Saturday, April 20, 2013 – Crazy in Cocoa:

            It was a dark and stormy morning.  The only thing missing was the thunder and lightning.  This weather is abysmal.

            Once again I have to say that Lucy Cat continues to amaze me.  Last night when our friends came over for cocktails, Lucy was napping in one of our chairs at the table (which is a favorite spot of hers).  Well she didn’t budge a muscle or twitch a hair or a tail when they came through the door and seated themselves on the settee.  She just continued her nap, undoubtedly, I’m sure, thinking all the while, “I wish these people could just leave me in peace and stop interrupting my afternoon nap time.  Well, our friend, Joe, reached over to pet her, and not only did Lucy not jump up and head for “under the covers” in our cabin, she actually let Joe pet her without opening an eye.  Remarkable!

            I think I am going to have to rethink my modus operandi about the trip home from Cocoa.  I had started to think that I just wanted to get home as quickly as possible because of all the projects that shouted at us that needed to be taken care of when we were home a couple of weeks ago.  Plus we’ve done the trip, and now it’s time to get home.  But the weather has been uncooperative at best.  Each day as we ponder about leaving the next day, the next day brings howling wind, rain, and a falling temperature – not too conducive for moseying north.  So I am now thinking why push ourselves when we really don’t have a schedule.  There is no point is traveling in bad weather when we don’t have too.  So now maybe we will just move on only when the weather is nice and stop and see some of the spots we missed on the way down.  That attitude seems better than grousing about Mother Nature and the weather.  Although I am going “loco in Cocoa!”  The time we have spent here is starting to feel like a new address!

            As we did all our boat chores yesterday, and the rain kept us indoors most of the day, we played on the computer, read and generally just “laid low.”  Lucy decided to see what it was like to hide under the covers for awhile, so that’s where she spent the day.  I am wondering (as I have done before) if she senses our ambivalence about leaving, and so decides that her best option is to prepare herself that we are going to leave and head for the covers.

            When we were in the grocery store the other day and decided to buy more kitty litter (it’s about 8 pounds so it’s very heavy – hence the decision to buy extra because we had a car), I realized that the store brand was 50% less expensive than the “Tidy Cats” brand.  The nice grocery store stock clerk happened to be in the aisle, so I thought I would ask him if he thought the store brand was as good as the expensive stuff.  Yeah, yeah, I know, you are wondering why on earth would I ask the store clerk his opinion of kitty litter.  Yeah, well, I don’t know myself why I did that.  But, of course, the store clerk said, “Well, I would think it would be about the same.”  So I bought two huge containers of the stuff.  Well, when I got back to the boat and filled up the kitty litter box, I discovered it wasn’t the same.  It was very dusty, and looked just like sand, and I was thinking that if I used a lot of this stuff over a long period of time, I could hire one of those lawyers who advertise on TV that if you have been exposed to this or that and you have COPD and can’t breathe anymore, they could get you a whole lot of money, which they will keep for themselves but they don’t tell you that part.  But, guess what, the cat loves the stuff, and it actually clumps better that the expensive brand.  So all’s well that ends well.  Now aren’t you glad I told you all about kitty litter?  See, that’s what happens when you have been on a boat in Cocoa for too long – you talk about things like kitty litter.  Who knows what I’ll discuss tomorrow?  Stay tuned…

            We are going over to our friends boat tonight for drinks and then over to the Black Tulip for dinner.  I guess they aren’t having a large parties tonight because we didn’t have any trouble getting a reservation.  Hmmm…maybe I’ll have two glasses of wine.  That’ll make the weather better –or – maybe it will just help me sleep through the weather.