CHAPTER TWENTY NINE: THE LATITUDE OF GRATITUDE

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE: THE LATITUDE OF GRATITUDE

How’s this for karma? It’s September 29 (my birthday) and this is my 29^th Blog. It’s a time for a little bit of reflection and expressions of gratitude to those who have enriched my life before Slow Motion (BSM) and during Slow Motion (DSM).

Let’s start with my oldest sister, Jean. She died in 1996 of non –Hodgkins lymphoma. She asked that her ashes be scattered over Lake Mineola in the Poconos in Pennsylvania. Her daughter, Gretchen, decided that we should place a memorial bench on the trail around the lake in front of my Aunt Ruth and Uncle Ken’s cottage. We did that several years ago – it is a sturdy, very attractive redwood bench with a plaque recognizing Jean for her accomplished life. Last week my brother and his wife and I went to Lake Mineola to visit. Two things were evident. Aunt Ruth’s and Uncle Ken’s cottage, which was really their home, is in need of maintenance. And Jean’s bench needed a sealant for the winter. The next day the Admiral and I took a redwood sealant back to Mineola, and the Admiral did a first class job sealing the bench – top, bottom and sideways – against the ravages of winter. Yes, I cried as I looked at the gleaming bench, which the day before had looked a bit ragtag. And I kissed Jean’s plaque and felt enveloped by her love for a fleeting moment. She was a great big sister. She was the glue that held our family together for years, calling each of us and calling Mother at least weekly, then sharing what she had learned, so we really felt like a connected family. Jean, I miss you every day. I am eternally grateful to you for coming to live with me in 1994 in my little hovel in Harper Canyon to be my campaign manager and help me come in second in a 5 person primary. Half the people that voted for me were actually voting for you, I’m sure. You just had a way of putting people at ease and getting their life stories from them in the first 10 minutes.

Which brings me to Sue and Butch, my second oldest sister and her husband. Sue and Butch have been together since high school, and are about to celebrate 50 years of marriage, having eloped twice to North Carolina, first without birth certificates, then with them and actually sealing the deal. Sue and Butch are a team. They complement each other beautifully. And they have been very good to me and the Admiral. As we embarked on our cross country journey in May to take possession of Slow Motion in Ft. Lauderdale, we stopped at their desert paradise first. I left my car in their care, and they sold it the first day they advertised it – for more than I had even asked! Just like Jean, Sue has taken her big sister responsibilities very seriously and has guided me through some rough times. We have also celebrated the good times. And I hope I have been there for her when she needed me. We have mourned the loss of her gentle, brilliant oldest son, Doug, who extended his life through his will power and his ability to learn everything one can know about medulloblastoma, only to succumb to ARDS. I am forever grateful to Sue and Butch for letting me help care for Doug, when he needed it. If you want to feel useful, purposeful and completely engaged, spend time with a close family member who calls for your assistance.  Thank you, Sue, for sharing Doug with me, and for sharing so many holiday meals with me. Those would have been lonely times, if you had not invited me to the warmth of your home and your companionship and the friendship of your four kids, their spouses and children.

Then there’s my “little” brother, Rusty, and his wife, Lois, and their three children, as well as their exuberant springer spaniels. In recent years, as I flew to Pennsylvania to visit Mother and my girlfriends from kindergarten, I also had the pleasure of staying with Rusty and Lois for a few nights. As Mother became physically frail after turning 99, at her request, Rusty took over her financial affairs, which led to a titanic battle with two scalawag disability insurance companies, Penn Treaty and *!*!!**. I don’t even want to say the name of the second one – let’s just call it Scumbag Ltd. My admiration for Rusty grew daily, as he recounted the calls he made and letters he wrote – all cc’d to every consumer protection agency in Pennsylvania. And, with his tenacity and not so veiled threats (how do you get companies in bankruptcy to care?), he got the two companies to release the monthly disability benefits they owed Mother for all her years of payments. Sure, he had to “remind” them every month or so of their commitments, but dammit, he was going to get Mother her due, even if those companies had to forgo every other financial obligation to put her first on their list of creditors. And he did!! If you ever need an advocate, my brother’s The One.

And then there are The Friends.  I am so grateful for the love and support of my talented, generous, funny, well read, supportive friends. You all know who you are, and I’m not going to invade your privacy by “naming names”. I’ve been blessed with friendships dating back to kindergarten, through high school, college, law school, Salinas years, and most recently, Harper Canyon. And now, I’m meeting the most fascinating folks on boats – catamarans, cruisers, sailboats, trawlers. The boat people are amazingly helpful and they give me a sense of community even with the transient life the Admiral and I are leading. But it’s the BSM friends who come through every time, call me on my birthday, check on my health, and keep me in their thoughts and prayers. Thank you all!

