Kaimusailing

The grand plan to move Roughrider Lynn’s boat kind of evaporated with the approach of low pressure and a gale. We will have to wait for the storm to go through and try again in a few days. This is remarkable weather with strong NE winds, which would be right on the nose, all week. The weather report from Norfolk is NE wind 18-30.
.
Lynn has an alarm from her engine and needs to fix that. When I googled “cruisers forum Volvo alarm” I found several postings of trouble with the MDI, which is a monitor panel that also has alarms for water temperature, oil pressure, and battery voltage. Apparently the panel malfunctions and is costly to replace.
.
I cycled to the grocers in spite of the increasing winds and picked up a few items. I saw 80 percent lean ground chuck on sale, about ten bucks for three pounds so I got some. Back on board I separated the meat into two one pound packages and three burger sized packages. Of course one burger went on the grill and I had a nice sourdough meal. I had no ketchup, just mayo. Maybe I could come up with a sauce. I also had no worcestershire sauce.
.
I decided to make a mole type of sauce that I could use on burgers and also to make chili.
.
I looked at my ole mole chili recipe and found I had no onions or peppers, but I had garlic, so made my sauce with garlic and some medium salsa that had tomato and onion in it. This sauce was so quick and easy. The hard part is prepping the garlic, but after doing that, maybe 6 cloves, thinly sliced, I sauteed them in a sauce pan in a little olive oil. After I got the aroma coming out of the pan I dumped in a small jar of salsa, medium spicy, and rinsed the jar with a leftover glass of pinot noir. Nothing goes to waste here. Next the spices went in, about 2 tbsp each of chili powder, cumin, and cocoa. I added a dash of cooking sherry that I had on hand, couldn’t hurt. A pinch of garlic salt went in and the mixture was whisked until blended. The taste was a bit astringent from the cocoa. Next I added orange marmalade to taste, about 1 ½ tbsp. Orange marmalade is an authentic Andalusian flavor and its sweetness balances the bitterness of the cocoa. Next went in peanut butter, smooth style. This adds flavor and doesn’t really affect what is already there, but you don’t want to overdo it. The hot sauce quickly melts the peanut butter and soon after some more whisking the sauce is ready for anything. I will use half the batch for some chili in the future and the rest will be used as burger sauce.
.
The wind kept on and rain came along, the whole Memorial Day weekend was a rain out. A “Kick Off the Crab Season” event that was scheduled on Saturday didn’t happen. I biked around the marina and it was empty. There was a group of maybe half dozen people hanging out at a couple of cars looking like they were ready to leave. Sure folks, nothing to see here, move along.
.
The next day I made a batch of brown rice and then cooked about a pound of ground chuck in a separate pot. Let it brown on the bottom and then go a bit more, break it up, let it brown again. Your nose will tell you when it has lots of that sizzling steak aroma. Then I pour in about a cup of the ole mole concoction, mix and simmer. I have a bowl of the rice and the chili. Yum.
.
I’ve been researching salsa as to whether I should make it from scratch or keep buying jarred salsa. It seems that jarred salsa is OK and one of the brands I have used is Herdez which gets good reviews from others. I have to check my local grocers. Walmart features it online.
.
The weather continues its strange behavior. It’s been over a week of strong, even gale, NE winds and intermittent rain. This has kept me aboard and inside and eking out the groceries. I was out of ham and cheese for my morning omelets. I had hamburger meat and rice. I had a few eggs.
.
There is a Hawaiian food called Loco Moco that was invented in Hilo in modern times. It is a scoop of rice with a hamburger patty on top and a fried egg on top of that. Brown sauce is poured over it all. It can be made with SPAM, Kailua pork, tuna, or almost any other protein. I decided that would be my breakfast next time.
.
I was running out of water to make more rice. I was planning on using my mole sauce as the sauce for the Loco Moco. Wait a minute, my Ole Mole Chili has hamburger and mole sauce, and it is mixed with rice. So I made a test batch of the chili and rice and put a fried egg on top. Not bad.
.
