Ray's House of Love Vol III

And now I'm south of you, in St. Augustine, of St. Augustine Grass fame. We had it in Texas, and it got St. Augustine's Decline, a disease unique to this kind of lawn. It dies in rings.

Our hotel room was not ready when we got here, even though check-in wasn't until four. But we had a chatty maid share that two girls had quit in the last week, one of them no loss, and that the hotel just doesn't pay enough to get good people who'll stay a while.

Anybody need a job?

Maryn, knowing hotel maids work hard

About all you can do about that is be ready to shelter in place. Do you carry a "go bag" in your car? I used to. IIRC, it held:

• toothbrush in a sandwich bag and a sample toothpaste from the dentist
• hairbrush and hair rubber band
• sweatpants, or maybe it was old yoga pants; something super comfortable and minimally presentable, in which I could sleep
• sweatshirt with a front zip, because if the power goes off where I am, it'll get cold
• oversize T-shirt to wear with those gorgeous sweatpants
• tiny bright flashlight and extra batteries
• paperback

Nowadays, I'd probably add a battery-driven cell phone charger, a pint of whiskey, a book light, possibly a blanket and pillow or sleeping bag, and an old towel, washcloth, and hotel soap, because I hate feeling dirty. Plus a plastic grocery bag to hold them once they're wet.

As I recall, it was fairly easy to set aside stuff I wasn't likely to want in my day-to-day life, until one day I realized I had everything necessary. It lived in my car for years.

Maryn, who made bags for her babies and later her kids, too

Wow, a day off, snow that waited, and you got your taxes done? That's a winner of a day.

We went walking despite the threat of rain, stopped to buy groceries for lunch, got cleaned up, went to a laundromat for the first time in years while it rained, then did a proper grocery run for dinner and tomorrow's breakfast and lunch, plus some fruit and yogurt and healthy stuff. What a vacation, huh?

The hotel has free breakfast, but it's mostly unhealthy stuff, so crowded you can't always find a place to sit, and very poorly served, so you wait like a half hour for coffee or spoons. Screw that. We'll make coffee and have cereal in here.

Maryn, who also bought wine

I have no idea what laundromats elsewhere charge, but this was $2.25 for a top-loading home-style washer and 25 cents for 5 minutes of drying. If memory serves, I think I used to pay 50 cents to wash. I'd brought quarters, but we still had to change some singles to get done.

Unlike "normal" laundromats, this was mostly snowbirds and a few Hispanic people who tried very hard to be invisible but failed when the snowbirds insisted on being friendly and helping them fold large items.

I grew up in southern Arizona, but I have never seen so many people with serious sun damage to their skin. There are many, many people darker than my brown sandals. Maybe living much of my adulthood where there's cloud cover is not such a bad thing...

Maryn, who has seen very little sunshine here

Sounds like the right call.

I'm happy to talk about my friend, since she will never have the internet time to visit AW, even though she could greatly benefit. The library only gives users an hour, even if no one is waiting, and she can't go to a WiFi hotspot because she'd have to buy a cup of coffee or something.

She came to my city after a divorce something like 30 years ago. She worked for non-profits at low pay and rented two rooms and a bath plus kitchen privileges from an empty nester. Her life seemed okay, although there was no money to spare. Then the economy tightened the noose on non-profits and she drifted from job to job, not really qualified to do much, with skills which barely included computers at all. Her landlord wanted the room back, so she moved to a crappy duplex where the bedroom carpet was laid directly on dirt. (Zoning code violation, big-time.) She worked retail and got fired because she didn't like having to thank customers as she put their bag in their hands. (!) She moved to her present two-bedroom duplex, with little insulation and few windows which even open, although she couldn't really afford it. I guess she couldn't find anything better, because she's stayed through three or four landlords now. She worked under the table for a nasty, nasty man who didn't pay unemployment or taxes. She was a home aide for elderly people, some of them nice and some of them just awful, and didn't see a doctor or dentist for years. It was during this time that she started heating only her bedroom, spending as much time away from home as she could for free. Two years ago she filed for bankruptcy and it's unlikely she'd survive a credit check if she wanted a new place.

