Musings & Thoughts for Monday, February 19, 2024, or: Weekend Update, Part the Second…and Monday is Workday for this Writer

Mid- to Late Morning, Monday, February 19, 2024, Madison, New Hampshire

Hi, folks, and welcome to the Presidents Day edition of A Certain Point of View, Too. It’s a beautiful but frigid late winter morning here in my corner of New England. Currently, the temperature is 20°F (-7°C) under sunny skies. With humidity at 50% and the wind blowing from the west at 7 MPH (11 Km/H), the wind chill factor is 19°F (-7°C). Today’s forecast calls for sunny skies and a high of 29°F (-2°C). Tonight, we can expect clear skies and a low of  2°F (-17°C).

Although I slept well last night, I have been up since at least six this morning, partly thanks to cold-induced diuresis, and mostly out of habit. Back in Florida (especially at my most recent residence) I used to wake up between 6:30 and 7 AM, and it was almost 6:30 when I, after trying to fall back asleep after waking up originally at 5:35 AM, I decided to go ahead and start making a quick breakfast and get my working day started.

Weekend Update, Part the Second: How My Sunday Went

Yesterday was, I think, a better day for me – at least emotionally – than Saturday.

No, I didn’t win – or almost win – the lottery (does New Hampshire even have a state lottery?) or meet a potential girlfriend or “friend with benefits” (I’ve been fortunate to have had both, even if none of my long-term relationships resulted in a permanent bond). I wish…especially about the girlfriend/FWB part…but no.

In most respects, my Sunday was unremarkable: I stuck to my “no working on the novel” weekend plan, ran one quick errand to get a few items at Market Basket and get some cash to pay my share of the utilities here, listened to music on my Amazon Music app, and spent much of my afternoon gaming – I even played, for the first time since I moved to Madison, more than one session of Cold Waters, a Cold War-turns-hot game that depicts submarine warfare in what its makers, Australia’s Killerfish Games, calls a tribute to MicroProse’s classic 1988 game, Red Storm Rising.

Now, like anyone else, I am never happy about having to withdraw money from my bank account to pay bills, but I accept this as a reality of being an adult in 21st-century America. And I’d rather give the money to the other renter – under whose name the utility bills are listed – before he asks “Hey, Alex, where’s your share of the bills for the month?” (This has happened twice since I moved here, and while I understand the reason why he asks that question, I hate being asked…so I’d rather just give him my share of the utility bills preemptively.)

So, I think part of my improved mood was caused by the feeling that I met my obligation to the household without being pressured to.

Another reason for my slightly cheerier attitude is that Marc, Patti’s husband, brought in another of the “garage boxes” into the house and opened it. It was one of the boxes with Star Trek books, TV shows, and even movies (the Star Trek: The Kelvin Timeline box set and three complete series sets – Star Trek: The Animated Series, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and Star Trek: Enterprise) and two collectibles. Of course, this necessitated the assembly of one media tower shelf in my bedroom and finding shelf space on one of my partly assembled bookshelves here in my office, but I think that seeing some progress brightened my day.

Finally, since I went to Market Basket specifically to buy the “fixings,”  last night I made English muffin pizzas, a quick, easy, and – in my opinion – delicious snack/small meal. My late mom taught me to make them in the late 1990s – just split one or two English muffins, put a tablespoon of pizza sauce on top of each slice, add shredded mozzarella and whatever other topping you like (provided it fits on top), then bake in either a toaster oven or conventional oven for 10-11 minutes at 375 degrees.

I could have used pizza sauce, but I chose to get Newman’s Own Sockarooni sauce instead of plain marinara. I first bought Sockarooni sauce back in 2012 when I was cooking for both Mom and me when she was incapacitated and was confined to the downstairs bedroom; she wasn’t fond of Ragu or other common brands of spaghetti sauce – she preferred to make her own, really – and because she was becoming finickier about what I prepared, I decided to try Newman’s Own Sockarooni. First on pasta, but later on with other dishes, including English muffin pizzas.

I had not made this dish since 2016, so I was both eager and nervous when I started prepping my “Sockarooni-Thomas” pizza last night. I missed making stuff like that – seven years is too long a time to go without cooking things, after all – so I wanted to do the best job possible when I prepped the English muffin pizza. I only made one English muffin (or two mini-pizzas) because I didn’t want to use up too many of my food supplies in one meal, and considering the long time that passed since I’d last prepped any type of homemade pizza (Boboli included), I remembered to not put too much sauce on the English muffins and put just the right amount of cheese and turkey pepperoni on top of each slice.

Well, I must report with some amount of pride that my Sockarooni-Thomas” (so-called because I used Thomas’ English Muffins) pizzas came out delicious! I really should have made two complete muffins (for four mini-pizzas), but by the time I came to that conclusion, I’d already put away the ingredients and washed the baking pan and the spatula, so….

On Writing & Storytelling: Monday is…Workday

Although today is a federal holiday in the United States (Presidents Day, which combines two previously separate February federal holidays – George Washington and Abraham Lincoln’s birthdays), I plan to work on Reunion: Coda instead of taking the day off. I don’t like taking three-day weekends now that I’ve no one to go anywhere and make memories with, for one thing. I also don’t want to lose a day’s worth of productivity; I only have a few more chapters to go (two or three more, I think) and I really want to finish this novel after working on it for nearly 11 months.

As I write this blog post, I can’t say if I will start writing Scene Six of Goodbye, Farewell, and Adios, the last Jim Garraty-in-high school chapter (or interlude, as I call the South Miami High School flashbacks) today. I have a definite ending in mind – I’ve known more or less what’s supposed to happen since I wrote the first draft of Reunion: A Story 26 years ago – but I have not yet decided how to deal with it. I have two options, both of which will work (or so I’ve been told), but I can only choose one option. I’ll think it over during the midday rest-and-lunch break, and I’ll figure out what kind of writing day I’ll have today.

I don’t have much in the way of news other than what I’ve shared here, so I’ll be on my way. Stay safe, stay healthy, and I’ll catch you on the sunny side of things.