New Year's Eve / Old Year's Night

The wind is shrieking and every time a gust hits the boat heels enough that things slide off the counters ... and that's tied up in the slip! Annapolis has a great fireworks display that we can see from the cockpit, but I doubt the weather will allow them to hold it tonight. Darn! It's our 25th anniversary and we joke that much of the world throws parties and gets the day off work just for us.

Whether its the wind or the prospect of a day off tomorrow, or my state of mind, I'm having a tough time focusing on work today. Instead I've been checking friends' blogs, surfing the 'net for fish-and-tropical-fruit recipes for tonight, and doing administrative/organizational tasks rather than the one 2008 review that's still on my list. What can I say? I hate arbitrary deadlines, and comments on this one document are due at close of business today. WTF? do I really think that someone is going to read them before Monday?

I don't do "New Years Resolutions" per se - at least, not the traditional kind like I will floss my teeth every night, I will be nicer to my BIL, I will eat right, I will go to the gym more, etc. I do, however, identify things I want to focus on during the year. This year I have 3:

• Health: I'm still wrapping my mind around knowing that I have to do my physical therapy exercises at least a couple of times a week for the rest of my life, assuming I want to be able to walk, and "I'm too busy" isn't an option. Now, it seems to me that someone who spends 4-6 hours per week in the gym ought to boast being buff and golden, but for me that's just what it's gonna take to get to the starting line. Oh, well, that's my reality, I have to deal.


• Getting our finances organized, and on autopilot as much as possible: We missed a couple of payments this year just because we forgot, or the bills went to the wrong place, not because we didn't have the cash. So my goal is to put things on autopay, set up tickler files for things we need to anticipate (taxes!), do as much as I can by email, and generally get this in shape while we're still living at a fixed address, because it will certainly be more difficult while we're traveling next year! I've already gotten a head start on this one - earlier this afternoon I set up a "monthly payment account" with our insurance agent to address all our insurance policies in one place (3 cars with bills twice a year, 3 rental properties with bills once a year, our personal liability, etc etc). She said, no wonder you sometimes miss payments, you must be getting one or another bill from us every month!


• Career: Wrapping it up, completing my "Science Impact" (science in public decisionmaking) project, and generally figuring out who I want to be in the second 1/2 of my life.

Oh, yeah, #4 - sharpen and practice my emailing and blogging skills, 'cuz that's the only way I'll be keeping in touch with friends after next autumn!!

Dreaming of a Small Christmas

This great image came from Krissie in Australia, but it seems quite appropriate to the US this year. Krissie’s words remind me of my mom, whose idea of decoration was a pot of branches and red berries by the door, tied with a red bow and spotlighted. She loved that her neighborhood in New York’s Upper East Side was decorated with just tiny white lights everywhere, some garland and red bows. No tinsel, no glitter, no animated lights or inflatable Santas. She taught us that understatement can be dramatic and elegant. Not to mention saving money and time and cleanup on over-the-top decorations!

Okay, yeah, I’ll admit it. I do like the sparkle and glitter of the holiday, in small doses. One of my favorite memories was a gift my grandmother gave me – my very own tree. It was a small, maybe 2-foot, silver artificial tree with pink and silver glass balls. It was the only thing in my life that I can ever remember liking that was pink. I spent hours decorating that tree, putting the balls on, then taking them off to do it again. But I was like, 6 years old, okay? She was a salesperson at a local department store and I actually think the tree was one of their decos that they gave away to employees.

The other cool thing that my mom did, was no Dec 25th madness. We kids each got one gift to show our friends. Then, she combined thrift with an opportunity to teach us kids about delayed gratification, we went for a shopping spree all day Dec 26th, including lunch out. She showed us how we could get more toys for the same budget if we waited for sales, and avoided the frantic shopping scene in favor of creating a new personal tradition for our family.

