Kaimusailing

The puppies were becoming an unruly mob. There are 3 males, one larger and aggressive than the others. They constantly fight with each other in a playful way. The females are mostly smaller, but the yellow lab, female, is equally large and aggressive as the smaller males. These pups are fun to watch, but they are starting to be young dogs with growing appetites, and larger, uhm, output, and the job of taking care of them is wearing Eve down. Hopefully she will have whittled down the wolf pack to just a few stragglers.
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I had a breakfast of salmon cracker spread on sourdough slices, with a dab of cocktail sauce down the middle. I later went to the market to get bagels for the salmon. I might not have my customary omelet sandwich for breakfast for a couple of days.
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The deal to make Thursday night Pizza Night at the Shanty was underway and I made my batch of dough for 4 pies. I delivered the dough to the Shanty and soon was joined in Crush drinks by the Bad Crowd, or most of them. The oven was lit at ten after five and at about five thirty we had the chef, also named Andy, make a plain pie with fresh basil and oregano, his sauce, and mozzarella. When the pie came out it also had fresh sliced tomatoes on it. Yummy. Next was a veggie pie with onion, sweet peppers, and mushroom. We ended up with one slice left over and the kitchen had enough dough for two more pies, for next time.
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I did have the bagel with cream cheese and salmon cracker spread for breakfast, not bad, very filling. Cuddily picked me up at the marina and we went to the Somerset County Health Center, about 5 miles, for me to get my second booster shot for covid. I had put off the shot because I knew I had a history of debilitating arthritis attacks after the other Moderna shots. I wanted to have a couple of weeks with no planned activities to ride out the inevitable reaction.
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When I returned I tried to transfer my beautiful phone to Verizon from T-Mobile. Apparently it is a Verizon requirement now that they have taken over Straight Talk. It didn’t work. I want to be sure I can transfer and not lose anything. Their instructions, both in English and Spanish, are vague or contradictory enough to just leave it alone for now. I’ve backed up everything, so I’m not as worried about losing any saved data, I’m worried about the phone not coming back to life in a geographic area that has spotty cell phone and wifi distribution.
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I could enjoy a steak sandwich for late lunch and get over the frustration with the phone. The steak was just the right size for my ½ slice of sourdough sandwich, but the steak was at least an inch thick. Some mayo, a glass of pinot noir, and I was now a caveman dining.
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It was hot out and I felt like taking a nap. I wasn’t sure if it was an after effect of the shot or something due to using Flomax. I was drifting off into a blissful nap when a message came on the phone. Can I come up and help Eve with something. What do you need help with? Deliver the tax bill. Is that in Princess Anne? That is a joke, Princess Anne is a long bike ride. She wanted me to just bring her bill to city hall, not too far from her house. I didn’t feel like doing it or anything else. I biked up anyway and felt better for doing it.
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Oh, could you bring a box of pinot grigio from Big Willie’s? Not a problem, but if I brought the wine up from Big Willie’s I could then have brought the bill payment down on the return trip. Now it was two trips. It was good for me. I had a glass of the white wine, not my usual thing, but it was ice cold. The puppies were all over the back yard, sleeping under bushes, behind large flowerpots, sleeping in groups, some hiding alone. Hard to find. That must be why she really asked me to come, help bring the little tykes in. Avoid the poop, wash up afterwards.
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I wanted to head back down to the marina and bring some pepperoni to the Shanty and have them make a pie with my dough, my oven, my pepperoni, but with Chef Andy doing his magic preparing the pie. The ladies wanted me to go to Cuddily’s water front home for some wine, cheese, and a bunch of other concoctions. I went to the waterfront.
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The box of Black Box Pinot Noir that I shopped in Pocomoke with Cuddily was still at her wine service and there was plenty. I imbibed. The food was tasty, let’s have more wine. I returned to Eve’s house and helped her. She had to mop the puppies’ playpen on the enclosed back porch. Then the pups went into the pen and the rest of the porch was mopped. I was able to tear myself away from the scene and bike back to the marina where the Shanty was still open. There was a birthday party going on, Andy the Chef’s, and I celebrated with an orange crush.
