Kaimusailing

What’s really going on. It seems the conspiracy theories explain everything. We had a dinner night that really brought it down to us. We had returned from an aimless travel to a local bistro and we met Biff, a guy I had run into once and realized he and I would have shot it out at the OK Corral. I wanted to hold my tongue if he wanted to argue, let’s see if we can agree to disagree. He wanted to treat us to dinner and drinks and we left with him in the lead. I thought he was returning to where we just had come, but it was just across the street.
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We went inside and had something to drink. You have to understand human nature in the wild. Bellicose Biff. Maybe he is different when sober. He dissed me about as bad as you can get, in the old days, a duel. I don’t think he would have lasted too long in those days. I could shoot well when I was younger. I learned to keep my tongue as I got older. I guess most present had already seen scenes like this. I felt bad afterwards. I had backed down, in a way, but I didn’t want him to call the action, when he was drunk, and I kept my cool.
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Eloisa was there and I am her knight, to protect her, and standby during situations such as this one. The next day he came by, drunk again, bellicose again, and we had to withstand his ranting and raving. He drove off and I said there he goes onto the public highways.
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We had half a pork loin roast baked in the Optima oven with apricot glaze, russet potatoes microwaved, sliced in half, then sauteed in Irish butter and topped with parmesan, and the salad was romaine and my secret vinaigrette dressing. Nice meal. Robert joined us and nearly the whole thing was consumed.
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The next day I would make the other half of the roast with Jamaican curry spices, brown rice, and another romaine salad. I took the roast out of the oven and sliced it across the grain, mixed up the remaining rice and flavoring, and put the sliced meat back into the oven which is shaped like a bundt pan. Once again the 3 adults and 2 dogs devoured the mess. I will make that one again for sure.
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I had been watching the March Madness basketball tournament and rooted for St. Peter’s, who were the big underdogs knocking off some highly ranked teams. Alas, they finally met their fate and were eliminated. The other sporting event I looked for was SailGP, this time in San Francisco. There were high speed collisions and in the end the Aussies won the million dollar prize in the winner take all last race of the season.
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I was preparing for Pizza Night again, but Eloisa wanted to go to the park and make picnic food and toss the tennis ball with Blue. I came along and helped shred carrots and slice pineapple. Yummie. She made a carrot salad and pico de gallo. We returned in time for me to begin making the dough.
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I showed her the deflatable dinghy which was repaired as far as keeping the water out but needed a slow persistent air leak in one of the tubes patched. I thought I had found the tiny leak and patched it. The dinghy was holding air for a respectable time, but there was still another tiny leak somewhere.
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Robert reports he is under the weather. Also Roughrider Lynn. Pizza Night must go on regardless. Our new antibug spray came in, Repel, by Off. It seems to work, but the persistent bugs fly up my nose and into my eyes where I can’t spray. Eloisa is at the stone table while I am still marching around and bringing things there. I declare I will light the oven in 7 minutes, or so, approximately. I sprayed myself and found that where the spray hit my lip it went numb. I’d better be careful making pizzas, wash up first. The oven lit with a good rocket launch sort of rush, so did I with a new box of merlot. I made the first pie, it would be a sausage, pepper, and onion, and I put a layer of parmesan on it and forgot the mozzarella.
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The second pie was mushroom, pepper, and onion. Very crunchy crust, better than the first pie. The next two pies were an attempt to use up the rest of the toppings. Sausage, mushrooms, and peppers. The mozzarella was sliced thin for all these pies instead of the dice I normally use.
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A couple showed up and started talking to us. He had a New York accent, she Eastern Europe. They were charming and we shared some pizza with them. It’s like two couples hitting it off from square one. I like hearing the New York accent, like listening to WFAN, NYC.
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The last two pies were extra slices for tomorrow or whenever. I put two slices in the zip lok bags that held the toppings and ingredients earlier. Very efficient. Eloisa brought some slices to Robert on his boat and some to Roughrider Lynn on her boat with Dave. I had a pizza pan with 4 bags of slices when Denis, the Canadian truckdriver came by. He had never come to Pizza Night, but I said, here take a couple slices of pizza, Denis, and he took them.
