Another Day With Nuria

Apologies to my regular readers who may be expecting a new blog post every day (or so). One of the advantages of living alone is that I have plenty of time for writing blogs. Of course, blog-writing comes at the expense of certain other things such as washing dishes, cooking meals, taking out the garbage, making beds, and of course doing laundry. But as I live alone, there is no one to give a damn whether those other things get done in a timely manner. And so they don't. 

For the last 5 weeks I've had a visitor from Costa Rica in my home. Nuria seems to enjoy house-cleaning, cooking, washing dishes, buying groceries, and organizing my home. So I should have plenty of time to blog, right? Well, there's one catch. She doesn't drive. To be specific, she can drive but she doesn't have a U.S. driver's license. So when she buys food, I drive her to the store and push the shopping cart around the aisles. When she buys doodads for my home (or for her home in Costa Rica), I drive her to the store and push the shopping cart up and down the aisles.

Take today as an example. I got up early, I trimmed my beard and gave myself a haircut, with my Latina friend doing the finishing touches. I bathed and dressed. Then I killed a half hour watching TV until the city library opened at 9AM.

Then I took Nuria to the library so we could print pages that I had uploaded to Dropbox at home. You see, I don't have a printer. I've needed a printer just twice in the last twenty years. So I upload the pages I want printed to the Web, then I drive to the library and use one of their computers to print the pages to their printer. 

Then I drove us to the nearby Food Lion for some meal ingredients. Then I drove to the Post Office so she could mail the pages we so recently printed. 

Then I drove to my dermatologist's office for my annual skin inspection. I've had skin cancer so I figure an annual checkup is a good idea. 

Then we drove to Olive Garden for lunch. It was open for seating, though at reduced capacity, of course. I ordered Pasta e Fagioli and Nuria ordered Fetuccini Alfredo. They came with a house salad and breadsticks, and both were delicious.

After lunch we drove to Walmart for further shopping, this time for a little foodstuff for my house and some gifts when she's back in Costa Rica.

When we got home it was mid-afternoon. I pulled the lawn tractor out of the garage, fired it up, and spent about 30 minutes mowing the yard. I was tired. I lay down for a while and went to sleep. I got up again to watch NCIS and have dinner. While we nibbled on dinner, we watched a movie: 1993's Falling Down starring Michael Douglas and Robert Duvall. It's a funny film, and it's a tragic film as well. I saw it years ago, but re-watching it was worth the time. We both enjoyed it.

By the time the movie ended, the clock on the wall was approaching 11PM. I told Nuria I would be in bed by twelve. I've gone past midnight now, but not by a lot. The time is 12:15AM. So where's my blogging time? 

I'll get some time back after Friday, when Nuria flies home. I've enjoyed her company and I'll miss her. Maybe, if all the stars align properly, she'll be back.