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The next day I finished the salmon on a bagel for breakfast, later had another steak sandwich. The work on the phone was awful. Their whole system of transferring to the new SIM refused to work. The tech support people were clueless. I had to nap for a bit, then went down to the Shanty’s outside tent where the internet was better. It didn’t take long for them to screw it up further. Now neither SIM card would work. My phone was now out of commission going into a Sunday. What a mess. I could send emails announcing no phone. The Shanty opened and I had a crush. I gave Chef Andy some pepperoni to make a pie.
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No phone, no pain. I could get some internet from the marina, intermittently on their part. I gave myself up to a life with no contact with humans. I was at the Shanty tent, outside, they were closed, I was using their wifi node.
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The phone problem is very simple. Verizon bought out Straight Talk and a few other smaller cellular entities, I was once a Verizon customer, but their first strike was when I was paying $400 a month for ordinary service and they said we don’t even sell that contract anymore, they replaced it with a $100 contract, second strike was when I couldn’t find a Verizon tech to help me and Walmart had a tech that said, why don’t you sign up for our cheapest plan, it’s $45 a month with 8G’s of data, I was only getting 4G’s of data with Verizon and paying more than twice as much, I signed up for Straight Talk, of course, and now the third strike, Verizon has bought out Straight Talk.
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Okay, conspiracy theorists, now is your chance. The conspiracy monopoly that is geared up to taking a few more dollars out of the poor waterman’s pocket. Your cell phone bill is going up.
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We are captive. We have to pay ransom to remain captive. Hey, it’s hard to write this stuff, why don’t you give it a try? Where was I, captive, give up.
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The one, maybe, positive note is a little bluetooth speaker from SONY purchased on Prime Day. $27, it has magnetic mounts, is a candy blue color, and so far has connected perfectly with the laptop. I played music, podcasts, YouTube, all sound fine. My laptop does not drive its speakers, only the audio port, and Bluetooth output. So the little blue speaker fits almost anywhere, there is a nice blue lanyard with it, it’s probably waterproof and shower ready, fills out my intermittent internet experience, now I have audio too.
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I did more research on the cell phone carrier problem and it looks like Verizon is pushing any non-verizon customers out of Straight Talk. They provide a free Verizon compatible SIM, but Straight Talk used almost any carrier for customers who brought their own phone into the store, the SIM would be compatible with their old carrier. So, your T-mobile phone will work with Straight Talk as the provider, you are using T-mobile towers, and you are using wholesale data and voice minutes purchased by Straight Talk from T-mobile and resold to the customer. Now that whole scenario is abruptly changing. I will probably have to become a T-mobile customer. It looks like my phone is locked to their carrier.
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Now it is a week later, an unbelievably difficult week, on phone tech support chat with Straight Talk and T-mobile adding up to at least 20 hours. Either the techs are incompetent or the transition at Straight Talk is a big SNAFU. I ended up having to go to the T-mobile store in Salisbury, Cuddily was kind enough to take me, but she didn’t know what we were in for. It took 3 hours to process my purchase of a T-mobile phone plan, and afterwards we were both famished, having missed lunch. We ended up at Don’s in Pocomoke for Orange Crushes and appetizers. We went to Cuddily’s waterfront home where Eve arrived with steak to go along with a salad. I got to slice up cucumbers. Eve dropped me off at the marina afterwards.
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I still have to port my phone number over from Straight Talk to T-mobile. The Straight Talk techs had me do a factory reset which wiped out all my personal data. All my recent photos were gone. I did back them up, but the restore function doesn’t seem to access them. The image on this post is my most recent photo, of the Small Boat Harbor, taken from Cuddily’s waterfront home.