Kaimusailing

It was Pizza Night but no pizza. I took the remnants of the moussaka and resauced it with a basil tomato sauce and heated it up. I let my patrons know there would be no pizza but the Greek meatloaf was available. Dakota Doctor Mike stopped by and sampled a bowl, I had a bowl, Radio Bill had a bowl, then we had seconds. Roughrider Lynn and Helicopter Dave were busy and missed it. By the time they arrived it was all gone. It was strange to have moussaka with its aromatic Greek spicing, but no lamb, and sauced with a rich tomato sauce.
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My efforts to clean up the interior of Kaimu’s starboard hull were fruitful. The pilothouse had been stuffed with too many things that didn’t belong there. I put tools in a big red bucket and hardware in a plastic bin. My laundry baskets were moved to the dinette. Clothes hooks were installed on the starboard side of the pilothouse, high, between the helm and the counter at the rear. I hung up my sea jacket.
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I found an old laptop computer, removed the hard drive, and placed it on the free pile at the communal kitchen. While I was there a certain little black dog named Blue ran up. I had to finish up what I was doing. Eloisa came around the corner with Lady, the dog from the Breezeway renter. She had just come back from a marathon drive up in the Carolinas with Robert and I guess all went well, they are back. I was starving.
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I had taken Lady out from her apartment a day or so ago, and it was no problem, except that she is a strong young dog, and I can’t let her off her leash, so it’s dig in and hold on. You can’t let a dog pull you and lead you, it’s natural for them to do that, but you have to let them know you aren’t going like that, stand your ground, hold on. When they relax, then you move on, then stop again when they strain the leash. They learn that straining the leash does not do well in going forward.
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Today I was up by the apartment and heard loud dog barking and whining and it was Lady, so I took her leash inside and took her out for a walk. She had ripped up a cushion and left a bit of poop. No one told me to step in and do this, but I did it out of concern for the animal.
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Eloisa cleaned up the mess in the apartment and wanted to eat as much as I did, so we went down to the French Quarter. There was outside seating for Blue and I had a merlot and ordered a burger. I ate the burger with a knife and fork, it was one of those brioche bun burgers that are like a planet of meat, not unenjoyable, plus Blue gobbled down some good morsels. He has bad parents.
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I wanted to get something done. It was ripping 1 ½” strips from good plywood. I went wild ripping strips. In the end I ended up with twice as much as I needed. I began to glue, and when you begin to glue, you have to dry fit all the components. I was making porthole bezels which are rectangular with rounded corners. They fit outside and help hold the porthole glass in place.
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I was going to use two layers of ¼” plywood staggered at the corners, forming sort of a lap joint. I glued up 8 corners and the next day glued the corners together to make 4 blanks for the bezels.
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I had bought ingredients for spaghetti and meat balls, which I was craving, and today was the day to make it. First I had to make bread crumbs out of French baguette that was sufficiently stale. I also toasted it, not with wine, mind you. In the blender it didn’t fall apart into bread crumb dust, but more like little breadlets, small beads of bread. I mixed 1 cup of them with about 1/3 cup of half and half, an egg, a pound of ground sirloin, some spices, and kneaded the mixture until it was uniform. I got the stainless skillet and heated up a little olive oil till it was smoking, then took it off the flame. I made meatballs out of the mixture and began placing them in the skillet. The idea is that the skillet needs to be brought up to smoking oil heat, then cooled a bit to restore its nonstick abilities. Putting the meatballs in it cooled it. I put it back on heat for 5 minutes. I had already prepped ½ onion into medium dice and had some leftover sliced mushrooms from Pizza Night. I added them to the pot, covered it, and let it simmer for about 5 minutes. Then the jar of spaghetti sauce, really good stuff, rinsed with some merlot, and left to simmer undercover while I did a bike ride around the yard.
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When I came back I tried to start a small 6 cup pot of pasta, but my second burner had lost one of its fittings, so I transferred the stainless skillet over there and brought the pot of water and pasta to a boil and cooked it. When it was done I had a problem, too much stuff and not enough pot to put it in. I reasoned the small pot was about half of what the skillet was, so I put 1/3 of the meatballs in the small pot and 2/3 of the pasta in the skillet. Some sauce had to be transferred also. I put flakes of parmesan cheese on both. I went for another bike ride.
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Blue, the black dog, was scurrying around and that meant Eloisa was near. I biked up to where she was and presented her dog. She must have sent him to fetch me. I said the food was ready if she wanted to eat. I returned and set things out on the stone table. After a while she and Blue showed up and we began to eat. Blue got a special Publix chicken dinner, hand fed to him. Many people have said, if I am reincarnated, I want to come back as your dog.
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The meatball and pasta recipe wasn’t a disaster, but the “Garden Rotini” was not multicolored. It looked like ordinary rotini. It’s hard to find stuff at the grocers these days.
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It was getting close to sunset and I had to bike to the Breezeway to see what was going on. The mosquitoes also biked to the Breezeway to attack me. I could take nice sunset pictures, but I had to withstand the assault. I gave up, but I got some good photos.