Cuddily texted she was going to Pocomoke to get her oil changed, did I want to come along, yes. She used Walmart and while her oil was changing I shopped for groceries. On the way back we saw Eve’s house under construction, like the whole roof was being replaced. Eve was long gone though we may see her later in the summer. We stopped at the marina where I offloaded my groceries and said I would go to the Legion later.
.
I biked to the Legion against the breeze and was pooped when I got there. I had finished off a half liter of water before, during, and after the ride. Perhaps I was dehydrated. At a high top table sat Teri with a white wine. I grabbed a merlot and joined her. Cuddily came in and we lamented the loss of our chef, Eve. We did not have an appetite but had some onion rings and potato skins. I was able to bicycle back to the marina somehow.
.
The image is a photo of the twilight at the Legion.

Now that my Coleman Camp Grill was operational I could grill a steak on it. I was duped into buying a family pack of 2 steaks, “manager special”, t-bone, actual price was around $6.91/lb., normal price $12.99/lb. Great bargain? Not. My favorite steak, NY Strip, was on sale at $6.99/lb. and boneless. Nevertheless I grilled one of the t-bones and smoked up the cabin. Good nutrition.
.
A new problem arose. Roughrider Lynn was back aboard her steel sailboat in Urbana, VA, and now wanted to move it to Crisfield. I agreed to help her, but I wanted at least one other person on board. She seemed unable to come up with crewmate.
.
I did the route planning and it came out to almost exactly 50 miles, mostly a NE course. I made a light list, bearing and distance of the legs, and then realized we were in a protracted NE weather flow, we were stuck between a high pressure cell and a low that would arrive on Memorial Day weekend. Anyone who has tried to drive a boat against the Bay chop and into a wind of more than 10 knots has found that usually speed has to be reduced to deal with hobby horsing and spray. The end result is much longer time spent bashing into the wind and waves. In our case the forecast is gusting up to 25 knots for the rest of the week.
.
As is usual, the NOAA marine forecast is overly daunting. We were going to wait for the weekend, but the wind had abated by Wednesday. In the morning Lynn called and was emotional and weeping, she is going through the grieving process. Just a half hour later she called all happy and reporting the engine was running, the fuel was declared suitable by a good mechanic. I asked her to run it about a half hour under load, that is, in gear, but not break any mooring lines. She also reported the VHF radio was operational. I had a handheld VHF that I would bring along anyway.
.
While route planning with OpenCPN I neglected to test the GPS dongle, labeled “GPS/GLONASS U-blox7”, and now I tried it out. I have numerous notes on how to get it going. This time I found that selecting and deleting any connections in the tool section of OpenCPN, and then adding connection which brings up a menu page. The connection is network, gpsd protocol, address 0.0.0.0. Other schemes that I may have posted might have been using Navigatrix as the operating system and OpenCPN operates a little bit differently depending on what Navigatrix distribution you are using. This time I am using a Ubuntu operating system with OpenCPN downloaded and installed from the repository.
.
The image is a screen shot of the route planned using OpenCPN.

I awoke on board SUNSPLASH in the marina. I don’ remember how I managed to return from the dinner party at Eve’s house. My bicycle was here and to get into the marina I had to enter a code in the lock. There were extra groceries in the fridge and a box of “Taco Kit”. OK, now I remember some of the evening.
.
I deleted several short videos of the ladies of the arts council boogeying in Eve’s kitchen. We must have had a great time. I made breakfast with the last slice of bread and an egg. Coffee was weak and made with water from the marina spigot. I was out of coffee, water, bread, and I was scheduled to go shopping with Skittlezz, a local lady who is kind of like Uber.
.
We went to Mrhos, a propane supplier, and I refilled my 20# tank. It cost just under 20 dollars. The alternative is to do an exchange at Food Lion, but they give you 15# and charge just over 22 dollars. I did stop there on my way back and got my water, bread, and coffee. At the marina I schlepped the water and propane to my finger pier. I was finally done with provisions and I could take it easy.]
.
Eve texted me to come help her with her vehicle. What could I do? I biked up to find out. She had the check engine light come on and conversed with her son in Pasadena. He is a mechanic and told her how to obtain the trouble code, then he researched what that code meant. It was a vacuum balance problem. The cause was a vacuum hose had slipped off its spigot. This allows air into the intake manifold and results in hard starting, loss of power, and the engine running lean.
