbing back up the sandy embankment to a spot half-way between the wet sand and the dune.
Holden kicked off his flip-flops, grabbed his goggles and foam stick-bar-branch thing, and ran for the water while Deb and I set up camp. We laid ourselves out on the blankets and picked up our books and proceeded to read. Holden decided the tiny purple shells everywhere needed to be collected, so he gathered some and brought them up to show Deb. Purple is her favorite color. We alternated turns entertaining him in the water (and cooling ourselves off) but mostly he entertained himself, which I find admirable for such a young boy. My stepsons were both very good at that, too. (See, I don’t hate small children—I just want the wailing next door to cease.)

Eventually, we decided we had spent enough time on the beach, so Deb and I de-camped while Holden rinsed his shells in the VERY CLEAR sea water. I felt the need, there, to stress the VERY CLEAR part, because in Virginia the beaches are not clear water. You cannot see what is under your feet when you are wading at the edges of waves. Here, you can see it so clearly that you can tell a purple shell from a red one. It’s like that.

They dropped me off, and I promptly made my way to my apartment to kick the sand off my sandals on the balcony and hit the shower to reduce my body temperature and clean off the mixture of sweat, sand, and sun block. I also reconditioned my hair, a necessity after the harsh sun. I didn’t want my fresh hair color getting brassy or dull.

After that, I sat back down to watch the rest of “Net Force.” One of the cats decided to join me. That, the sun, and the Benadryl/Advil combo I took before going to the beach (I had a little bit of a headache that I didn’t want getting worse) combined to make me fall sound asleep and completely miss the middle part of the movie. So, now I need to watch it again. It’s a good thing I got week long rentals this time. Not that they would fee me—they did away with those late fees (technically)—but I like to finish things or be places by the time that was specified. Late does not sit well with me. If I walk into work at the time I am supposed to be there, I am late in my opinion.

Anyway, I had a long nap with my cat (catnap?) and woke to find the movie almost over. At this point, I decided it was time to cook the chicken thighs I had thawed. So, I got up and started working on that. Then the cats wanted feeding because I was in the kitchen. Well, it was pretty close to their dinner time, so I fed them. (It’s easier than stepping on a cat tail or nearly falling over into the garbage can every time I move.) Then I ate a small bowl of my dinner and decided to call Deb back and see if she wanted me to bring the movie over and watch it at her place. She said to come over, but the movie would probably not happen because she had a houseful of family. Her parents are in town after bringing Holden back from his summer with them, and her oldest Ian was off from work, so he was playing video games on the TV. Whatever; I didn’t need the movie as much as I wanted the company, so I brought the movie (just in case) and drove the mile to her house. I know a mile is an easy walk, but I figured I would be coming back in the dark and I live on the wrong side of the tracks, so I drove.

While there, Deb got a bug in her ear and had to go to Walgreen’s. She asked if anyone wanted to join her. I piped up and so did Mike, her husband. Off we went to Walgreen’s. Only we had a major detour to Belk’s that just opened up down the road. Deb’s been suffering from a severe lack of real stores in Titusville, apparently. So, we went to Belk’s and walked straight to the makeup counter to see that, yes, they carry Estee Lauder makeup. Then we wandered around the store looking at the adorable clothes and smelling the sexy men’s fragrances, then made our way back to the makeup counter so Deb could make her purchase and get her free goodie-bag. Then we went to Walgreen’s so Mike could buy deodorant, and we wandered around in there forever until I finally found myself with a bag of caramel kisses and two candy bars in my hand. How they got there, I have no idea. But I gamely bought them and promised myself I would take them to work where other people would eat most of them.

Back at Deb’s, my cell phone rang AGAIN. This time it was my sister. I had to go on the patio to talk to her—no signal in their house. My Mom’s in the hospital again--nothing to panic about. She has these blister things that come up on her legs (I think they’re called Stasis Blisters) that sometimes get infected, and to make sure she heals alright, they put her in the hospital and feed her mega-antibiotics. She’s at Portsmouth Naval. I know they’ll take good care of her. Sometimes I tease her about how it’s always Queen Rose Day when she goes there. Later I had a call from my Dad that I missed because my sucky phone had died after the first call from my sister. But he was just giving me the phone number to Mom’s room. It was too late to call her when I got that message, so I’ll do it tomorrow.

Eventually, I decided the frequency of my yawns meant it was probably time to come home, so I bailed and headed back here. Now here’s where my day got not-so-good. Since I’ve lived in this building, I’ve watched things generally down-spiral until I now live in a junky place reminiscent of something I’d expect to see in the projects. I walked out into the hall today and there was trash strewn from one end of the hallway to the other. I get in the elevator all the time and find people’s trash left in there. People have scratched graffiti onto the elevator walls (stainless steal) and written across the beautiful hand-painted murals that line the lobby hallway. Someone used some body part to punch a whole in the window of one of the stairwells, and it has become a regular sight for me to see police/sheriff’s cars in the parking lot when I come home for lunch.

Well, tonight topped it. After the numerous times I’ve gotten in the elevator to stand in what I have always been sure was pool water, tonight I finally got in the elevator to the lovely aroma of pee. Yes, indeed, they are now peeing in the elevator. I was flat-out pissed (the figurative kind). I stepped back out of the elevator and pressed a button to make it go up. This is the only way to get the other door to open when they are both in the same place.

I got in the elevator that just had the normal trash (soda bottles and candy wrappers) and dialed Deb to tell her what I’d found. Poor thing must have thought something really bad had happened for me to call her back like that. I told her I was just ticked off and needed to vent it to someone. She understood. She knows me well. She also knows I’ll let management know all about this. This is just ridiculous. How can people choose to live like this? GRRRRRR!

After I carried my shoes to the balcony (again) this time to air out the smell of pee, I decided I wanted some nachos. Holden had been snacking on some at their house, and I found I suddenly wanted some for myself. So I put some chips in a pie plate and sprinkled some cheese over them, set the oven to broil and put the pie plate on the top shelf. I was supposed to pay attention because I knew they’d get done quickly that way, but I got engrossed in the latest website they turned me onto. I won’t share this one because I don’t want any minors visiting and having their parents send me hate mails over it.

Anyway, I was laughing and enjoying that when I suddenly realized I smelled something burning. Great, my nachos. Yep, I have now created a new gourmet dish called Blackened Cheese Chips. You see, you take simple tortilla chips and shredded cheese, you put them in a pie plate and stick them in the oven on broil and forget them. You get charred, hard cheese with something like burned corn attached to it. Yum!

Actually, it was pretty good, as long as I ate around the solid black areas anyway. But I had to take quick action to avoid having my smoke alarm go off. The oven fan was already on, but the smoke was clearly way more than it could handle, so I ran to my bedroom (sorry folks downstairs—it was not a heard of elephants, I promise!) and got the great big fan that was so useful when my air went down. I rushed it to the living/dining area and plugged in, and cracked open the balcony door so the smoke would get sucked away from the range of the smoke detector. It worked apparently; that, or the smoke detector didn’t work. I choose the first one.

So there’s my day today, in a nutshell. I baked my rump at the beach, I slept through the middle of my movie, I bought bags of chocolate that I did not need, my Mom is in the hospital (getting spoiled), I stood in pee, and I tried to burn my building down.

How was your day? Never mind, I’m going to bed. Tomorrow is housework day. I have to wash my blankets to get the cat hair off of them. That should be exciting.