But the whole US economic downturn/consumer culture’s got me thinking. I read on one blog that the author was cutting back this year, partly in response to tight finances, but also using the crisis as an opportunity to recalibrate and scale back their family’s overspending. She said she was working to teach her kids the difference between a want and a need. This author actually got a comment that she was being unpatriotic, that she owed it to our society to spend all you could to stimulate us out of our economic crisis!!!

It feels awfully, awfully like being on a treadmill. Our economy is some 70% consumer driven, what does that mean? Can it really mean that most of what we make is something we don't really need and can live without? Can it really be that the only way we can make jobs is to give in to manufacturers encouraging us to buy more than we need or can afford?

But if we don’t shop, they tell us, there will be layoffs. Toymakers and auto workers and department store clerks will lose their jobs. Gee, what if instead of laying some peole off and others keeping 100% of their jobs, what if we all work a few less hours, earn a little less money, buy fewer wants but still all our needs, and spend the newly gained time thinking, or socializing, or creating, or appreciating? That might be the biggest “small Christmas” ever.

Last Times

I went to my office Xmas party and something was different. Same white and gold tree in the corner as last year. Same music as last year; a bass played by our elegant big boss, a piano and a guitar played by some guys I didn't know, kazoo (!) played by the cheerful guy who'd survived a heart attack a couple of years ago, vocals by two women from personnel. Same arrangement of tables as last year with the same foods (2 for appetizers, 1 for desserts, 1 for drinks). Same-same...except. Except that this office party, with Dan's office party tomorrow, will be my last office Xmas parties - ever. Next year at this time I'd be retired, living on the boat, presumably anchored off some sandy beach.

I looked around the auditorium in which the party was held and realized that I knew few of the people, and most of those I did know were senior too. I felt uninspired to meet new people, and certainly uninspired to schmooze. I gave my door prize ticket to the woman sitting next to me (what would I do if I won? If I wasn't working here any more, what good would a logo coffee mug or shirt do me?), and left early.

Everything I do this season has the unusual clarity of something I'm about to lose, and want to sear into memory. The annual Thanksgiving dinner at Karen and Howard's in Philly, Melissa's gift swap in Alexandria, Parade of Lighted Boats in Annapolis that always falls on the same evening as my cousins Rob & Amanda's holiday open house ... this year is the last time for all of it.

Back in my office, I grabbed a textbook off my shelf to back up a comment I wanted to make on a document I was reviewing...and the last time for that, too is coming soon...and the textbook almost opened itself to where I wanted. This time I noticed that the pages were yellowing and the copyright was 30 years ago. I remember buying that book when it, and my career, were brand new. I don't want to be one of those people doing the retirement countdown because I believe in this job. I have one last thing I want to do, and that's revise my report on barriers and opportunities on getting science into public decisionmaking. I'm tired of driving the Beltway, and my eyes will glaze over if I have to read the plans for one more road or bridge. And yet, I need something bigger than myself to be involved in, some reason to get up in the morning. If my life is just about pleasing myself, lounging on the beach, who would notice if I was gone? My friend Cathy once explained why they came back from cruising, "You can only play so many games of tennis or golf before it gets boring." Exciting, and scary at the same time. Next year at this time ... who will I be, when I no longer hand out business cards that identify me as "Senior Environmental Scientist?"

Simplify Your Life

Got this email from my friend Dani:
"One thing that I've realized through the years, is that what I consider and define as simple, can be quite different from everyone else. Some people consider simplicity living off the earth, gardening, cloth diapering, making food from scratch, and "getting back to the earth". Others believe in having very sparse, minimalist, decor, eating simply prepared meals (via microwave) or eating out (then you don't have to cook). We went to a discussion on simplicity a year ago, and people were arguing about what it meant. Finally, a friend of mine pointed out that if microwaving vegetables for a meal, enables her to have more time with her children, or if using a dryer to dry clothes instead of line drying them frees up time, then isn't that simplifying too? It was amazing when people started to realize, that baked from scratch foods might be simple in one sense, yet in another sense and situation, they may not be.I loved how you mentioned in your last email Krissie:"I am happy with this and living simply means I can enjoy and not be a slave to the house which is feeling too big for us as we age. "It's causing me to wonder about what living simply means to me, and to the rest of you.-Dani"

So here's what I'm thinking of sending back:

Great question, Dani! Caused me to think a lot about what a simple life means. Do I automatically have a simple life because I live on a boat? I think not. I'm independent of the power grid and very conscious of the environment and limited in my possessions, does that make it "simple?" At the same time, the systems on a boat are in many ways more complicated than in a house - you never have to take precautions about your house sinking.