.
Eve started the car up and felt confident to make a run to the trash transfer station. She had had the car die on her and didn’t trust it. I suggested that the loose hose might have been the problem all along. We had no trouble on the short trip and checked the hose again on our return. All good.
.
She continued packing and I returned to the marina and found the avocados were ready for a batch of guacamole. I checked the contents of the taco kit and found a package of blue corn taco shells, taco sauce, and a pack of taco seasoning. I used the remainder of a jar of salsa rojo, the taco sauce, and a sprinkling of the seasoning in the guacamole mix. It was good. I tried one of the blue corn taco shells and found them to be stale tasting and leathery, not crunchy. Fortunately I had some white corn nachos and enjoyed a snack of the guac.
.
I made a batch of brown rice and put most of it away in the fridge, warmed up some leftover pollo en negro mole. It was now late afternoon so I had my early dinner with some pinot noir.
.
The next day Eve texted me, did I have boltcutters. Yes, but not in Crisfield. Later she asked if I could bring her Twisted Tea, Original Flavor. I bike to the wine store and got a cold pack of the hard tea. We drank a couple of teas while she took a break from squeegeeing the water in her basement. She was trying to dry out the basement prior to a house inspection in a couple days. She was frantic. I asked if she wanted to go to the Legion for supper. She said she was too busy. I was hoping she could give me a ride there. Was I ready to bike that far?
.
Back at the marina it was getting close to dinner time. I could bike to the grocers to get foodstuffs or bike to the Legion and have supper there. It would be the first time this season. I set out for the Legion.
.
On my way against the breeze I was struggling a bit. I saw Cuddily approach the Legion just as I got there. We went inside where Teri was sitting at a high top alone. We joined her with our wines, or in Cuddily’s case, whiskey and ginger ale. A fellow had brought a game of some sort to the table and was trying to show Teri how to play it. She seemed surprised at the intrusion. He left abruptly as we three sat at the high top. Eve arrived, causing a commotion.
.
We moved to a larger table. The special on the menu was BLT salad or wrap. We saw one of these and wisely ordered burgers. I bought a shot of Jameson’s for Cuddily. She seemed very happy. I do not remember the bike ride back to the marina in the dark or opening the security gate.
.
The next morning I felt pretty good and organized a load of laundry. Today would be the day of tuna salad sandwich for dinner. I began filling an empty 1lb propane cylinder from the 20lb tank. I figure I paid a little less than 20 dollars for 20 lbs. The 1lb cylinders are around six and a half dollars at the grocers. The alcohol stove would use about a quart of alcohol in about 12 days, a 1lb propane cannister lasts about 2 weeks. No brainer.
.
Ole Mole Chili con Carne

Brown 1 lb chopped meat in skillet, drain, set aside
saute 7 jalapeno's deseeded and fine dice with 2 minced cloves of garlic, 1 cup diced onion, 1 cup diced mixed peppers
add 1 tbs cocoa powder, 1 tbs brown sugar, 1 tbs peanut butter, 1 tsp oregano, dust top with chili powder and cumin, 1 tsp coriander.
when jalapenos and onion mixture has softened, add 1-2 cups spicy prepared salsa (tostado medium)
Try this 1 tbs each of cocoa, chili, cumin, old bay, brown sugar, peanut butter.
.
This is directly copied from my old recipe. I am using orange marmalade instead of brown sugar, no old bay.
.
For this batch I sauteed 1 diced red onion with some olive oil and a dash of balsamic vinegar. After a while I added 4 thinly sliced garlic cloves, maybe a tablespoon and a half’s worth. I dusted with fresh ground black pepper, 1 tbsp of chili powder, cumin, cocoa, and after mixing added 1 ½ lbs of ground beef. This was mixed until all the meat was browned. Next a jar of Food Lion medium chunky salsa went in. Mix until bubbling. Then I added a heaping tbsp of peanut butter and one of orange marmalade. Mix and taste. Rick Bayless adjusts the spices by adding salt or brown sugar to taste. I would use marmalade and garlic salt. The chili is removed from the fire and allowed to “improve”.