Oh, did I mention that I am grateful for the Admiral’s love and support? While we go “way back” (50 years as of October 20, 2012), we re-met in 2009 and developed a friendship, when we both were at sixes and sevens. He was at sixes, I was at sevens. My mother had just died, and the Admiral had gone through some life-changing experiences. I was so relieved to learn that he had not died in Vietnam, a fear I had held since he went there in the mid-sixties. He brought his finely honed sense of humor to Harper Canyon, and he made me laugh a lot. He had co-raised three beautiful, highly intelligent and motivated daughters, so despite his button-pushing sexist remarks, I knew he was a feminist. What a good friend he has become! He gave me the kick in the pants I needed to get out of a rut – albeit a rather exciting rut – and go with him to see the world in SM. Thank you, Admiral, for sharing your boating adventure with me.

For those who are reading this Blog to learn about my boating adventure, here’s the scoop. We are still tied up at Calvert Marina in Solomons, Maryland. We are enjoying “docktails” with our new Kadey Krogen friends and Jake and Michael, the Hawaii-bound couple. We have had a few potlucks together. At one of the potlucks, the Admiral was talking with a new boater about where he grew up – you guessed it, they grew up on the same block in Folsom, just two houses apart from each other. And the first thing Sam said, after peeling away fifty plus years from the Admiral’s visage, was “you broke my tooth!” I asked him if he had ever forgiven the Admiral for doing that. He said he had, but his mother has NOT. He also noted that he and the Admiral were throwing stones at each other (what is it with 9 year old boys and rocks?), and the Admiral had a better aim. Anyone with a statistical bent, please tell us what the odds are of this random meeting between boyhood friends, who have had no contact with each other since high school.

While SM is in one place, we have moved across the land to the Poconos to visit my brother. We have also driven to the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay, so that I could rendezvous with 5 girlfriends at a bed and breakfast near Chestertown. I have visited the Solomons Maritime Museum. I have ridden my new used bicycle to the home in the woods of Mary Jane and Mike, where we had a two hour (or more) crab feast. Mary Jane and I have explored the beaches and forests of Calvert County. The Admiral and I have explored the aisles of the WalMart Supercenter, again and again. We have scored fresh white sweet corn from Chesapeake Bounty. We have twice enjoyed the best key lime pie outside of Key West. In short, every day is different, and every day brings something more to be grateful for. During all of these adventures, the Giants won their division – Hurray!

I leave you with this one suggestion: If you haven’t told someone today that you love them, or if you haven’t expressed your gratitude to someone today, please do it. No matter what crisis looms ahead of you, there has to be someone who has been there for you and will continue to support you, as you face hardships and loss. And as you face good times and triumphs too. So say after me: Thank you from the bottom of my heart for being in my life. You make me a better person.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT: HAPPY AS A CLAM IN MARYLAND

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT: HAPPY AS A CLAM IN MARYLAND

I’m sure there are clams somewhere in Maryland, but we don’t catch them in a trap hanging off the stern of our boat. And we don’t see them in the local seafood places, including Bunky’s on Solomons Island. So they should be happy that we are not catching them and boiling them to death, as we do the legal size crabs. Okay, I said it, we are killing the crabs we catch and keep – instantaneously. This will not lead to a job in a slaughterhouse any time soon. But it is a new experience for me, seeing my dinner alive minutes before it is ready to be served as the main course. I am guessing that the crabs are not happy about this outcome. But since I am quite happy at the moment, I liken my happiness to that of the clams which we are not catching and killing for dinner.

The current weather makes me very happy. It turned fall two nights ago. We needed a blanket. Let me repeat that – we needed a blanket. We don’t stick to the sheets any more. I can go two days without having to wash the sweat off my skull. I wore a sweat shirt. Art wore socks today. It’s sunny, clear and in the 70’s, with LOW humidity. It’s that wonderful period of the year we call Septober. Everyone is walking around on the dock with a spring in their step. We all go for walks. I even walked the dock master’s dog, Gigi (labradoodle), with a boating neighbor, Jake. I got a bike, and rode it to “town” – a strip mall two or three miles away – and outfitted it with a very padded, very wide, very comfortable seat and a big, removable basket. No more “courtesy” bikes of indeterminate age and model with one speed – slow. My new used bike has 18 gears and I used 12 of them yesterday. It was a great workout. I used to ride every Sunday on the Rec Trail from Monterey to Marina and back with Sondra, but we stopped. Now that I’m in a no-car situation (except the rentals), my new used bike is my new best friend.

