Kaimusailing

I needed to repair my garden hose at the boat so I rode the bike up to the hardware store just a little past the grocers. I took it easy, this is the farthest I’ve gone on the bike since the hip surgery. The female hose end cost $2.39 and went into my pocket. I rode back near downtown near the marina and stopped in the wine shop. I wanted a magnum of Frontera Pinot Noir, they did not have, so I got a magnum of Frontera Malbec. It cost less than ten bucks. I then biked over to Cove Street for Cornelia Marie’s cookout and bonfire. She had wanted a bonfire for a while.
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I sat outside at the picnic table I was so familiar with. They loaned me a wine glass and I hydrated, sparingly. It was a nice afternoon. Nori, the wonder dog, patrolled the yard, now fenced in to keep her safe. Cuddily and Teri arrived separately with bags of food and wine.
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The firepit now had a huge circular steel thing that turned out to be a firepit from Tractor Supply. It was old and rusty, but fit perfectly over the old firepit. Wilbur filled it with scrap lumber and started the fire.
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Croquet wickets and stakes were already in place and we began knocking the balls around. I remarked that I could not have done this a month ago. I couldn’t stand around for long periods of time then. Now I was managing quite well. I was able to get my ball up near the leaders but lost out in the end as it got dark and we gathered near the fire.
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A gas grill was set up with a propane tank and brats and veggie kabobs were grilled. Cuddily had made potato salad and CM had a garden salad. In the dark we ferried food from the picnic table to the circle of chairs around the firepit. I took a photo in the dark which came out remarkably well using the new phone camera.
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The potato salad was remarkably good and I will try to get the recipe. We sat mesmerized by the fire while we heard strange sounds coming from the direction of the marina. After a while it was time to head home and for me it was a careful bike ride, 3 weeks earlier than the orthopedics allowed. I was sure I would be fine on the bike, but accidents do happen and my new hip still had a way to go to be completely healed.
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The marina was strangely dark and eerie sounds were emanating from there. I was very careful crossing intersections but there was no traffic. The marina gate was open for some event within. It was dark. I had noticed over the past couple of days Halloween displays being erected, skeletons, wrecked automobiles with mannequin victims, fake blood, skeleton dogs and cats, eerily lit displays, and now they were lit and had sound effects. What the heck? I had no idea what was going on. There was police tape cordoning off the parking area forcing me to pedal carefully in the dark and hope I didn’t get snagged by the tape or end up in a cul de sac. I had to be ready to dismount.
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I safely made it to the boat and aboard.
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The next day was soreness but I know it will make me stronger, keep on biking. The garden hose repair was completed including the initial Halloween like green liquid dripping out of the end of the hose. Green blood. My boat neighbors were there to converse and see how I dealt with these things.
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The new fitting was for a larger hose. Would I have to bike back up to the hardware store and get a replacement. Soreness won out. The original fitting was the same manufacture. It turned out the collar was the same size on both fittings. Surely they must fit them together with pressure somehow, they can be pressured apart. I was able to do so without breaking. After fitting the whole thing together I was able to open the tap and stream out green blood from the hose. Neighbors said St. Patrick’s! After a while the algae was cleared and the stream from the hose looked normal.
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In the middle of the night I realized that my old batch of sicilian meatballs and sauce still had a portion in the fridge. I’d better heat it up for a midnight snack or it will rot. I got the zip lock bag of meatballs and sauce out of the fridge and put it in a pot of boiling water. I got out a plate and put two slices of sourdough on it. I sliced each ball in half to expedite the heating process.
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So I had a midnight snack under the full moon with a glass of malbec.
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The next day the people who decorated the marina were now gathering up their skeletons and other Halloween objects. They didn’t seem happy. It was Sunday morning. It seemed like a lot of trouble for a holiday that I don’t feel many people celebrate anymore. Let’s say it wasn’t as successful as the huge inflatable duck.
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I had a hot dog sandwich for breakfast and languished briefly. I asked the marina to unlock the old Red Shell Shanty for viewing of football and went off to bike to the men’s room and then to the old Red Shell Shanty. The Jets Giants game was ugly. Penalties. Inclement weather. Defenses thrashing the offenses. The game kind of depended on specialty teams and kickers. The Jets have “Greg the Leg” who won the game in overtime. The end of the regular game time was such that even hard core Jets fans left the stadium, game over, it looked like a Jets loss.
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The Jets had run a fourth down play in their own half of the field with Zach Wilson, the much maligned quarterback, getting sacked, giving the ball to the Giants, already in place to kick a field goal, a sure win. The departing loyal fans heard that the Giants missed the chip shot field goal and the Jets had the ball down deep in their own territory with only seconds on the clock.
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Somehow Zach Wilson threw a couple of passes and got the ball spiked in field goal range with one second left on the clock. “Greg the Leg” hit the field goal to tie the game and send it into overtime.
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In the ten minute overtime period both teams struggled against the defenses such that both teams had had the ball and now any score, even a field goal, would win the game. “Greg the Leg” kicked one for the Jets and thus, the Jets won the “Battle of New York”.
