Kaimusailing

The countdown to departure from Crisfield gets down to a few days. The weekend has passed and after nice dinners and a lot of wine I find myself grilling the last strip steak. The dinner is ridiculously quick and easy. The steak is grilled for 2 ½ minutes a side and while it’s grilling several romaine leaves are chopped up on a plate and cherry tomatoes thrown on it, drizzled with my brown balsamic vinaigrette dressing and some mayo, and then the steak is plopped on top of it all. It has to rest for a few moments according to the chefs. Probably 10 minutes is enough.
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The countdown to the NY Jets season has brought us to a Monday Night Football game with playoff implications. The Jets play the Chargers. If the Jets lose, both teams will be at .500, 4-4. Much better the Jets win and go to 5-3. Their division rivals are losing left and right. The Dolphins are 6-3, the Bills are 5-4. Enough football talk, the steak must be ready to eat by now.
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The game was a disaster for the Jets. I didn’t go to the Shanty to see it but followed it on ESPN and NFL online on my phone. Better not to see it. 27-6. The Jets put up another ugly game full of penalties, miscues, and fumbles. The Chargers basically did what the Jets wanted to do, score on special teams, get turnovers, score a touchdown.
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The next day is another getting ready to go day.
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I finished off the hotdogs out of my little freezer.
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I made a ride to Cornelia Marie’s house. The Veteran’s Administration said I had mail there. It was a postcard thanking me for my service. I made another ride to the wine shop.
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I wanted to hear music so I bluetoothed the cheap KEMU speaker to the laptop and listened to “25 Years of Rounder Records”, the Louisiana blues disc. Then I looked for Pat Metheney, but that wasn’t part of my Ubuntu audio player app. I found some tracks from Metheney’s Travels album and played them. Also the Left Turn album.
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I read a thread from NotAlwaysRight.com. It’s the 2023 most inspirational stories. I recommend it, but have plenty of tissues around. Must be my allergies.
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The stories are submitted and categorized. There are very many stories on that site. Of the last batch, the one that had a meter man find out the nice old lady living in the apartment he was taking meter readings at might have been the best. He was servicing meters on Christmas weekend and her meter needed some help. She was concerned that her fridge might be in trouble unless it got power. He checked her fridge and found out she was having some bread and beans for Christmas dinner. He went home and talked to his wife and they came back. The lady asked if there was something wrong with her meter. They invited her to their home with their kids and dogs for Christmas dinner. She refused.
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They insisted, and with tears in her eyes she accepted. They had family over for that dinner and their grandma and the old lady hit it off. It ended up with the old lady becoming an elderly babysitter and part of the family. My allergies are causing me trouble again.
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I have tears when I leave, others have tears when I arrive.
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How maudlin.
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It’s the movement, the moving around, going South, but anyone who is moving like this, for their life, or maybe for just a few months, has to go through moving. A terrible process.
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I was persuaded to take my time moving and I’d like to spread out the packing up the car process over more time, maybe a couple of days.
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The sunset was spectacular but it didn’t excite me as much as the one out at the Legion a couple of nights ago. A lot of comments on that photo.
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I have to apologize to the readers of the previous post who may have read it before I could re-edit it. Also my apologies to those who read it afterwards.
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I was given a ride to the airport to pick up my rental car and I am thankful for the elderly couple who are so nice, and like me, are packing up to head out of Crisfield. Moving is never easy, and the older you get, the less easy it is. My schedule to pack up the next day and leave the day after that early in the morning was changed to two days of packing before I left. I trundled a cart full of stuff up the dock to the car and then took off to get steak and salad greens at the grocers and have dinner at the Legion with Cuddily and Teri.
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I needed to be more careful with my wine, it is not good to get a DUI with a rental. When I returned to the marina my gate code didn’t work, but I was let in by security. Back on board I was ready to hit the sack when a friend called and I ended up not getting to sleep until around 2AM..
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I was very sore the next day but taking my time I moved a lot of stuff into the car. I took a break and went to the post office to forward my mail to the boatyard in Georgia. I decided to quit for the day when I got back, had a glass of wine, and grilled the steak. Let it sit for about 15 minutes, then slice it onto sourdough bread, a steak sandwich with out any cheese, just pepper and mayo. And pinot noir.
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The last night in Crisfield was weird because it was Veteran’s Day (observed). The Legion had a reserved table for 8 in a prime location, near the bar and near the entrance. The commander was a marine and Semper Fi, he had some of his marine buddies, these are real military, they gathered at the reserved table. These are fleshy men guzzling shots of some sort of fire water and shouting marine marching commands. I don’t know how drunk they were but they got a ceremonial sword out of its bag and its case, and then began marching maneuvers with that sword. Could have taken anyone’s head off.
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I had to drive back to the marina and my new code worked at the gate. I was ready for sleep, but I woke up soon after, maybe 2AM or a little later. I needed to get going around 5 or 6 and I still had stuff to move to the car. I wanted to make that last trip of stuff to the car my last trip to the car, and I could drive off.
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I had plenty of time to make breakfast, coffee, and work my stuff into the dock cart. I threw the port warp onto the piling and brought SUNSPLASH a little bit away from the finger pier.
The bicycle was aboard, all was ready to depart. The automatic gate opened and I left.
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The image is the photo of the spectacular sunset at the American Legion.