.
I had the chili with brown rice for dinner. Very tasty.
.
The next day was supposed to be a party at Cuddily’s house to honor our great artist and friend, Eve. The forecast was rain and in the morning was overcast with light rain falling intermittently. I texted Cornelia Marie, could she give me a ride to the party, yes, but the day improved, no rain. I could have biked it. We stopped at the wine shop for some more Frontera pinot noir and a bottle of white wine. The shop did not have a good selection of white wine in magnum sized bottles.
.
We were a bit early to help Cuddily with her party. I tried one of the deviled eggs that CM made and it was very good. She had extra special spices, herbs, and the obligatory paprika on top. Guests began arriving. I thought it might have been a really big party but the turnout was kind of a select group of Eve’s friends. It was like the old Bad Crowd but with a few added souls. CM had written a long poem, ode to Eve, and she read it before the guests came. Cuddily read it. CM could deliver it better.
.
The party migrated to the enclosed porch overlooking the inlet to the Small Boat Harbor. We adjusted chairs and drank more wine. The Legion nearby was having entertainment and free hot dogs. We were fine with our party.
.
The sunlight became better and better as it sunk lower and lower. I snapped a few shots, then got a colorful sunset. The image is of that sunset.

It took me a couple of days to recover from overdoing it on the bicycle. I was sore and stiff. I ran out of wine and then ran out of cheese. The next morning was a ham and cheese sandwich without the cheese. Then it was an egg sandwich the next day, the bread was now gone. I was not starving but my diet was restricted to leftover chili with rice, peanut butter on crackers.
.
Thus I was forced to go out and restock my basic foodstuffs. I took it easy on the bike and returned with eggs, cheese, and ham, along with avocados, lime, iron tablets, bread, and a large package of chicken thighs, on sale for $.99/lb.
.
When I saw the chicken on sale I immediately thought of making more chicken mole, but by the time I returned to SUNSPLASH the cooking was canceled, I made a ham and cheese sandwich paired with pinot noir.
.
The alcohol stove works perfectly well until you want to really start cooking and then keeping it lit for long periods of time becomes a problem. I have been able to simmer things for an hour with maybe a pint of fuel in it. It holds a liter in each burner, but that much alcohol starts costing a lot. The pandemic drove the price of denatured alcohol up so that in the local hardware store a quart was $10.99.
.
The Coleman Camp Grill that I had used in the past had one bad feature, the adapter to attach a propane cylinder to the grill mandated that the cylinder be located behind the stove to the right. In SUNSPLASH’s galley there is not enough room, making it difficult to position the stove, also making it difficult to change out cylinders when they go empty. I solved this problem by borrowing a hacksaw from Eve and cutting the adapter right in the middle and putting 2 feet of rubber hose in place. Now the cylinder can be located anywhere convenient.
.
The propane grill runs forever on those little 1 lb. cylinders, so cooking for an extended period of time is possible. My package of chicken thighs needs a larger cooking pot than usual and I will use the pressure cooker, and while I’m doing so, I can cook some brown rice too. I need chicken stock for the rice and a little for the mole sauce. The thighs will produce the stock while getting pressure cooked and the rice will absorb a lot of the stock. I want the thighs to be well done and falling apart. Next the chicken meat will be simmered in mole negro along with diced red onion.
.
All this requires lazy me to stow away the alcohol stove and install the propane grill in its place.
.
The next day was spent trying to recover from the ordeal. Stowing the alcohol stove was simple and quick. I put the propane grill in its place and searched for the smaller of the two grill top grills. I searched all over. I tore up the interior of the cabin and found other things, but not the little grill piece. I ended up finding it laying in the grill. Grrr.
.
The pressure cooker had a seal with it. I could not get the seal seated in the groove in the lid. I put the seal on the lip of the cooker and hoped it would seal things up, but if not, it would just have to cook longer. The chicken thighs were seared in the bottom of the pressure cooker, then removed and set aside. A folding vegetable steaming sieve was placed in the bottom of the cooker and a cup of brown rice was mounded in the middle of the steamer. The idea was to prevent rice from burning on the bottom of the pot. Next the thighs went in along with 3 cups of water. The seal and lid were put on and I let it build up pressure. It was not to happen, though. No pressure, the seal didn’t seal. No matter, let it cook. After about an hour or hour and a quarter the thighs were falling apart and the rice was puffed up. The thighs went onto a platter to cool, the rice went into a smaller pot with a little more water to cook some more.