My attempt to define simplicity: Everything I choose to include in my life supports my chosen way of living. When I look at commitments on my calendar, or possessions on my shelves, or names in my address book, I feel these things give me energy and pleasure, they don't drain my energy or make me sad or stressed. I wish I could remember the name of the architect who said, "Have nothing in your home that you don't believe to be beautiful or know to be useful." I think that's a pretty good summary and guide for a simple life as a whole. I'd also add that I strive to have nothing that exists solely to impress others or satisfy others' expectations of what I "should" have or do.

Simplicity is also a matter of priorities. In one sense, moving onto the boat forced some focus. As my friend Linda said when I asked her how to decide what to take, it's simple: "first safety stuff, then tools, then everything else" (until you ran out of locker space.)

Simpicity for me also means no excess. My friend Lucy describes visiting her Uncle Bud in rural Texas, quite a colorful character. She asked for a cup of tea and discovered that Uncle Bud only owned two spoons. "Uncle Bud, why do you only have two spoons?" "Why do I need more?" Uncle Bud answered. "I only got one mouth."

One morning when we still lived in a house, I went downstairs to get a cup of coffee. I stood at the cabinet, coffee pot in hand, and saw a lovely set of ceramic mugs in a glowing shade of amber that I'd inherited from my Mom. I also saw a lighthearted mug that I had bought on the last day of a vacation with Dan, and the mugs that matched our dishes, and the freebies I'd gotten at a conference, etc. Suddenly I realized that here I was, standing at the kitchen counter while my coffee cooled, spending energy to make a decision about which mug would best suit my mood today. (Actually, spending double energy since I'm terrible before coffee) I call these "microdecisions" - whichever way you decide doesn't make any difference at all in the long run, but you still have to spend energy deciding! What a waste excess can cause, on so many levels!

A few weeks ago I pulled out my winter clothes. Some, like my cuddly Irish fisherman's sweater or my dark brown pantsuit, I welcomed back like old friends. Others I looked at with a feeling of dread - I was obligated to wear them because I had paid good money for them. Someone I was shopping with had talked me into them, or they were on sale for a good price, or they fit the image of what a grownup should wear. Ironically, those dreaded clothes are the ones I wear more than the ones I love - hoping they'll wear out enough that I can shed them without guilt. Now, whazzup with that???

So I've developed a litmus test that works for me, simplicity is support, and it's enemies are surplus and "should."

Verizon, and my solution to the economic crisis

It's been 3-1/2 weeks since we got back from St Maarten and moved to our new slip for the winter while F-dock is being renovated (yay!) We scheduled our phone & internet move with Verizon - we're only moving 100 yards away, how hard can that be?

We got our new phone YESTERDAY and we STILL don't have internet! And every time I try to call, I get the recorded voice saying "press 1 for billing and payments, press 2 for tech support..." and after about 10 minutes on hold and 4 layers of automated menus, I finally get a human who tells me I have the wrong department and need to start over...ARRGH! I just checked my cellphone records and have spent over 2 HOURS on calls to Verizon!! It really shouldn't be this hard!

So my suggestion for our president-elect: Instead of a 21st-century New Deal, hiring the unemployed workers to update our national infrastructure, roads and bridges ... let's give them all nice office jobs in customer service, and make automated telephone menus illegal. What do you think?

Day Trip to Saba (more St Maarten)

We took a day trip to the neighboring island of Saba, a tiny rock 30 or so miles from St Maarten. We traveled on this high-speed ferry: Here's an amazing little town nestled in the hills. We asked, and yes, there is a building code specifying the red roofs!

