The Anecdotal Life Part. 48

Sun's up, but you wouldn't know it by the feel of things. I keep wanting to go up to my boat, but I think I missed the only decent chance of late, which was last Saturday. I want to swipe a neighbor's ladder and attempt to vault over the stern to collect some tapes I left behind. Also I want take some pictures from my special vantage point in winter storage at Goose Harbor. My boat is up on chocks in the farthest corner, but facing the Chesapeake and the narrow channel by which we come and go. It is where I can stand and say I am "prospect impressed". But it is too darn cold.
However, on a more cheerful note, which is difficult for me to fetch up this January, I received my scores for two of the four courses I took this fall. I was hoping to remove myself from the "Private Benjamin" of the boating world" category. I got a 94 in Seamanship and 96 in Boat Handling. Sounds reasonably impressive doesn't it? Now ask me if any of this was learned on and while the boat was in the water. Nooooo, but I dyed my hair brunette in anticipation of my upgrade in status anyway. Could I take the boat out with a good crew? Yessss. Could I make it back? Not likely.
I told my sister I , in my usual insecure fashion, had gone back in the last five minutes of the test and changed two answers which I actually had right. "But that's not quite knowing it solid is it?" I mused aloud. She emphatically answered that piece of whimsy. " Well, you wouldn't want to be sitting in your boat with some horrific crisis on your hands ( and they all sound horrific when you study them) wondering whether the solution to the problem was in answer A or B? I thought about that a second while she said, "well!!?" O.k. Ok. O.k. So I know a lot more. And that's about it.
I miss my boat. Even cleaning it. I can't wait until "Sock Burning day"in quirky old Eastport, when boaters celebrate being able to walk about in boating shoes or sandals without socks. In the meantime my closet and car are jammed with the stuff for my boat waiting for better weather. That's pretty much how I feel. All jammed up, surrounded by the stuff that makes up a household, waiting for better weather.
Copyright: January 29, 2007

The Anecdotal Life Part. 47

Well, I missed a beat, and I wouldn't have liked myself if I hadn't. I drove back to Michigan for the funeral of my sister, Ann Hance Westerhof, who died on January 12th. I had been going back and forth since this summer. We talked until she couldn't anymore. She said, as her time grew closer, " you talk". So I babbled onward about anything and everything only more and more briefly as she tolerated less and less contact with all of us. Pretty much, on the last visit, she didn't want any disturbances or intrusions as she readied herself inwardly for her journey. However, on the day I left, I was running around with the vaccum cleaner, making my usual goofy comments and she laughed. That was a small victory, but I cherish it. I was always trying to make her laugh. I would tell her of my son's incredible travels to places she would never see. She liked that too.
She had been my protector in life, along with my other three sisters. Whenever things got tight, they'd all get on the horn to commiserate and cajole, suggest and order me about. At the funeral when all the five kids, all the grandchildren and all the husbands to be, cousins, sisters, nieces, nephews, friends etc., had gathered; it was obvious she had been a protector for each and everyone. We all had a lot to lose.
Copyright: January 21, 2007

The Anecdotal Life Part. 46

With the dead and the dying and those seriously considering it in our family or extended family, it's hard to blog. I called my sister in Michigan, one hotbed of tragedy at the moment, and was complaining that I had cried in the middle of Barnes and Noble again and it was getting embarrassing. She replied, " I usually cry at the grocery store, but today I have bridge." We both laughed.
My son got me tickets to California to cheer me up. Indeed, it helped immeasurably, except for coming home. If any of you are leading a reasonable happy life and wish to hang on to it; don't fly United. United is not united; it is divided. I have never been treated so cruelly or unfairly by such a large number of people at once. Arriving an hour and a half in advance made no difference. The lines started out on the sidewalk. So if you can't get through all the lines and haven't checked in at the gate a half hour in advance; you can kiss your ticket goodbye. They stamped my next one with LATE at the top. So I had gotten up at 5 a.m. , "missed" the 10:45 flight, was refused on the 12:00 flight in a punitive fashion, finally accepted on a 4:00 p.m. flight and I got home at 3:3o a.m. Then I drove home from Dulles to Annapolis. I am not merely jet lagged. I am jet p.o.'d.
But Happy New Year anyway... To you all... And I really mean it, because somehow in the midst of horrible news coming in each day, I've had wonderful warm, funny experiences I will never forget. "And that's the way it is, moving West".
Copyright: January 5, 2007