random thoughts – Day 1,469 – (Monday) – expectations

The day was scheduled as a vacation day, for no particular reason other than time is available for such. Once scheduled, a loose plan to revamp the living room was formulated. New curtains and coordinating pillow covers were ordered from Amazon. The promised delivery date of Sunday meant the task could certainly be completed on Monday. Like two out of every three recent orders, the items did not arrive on Sunday as promised. I waited up until the far edge of the delivery window (10:00), periodically checking the porch, deck, and steps. 

On Monday the vacation day, with no alarm set, I woke up two hours later than usual. The sore throat felt better, but depending on head position,  the throbbing of blood pulses in my ears. It’s familiar  thanks to a childhood riddled with earaches and also annoying.

The day began slowly. Coffee with a slab of banana bread. The last episode of The Cook of Castamar. An unsatisfying online search to try and find out what the heck is “sugar dough,” a recipe mentioned several times in the series. 

There were periodic checks for delivery updates on the stupid curtains until finally a new time was provided of 6:30 to 9:30 Monday night. The only good news is that I didn’t start ripping the current curtains down on Sunday. I don’t know what is going on over at Amazon lately, but they are really failing on most of the delivery promises. Verizon, on the other hand, promised a new Home Internet router for Monday, which arrived on Saturday.

Soup and TV.

While considering an excursion to Aldi, a container of vegetable soup was pulled from the freezer. The last of the mushrooms were sauteed in butter. Inspired by high school memories of Mom calling from work asking whoever answered the phone to start the Hamburger Helper or the Rice-a-Roni for supper, a handful of rice was tossed into the buttery saucepan and the jingle lyrics “saute and simmer, the flavor can’t be beat” carried me through that step. 

The soup turned out really good, and was enjoyed while watching the John Travolta, Gene Hackman, Danny DeVito, Dennis Farina movie Get Shorty because it happened to be on. The afternoon saw an attempt at more energetic activities. 

The Aldi flyer was consulted and the grocery list drafted. One the way to Aldi, a stop was made at the Grey Nuns Thrift Shop in Nashua. It was another case of the social media presence delivery being more impressive than the products in the shop. At least Aldi delivered most of the things I needed. Butter, whipped cream cheese, salmon, baking chips, and slivered almonds were all on sale (score!). No onions were found. I successfully talked myself out of potato chips.

Groceries were put away. The human was ignored by the cat. The chocolate chip cookies were breached. More soup was had for supper. Head movements were minimized due to the ear throbbing thing. The book club selection (All That is Mine I Carry with Me) was read.

The story is good (mystery) but there are no chapter breaks. At page 79 it shifts to “Book 2,” which runs for nearly 100 pages. It’s hard to budget reading time without discrete chapters. It’s not like I’m ten years old with nothing to do all day but stay out of the way. There is work and adult responsibilities and I appreciate the ability to check the chapter page count and decide if there is time to read a bit before I need to leave for work or go to sleep or whatever. 

Maybe I expect too much -- deliveries when promised, shops to look like they are presented online, novels to have chapters so it's easier to take a break.