CHAPTER FORTY TWO: HOME AGAIN, HOME AGAIN

CHAPTER FORTY TWO: HOME AGAIN, HOME AGAIN

It’s cyber Monday, a term coined by advertisers to get us to buy billions of dollars of junk on line after gorging ourselves at retail outlets on Black Friday. What a country! I have not done my part on either day, not having gone to a single store on Friday and not having made a single purchase on line today. Take away my citizenship, if you must, but hasn’t the whole retail world joined Macy’s in having a sale every damned day of the year? Why is one day more “special” than the next? I figure if I wait long enough, the etailers will be paying ME to take their junk off their cyber hands. And I’ll hold out for a hefty sum.

Let’s see, this is a Blog about our travels in Slow Motion. So I will report that today the Admiral and I took Slow Motion from the dock where we have been tied since early November to a nearby dock at the same marina to “pump out” our onboard septic system. It was great moving on the water, if only for a few minutes. We still had to do the undocking and the tying up at the pump out dock, then the undocking there and the tying up back on the T-head we call home at the Ashley Marina in Charleston. We were expecting that the engine repair person would be working on the engines all day, but for reasons grounded in incompetence, he was not able to do the work, so immediately our thoughts turned to sewage. And there was no current today, which was a small miracle. So the engine repair has been postponed, but we can use our heads again without fear of overflow.

About the engine repairs, most of what the Admiral has decided to do is preventive work, putting in new hoses and clamps to replace the original ones that have been there since 1994. He gave a list of serial numbers to the engine repairman to order the parts. The engine repairman apparently gave the list to his parts manager at the Charleston Boatworks, a callow fellow who sent in an order for something – not what we needed for the most part. So when the repairman showed up this morning and opened the boxes of parts, it was like Christmas. Everything was a surprise, or didn’t fit, or was intended for another type of engine, and those parts that actually would work with our Cummins engines were too few. Somehow parts were ordered for only one of the two diesel engines. It would have been a comical scene, watching the repairman try to fit the various parts to our engines – picture the Three Stooges working in a widget factory. But these were our engines. They need their new hoses before we leave next week, and this was not acceptable. So we have provided the correct serial numbers, again, for the correct parts, again, and the Cummins parts dealer has sent the Boatworks parts manager 6 pages of diagrams of the Cummins diesel engine that we have, and the parts we need for it. Tomorrow, or the next day, we try again. We have “re-gifted” most of the previously ordered parts back to the parts manager to find a good home for them – on a boat with an engine where they can actually be used.  Does this type of thing happen in Japan? In China? In Germany? Just asking. Once, just once, we would like our boat service people to get it right the first time. Slow Motion deserves the best, and so do we.

Today was our first day out of the “Red Eye Fog”. We took a “red eye” flight from San Francisco to Atlanta, leaving at midnight and arriving at 7:15 a.m., then waited to take a 9:15 flight to Charleston. I don’t remember most of that day, especially once we touched down in Charleston. We got back to Slow Motion on Saturday in the late morning, and other than knowing that Penn State won (Yay!) and Notre Dame won (Boo!), Saturday has no meaning for me. Then yesterday, after trying to play catch up on Saturday, we found ourselves wide awake at 10:30 p.m., each doing “important” things on our iphones, wondering if we could ever get into a normal sleep pattern again. The Admiral did not get to sleep until 4 a.m. I think I nodded off before that, but at 7:30 a.m., a half hour before the boat repairman was supposed to arrive, there was no more sleep for the weary.

Yesterday we did take walk for a couple miles in hopes that the exercise would help us get to sleep, but to no avail. Today, I walked and rode my bike. It’s 7:45 p.m. as I write this Blog, and I think that tonight is the night to return to normalcy. I’ve got PBS on, and some fiddlers are singing Silent Night – OMG, it’s the Christmas season on November 26. While it’s true that I like to celebrate my birthday for the whole month of September, I have never tried to push the celebration into August. Christ, can you just wait your turn? So much for a return to normalcy.

If you’re wondering, our trip back to Salinas was well worth the airline delays and mishaps we suffered heading west on Delta. Zorro! He was wonderful – understanding, loving, reserved (sort of), forgiving – and he had put on just one extra pound and was full of energy for our hikes in the park. Ruby was very cool too. I’m happy for both of them. They are a great couple. I realize that Ruby is now number one in Zorro’s life, but I’m still in his inner circle. And that’s good enough. In addition to the reunion with Zorro, the Admiral and I got together with our neighbors at Brenda’s and Royal’s on Sunday night. What a lovely evening. The Admiral made his famous pulled pork, and Olivia made carmelitas and the neighbors brought delicious dishes from bacon wrapped shrimp to broccoli salad and everything in between. We ate, we talked about the new developments on Harper Canyon, we laughed, we cheered (Olivia is MVP of the water polo team this year! Bill was inducted into the Tennis Coaches Hall of Fame! Hurrah!), we ate some more, and we shared the warmth of our friendships.

The rest of the week, the Admiral continued on his cooking tear. He found a rib roast at Costco and made an excellent dinner of Roast Beef, Mashed Potatoes and Artichokes. That dinner will long be remembered at 84 Harper Canyon Road as one of the best all time dinners prepared for no special occasion. The rib roast and the pulled pork were preceded by the Admiral’s meat loaves, which awaited the Moore/Calkins family upon their arrival on Friday night. Since there were three meat loaves, this meant meat loaf sandwiches for the entire time we were home.

And we spent all but two nights at our home at 75 Harper Canyon Road, thanks to the generosity of our renters, the Pattersons. It felt weird at first, same home, but different furniture and décor. We didn’t bring Zorro back – he has too much loose fur, and we didn’t want to upset the balance he has in his life with Ruby at her house. So we were home, but he wasn’t with us. A couple times when we returned from our hikes in the park, Zorro went past 84 Harper Canyon and ended up in front of the front door at 75 Harper Canyon, waiting for me to let him in. It didn’t break my heart to re-direct him, but it was a little bit heart-tugging. And leaving him on Friday afternoon was hard on me. He’s fine, and that’s what counts.

Besides our amazing Harper Canyon neighbors, I visited with Marie and Chris and Alan and Louisa and Olivia, Abigail, Michayla and Ben. I also fit in 6 different doctor appointments, a salon appointment with Tonie and a massage with Tammy (that felt really, really good). All in all, it was a successful trip home. But then when we boarded our flight in San Francisco to return to Slow Motion, that too felt like a trip home. So the Admiral and I are officially bi-coastal. We have two homes, one with Zorro, where I pay taxes and vote, and one that takes me to places I have never been before and keeps me warm and dry, no matter what tropical storms cross our path. If you had asked me a few years ago when I was going to leave the DA’s Office and what I was going to do in retirement, I would have told you that I had no plans to leave the DA’s Office and no desire to retire. Then the Admiral re-entered my life and suggested that I could have a full, exciting life doing something other than prosecuting murderers, rapists and child molesters. Who knew? He was right, of course (thank God), and here I am traveling up and down the East Coast in a boat (!), blogging about it, and experiencing something new every day. I don’t consider this “retirement”. This is just the next phase of my life. So if you’re afraid to give up your day job because you have no idea how you would fill those hours, think about changing your life completely and doing something you may have only dreamed about. Re-invent yourself. Take a big gamble. Maintain some stability – keep your home – but get the heck out of Dodge and see the world! That’s my humble opinion. I know it worked for my sister and her husband, as they traveled around America for 2 to 3 years before settling down 3000 miles away from their Pennsylvania homestead. And so far, it’s working for me.