.
Next I set the rice aside and started the mole in another small pot. Mole negro paste, roja salsa, and some water were heated and mixed together. In went a diced red onion. The chicken was deboned, deskinned, and cut into small pieces, added to the mole sauce. It simmered and the flavors blended together. I had a small portion along with some of the rice. Yummy.
.
The next day was a marathon of trying to get burned rice and chicken fat off the bottom of the pressure cooker. There were plenty of other dishes to clean, but I like doing that and eventually the galley was spic and span. Now I have about a quart of chicken mole and maybe two cups of brown rice in the fridge. A little goes a long way.
.
I continued to watch motorcycle restorations on YouTube and the one channel I watch most is put up by 2vintage. He records the process and I thought, how nice of him to go through all that trouble. Very detailed, he shows every little step. Then I realized he is not just doing this for us, he is documenting the tear down so that he can put it all back together. His channel does have a lot of ads.
.
The NFL schedule came out and the NY Jets will play against the top 4 scoring offenses of last year in their first 6 games. The latter part of the schedule is not so brutal. I can see them winning ten games, maybe more. They could win ten games and not make the playoffs.
.
I have to say something about working with the Veteran’s Administration online. It is a nightmare trying to log into while at the same time having to log into a second government account, sheesh. It took hours.
.
For some reason I was surprised that Webb Chiles was out sailing again. I kind of lost touch with what he was doing. There he was in Cape Lookout Bight, a nice little anchorage that I have never been in and until now didn’t know existed. He stayed for a couple days and is on his way back to Hilton Head with light headwinds, but he will get some nice fair winds and following seas pretty soon.
.
The image is one that I didn’t use from a couple weeks ago. I did not frame the shot correctly and it had maybe 5 degrees of horizontal tilt. Now I used the image manipulation app to “arbitrarily rotate” the image and crop the results. Now it looks like I knew what I was doing when I took the photo. It’s the storm clouds to the East while the sun sets in the West.

I was growing antsy being cooped up for days of wind and rain. I ran out of bread and made fried rice for breakfast using the ingredients of ham and cheese omelet in the fried rice. I spiced it with some of the chicken mole. Yummy. I ran out of wine and snuck out to the local wine store right outside the marina for another box of Black Box pinot noir.
.
The next day my replacement charger for the smart watch arrived after a long delay in Jamaica, NY. Not the Post Office’s fault this time. It would arrive at the house on Cove St. I texted Eve, Cinco de Mayo? And she replied that her sump pump in her basement had quit, I offered to stop by on my way shopping. First I picked up the charger which was in a tiny package. No wonder it got lost on its way to the PO. At Eve’s house I looked at the basement flood and it was not excessive, not as bad as I feared. She said no Cinco de Mayo here, she was packing up to move out of town, her house is under contract. She had some wine glasses to give me and I welcomed them.
.
I left to the store and got a text from Cuddily so I called her before going in and shopping. Maybe we could have Cinco de Mayo at her waterfront home. Avocados were on sale as well as other likely ingredients for festive foods. I bought a jar of Herdez medium salsa, it was on sale, like a promo. The avocados were 50 cents each, ground beef for chili was just over $3 a pound. I didn’t have much of a shopping load to carry. I had a new loaf of sourdough bread. The bike ride back to the marina was a struggle. I am in bad shape.
.
I decided to make the chili after a short rest. I had a red onion, coarse diced, some coloradito mole paste, a splash of water, a pound of lean ground beef, and a big shot of the Herdez salsa. I let the ingredients simmer for a while. I didn’t caramelize the onion or Maillard the beef. I tasted it after a while and it had a nice flavor but was lacking, like add salt. I never had Mexican ingredients require salt, it seems most chefs go wild with the salt, I don’t. But the chili definitely needed salt. I normally add some chicken broth to the mole paste, so now I found an old jar of chicken base which was congealed into crystals. I broke out about 2 teaspoons of it and threw it in the pot. The flavor change was magical. After some more simmering I had some of it with brown rice. Superb but a bit spicy for some.
