random thoughts – Day 1,664 – (Monday) – back in the real world

Welcome back to the real world.

Things are easing back into the usual at-home holiday day-off routine after the excitement of packing, traveling, and unpacking. Even the TV welcomed me back to the real-world routine (in three languages) after the pretty-much-on-schedule reboot of the cable box, which has been required roughly every three or four weeks for the past eight years. 

There was a brief respite after the box was replaced a couple years ago, but the problem is back and is so annoying. The app troubleshooter never detects a problem, and neither do the reps at Comcast, who take about 30 minutes to deliver no solution, so now I just turn it off and turn it back on all by myself and cut out the time consuming middleman.

This time of year generally includes the usual seasonal wardrobe changeover from summer to fall/winter. The holiday morning provided time for packing away the freshly laundered clothing taken on vacation with the other summer clothes pulled from the closet during the trip packing process.

For decades, my seasonal clothing storage philosophy has been “like things together.” Dresses are in one space bag, pants in another, tee shirts in another, and so on. There are always a few rogue items that are jammed into a bag with a different clothing category very late in the process, so the favorite shorts might end up with a few favorite shirts, a random swim suit, an office jacket, and a dress.

 As I was nearly finished the day’s wardrobe effort, a new idea struck. The altered concept would be to group items as outfits, such as shorts, capris, and skirts packed with coordinating tops. This way, if my imaginary life took an exciting turn with another warm-weather trip, I could toss a space bag or two into a suitcase and be on my way, spared the agony, overthinking, and gathering that came with packing for Mexico.

Everything was packed into a compression bags for the trip anyway, so this concept could really simplify things. Too bad I didn’t think of it until after the tee shirts, summer pants, skirts, and dresses were all already sorted and categorized into bags with the air sucked out. Maybe when I pack up the fall/winter stuff I’ll think of it in time.

After the wardrobe changeover work, it was back to the couch under a blanket half-watching Black Sails while reading social media feeds, news, and playing Words with Friends and other phone games. A grocery list was scratched out with butter, rice, the Tajin spice we had on pineapple at Tulum, and broccoli. At 3:15 a trip was made to Market Basket where the list of four things magically turned into a cart with 19 things. I often overachieve at Market Basket.

Had I stuck to the list, the total would have been about $12, but it came to $44 with the extras. For some reason, I can’t resist the dates when I enter the store and see them displayed near the dairy department (not on the list). There was a two-pound package of a variety of cheese ends (not on the list). My favorite flavor of the often-scarce creamy chicken brick ramen and the even rarer savory herb and garlic soup and dip mix were in stock (not on the list). I finally found where they keep the Gardein vegetarian meat substitute in this particular store location and bought the scrambled pretend meat (not on the list).

Rice and beans dinner.

Supper had a bit of a Mexican flair to it. A few minutes in the kitchen yielded rice with onions, black beans, vegetarian meat crumbles, Tajin seasoning, salsa, cheddar cheese, and a side of corn chips. It was delicious, even if I had to make it myself. 

And suddenly, it’s nearly 8:00 p.m. and tomorrow is a work day. Vacation and leisure happy time is officially over.