Goodnight

Today I worked hard. I had duty last night, so the day started for me at 0330. Both of my watchstanders happened to be my roommates, so I woke up when St. Mo woke up Butch. Then I stayed awake for their near five minute conversation. My actual day started when Butch woke me at 7am. After getting suited up, I went to make a round, finalize the logs, and hand over the watch.

Promptly relieved at 8:45, I changed into my civvies and headed to the grocery store. I had prepared a list for our week’s worth of food yesterday, so this trip shouldn’t be any sweat. I took care of the dry items in no time. I even fit them into one cart. And I only had to go backwards once (Hannaford puts their stupid baked beans on the stupid wrong side of the stupid wrong aisle).

I turned in the second and third cart in record time, spending less time on those two than at least one young couple spent haggling over their first. The fourth cart was nothing but frozen items: ice cream, garlic bread, and very few frozen vegetables (the new captain is adamant about fresh and fancy). Checkout was a gloriously quick 35 minutes. It was so fast that I barely got to marvel at how efficient my cart packing was. My 4 carts turned into 6 carts of bagged groceries. The damage was a mere $1190. It should last our 24 about 4 days.

Having left the boat at 9am, I wanted to arrive back with the groceries at 12. As I started up the van I glanced at the clock. 11:15. Amazing! Two hours and 15 minutes for four carts of groceries! I had the entire load (thanks to today’s duty section) on the boat and put away by 11:45.

Home by 12, I started in on mowing the lawn. I only massacred 3 bees and 2 frogs (I thought those things could jump farther!). A quick shower and I went back to the grocery store to tackle a new recipe for Mary: Mango Martini a la Applebee’s. The liqueurs were stowed and I was on the couch minutes before Tiger’s 3pm tee-time. I watched most of the final round of his 13th major championship before heading out to my family’s cookout in the front yard. Thank God for DVR, because I was able to pause live TV and come in to watch Tiger’s shots (which is all I EVER watch golf for).

The cookout was grand. Afterwards I did the easy part of teaching Abby how to ride a bike. That is, I pretended to hold on to her while she did exactly what Mary and Mim had already told her how to do. She can now go from a stop all the way down the driveway and then use her brakes to stop herself before ending up on Route 17.

Once the bugs realized how good of a marinade we had on, we moved inside. Now the kids are in bed and I can start my day off. Or I can go to bed. It’s late.