DAY 364: Dull As Dishwater, If I Had Dishwater

Greetings! It’s been so long since my last post sisters began checking in to be sure I was okay. Besides the knee/hip troubles, I am fine, just lazing about in a state of suspended animation. Work is not completed on the bus, and I am safe from Covid here. Florida is warmer, and I am looking for places were I don’t expose myself to it. I know of one on the river about an hour from here, and there is a place south of Daytona I can stay that’s about an hour from Jennifer, the truck driver who visited me the six weeks I was stuck in the shop this time last year. It’s my turn to visit her. A plan is starting to shape up for the week after next. And I need to get the bus weighed to try to bring down my registration fee. And I need to do that, and fast. Note to self: call DMV. 

Except for building supplies, most people here have everything delivered. I learned to do the same, getting weekly boxes of organic vegetables from Misfits, and a huge orders of meat and staples from Walmart every three or four weeks. Pretty much everything else comes from Amazon, Poshmark, Etsy, eBay, and Who Gives a Crap. (Just you try finding room for 48 rolls of toilet paper in here.) By “stuff” I means consumables: cat food, bamboo paper products, replacement slippers, coffee, Tylenol, pens, dish washing liquid…

Speaking of dish washing, I was half way through my morning ritual, soaping up yesterday’s collection of plates, utensils, cups and the braising pan (Thank you sis! I have yet to braise anything in it, but I use it for 90% of my cooking.) when the water pump made gasping sounds. All 30 gallons in the tank under my bed were used up, meaning my 30-gallon gray water tank under the bus was full. My solution was to heat drinking water to complete the chore, although I was very tempted to just take them out into the pouring rain. 

The clean water supply is accessible from where I am parked, but at least one other bus would have to move for me to get to the dump site. Now, hours later as I edit this, and after the rain stopped, I was offered help and a 5-gallon bucket. I made eight trips with as much water as I could carry; it was 66 steps to the drain, 50 back to the bus. I had hoped for some way to gage how full the tanks were without lifting up the bed or crawling underneath the bus, but it didn’t happen when my bus was built. I had no idea the frustration it would cause. “Rigging up something” has now been added to my To Do list. Just one more example of how living simply does not equate to living easily.

My days have seemed too boring to write about, but there is a bit of variety today. In addition to emptying garbage, scooping the litter box, responding to demands from the cat, journaling, meditating, cooking and such, today I got packages: $22 worth of organic produce, coffee, and a few pantry items from Amazon. Later in the day came two red plastic milk crates for organizing drinking water and other kitchen-related items.

There is some rhythm to my month. From 1-21, I meander as I read, research, and write for PaganPages.org. It pays in books, incense, tarot cards, talking with interesting people, and the knowledge I accumulate. I also gained the editor as a friend. When that deadline passes, I turn my focus to things like budget and bills, laundry, adding purple to my hair, organizing, keeping up with the news, taking a few more naps, giving tarot readings, spending more time swinging in the hammock chair, making a few calls and tending to a few more emails. 

Tomorrow is a full moon. I’ll have a little talk with the Goddess about this candle spell that didn’t work. I’ll cook up grass-fed steak with exotic mushrooms and finish the green beans. I’ll also put on my favorite-yet-still-unworn tie dye dress and get out my little red solo cups (the symbol of the Single Woman RVers Facebook group that helped get me through the metamorphose of editor and condo owner to a retired witch living her dream), and sit on the porch pouring until two bottles of champagne are empty. I’m hoping it will move me to people more and attend the next bonfire. 

But this evening I still have work to do. I have laundry to put away so I can have my whole bed back, and I swore I would enter moments I want to remember from a journal I kept in 1999-2000, and then begin to explore an oracle deck I bought from the artist about six years ago.