This is Wednesday, September 12, the day our ambassador to Libya was killed. The Admiral and I both read a lot of news sources every day, including the Monterey County Herald and the New York Times, each with its own charm and individualism. But, truth tell, it’s the weather that always grabs our attention. Over the weekend, the Admiral noticed that a pretty big squall was coming our way, and he sounded the alarum for all our neighbor boats. Even as we talked about the size of the storm, the sky darkened considerably, and we all withdrew to our boats to tie a few more lines and, yes, batten down the hatches. We got a lot of rain, but winds that were 60 mph in areas near us reached “only” 39 mph around our boats. We survived another scare with heads up weather watching and good preparation.

Sunday night about 18 boaters all went to the Laughing Buddha for Chinese. We caught a ride with Cindy, a former nursing home administrator from the west coast of Florida. Bill, the guy with the Romney baseball cap, rounded us all up. HE should be running for president. Getting boaters to go to dinner at the same time in the same place is a little like herding cats. Turns out that most of the other boaters tied up at Calvert Marina know each other very well. They have been coming to this place for years, and they stay for a pretty long time. Except for Michael and Jake, who have a South African catamaran, the rest of the boaters all have Kadey Krogens. I know, I know – what is a Kadey Krogen? It’s apparently a very expensive yacht, and people who own them have a natural affinity for one another. The affinity is so close that they “rendezvous” once a year for 4 full days of seminars, parties, dancing, and loud political fights at the Calvert Marina. We expect the influx of forty Kadey Krogens any day now. Our boat sticks out – we are not getting it washed, waxed and polished like the KK owners are doing to theirs. We are pumping out the waste and trying to clean out the forward bilge. This will not prettify our boat, but believe me, it is necessary maintenance.

My catamaran neighbor, Jake, is a wonderful source of information – and books! Jake and Michael are traveling to Hawaii, via the Panama Canal. They bought their boat in South Africa, hired a captain and served as the captain’s crew from Capetown to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. Wow! Imagine crossing the Atlantic Ocean AND traveling the whole length of both Africa and South America. So I guess crossing the Pacific is not a daunting task for them. They’re traveling with a Canadian couple – four brave souls headed to paradise. I asked Michael how long the journey would take, and he intoned: “The rest of our lives.” Jake said it would take 4 or 5 years. They have four grown children. Michael still works as an IT consultant in DC, and Jake is still in demand to teach courses on government contracts and labor law. She was the government contract attorney for Ross Perot’s firm (EDS), but didn’t have to live in Plano, Texas. Her office was in Herndon, Virginia, near the places that award the contracts. And she plans to fly back from the catamaran to teach courses, whenever they stay in one place long enough to accommodate her teaching. Hey, Monterey County, would you like me to come back and teach a course periodically on how to pick a jury? I used to be pretty good at it. Ask Berk.

Jake has hundreds of books on board their catamaran. She lent me 8 books – mostly murder mysteries and real life crime stories. I’m reading Lisa Scottoline’s “Dead Ringer”. Nothing like a 6 foot tall solo practitioner in Philadelphia who tries cases and solves murders on the side – who also has an evil twin sister who tries to kill her golden retriever. I’m not liking the portrayal of twins in the book, but Bennie, the protagonist, explains that her mother could not support both girls, so placed her twin up for adoption at birth. Ouch, that would hurt for a lifetime. Yes, this is a bit farfetched, I admit, but there has to be a very strong motive for your twin to turn against you. And certainly “Mom always liked you better” (carried to the extreme of abandonment) can justify a modicum of bitterness and thoughts of retribution.

