Today’s theme will be a study of the number one. First because Michael is traveling in the States so I have been here alone for an entire week. I’m always ‘mopey’ when I’m alone. It’s not so much the being alone part as the him not being here part – if that makes any sense at all. And in spite of my contention that I could get so much more accomplished without him here, in truth that is never the case. I always spend at least one day just sitting around watching sappy, romantic movies: You’ve Got Mail, Something’s Gotta Give, Hope Floats, or whatever happens to be on the Hallmark Channel. Then I snap out of it and try to get something constructive done in his absence, but the time that has elapsed between my last post and now illustrates my total lack of productivity. So let me just fire this one off before he gets home tomorrow.
For our first singular subject, we have our one and only dragon fruit which we harvested exactly 40 days from fertilization because I am an analytical person and numbers mean more to me than ‘when the tips just start to shrivel’ or ‘when it feels like a ripe avocado.’
Here it is just before harvest.
And here it is cut open, ready to eat. So now we know that it is the pink flesh variety rather than the white flesh variety, AND we know that it was absolutely delicious!
Now we will move from the topic of living off of the land to trying to live on the (is)land from a shopping standpoint.
Before he left, Michael was in St. Martin shopping at the local restaurant supply store when he felt the impulse to buy one of those CO2 cartridge soda makers. They only had one left, the floor model. It was missing pieces but he was welcome to buy it. No, regular price. No, no discount. But the salesperson assured him that the pieces it was missing weren’t really necessary anyway. Did he want it? No, no thanks.
Then he was shopping here in Anguilla. He was in the process of hacking out the roots of some very established plants in an area where he wants to build a deck. Having already tried to saw off his feet with a pressure washer in the past, he wisely decided that work boots might be a better choice than flip flops. Surprisingly, there is a safety shoe shop on island. So he went in and asked the salesperson if she had a pair of steel- toed work boots in a size 11. More surprisingly, she had one left. ….. Well, actually she had one left one. No, not a pair. Just one left one. Did he want it? No, no thanks.
Now we come to my project. Having saved all this money not buying a soda maker or safety shoes, I wanted to repaint the front door. It has always been blue, but I was feeling like a change and wanted to paint it red. At the hardware store, I told them I needed some paint. Ooooh, we don’t really have any paint. No paint? Well, some paint. What did I want? Interior/exterior semi-gloss. Nope, none of that. What? I just need a quart. Oh, wait, we don’t have any gallons, but quarts we have. What color? This color red. Nope, we don’t have the base for that. Seriously? Well, let me look. Wait, at the back of the shelf, here’s one last quart. Huzzah!
Now for the big question: I’m painting red over royal blue. Is there ANY chance you have tintable primer….just one quart? Miracle of all miracles, yes. Great, can you tint it this color red? No, I don’t think we can tint it. Huh? It’s a tintable primer. The label says *Must be tinted prior to use. What do you mean you can’t tint it? So they called the manufacturer. Ok, we can tint it. We just can’t tint it that color red. Can you tint it close to this color red? No. Can you tint anywhere in the red color spectrum? Maybe.
So here’s what I got. The paint is on the left and the primer is on the right.
I’m not sure that I gained anything at all using that primer compared to your average, every day, basic white primer; but for several hours my front door was an ironically nauseating, Pepto Bismal color of pink.
But now, it’s a stunning red color; and on the upside (and don’t I always strive to find the upside?), I think I still fared better than the other guy who was struggling to buy paint that morning. He just needed one gallon of white, interior/exterior paint which, as we know, did not exist. In the end, he didn’t look at all happy lugging his only alternative, a FIVE gallon bucket, to his car. Ah, if only I needed one gallon of white. I could probably buy it from him.