Relaxing and Rummy Tiles

As our first month “home” draws to a close I have to say that the transition was easy and we settled right into the luxuries of car, constant electric and water. My Mini Cooper, ESC.POD exited storage in great shape. We lost no time in making the rounds: groceries, Defender, storage unit, laundry, mail and Pasta Vita for mouth-watering heat and serve entrees like Artichoke ‘n Chicken Lasagna. We met a fellow sailor who came over from the next dock to say he’d been following our blog; we almost got chided for not updating that we’d arrived, but I’d gotten it done just in time. Phew, you never know who is keeping tabs. John- hope you get your new mast soon…
The weather hasn’t improved greatly; if the rain and overcast skies would depart for more than 24 hrs, we might start to dry out and warm up!  We even bought a small refurbished flat screen TV with DVD player to take advantage of the marina’s free cable service. Benj was dismayed, but cut us some slack when he learned it was refurbished.  A question I am often asked is “Do you have a TV”?  Does that query say something about people’s priorities or what? Ok, so now we have one and I think we’ve turned it on 5 times.
Our dock lines and engines still function; we’ve left the dock 3 times now. Twice for a pump out two docks up and last Sunday a spur of the moment jaunt on CT River through Essex then Hamburg Cove for lunch, and back.  Benj’s girlfriend Lily was visiting and when the movie plans got moved back to dinner time, the request to “take the boat out” was met with “well, why not”?  Ever ready cruisers we are, off we went with no rain in sight- amazing. And, we played rummy tiles.

I’ll omit the boat projects, suffice to say that we completed the worst one first and have been plugging away at the rest. Dinghy chaps are done- finally. Noticed a tear in a jib seam; 10 month old sails – just great. Russ is in his second week of working for Rick who bought the lock biz. The worker bee grass is no greener than the owner’s grass, but when the work day is done, it’s done.
Took care of the various doctor and hair appts. Nothing like bad news at every appt to make one feel old. That could be eliminated with the arrival of summer and some SUNSHINE!!
Benj has been job hunting without much success and we’ve spent lots of quality time together; much of it shopping for raw milk, local eggs and other healthy foods at local markets. What he doesn’t spend on clothes, is made up for in the food category. Could be worse. Like the cost of laundry- what a shocker. Yes the machines are larger, but so is the price tag. Our twist on “college kid brings home dirty laundry” was “cost conscious cruisers bring laundry to college with free washers and dryers.” No joking. We also got a free chicken (ready to cook) and bought raw milk and eggs from the farm at Green Mt College.  The milk had a grass-like taste and if you wanted to you could take the cream from the top and make butter, otherwise just gently shake and drink. The yolks of the free-range eggs were a deep orange and we all swore we could taste the difference. The chicken- well, let’s just say we’d been warned it would be tougher than Mr. Perdue’s. It was a laying hen whose time had come to be a stew bird; a very tough old bird for sure.
We eagerly await June and perhaps an end to weeks of rainy, overcast, chilly and gloomy weather.