For those of you who have been wondering about the Admiral’s strong attraction to Wal-Mart and my equally strong aversion to it, here’s the scoop. At practically every marina where we have tied up, we have gone ashore for groceries. At first we sought out the Publix grocery stores, which were so plentiful in Florida. Then Publix disappeared from the landscape. We tried Food Lion, Piggly Wiggly, Harris Teeter, Giant, Farm Fresh – and Wal-Mart. Here comes the confession. I now shop at Wal-Mart. I have overcome my aversion to it. I am not in the Admiral’s league, as he poses for their “Men of Wal-Mart” calendar – clothed and unclothed versions. But I really like certain foods they sell – their peach yogurt is the best (and of course, the cheapest, given the low wages they pay). They have had consistently fresh corn on the cob. They offer red-skinned potato salad. Their paper products cost less than anywhere else (see “low wages” above.) They have the Admiral’s diet peach iced tea mix for less than anywhere else. At any rate, I have visited enough Wal-Marts that you can probably see me on one of the many YouTube videos of Wal-Mart shoppers. I’m making this personal confession, so that you are not overwhelmed with amazement at seeing me next to the 300 pound man in the plaid shorts and Hawaiian shirt, fighting over the last Bounty paper towels.

Okay, I’ll just give you a little to let this shocking news settle in.

Back to Kadey Krogen owners. According to Jake, who has attended at least one rendezvous party, they appear to be fairly evenly divided between the conservatives and the liberals, with a few moderates – where else? – in the middle. This surprises me a little, but hey, good to know there are boat owning liberals. We haven’t met too many in our journeys. I guess you recognize them, because they’re the ones not wearing Romney caps. And by God, if liberals and conservatives who own the same kind of boat can get together, plan seminars, park their valuable boats in close quarters, PARTY, and discuss politics without coming to blows, what’s the matter with Congress? Shape up! Buy a Kadey Krogen! Get with the program! Hey you, Paul Ryan and Steni Hoyer, I’m talking to you! If you governed this country like these owners manage their boats – constant vigilance, preventive maintenance, loving care and attention to detail – we’d be in great shape. Just remember – don’t touch Medicare. Our sons and daughters and grandsons and granddaughters deserve what we’re getting. Heck, our friends under 55 deserve it too.

So I’m happy. The Admiral and I had a wonderful time last week with Mary Jane and Mike Reber. They took us to the Captain’s Table on Solomons Island. If you ever have the fortune of dining there, order the crab salad. You will not be disappointed. Or the fried oysters. Or the soft shelled crab. Shucks, you can’t go wrong with their seafood. But I will personally vouch for the crab salad. Speaking of food, the fresh white corn is still available – yummy. Sorry, Royal, but I had two great garden tomatoes purchased from a farmer at a little produce stand. And, yes, we have two caught and cooked crabs in the fridge. The Admiral made SOS for breakfast. We’re eating well. My stomach is growling as I write this – so long for now, and happy clams to you.

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN: CALVERT MARINA, SOLOMONS, MARYLAND

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN: CALVERT MARINA, SOLOMONS, MARYLAND

How many readers thought we would stay another night at Harbor Island with the cackling diner? A show of hands, please. You’re right, we left as soon as we found another marina just across the creek. Our savior, Calvert Marina – we moved there August 24, not a minute too soon. The “Hogs” were arriving (on their motorcycles) at Harbor Island within the hour to raise money for the SPCA and then to raise Cain the rest of the day and night. We barely averted the “Hogs for Dogs” extravaganza. No such activities at Calvert Marina – only a Labradoodle in the office lying down, too tired to jump up and greet us. According to Matt, her owner, she had run wild that morning through many neighborhoods and was now paying the price. Calvert Marina has 3 bath houses and a swimming pool, a floating dock, crabs right next to the boat (more, later) – and get this, it’s not as expensive as the “Hogs” place.

Okay, it’s “later”. Here’s the crab story to date. The Admiral got a serious crab trap at West Marine, stocked it with chicken necks as bait, put a line on it and dropped it off the stern of Slow Motion. Hours later, when he pulled up the crab trap, it contained three crabs, all male. Before getting into this endeavor, the Admiral got a crabbing license. Now we have licenses to fish and/or crab in three states, maybe four. We were law-abiding boat owners before the Brunswick County, NC sheriffs boarded us, and we are certainly sticking with our law-abiding ways since their board and search operation. At any rate, three crabs. We had read the rules. You can only keep crabs at this time of year if they measure more than 5 and ¼ inches across. So I ran to get a ruler. The Admiral measured. Two were clearly too small. They were released, carefully, since each of them put up quite a fight and one of them drew blood with one of its fierce claws. They apparently wanted to stay in the trap to finish off the chicken necks. The third one looked legal, but alas, the measurement was 5 and 1/8 inches. Since there is no such thing as “nearly legal”, he too was released. We had steak for dinner that night.