We took a short hike to the rain forest on the often cloud-shrouded peak:

When I first heard the name of this tree, the flamboyan, I was sure I'd heard "flamboyant!"

Typical West Indies style house

St Maarten - The Rest of the Story

Day 6

Golden Eagle

James claims that when one circumnavigates an island while sizing it up, it is called 'circumsizing' the island, and that is what we did on a charter catamaran trip. The crew was great fun to talk to and very inventive, the drinks flowed freely, and we really enjoyed the sailing!
This was only the second day the woman skipper Sam (at far right in photo) was in command, and she handled it very well. She said she'd been shadowing another captain for a couple of months. Dan spent a lot of time chatting with the crew, as one skipper to another.

This was a great day on the water. Conditions were just about perfect, with 15 kts of wind. The first leg was beating into the wind. We shared the trampoline on the bow with a smart 12-year-old girl (all the other grownups wanted to stay dry) and enjoyed the occasional splashes of warm water when we came down a wave. The crew did a great job of mixing up the activities, providing something for everyone, and conveying the sense they were having fun, too. The snorkeling was disappointing between the hurricane damage and the stirred-up water reducing visibility, but the swimming was lovely. We anchored off a nice restaurant for lunch and had the choice of swimming ashore or taking the dinghy. So of course I had to swim - I never swam into lunch before.

After lunch, more sailing, and one more swim stop, this one with a floating bar. Often the tour operators will feed the fish at a snorkel stop, to attract more interesting fish for the tourists to observe. I couldn't help but observe that the floating bar had the parallel effect on people that the fish-feeding did for colorful tropical fish. Surrounded by people floating with their colorful pool noodles, the bar looked exactly like "chumming for tourists!"

Day 7

Tweety

This is the car we rented. I am not making this up, the rental company refers to this car as "tweety bird." A taxi driver waiting at the taxi stand next to the rental kiosk explained to that to drive island style - "don't drive shy." So Dan with his greater directional sense was the navigator and I was the driver. With the best of the Washington Beltway experience to guide me, I was still tentative by island standards! The map showed only the most major of roads, and had no street names. However, there were few street signs either, so providing names would have been a waste. We managed to find almost everywhere we wanted to go, although in several instances we got there via the 'scenic route!'

Day 8

We've been everywhere on this island. We've had crepes for breakfast, driven up and down steep hills, found the beach, gotten groceries, and located the Moroccan restaurant we want to try for dinner tomorrow. We definitely still drive shy, i.e., not as aggressively as the locals. But hey, we don't know these roads. We spoke with one island woman who had also visited the States and asked how she felt about the driving in New York. "You can't speed," she said. "They're so strict about the rules." A far cry from what Robert told us: most of the traffic rules are treated as suggestions, but if you break a rule and end up causing a crash, the penalties for screwing up are much, much more significant than they are in the States. So, bend the laws at your own peril. For example, open containers are legal; drunkenness is not. Running a stop sign when no one's around, no problem; running a stop sign and causing a crash, big, big problem.

Interlude: Hurricane recovery

Category 3 Omar came through here a week before we arrived. Damage was moderate by island standards because the storm, although strong, was fast-moving, and no people were seriously injured. The south shore (where we are) took to worst hits. Water and sand smashed the plate-glass windows facing the ocean in
several of the ground-floor condos and public areas, and many plantings were damaged or destroyed. They're working hard to get things back in shape before the tourist season is in full swing. Here's a crew cleaning out sand and dirt that the ocean washed into a pool and patio area - note that there are both men and women working. Farther inland on the French side, you can tell which direction the winds were blowing: these trees are killed on one side by large amounts of salt spray.

