As I have told you MANY times before . . . .GOD has a sense of humor. We are put on this earth for nothing more than to amuse the Lord. Hey . . . He created us so I guess He is entitled to getting a good laugh or ten every so often. I guess with the way the world is headed these days The Lord needs as much entertainment as possible to off set the stupidity and evil that is on our planet right now.
I have been praying fervently to God for the past two months that He just let me stay healthy and safe until I could get back to Florida to see my children and the grand kids. God heard my prayers, (He couldn't possibly have missed them because I was praying EVERY minute of EVERY day for two months straight.) WE managed to dodge the Covid bullet and we had a very uneventful drive from Michigan to Florida. It was even a pleasant drive ! The motels we stayed in were clean and very comfortable. We got to stop in Atlanta to see my oldest son and his beautiful family who out did themselves in providing a delish impromptu breakfast and a bag lunch when we left after our two hour visit. God Love Kyle and Bridget ! They are awesome !!!! And my grand daughter Abby even got up at the butt crack of dawn, (9AM is an unGodly hour for a teenager), so she could visit with us and give her grandma some long awaited hugs.
When we left Atlanta we drove about six hours to Gainsville, FL where we spent the night at a fancy hotel that Kyle gifted to us. Next morning we were on our way for the last leg of our journey home. All was well with the world . . . or so I thought.
Just after we pulled in my daughter and her two awesome kids came over to help us unpack the car and get settled in. It was SOOOOOOOOO fantastic to see them. I usually see them every other day so the past five months have been torture for me. But there they were with lots and lots of hugs and smiles and chatter. I don't think they stopped talking for the entire time they were here. Keri helped The Man try to figure out the TV so he could watch a football game at 4:00. The Man had been anticipating this game the entire drive down so when we realized the TV was not working it was a major crisis.
The fact that the TV was not working was entirely my doing . . . Over the summer I had decided that I would cancel my cable subscription. One reason was I would be away for 5 months so why pay all that money for something I would not be using and secondly I, in my infinite wisdom, had decided that I could cut my cable bill in half by getting rid of all the extra channels that I was paying for, just get the basic stations that come with my living in this community and then subscribe to HULU for a much cheaper rate to get all the extras that I was paying triple for from Comcast. But as is usual for my "infinite wisdom" this all did not work as planned and I will probably end up paying more. But that is to worry about another day. For the mean time I was just going with the basic cable provided by my community. NOT !!
WE arrived home only to find that in THEIR INFINITE WISDOM, which is apparently so much wiser than mine . . . The Cable Company, very sneakily, encripted the basic channel reception so that it is now necessary to go to the cable company store and get a new TV box that will allow you to watch even the most ordinary stations. It is FREE, no monthly rental fee, but you have to go to get it. And where is the nearest cable store in these times of Covid 19 ? Why it is down in West Palm Beach of course. BUT it WAS open on Sunday so after fighting with the TV and making several calls to the cable company I got in The Man's car, (That we had just gotten out of after 4 days of driving), and drove to WPB where I got to stand on the sidewalk in the hot sun for twenty minutes until it was my turn to be allowed into the store.
It only took me about ten minutes IN the store so I was back on the road heading home when I decided I better stop at Publix for milk and bread and some much needed beer. A hundred dollars in groceries later I was back home and ready to get the TV working, sitThe Man on to the couch with a beer and I could then put food away. HA HA HA HA HA HA !!!!!
For the life of me I could NOT get the damn TV set up. Finally The Man stepped in and tried and basically just screwed things up even worse than I had. I got hm a beer, handed him my phone with the NFL app and got hm watching the game on my phone while I went to get food taken care of.
Here's where it gets even better . . . Being The Man we HAD to bring Halibut down to Florida with us. His son had just visited us in MI and brought 2 coolers of fish and shrimp that he had caught over this summer. We still had fish from LAST summer but that makes no difference, We HAD to have more. The Man uses the packages of fish as gifts or barter with the neighbors for when they help him out with various things around the farm.) So with five large packages of fish and four containers of shrimp that were all frozen solid we packed them in our thermal bag that we bought last year for this purpose, added blocks of ice and merrily put it all in the trunk of the car. When we got to GA we opened the cooler to give Kyle some fish and at that time it all was still frozen solid. We added new ice blocks that Kyle had made for us, sealed the bag back up and continued on our way.
Only one problem . . . the temperature outside continued to rise so the fish was no longer sitting in a trunk that was 40 degrees. By the time we reached home the outside temperature was 85. And by the time I opened the cooler ALL the fish and shrimp had defrosted !!! AND was sitting in three inches of stinky fish water. The cooler stunk, the bags of fish and shrimp stunk and MY KITCHEN stunk because all the water dripped all over the floor. DISGUSTING !!!!! By this point, after the whole TV debacle I was ready to throw The Man, the fish and the shrimp OUT !!!!! I don't think I have cursed this much since I broke the big bottle of Jack Daniels Honey whisky last year.
I spent the next three hours wiping up the floor, cleaning out the fridge, (that was a bonus because I had not expected to be away all summer so had left eggs and other food in the fridge). I had to throw all that out! I did have a great time tossing a dozen and a half eggs, one by one across the room into the sink. It gave me a great sense of relief to THROW something !! I did make a mess but at that point I was beyond all reason and just needed to KILL something. Next I got to cook a mess of fish and shrimp so I could then freeze it and do some laundry to get rid of some of the fish smell off the towels that I used to wipe up the puddles of fish water on the kitchen floor. It was a lovely way to spend our first day home. I was in bed and asleep at eight but then up at one to spend four hours going through mail and trying to convince myself today would be better.
Today it is raining.
At least it didn't rain while we were unpacking the car yesterday. I took advantage of a break in the rain today to go out to my car that has been sitting locked up for five months. It started right up and sounds great.
Too bad the entire inside of the car . . . seats, steering wheel, floor, doors and ceiling are covered in a thick coat of green mold.
I'm SO glad to be home !
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