The next day the Admiral checked the trap and found that feisty vampirish he-crab back in the trap, all by himself, pigging out on the chicken necks. Who knows? Maybe in another month, he’ll grow big enough to keep. But back into the Bay he went again. The trap was held out of the water for a few hours to discourage the little piggy from jumping right back in. Then the Admiral lowered the trap. Hours later, “Little Piggy” was back with the other small crab, and they were both feasting on the bait like they were storing up for winter. By this time, the Admiral had a pair of tongs to remove them from the crab trap and place them back in their natural habitat – Plink! Plunk! Stay away, you undersized crustaceans, y’hear? Once again the trap was kept out of the water for a spell to try to encourage the illegals to find chicken necks elsewhere. Okay, so we’re at our third day of crabbing. It’s Labor Day, and the Admiral checks the trap – three crabs! Yes, the illegals are back, but the third one – grab the ruler – OMG, it’s 5 and ¾ inches across. LEGAL! It’s a male! LEGAL! From trap to table – ten to fifteen minutes at most. Not exactly a crab feast, but a good start. The meat is very sweet and tender. Guess he didn’t have much time to ruin himself with the ingestion of chicken necks. By the way, chicken necks on the third day? Whooeee! The sight, the smell, the oozy consistency – not for the weak of stomach. But the Admiral says the raunchier the bait, the crazier the crabs are for it. Now that’s counter-intuitive, and how does it explain how sweet the crab meat tastes?

Crabbing is not a time intensive endeavor. So while we were waiting for the legal sized crabs to find the rotting chicken necks in our trap, we hopped in the rental car and headed north to Annapolis. I had only seen Annapolis in Harrison Ford’s movie “Patriot Game” – lots of narrow streets, tons of brick, and menacing Irish radicals in pursuit of Jack Ryan. The narrow streets and tons of brick are still in Annapolis, no sign of Irish radicals. We arrived at a side entrance to the Naval Academy as all good midshipmen were in chapel with their families. So we had the campus to ourselves. It was overcast, a lovely day to tour the museum full of the exploits of Naval Academy graduates. It was interactive, and I could press a button to choose my battle, then watch every movement of every ship (American vs British, French vs British, American vs Spanish) engaged in a major naval engagement, starting with the Revolutionary war. Every shibboleth of every American victory at sea was on display: “Don’t give up the ship!” “Fire when ready, Gridley!” “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!” There is a prize for anyone who can identify the speaker, the naval battle, the year and the location (and who won) – for each of these famous battle cries. A really good prize, so send in your answers.

Here is an oddity: John Wilkes Booth was apparently wearing spurs on April 14, 1865 when he assassinated President Lincoln at the theater. I know this, because one of his putative spurs is on display at the Naval Academy museum. It looks like the wish bone of a chicken. The spur purportedly got caught in the bunting draped along the front of the presidential box, as Booth made is escape. Then spur fell to the stage, where a guy picked it up, and his heirs gave it to the Naval Academy to display. The Naval Academy is circumspect about this gift, stating that the spur “is believed to have been worn by Booth.”  Fact, fiction or faction, nevertheless, the spur is on display. Hey, has anyone heard of DNA testing?

We stopped by the Maryland State House, er, that is, Art pulled into a loading zone, and I jumped out and ran like hell to get a photo of the State House. I started to run past some statues, then noticed “Justice for All” and “Thurgood Marshall”, and there he was, my hero, Thurgood Marshall, standing above me looking like the attorney in Brown vs. Board of Education. So, snap, snap of Thurgood, then a few snaps of the State House, and run back to the loading zone before the ticketer arrives, or before Art heads back to Solomons alone. Thurgood Marshall – here’s a little known fact. He took time every day to watch his (and my) favorite soap opera, Days of Our Lives. A friend of mine who lived in Alabama for a lot of years told me that men and women alike in the South used to take time out from whatever they were doing to watch the soaps. I used to watch Days of our Lives and Another World with my friend Dominique at her Branford, Connecticut cottage on the Sound. She had a radio news anchor job that went from three to eleven, and I was the Executive Director of a public interest law firm, who worked until midnight most days. So a break in the middle of the day was good for both of us.

It was only after reading about Thurgood Marshall’s soap watching habit that I was empowered to “come out” with my own history of soap watching. As some of you may know, the soaps were the first TV shows to tackle controversial subjects like rape, abortion, interracial marriage, same sex marriage and teen pregnancy. These subjects should not be controversial, but with idiots like that Akin guy from Missouri saying that “legitimately” raped women do not get pregnant, the controversy rages anew. Let me break the news here: THERE ARE NO LEGITIMATE RAPES! THEY ARE ALL VIOLENT, UNLAWFUL AND SCARRING FOR LIFE. Yes, Virginia, a rape of an unconscious woman or a highly intoxicated woman is a violent act. You may not see the bruises, but they’re there. Look at what you did, Justice Marshall, you led me straight to the “soap” box – thanks for making this a more just world for all of us.