.
Later just after sundown marina security called and said my water hose was leaking so they shut off, or tried to shut off the spigot on the dock. I went on deck and onto the dock and tried to open the spigot again to see where the leak was. I couldn’t budge it. I got a small pipe wrench and tried again. I opened the spigot and opened it up full. Too full. The top came off the spigot and a geyser of water erupted. I tried to force the top back onto the spigot but the water pressure was too much. I was soaked. For some reason I thought of Red Adair. I called the marina back and said what had happened. Back on the dock I reasoned that the water pressure could be shut off by the marina at the head of the dock. I could maybe reduce it by turning on a faucet down lower, the one they use to drain the water lines in the Fall. That didn’t reduce the pressure at the spigot very much. I removed the hose. Then I was able to force the top back onto the spigot and screw it down and shut the spigot and shut the drain faucet. OK. I called them back and said the geyser had been shut off. I took off my tee shirt and let it drip dry in the head.
.
While I am writing this, with my reader glasses on and barechested, they arrived and I came up on deck or at least appeared in the companionway. I explained I didn’t normally dress like Vladimir Putin, bare chested. It was almost time to disrobe and go to bed anyway.
.
The next day I hooked the hose back up and tested it. There was a drip drip at the faucet, but no big leak.
.
It was time to make guacamole, the avocados were ripe. I did the usual, mashed avocados and some mild salsa with juice of a lime. The Cinco de Mayo celebration would not happen, though. The crowd at the Legion on Friday nights is something to be avoided. Eve was packing up her house to move out of town and wasn’t in any sort of mood for a party. Cuddily was having a mild cold and said she wouldn’t be up for it. So, the chef has his guac and plenty of excellent chili con carne, corn chips, and pinot noir. No margaritas without outside help. I’ll survive.
.
I continued to watch motorcycle restoration and Catalina 30 videos. Watching mechanical repairs has me almost ready to attack the Atomic Four again. I find myself suggesting, almost outloud, what the motor restorer should do next. The fellow I like best posts on YouTube as 2vintage. My own restoration will be pulling the head off the Atomic 4 and also some carburetor and fuel pump work.
.
The idea is to get the Catalina 30 mobile and bring it to haul out somewhere. The local boatyard looks rather sketchy. Perhaps they would do if I can’t reasonably motor the boat across the bay. Across the bay at a place like Deltaville.
.
In Deltaville is a Lagoon 380 catamaran up for bid on Boat Angel. The current bid is about 37k, but these boats are brokered at over 200k. It will be interesting to see what it goes for. I helped deliver one from Oriental to Ft. Lauderdale. It’s considered a small catamaran.
.
Cornelia Marie texted me that I am invited to a home cooked meal at her mom’s house. I was feeling too sore to ride the bike, plus there was a rain forecast, so I asked if she could give me a ride. She and Wilbur arrived at the marina and we stopped at the wine shop, then at Cuddily’s waterfront home.
.
There was a need for bread. We went to the grocers, got bread, then got drenched when the rain hit on the way back.
.
The meal was shrimp scampi, garlic bread, and salad, all prepared by CM and Wilbur. The entire meal was excellent. The shrimp had been marinated, the linguine was perfectly cooked. We had a rainy night. My Galaxy smart watch told me what I already knew, I did not have a pleasant night’s sleep. I seem to have a bad night’s sleep followed by a night of good catch-up sleep.
.
The next morning was overcast and wet but the sun came out and we are beginning a week of fine weather, temps in the 70’s afternoons.
.
The image is of the salads that went along with the shrimp scampi. Beautiful.

I made another batch of pollo en coloradito mole and brown rice. I used 4 skinned chicken thighs and mole paste, salsa, and water in 1/3 cup portions. The rice had plenty of chicken stock in it, so I didn’t need stock to make the mole sauce. The chicken thighs were simmered in the sauce for an hour or so. I ate one thigh with a portion of the rice. Mmm good. I couldn’t help myself but to have another thigh. I promised to save some for Eve, the artist.