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All the next day the YouTube channels devoted to the NY Jets were clogged with responses to this ugly game. A couple of commentators who were at the game left in disgust when there were only 24 seconds left in the game and the Giants were lining up for the clincher field goal. One commentator was going to his car when he heard the announcing system say the Giants had missed the field goal. Well, I might as well watch the last 24 seconds on the big screen, he thought. Then the tie and then into the overtime. Ugly. But a win for the Jets.
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I can get creative with cooking and the result sometimes backfires. I don’t like to regurgitate (sorry) these failures but I am always looking for ideas, usually on YouTube, and I’ve found one that looks to be a no brainer, no fail, breakfast sandwich. This idea is from Epicurious, which has a YouTube series that includes 3 cooks, one an entry level, the second supposedly a bit better, and the third a professional chef. Sometimes I like what the entry level or second level produce, but this time the food was grilled cheese sandwich, so I had to watch that one. The one that caught my eye was the pro chef who made grilled cheese sandwich like he makes in his restaurant in Paris. I make grilled cheese and grilled ham and cheese sandwiches all the time. For me the hard part is getting just that perfect browned bread and melty cheese. The pro French chef made his sandwich with nice ingredients, butter of course, but he had a little twist in that he hollowed out a little circle in one of the pieces of bread, and then he placed an egg yolk in it and broiled it just until the yolk was warm.
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So I have been making the “egg in the hole”, “one eyed Connelly”, or egg toastie for a long time. Now I add fried ham with melted cheese on top of it all. I like the buttery egg yolk running like a sauce to sop up with the sourdough bread. The ham has all the salt you need and fries up nicely, just put it on, slice it up, and enjoy. This French pro chef has me thinking to go one better than him, make two egg toasties with the ham and cheese all melty between the slices. Can’t do it until I bike to the grocers for more bread though.
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I had to get rid of the last of my romaine lettuce hearts. These would be called hearts of lettuce hearts, just the last few leaves on the hearts, hydroponically kept alive in the boat’s cockpit with the plastic water bottle bottom tripod. Pile the leaves on a plate and drizzle the balsamic Italian dressing, distribute the contents of a can of tuna fish evenly over it. Black pepper it and squeeze some mayo in a pattern on top. Hey, we’re running out of groceries, so you have to invent. Not bad, though.
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The weather turned for the worse with rainy overcast, preceded by high winds, and looks like a two day event. Nevertheless I had to do laundry and biked around with rain gear on, get the quarters for the laundry machines, get the laundry to the laundry, stand by while it goes through the machines, shiver a bit as the thermometer goes down. I see a couple liveaboards packing their stuff up in a pickup truck to leave for the season. I will be doing the same in about a week.
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I was ready to go out, low on food, but the weather made it too difficult to go out, dinner was hot dogs and salsa and blue corn chips. I had some pinot noir and became hungry again. I ate more salsa and chips. I had an egg and blueberries so I know what will be for breakfast, crepes with blueberries. I suffer so much.
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Most of the Halloween apparatus has been cleared from the marina. It looks like the hay bales that were part of the event were taken away by pickup trucks with appropriate farmer drivers. Did they loan the bales or are they grabbing some leftover giveaways? I wonder if the event even made any money. I think a better idea would be to make the Red Shell Shanty a haunted house, including the nice grounds around it. Have contest for best costume. Open mike ghost stories. Why should I offer any ideas? I grew up in Halloween country. The Headless Horseman, the Catskills, Sleepy Hollow, the pumpkins, all part of Hudson Valley, NY, lore.
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The marina is one of the best parts of Crisfield and it works with the Arts Council to have events that bring in a little tourism and give the locals something right in their marina. Most of the time they have to drive a ways to someone else’s event. This Halloween event didn’t seem to me to be that great. A festival in the fall is a good thing here, it is to me the best time of the year when the summer heat is gone.
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The Thanksgiving event in St. Marys, GA, has brought many cruising sailors to that town every Thanksgiving and they visit and tell others. Crisfield has several events like that but they seem to die out after Labor Day. The Halloween event must have been an attempt to get something going in the Fall. Oktoberfest? What did the original settlers do after the harvest?
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The rain was followed by high winds and low temperatures. The temperature dropped 30 degrees from one day to the next. There was a freeze warning. Night time in the marina got down to 38. It was too windy to go out shopping on the bike. I had crackers and sardines again.
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A nice elderly couple offered to take me to Walmart for shopping and when we got there they gave me a spare key in case I came out of the store before they did. When I came out I tried the key in the van in the handicapped space but the key didn’t work. I sat on an idle electric shopping cart for about a half hour. My phone rang, we’re done and in the car, how are you doing? Yes, a senior moment, I was at the wrong van, identically parked but just one parking aisle over.
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The next day was a trip on the bike for coffee and filters on the way to the Legion. We had chicken sandwiches and of course wine. I took it easy on the wine, biking at night to the marina is a bit dangerous. It was chilly.
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While at the Legion I took a few photos with the new phone and it is definitely a step up from the S20+. The image is a photo of the mainland shore East of the Legion.