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The next day I had to clean things up and figure out what to do. I didn’t have pizza for breakfast. I had my usual ham and cheese omelet sandwich, but now it was on rye bread with sliced tomatoes and sriracha mayo. Nice breakfast. I had left a pair of slices in a zip lok bag on Eloisa’s little table set on the edge of the marsh. She had taken the couple we had just met to Jacksonville to get their vehicle. I texted her that she had pizza slices on her little table and I left with the no-see-ums swarming me.
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We had ordered netting clothing that was like beekeeper’s outfits, not too expensive, Chinese, and Repel insect repellent. The order was short for the free shipping so I added a tiny personal insect sprayer made by Repel, but it was Repel 100. It turned out that this little sprayer worked the best. I thought I should get more, but I had tons of the other, weaker, stuff.
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I was sick and tired of the air mattresses continuing to fail, the rechargeable inflator from ALPS Mountaineering had failed. The inflator from Walmart that used 4 D cells didn’t work that well, but I was using Dollar General $2 D cells. At Ace Hardware, the copper top batteries were just shy of $12 for 4. They worked well. I guess I should order another inflator, since I’m using the backup now, so I ordered one and to get free shipping ordered another Repel 100 personal insect repellent sprayer. When I tried the dead ALPS inflator it worked.
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I went to ALPS Mountaineering for a sleeping bag because it was not PVC, it was plasticized fabric, and lasted much longer than the cheap ones from Walmart. Eventually it started leaking and I bought one from Walmart, but due to the pandemic, the usual models weren’t there. This one came with a battery powered inflator. Then later I had to go back again and buy another, but I had to search for just an air mattress, not the inflator kind. That worked for a while. It began to leak and I could feel air escaping from the inflating valve. Could it be loose or bad? I put some silicone grease on it to minimize air leaks, but it continued to fail, worse and worse. I went back to the ALPS mattress and inflator, but the inflator died, and the battery inflator didn’t really work. I spent a couple of nights sleeping on the hard. Guess I don’t need much.
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I threw the air mattresses over the side into the boatyard where I was working on the deflatable dinghy. Yes, they all had the same problem, couldn’t hold air. The dinghy would hold air for a few hours, but had to be blown up again. That’s not so bad. I tested the air mattresses, first the one that I noticed air escaping from the inflator valve. It turned out the valve was welded into the mattress and at one edge of the valve the air mattress plastic was not adhering. I would clean that area with acetone, coat it with thin film of HH-66 adhesive, and also coat a patch that would fit the edge there. Maybe it will work. The other mattress involved painting soapy water around its edge panel, then doing the entire bottom panel, these are the places you expect to see a leak, then start doing the velour top panel which soaks up the soapy water like a sponge. But there was the leak. It was obviously already clean, but we had to dry it out, swab it out with acetone, leave it to dry.
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I had to go shopping, out of ham and bread, low on water, and Eloisa came by, ready to go she said, I needed a shower but why do they do this, bring the homeless boat person man out in the public, unwashed, unshaven, I needed my notebook to remember the things I needed.
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We ended up at the Mexican place. I could plan my shopping and hydrate with beer. She ordered chicken for Blue and I had Nachos Lebre. Good stuff, don’t know if that translates to your area. Nacho Libre was of course the Mexican wrestler played by Jack Black in that movie, that I haven’t seen yet.
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I had to get 4 things in Winn-Dixie, but brought my notebook with short shopping list. Vitamin C, bread, ham, and what was that other thing?
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I guess I was going to finish the patch on one of the air mattresses and she was going to take care of Lady, a house bound lab, beautiful dog. Also I had received a knife sharpening kit from China. I shudder to think what it was designed to be used for, it came in an army camo case, you could really sharpen a bayo-knife with it. I did so. My cheap dollar store stainless knife that actually cost one dollar, was sharpened. It’s made of stainless steel, but the steel is soft, doesn’t hold an edge. After sharpening, I tested it on an unsuspecting tomato, slice, very keen.
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The NYC couple invited us to their boat on the other side of the boatyard. There occurred the typical conversation with 5 people present, the ladies were chatting away and the two other gentlemen were chatting away. I was not involved in either conversation. Later when the subject of Pizza Night came up I was able to speak.
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We drained a couple bottles of wine and ate wonderful mild cheddar with Ritz crackers. We sprayed with Repel when the bugs started biting. It was late when we retired. I caught a nice photo of the sunset while checking the plumbing.