.
I was chagrined to find the Boater’s Lounge was now a snack bar kitchen. The kitchen apparatus came from the Red Shell Shanty which will not be open this year. So, we lose the shanty and we lose the lounge. No place to work on the internet inside. Outside I had mixed results trying to connect to either of the marina’s wifi channels. I ended up using my phone to post the previous blog posting. I had to access my online medical records and was able to do so with the laptop, so the marina wifi is somewhat operative.
.
We had fish chowder at Ann’s waterfront home and the next day I drove up to Salisbury to return the rental car. I first topped up the fuel and stopped at the UPS Store in Salisbury to return an Amazon item. Google Maps then directed me to the airport by way of back roads that ran through some hilly country and some nice homes.
.
At the airport I turned in the car and Eve’s brother in law called me. He was in Salisbury at his doctor’s and asked if I wanted a ride back to Crisfield, yes indeed. After arriving at my dock I warmed up a portion of the chicken mole and rice. It does taste better the next day.
.
The past week of activity, the long drive, all added to the pain of my sore hip. I took a day or two of rest. I watched several EA Sports football game simulations and focused on 49’ers and NY Jets games. The simulations had the Jets with their new (old) quarterback, Aaron Rodgers. Of the Jets game simulations I watched, 2 out of 3 were losses. I don’t agree with the simulations, one had Sauce Gardner having a touchdown scored on him. Not gonna happen. They also had Rodgers throwing a couple picks in the 3 games. He only threw 4 all of last year.
.
The weather is chilly in the mornings and warming in the afternoon but still a little too cool to go out on the bike without a jacket. The first time I tried to pedal the bike I broke the chain. Walmart had no bike chains, but I found a chain tool with repair links and bought that. Back at the dock the chain tool, which is supposed to break open the chain, instead broke itself, useless. I was able to use a repair link in spite of that and finished by oiling each link with 3-in-One oil. The bike needed air in the tires and was good to go. I was able to bike to the wine shop for more pinot noir.
.
I was following up on my Pilot gasoline scam reimbursement after a week of waiting for $5.47 credit on my card. The customer service rep I talked to gave me a long hold while she did something, then reiterated the numbers relating to the transaction, then said she had to contact other Pilot personnel and she would get back to me. Sure. It’s not the amount of money, it’s the principle, like I’m a good citizen reporting their malfunctioning pump, and they don’t do anything, just let the malfunctioning pump continue to overcharge customers. Evil.
.
I needed to get transportation to Pocomoke to have blood drawn at the VA clinic. A local lady has a sort of Uber type of service but I was cautioned that she is very busy and can get booked up. I called her the day before I needed her and she arranged me on her schedule. She gave me a huge discount because I am a veteran.
.
The next day was chilly and rainy. I was hoping my visit to the clinic wouldn’t take a long time. I was hoping my ride would not have to sit around waiting. Not to worry. I was almost a half hour early for my appointment but I could see the receptionist was checking my name off a list, the last one on the list, I must be the last one to see the phlebotomist. I waited about 5 minutes, was called in, blood drawn, and out I went. My ride was returning from the Hardee’s fast food place and we were on our way back to the marina.
.
The chill and rain came along with a gale warning. Indeed, the winds became stronger and SUNSPLASH was rocking and rolling like at sea. A message: Your Avocados are Ready. The avocados were at Eve’s house. We negotiated, I will purchase more wine for her if we can have a Mexican Night dinner at her house. I also shopped for breakfast items. Blue Corn Nachos are not for breakfast. She shopped for taco ingredients.
.
Back in her kitchen I prepared the guacamole using my new citrus squeezer and some of the mild salsa that I still had from St. Marys. The squeezer was amazing, producing maybe 5 times as much juice as hand squeezing. The guac was ready as Ann and Teri arrived.
.
Eve blanched a package of shrimp and fried mahi mahi almost as well as I would have done, ha ha. What a great cook, her I mean. We had seaweed salad, oriental mixed salad, ingredients for pico de gallo, and of course soft taco skins. She roasted a couple to make a couple of crispy taco shells. We were enjoying the tacos along with margaritas. Later I would say, Too Much Tequila. I ended up back at the marina.
