Cups Are Us

With fishing season over for the year, at least for me, I'm left with my annual inner conflict of what to do with my time. I absolutely hate wasting time, but I'm so undisciplined that unless I go to bed with some idea of what I'm going to do the next day, I drift about like a man without a country and then suffer with a guilty conscience for not accomplishing anything productive. As long as I'm not doing anything else, I don't mind cooking and cleaning the house. I'm not going to run out and buy an apron or anything, but it gives me something to do and it gives Jan a break. Yesterday I was making supper- shrimp salad. I don't know why it takes so many utensils to cook a couple pounds of shrimp and cut up some veggies, but it does. I wonder if Martha Stewart makes a big mess when she cooks. I guess it doesn't matter if she does, someone else will clean up after her. I don't have that option. While the shrimp was boiling I did some dishes and dried them and started putting them away. We have a cupboard that has two slide out shelves for the pots and pans. It's located down low next to the stove. I don't know how Jan manages to get all the skillets, lids, loaf pans, dutch ovens, sauce pans and pie plates in there, but she does. I don't have that much patience so I usually stuff it all together and shut the doors real quick. It seems to work. I do the same thing with the tupper-ware stuff that's in the cupboard above the microwave. For some reason we have about twelve different sizes and shapes and none of them are compatable with each other. If you kind of balance them for a few seconds you can slam the door and they'll stay put. The problem comes when you open the door to get one. It's not a bad idea to be standing under an umbrella before you open the door. That way the avalanche won't hurt you. There's a good reason why the heavy stuff is located down lower. Anyway, I was drying the dishes and while I was putting away the cups, I started running out of room to put them, so I thought I would line them up and see what all we had. Let's see- Jan has a cup that say's Hoonah on it. On the bottom it says "get mugged". I guess that's the manufacturer. I have a cup from China that Candy, a family friend,gave me when she got back from her semester at sea, an unsolicited cup from some veterans place that says Freedom isn't Free, a colorful scenery one that says Albuquerque- boy that would be a good word for a spelling bee, a Cabela's cup from my daughter Camille, another Alaska cup, a Statue of Liberty one from Jen, one that Jan bought for herself that says Crabby till I get my Coffee, some girlie cup, a large two tone brown hand made cup that could probably hold a quart of liquid easily, a nautical theme cup with ropes and portholes, a blue cup that's shaped kind of like an hourglass. It used to have felt on the bottom. I think it came from my boat. We have a plastic cup with a picture of Scooby Doo that says "Grandma you're more fun than anyone." I should get one with my picture on it that says "Grandpa you're a jerk!" I wonder if those would sell. I do have one from my grandkids that says Big Dog Dad, My House, My Rules. It's also huge. I should use it more often. I'm sure that after lifting it to my mouth every morning I would see a noticable increase in my bicepts. We also have a pink one with a moose whom I guess is the Caffine Queen, one that shows a bear drinking coffee- advertizing Grizzly Blend beans, the cup says The coffee is a bruin, a large blue tea cup with matching saucer and last but not least, a one quart, green Alladin cup. I wish I could say that was all of them, but we have even more in the other cupboard. A dozen or more from a Correlle dish set and some antique ones, to say nothing of the cups in Jan's bras, but we don't drink coffee from those. Needless to say, we have plenty to choose from when the urge to drink arises, so kids, if you're reading this, I love you, and I love the cups you've given us down through the years, but we're probably set for awhile.