She's watching my house while I'm away, and I've all but begged her to just move there, pets and all, and live in the heat, enjoy the WiFi and cable TV, eat what she can find (and she could do pretty well), but I don't think she is.

Man, why can't I run other people's lives? I'd have made her be a better retail employee, like it or hate it, and by now she'd be a department manager pulling down a wage which lets her live like most of us.

Maryn, who went to the beach today

Wow, what a long day in the car. It was 84 when we left, and 39 when we got here in North Carolina. Man, that big storm is a nasty one. I felt bad for Mr. Maryn, driving in the driving rain.

We're prepared to leave late if there's black ice, or even lay over a day if it's really bad. No point in taking needless risk if the driving conditions are bad.

I did more than my share of gloating over those poor people stuck on the highway in Kentucky with no supplies. We carry food, heat source, blankets, snow shovel, water, flashlights, even some old paperbacks. We'd have been fine if it happened to us, although I imagine we'd start sharing with those nearby.

The oranges around here are amazing.

Maryn, in from 36 and raining

You know, I should add that stuff, especially the jumper cables and chain.

I'm stuck in a North Carolina hotel until black ice melts off the highway later this morning. The joys of winter travel, huh?

Maryn, bored

I love Princess Bride! Now I'm jealous.

We were enjoying a Harlan Coben audio book, but it started stuttering then had a read failure. Grumble grumble.

Maryn

I wore heels to the theatre last night. That and restaurants is about the only time I can. Heels seem worse and worse the older I get.

We saw a new play, a farce, which was pretty good. It's about three divorced 40-something women, one of whom is dating a dentist who may--or may not--have murdered his pretty hygienist. Like all farce, the plot depended upon a silly assumption, the women presuming his guilt, but it mostly worked. Some of the comedy was too broad for my taste, but the audience lapped it up.

During our long drive home, we stopped for lunch at a place with WiFi so we could buy an ebook of the Harlan Coben which stuttered. When the audio book got hung up, I'd read a chapter or two aloud, then we'd try the CD at the new place. It was awkward, but we found having the book really made a difference in highway hypnosis and feeling wakeful, and at least we knew what was going on.

Maryn, who has much laundry to catch up on

Yeah, itching is maddening but it beats the holy hell out of debilitating pain.

We've cleared our driveway and front walk as much as we can, which in places is down to packed ice. It's an adventure going out for the paper! It amuses me that the front walk is ice in the shape of what's gone there for two weeks or more: lots of deer, a cat, a lug-sole boot, a flat heel, and birds. You'd think they'd fly rather than walk on snow, huh? Silly birds.

We have several days above freezing coming up, so this will all disappear.

Last night we realized that it's time to have as many fires as we want, because it's good to use up the supply of firewood rather than letting already-aged wood sit out all summer long. Apparently that's when termites set up shop there, and it's way too close to the house for that to be a good idea. The carpenter bees are bad enough!

Maryn, making smalltalk

Oh, definitely get a chimney cleaning and inspection before you use it. Our first house here, birds had nested in the chimney, and when we had it cleaned, all these old nests and dead birds fell down into the wood stove. The cleaning guy was cool, asked for a double paper grocery bag so he could get the dead things out without our young kids seeing them.

After the cleaning, we didn't use it much, and every so often a bird would fly down the chimney and get stuck in the cold wood stove, cheeping and shrilling in there. Lots of fun dealing with that!

Maryn, who doesn't miss the old house one bit

You may end up using it like we did the woodstove at the old house--only during a cold-weather power failure. We were sure glad we had it then. The rest of the time, not worth the trouble.

Maryn, who should have brought in firewood but didn't