.
The next morning I couldn’t find my lovely phone, did it fall out of my pocket again? It does fall out from time to time. I had a lot more stuff in my fridge than before but I didn’t remember loading it up, didn’t remember much about returning to the marina. Too Much Tequila.
.
I pedaled up to Eve’s house, bringing a hacksaw I had borrowed. When I arrived she smirked at me. I tried to call you but it rang on my kitchen counter. I had left the phone there. She said Ann had taken me back to the marina. I regret not remembering.
.
For lunch I ate a salad made of leftover taco and guacamole ingredients. Believe me it was not bad with mahi and shrimp along with seaweed salad, etc. I had a glass of wine with it from a bottle left over from the dinner party. It was Stone Cellars cabernet savignon. My wine glass already had some residue from last night and I wiped it out with a paper towel. Odd granular debris there. I noticed the wine was cloudy and very full of precipitate. I looked online at reviews.
.
Most of the reviews are not original, many are just reiterations of the spiel the wine company puts out. Quaffable. None of them said anything about precipitates. I finished the bottle making sure I closely observed any precipitates. It was late in the afternoon, in fact, it was 5 o’clock somewhere. I then opened a box of Black Box pinot noir and it had no precipitates. I checked.
.
It was Saturday and I missed the morning cartoons that I could watch in St. Marys on one of the Jacksonville channels. Up here I have no TV and there is no Boater’s Lounge anymore to watch TV. I guess I will be watching YouTube a lot.
.
I stayed up to watch the first round of the NFL draft. You don’t do this unless you are really hooked. My NY Jets had made a trade for Aaron Rodgers and as a result traded first round picks with the Green Bay Packers. They gave their #13 pick to the Packers and received the Packers #15 pick, try saying that real fast. No harm, just two positions lower in the picks, right? No, the Jets really needed to draft an offensive tackle and there were several available right up to pick #14, but that was it, the rest of the available tackles would be considered new recruits that would have to be developed, the Jets are in a win-now mode, they needed someone who could start in the NFL without a lot of training. Maybe the EA Sports simulators are not wrong.
.
I watched simulated games of the San Francisco 49’ers. I was following Sam Darnold who had been traded away by the Jets to the Panthers who used him successfully, but traded him to the 49’ers. It is an interesting situation. The 49’ers are a very successful team, but their quarterback lineup took a terrible turn last season. They had Trey Lance as a new draftee with a lot of talent and Jimmy Garopolo as a veteran who is considered a good quarterback. Both were injured and couldn’t play. They had a raw rookie, Brock Purdy who had to play, and play he did. He was cruising along unbeaten and looking like more than the last player selected in the draft. He was labeled “Mr. Irrelevant”, as the very last draft pick is very unlikely to make the team and get to play. Even he was injured. They had an old veteran, Josh Johnson, who could play, but not at the level required. They died at the end of the season. During the off season they traded for Sam Darnold.
.
Trey Lance is recovering from a broken bone, I think, and Brock Purdy has had Tommy John surgery, which is a complicated elbow ligament repair. Both injuries could sideline these players during the beginning of the year. Here comes Sam Darnold, ready to show what he can do. The simulators were generous with him. It will be interesting to see what transpires about 4 months from now.
.
So, I haven’t posted. I need a picture and it has been too bleak outside, bleak and windy, rainy, too. I’ve been preoccupied with the larger issues of the day, the NFL Draft, and restoration of Honda Super 90 motorcycles. None of this should be surprising. I always wanted a Honda Super 90. The Beachboys wheelied one on stage during one of their early live concerts. Little Honda. All right.
.
This time it didn’t start like that, it was a YouTube invite to see a restoration of a Ducati. Then I saw other motorcycle restoration videos. Motorcycles are cool because you can take them all apart and put them all back together again in just a few hours. But things that are simple and quick can become complicated and slow, just like that.
.
The image is of an old guy restoring a Honda Super 90. There are ten episodes of it on YouTube.
The first episode is at: https://youtube.com/watch?v=9ScjnsDWT1c&feature=share