Interlude: Politics
The American election is big news here - maybe because the economy on the island is so dependent on tourism, or maybe because people on this small island just feel it behooves them to be aware of happenings in their bigger neighbor. In any case, whereever we walked downtown on Tuesday we heard snatches of conversation and even if we couldn't make out the words due to the accents and that island lilt, we kept picking out the word "Obama." There is even a calypso
song whose entire lyric seems to consist of three words: "Barack Obama Hope." We bought the cd but I didn't play it until yesterday for fear of jinxing the outcome. The local bar had CNN on the big screen Tuesday night and was serving special drinks - a red something with cranberry juice and rum for McCain supporters and something with blue curacao for Obama fans.

Yikes! I just worked out that by the time of the inauguration in January the boss that I so enjoy working for will have retired, and he's said I'll probably be acting chief of the environmental affairs program until a permanent replacement is chosen. That means that in matters of policy, there will only be 3 layers of management between me and the President: Pres > Secretary of Interior > Bureau Chief > Sr Science Advisor to the Director > Chief of Environmental Affairs (me!!)

St Maarten, Days 4 and 5

Day 4We took a van trip to Marigot, the capital on the French side. There's a flea market on Weds and Sat, and I assume the resort billed this as a shopping trip. As always, we were more interested in the people-watching. It's always about the people-watching: wondering how they've solved the problem of making a life on this planet, what can we learn from them, what wisdom can we bring back home? We did a brief turn around the stalls and for the most part the had the expected wares: more t-shirts and tote bags, bead necklaces, some art in traditional island style. Every so often there would be a flash of something unusual, one that attracted us was trivets that folded into baskets covered with fabric from Provence. But our first "mission" of the day was French pastries for breakfast, and after a short walk we found a cafe. The first croissants were so good we went up for seconds! Dan suggested that we go downtown first, then come back to the flea market in the afternoon, since it was closer to where the bus would pick us up. We walked all over the maze of streets downtown, past shops displaying fashions more creative than what we see in the States, real-estate offices, jewelry, interspersed with more sidewalk cafes. One of the folks on the bus had said that it really did remind her of Paris. I've never been there except to change planes, but appreciated the sounds of French being spoken in the background as we walked. This was just the beginning of the season, so some shops remained shuttered, others were still on shortened hours. But there was plenty to look at! We toured the marina in the midst of town and checked out restaurant menus and mega-yachts. For lunch, in contrast to the elegant French breakfast, we went to a strip of narrow stalls, the "lo-los" serving local food, where a plate of rice and peas and a beer set us back a crushing 5 euros each.

While we were sitting it rained buckets, and it was fun to watch the way different people reacted. The vendors at the flea market quickly covered their wares with tarps, and the cafes had isinglass curtains to shelter their sidewalk seating areas. People walking either panicked or huddled in alleyways, or totally ignored the rain. These tropical storms seem to rain very hard for about 10 minutes, then the sun comes out again. We can watch them approach over the water from our balcony. Presumably the people who ignore the storms know that they will soon dry out again. We saw one person with a t-shirt wrapped around his/her head. I couldn't figure that one out - it certainly did nothing to keep the rain off.

Day 5...was a beach day. Dan pointed out that if we did something every day, we'd be exhausted by the time we got back home. So we did a bit of sunning, a bit of swimming, reading a mystery novel and playing scrabble. We ended up in lounges and under an umbrella next to Kyle and Kirsten, and met their parents. Talked about grad school, and moving frequently "in service to Uncle Sam," and islands. Went downtown for dinner - as we were warned, they rolled up the sidewalks at 6 pm. Shops were shuttered and no one was on the streets or the boardwalk. It's the slow season now still, but if we want evening action we'll have to look for it elsewhere.

We're still wrestling with whether to rent a car. Driving here seems quite intimidating. Roads are narrow, steep and winding, street signs confusing, and the locals drive unpredictably, plus the island habit of stopping anywhere, often holding up traffic, to briefly chat with a friend or give a friend a lift. We're both feeling a bit off our stride and vulnerable, Dan mentally and me physically, further contributing to our dilemma. So, what do you do when faced with a challenge? How do you know whether this reluctance to drive is fear or laziness that we should push through, or whether it's a warning from our instincts that should be honored? I fight the same fight in physical therapy, and it's one of the biggest reasons I so appreciate working with a therapist to give me a reality check. How far to push, and if I feel like I've done "enough" of any particular exercise and want to quit, am I stopping out of laziness, or body wisdom?

