On Assignment

1. On Assignment

I’m away from my metaphorical desk, plopped in a faded red camp chair, sitting alongside the rusty metal fire-ring over at Howard Creek. Since I do not sit at a desk, ever, my “desk” this morning is my lap. Annie and I busted loose yesterday, and headed back over here where we camped a month or so ago.

The scent of frying bacon mingles most pleasantly with that of the coffee I am sipping, having had it together this trip, to remember the coffee in the first place. Last trip I used a veggie steamer arrangement, with a doubled up paper towel to make a weak facsimile of the real stuff, after buying coffee from the little store in Westport.

Any port in a storm.

Annie is cutting up the baby potatoes she bought from Gloria, Monday, at the Laytonville Farmers’ market. With some onions the fragrance is intoxicatingly inviting.

Earlier this morning, just as the sun was peeking over the eastern coastal foothills, I made a first cup of the Kona blend we had picked up at Long Valley Market on our way through yesterday. Annie maintains I make the best coffee she has ever tasted, and she misses it (and me) whenever we are not together. I am quite confident that she is not saying that, simply because I bring it to her in bed.

The cup I made for myself this morning was as grand as any I have ever had. You know what George Carlin used to say, “Coffee, the lowest end of the speed spectrum.” Legal zest. Necessary for forward progress. I can stop drinking coffee on a dime, and have done so for extended periods, multiple times.

But what’s the point? Like millions of others, I enjoy the ride.

This has been such an intense summer, what with HappyDay Farms having trimmed down outside help, so for us to get away to the coast for a second time, is bliss. I am never sure why getting rid of every semblance of the creature comforts of home, and replacing them with the questionable accommodations over at the coast, can result in such satisfying times.

Is it that regaining of childhood freedom and innocence that was the “no chores/just s’mores days? Is it that we work so hard now, that just having the freedom to vedge for a minute or two, is that exhilarating? Or is it just a pure case of “small minds, small pleasures?”

Being on assignment, it’s not my job to make any such determinations; all I want to do is revel in my options. I can read, I can read some more, and when I get done with that, I can take a nap just prior to reading some more.

Annie has indicated to the boys that she would take it kindly to their joining us for a minute or two, at some point over the next couple of days. She mentioned something about a bucket list, but what I know about buckets, is confined to the harmony between the that of the bucket and that of the mop. 

I am the go-between.

Lito brought me a gift, right out of the blue the other day, a book written by Bengie Molina about his father. I’m not sure if it is the gift itself, the subject matter or the setting that makes it all perfect. But it is.

Bennie Molina is one of three brothers who play Major League Baseball. All three are catchers and all three have earned at least two World Series Rings. It is a dynasty in the truest sense of the word.  Bengie was the catcher for the Giants at the time when Buster Posey joined the team, in May of 2010.

Bengie helped the kid out, got Posey situated behind the plate though it was shoving himself aside at the same time, and moved on to the Texas Rangers. Ironically, he would face the Giants in October that same year, losing to the Orange and Black in five games.

I was in the middle of reading a John Stanford novel from the “Prey” series, but I have no problems reading two-or-more-books at the same time. I make it my mission in life when the occasion arises. I think of it as job security.

Just as trying to gain some measure of comfort, at night while camping, is also a matter of job security. After last month’s camping excursion, we vowed to buy a cot so that arising, particularly in the dead of night, would not be such a challenge. 

Don’t you just hate those leg cramps?

We had the foresight to set up the cot with its air mattress in advance and considered setting up the tent, also, just to see how it all fit together. I wish we had.

Fresh baby potatoes from Gloria were so delicious.

It turned out that the bed literally filled every square inch of our little dome tent. So instead of walking into the tent, and around to whichever  side is mine, I simply open the tent “door,” and crawl onto this Titanic of a cot.

We actually have a huge tent back at home that we have been ignoring for about six years, simply because it is so painful to set up. It is, however, perfect for our new cot. Had we discovered how tight our quarters were going to be, I am certain we would have gotten out the old tent, and taken a refresher course in tent-erection.

Voila! That gives me an idea. I should have no problem convincing the powers that be, that we should make yet a third jaunt over here to the beach, some time in September, so that we can test-drive the new cot, in our big tent.

I’ll entice her with some of that grand coffee.