As we left the downtown area of Annapolis – don’t ever get caught in the traffic on Main Street – we heading to the docks to check out the marinas. The Annapolis City Docks are right in the middle of town, probably a little too much activity to get a good night’s sleep. So we headed for the hinterlands, London Towne and Edgewater. They had marinas, all right, but wow, they started to make Dudley’s and Harbor Island look bearable. One marina had a dock master that was the spitting image of Boris Karloff, only scarier, with a young Asian boy playing some sort of electronic game sitting next to him. Weird vibes. Another marina offered Coconut Joe’s and lots of loud, live musical acts. A third marina seemed sort of okay, once you set aside the fact that you had to drive through extremely rundown neighborhoods to get there. But there was no 50 amp electricity. We struck out on marinas near Annapolis. So we continued to head south to Solomons, and Art had this brainstorm to check out North Beach and Chesapeake Beach. Lo and behold, Chesapeake Beach has a marina, hotel and Spaahh. Except for the thousands of seagulls, which you have to dodge while walking on the docks, this place is really pretty. It became a possibility for our cruise from Chestertown post-reunion, heading south to Key West. And North Beach has a boardwalk, no ski-ball, but sno cones (no banana, Art’s favorite). We saw the postage stamp sized beaches at both towns, filled with Labor Day celebrants. A wedding was going on at the Chesapeake Beach hotel. As the bride walked out on the pier, with her photographer running backwards to capture her beauty, someone from the bayside restaurant shouted: “Push her in!” Can you get a meaner drunk than that?

So here we are at Calvert Marina on Labor Day, contemplating a tour of the Calvert Maritime Museum. I have already toured the AnneMarie Sculpture Garden up the road. Sabina was here last weekend, and we went despite threatening skies. This little gem in the forest has sculptures on loan from the Hirschhorn and the National Gallery. Most of them are outside, and they’re pretty spectacular. The skies held up the rain as we walked along the paths from a mini-Stonehenge to the Walk of Women. All along the paths tree stumps and tree limbs had partial drawings of famous artists’ masterpieces, like Warhol’s Marilyn, Dali’s melted clocks and Van Gogh’s Starry, Starry Night and a couple Vermeers. Very cool. The indoors exhibits were neat too. There is a special exhibit of photos and paintings of the Chesapeake Bay Watermen at work. Also, there is an exhibit of sculptures all made from newspaper and/or other recyclable materials. The woman who sold us tickets to enter ($3) said that this Museum is run completely by women. The whole staff is comprised of women, except the gardeners. I asked her why the gardeners were not women, and she paused, “Well, I guess there are women gardeners.” Hello! Thank you, Sabina, for pointing out the Warhol and Dali to me. A word to AnneMarie: Cut out the fairies, gnomes and trolls – all the plastic dolls and glitter – not cute. After the rain soaked them, not cute at all.

 Don’t expect a lot of boat travel tales in September. We’re very happy at Calvert Marina, and while we may cross the Chesapeake to visit a few places, we will keep our “home base” at Calvert. I have a reunion at Chestertown on the eastern shore, but may drive there. I may visit my brother and sister in law at their new mountain aerie – by car. At the beginning of October, my sister and brother in law celebrate their 50^th anniversary, since they eloped. Is that a wedding anniversary, or a marriage anniversary? It’s a looong time, whatever you call it, and I’m so happy for them. After that party, the Admiral and I start heading south as fast as we can, “weather permitting”. We have a space reserved in Key West starting November 20. We are not allowed to re-enter Florida, according to our boat insurance policy, until November 1, so we plan to enter Florida as soon as we can, then hightail it to Key West. The action on the high seas and the Intracoastal Waterway will be non-stop once we start heading south. In the meantime, I’ll keep you posted on our land meanderings – and on my progress with navigation skills and knot tying skills. Yes, there is definitely a lot of room for improvement. Damn those clove hitches – they look so easy to tie, but I tie them wrong so many different ways that the Admiral finally says: “Tie them the only way you haven’t tried. There, you got it!” Not much of a ringing endorsement. And who’s going to remember the “wrong” way? Don’t worry, when I get it right, you’ll read about it on this Blog.