St Maarten, Day 3

lunching at the restaurant that Johan sent us to

street in downtown Phillipsburg, the capital on the Dutch side
the road into Marigot, the capital on the French side


one of the more rural views on the French side

We toured the island with a great taxi driver named Robert. He showed us all the basics - where to shop, where to eat, and where not to walk at night - as well as things of interest to our future cruising: marinas and protected anchorages. We went into the interior and saw the construction company owned by his brothers and cousins. Beaches of all sorts, including the nude beaches, the gay beaches, and the gay nude beaches. He dropped us off in town and sent us to "Johan,"
purveyor of (possibly pirated) island music. When we got to his stand he was playing some kitschy pan music, hoping to attract some cruise ship tourists. We asked to sample some soca, and told him, yes, we knew many of the words could be taken two ways. Next thing we knew, another island man had stopped to listen as well, and the four of us were bopping to Mighty Sparrow, and Johan was suggesting other things we might like, and the other guy explained that the double entendres were part of a game between the artists and the radio stations - the words are ordinary words, so the songs can't be 'censored' - but, how suggestive can you be and not get your song banned from the airwaves? My favorite of these is the one about the girl who has trouble waking up, so the neighbor suggests a rooster crowing. Pretty innocuous, no? It gets interesting where the song morphs into the singer recommending "a cock in the morning to get her going"!!! But as soon as we left, Johan put the kitschy pan back on, for the tourists.

Johan in turn sent us to a restaurant for local food, where we passed on the curried goat and Dan had snapper and I had mahi-mahi, both in a wonderful Creole sauce. We ambled back through town to do a little shopping. Prices for traditional tourist goods of the Hawaiian shirt and beach bag variety were ridiculously low. The island economy is 100% tourism, and there was concern about the upcoming winter tourist season. With Wall Street in free-fall, would the tourists come? We heard a scary radio ad urging people to buy American, because if the US economy is going, our island economy is going. Tired now, we walked back toward the resort, seeking ice cream along the way. We headed toward the boardwalk but were stopped by a woman in a public works shirt who explained that it was closed - last week's hurricane had buried it in sand. She noticed I was limping and told me where to get the local herbal cure for back problems, Nu-Ni (sp???) She repeated it about 4 times to make sure I got the name right.

And then, just as we got to the edge of town and were about to begin the climb up the hill to get back to the resort, along came Robert! He had indeed found Dan's forgotten camera, and he was going our way (sort of). He motioned us into the taxi, he was on his way to pick up a worker from our resort. So we got a little taste of the 'real' island and how the ordinary people live, the stuff that wouldn't be on any tour at all.

Later, back at the beach, we met Kyle, a younger black guy complimented Dan on his athletic swim out to the buoys and back. (Dan's convinced that the braids make me more approachable - certainly more recognizeable! - and as my tan builds I look less and less Caucasian) We got to talking with him and his sister. He said he saw us having coffee on the balcony every morning and asked how early we got up. I hadn't even recognized him as the guy in the unit next door - but of course he could recognize me as I'm pretty unmistakeable right now! So we told them the story of Dan's cancer survival and the ritual of celebrating each sunrise with something of a sense of wonder, never again taking the gift of another day for granted. Then we asked for their stories. It turned out that they're from Maryland and she's on 2 weeks R&R from Afganistan. She said she wanted to be with her family, and somewhere warm.

Stylin'

I'd been threatening to do this since forever! Dan had mentioned to one of the shopkeepers here at the resort on Day 1 that I was interested in getting my hair braided, and next morning by the time we got back from the grocery store, "Yvonne" was waiting for me, with her comb and bag of beads. The process took about 3 hours, and we had plenty of time for conversation. I learned she's from Jamaica, and all of her family is still there. She used to be in real estate, but her boss wasn't paying her timely. She got into hair by chance, a friend's suggestion, and found it creative and fun. Our session would normally be held under a tree on the beach, but the hurricane last week made her usual spot untenable. The damaged bar we used instead attracted attention from a number of passers-by (good advertising for Yvonne).

