The ceiling fan in the bedroom.

I awoke early, for me, and crawled out of bed after a very good night’s sleep. The sun was shining although the wind still had a bite to it. We wandered around the park and then walked the length of the bottom road covering a mile in the process. A very good way to start the day. 

I spent some time remaking the bed as somehow, I had not aligned the top sheet up properly and it did not reach up to my shoulders resulting in me being cold in the night. With the bed made, this time to my satisfaction, we went out in the kitchen area to make breakfast and drink that all important, first cup of coffee. Unless I hit a Starbucks out on my travels, it is the only cup of coffee for the day. I made breakfast, this time a meat patty on a bun which tasted OK. Sandy liked her bits and pieces, but Mikey just ignored his as he usually does. Not much of a one for handouts, is Mikey unless he is in the right mood. Such a funny little dog… 

With breakfast out of the way, it was time to read the World news mainly to see if we still had one, World that is. Heck, you never know as the end of the world may have come and gone and I missed it. Noting that it was still here even in it’s totally screwed up state, I read a few emails and trashed the rest and then turned my attention to the blog. 

Accounting for my daily life, although probably not very interesting to others, is a way to keep my brain exercised and active. Lord only knows that my memory is not what it used to be, and recall is not sharp anymore. It is embarrassing If I am talking to somebody and cannot remember their name or something within the conversation that we are having. I umm and ahh and make apologies and we move on. Important stuff like addresses and phone numbers are on my phone for reference. 

I think, between BJ and me, we may have come up with a name for the unit. Officially, it is a Jayco Bungalow so a short combination of that is Jacob. As my friend BJ is quick to point out, it is a very masculine name as is the unit. We finally agreed on The Caboose so as not to differentiate between Masculine and Feminine Gender for the unit. A Caboose is the last carriage on a steam train. As this is the very last RV, I plan on buying which makes it the end of the line, Caboose it is. Hooray, now I no longer must refer to it as “the RV”. I like it! 

Having finally achieved something for today with the help of my friend BJ, I looked around for other things to get up to. My efforts at hanging pictures a couple of days ago were not very successful because of the type of stick-on hanger I used, and I need to come up with stronger ones to take the weight. Now, I also need two more frames to replace the two that crashed in the night plus the other one that is way too heavy to hang using the stick-on method of hangers. 

With that in mind, I drove into Dripping Springs to both the Home Depot and then HEB. In the Home Depot, I spent time perusing the different hangers available and found some that are a bit different but might work. From there, I drove to HEB which is almost next door and did some grocery shopping. I only needed a few things but even then, managed to spend $70.00. The price of everything is very high now and will probably stay that way forever, that is, until it goes higher. Unfortunately, even though prices rise through different circumstances, they never seem to go back down when those same circumstances are taken care of. Go figure. The greed of the different corporations involved is bottomless. No wonder there are so many Millionaires and Billionaires in this country. All at the expense of the little man, the lowest man on the totem pole. 

On that same subject, when I was leaving HEB, there was a family of 3 kids and Mother and Father standing by the roadside looking for handouts. It takes a lot of guts, and the family must be desperate to do that. I know that some people make a living out of it but obviously, there are others who are really and truly in a bad situation. I drove past them and pulled into Starbucks next door and could not stop thinking about their plight. Here was I, a retired man well enough off to do what I wanted with my life and then there was this young family who had to beg for food, and I was stopping to spend $6:00 on a Latte. 

Without further ado, I paid for my drink and drove back to the family and gave them some money. The gentleman was very thankful, but I was the one who should have given thanks as the giving made me feel a lot better and eased my conscience. It might have been a scam and if so, it worked. On the other hand, it appeared genuine and at least, I felt good about it. 

I drove back to Henly, and the dogs helped me with the couple of bags of groceries and we harnessed up for the last walk of the day. Wandering around the park, we stopped at Daniels RV and the dogs sort of made friends with Daniels dog and I chatted to the couple of people that were visiting with Daniel, both of whom I recognized from earlier encounters. I was invited to watch the Super Bowl with them in the clubhouse later in the afternoon. 

I had to think long and hard about that as American Football is not my sport. For one thing, it is not named correctly as the only people that use their feet are the Kicker and the Punter. Everyone else is too busy obliterating the opposition. It really is a rough sport which is probably why Americans like it so much as in my estimation, this is a violent country one way or another. 

I decided to go over to the party as I could pretend interest in the game. I only had to wander over less than 50 yards to the Clubhouse, and it turns out, there were only 4 of us, Daniel, Jeff, Dolores and I, with more food than we were ever going to eat. To top it off, no one was able to get the TV to show the Superbowl (thank goodness) and eventually after about an hour and we had eaten our fill, the party broke up with my parting words to the group, “Now I am going to watch some real football that is actually played with the feet”. American Football just does not make any sense to me. 

So that was the end of the evening. I watched a soccer/football game which is really my sport for a bit but went to bed early, very tired for whatever reason. 

Written 02/12/2023. Read my other blog at https://pondblog2011.com