Barbara J. Hamby

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Stay Out of the Kitchen

My new slogan is, “If you’re trying not to eat, stay out of the kitchen.” Our manufactured home has an L-shaped great room with the dining area in the leg of the L. The dining area has a doorway into the kitchen. The other end of the great room opens into the kitchen or a hallway to the bedrooms and baths. I’m trying to train myself to avoid the kitchen unless I’m cleaning it or preparing a meal. Today there’s a big bowl of leftover stew and a couple of slices of blueberry pie calling to me.

If I can just stay at this computer, fill out our immigration forms for the upcoming cruise and straighten out this office once again, I can ignore the siren call until evening.

After finishing Page 1 of the Immigration questionnaire, I attempted to proceed to Page 2. The computer would not save Page 1 and I finally found small print in the center of the form that asked for some corrections. First, I should not put down Oregon for the state where my son lives (for emergency notification information), but must use OR. Then, they (Princess Cruises’ gremlins hiding in the hard drive) advise me the credit card number I copied off the card “appears to be invalid.” I printed out the form as I had completed it and asked Al to compare it with the credit card to see if my old eyes (or eyeglasses) were failing me. He agreed I had entered the number correctly. Now I’ll have to call the travel agency tomorrow and see if they can find out what’s wrong with this picture.

Every cruise we’ve been on before, I’ve filled out those forms on the computer ahead of time to expedite getting the tickets and speed up the boarding process. Never had a problem before.

Anyway, I took advantage of the time freed up by not being able to finish that job, and organized all the travel papers cluttering my office. Most of my writing is already organized, except for a few things I expect to work on some time soon. There are actually a few bare surfaces around me now.

In spite of my frustration, I managed to restrict myself to a small saucer of stew and half a slice of blueberry pie. Of course, I nibbled on almonds off and on all afternoon.