The braids are easy-care (a.k.a. no care), cool and comfortable. The beads chatter happily when I turn my head. They've attracted a lot of attention and started a lot of conversations. I may still look like a tourist, but at least I look like a gutsy one!

Interlude: St Maarten

We left Annapolis 25 Oct, and claim we won't be back until we have a new president! Reached St Maarten just after Category 3 Hurricane Omar went through, damaged a lot of property but no people were hurt.

I'd hate to lose these

I've just learned that my blog for the paper doesn't archive more than about a half-dozen posts, and I'd hate to lose the old ones. So this is copied from Life Afloat
http://www.hometownannapolis.com/blog_jlunsford.html

and I'll be adding the photos as my internet connection allows.

2008-10-19 -- 8:34 am
Boat Show
I love Boat Show time in Annapolis! My efriend Melissa Renee put it this way: "I love this show. So many new shiny boats begging for owners that will love them. Many gadgets to buy in all the booths. Pussers painkillers in tin mugs to drink. The best weather in the history of the show."

We went on to detail our purchases. We can be excited about "girl stuff" - she bought the same nesting cookware I bought last year, and I got new shades for our portholes (expensive, but hey, this is my home). But we are sailors after all, and got equally excited about boat hardware - a snatch block for her and a 6-part purchase for me.In our crowd, no one asks "if" you're going to the boat show; they ask "which day(s)?" And the only topic of conversation in the evening is "Whadjaget?" Answers can range anywhere from "a couple of keychain floats, beer coozies, and a t-shirt" to big ticket items like solar panels, watermaker, or sails. New breathable rain gear (or "foulies" as we call them), and binoculars were other popular items.

Our boat had been used as a daysailer and floating condo before we bought it, and we're gradually getting the systems up to standard for extended cruising. Dan and I went to the show on Friday, and spent 6-1/2 hours walking through the vendors' tents. Some really clever ideas in boat gear to explore, others I can only describe as "solutions to problems you didn't know you had." For us, it was equal parts Christmas morning (without the cold), and shoppers with a mission as we had quite a list of products to research. We barely had time to look at new boats, but we certainly contributed to the local economy and now there are a fistful of receipts on our board. And in the aftermath of the show, I'm blogging and Dan's bending pipe cleaners into a model of the arch he wants the steel fabricator to build for our boat.

Of course, it's a boat show, after all, so we had to look at the boats themselves. We're not in the market for another boat, being totally happy with the one we live on, but that doesn't stop us from shopping for ideas. A lot like going to open houses and looking at model homes, I learn the most in my own price bracket or slightly above. We tend to look at boats that are more or less within our own size range - 30 to 36 feet. I can't wrap my mind around the luxuries aboard an 80-foot megayacht. The boats at the show, and their prices, were impressive for the most part. Some of the production boats were forced to make some changes, compromising on materials to keep the boat in a certain price range. (Melissa Renee confirmed this with one of the sales people at the show.) Sad in that sense, but I'm all for anything that will allow more people to get into sailing.

Most of all, I love the energy of the out-of-town crowds, the chance to meet/reconnect with friends from far away who've come in for the show. We had parties or friends over almost every night, and I had more than my fill of pizza, munchies, beer. One particularly fun gathering was a group from an internet sailing site - some of us have been emailing for years, and now have a face to put with a screen name. Mike and Christie won the 'distance award' for that group, having flown in from Colorado for the show. Now the powerboaters are in town, and its a totally different vibe. Hoping to get downtown for some good people-watching this afternoon!

Mike and Christie, taking a break from the show

2008-09-28 -- 6:33 pm
Going through the bridge
Last weekend we were invited to an engagement party that friends Eric and Carleen were hosting for their son, Jeff, and soon-to-be-daughter-in-law Dorri. E and C have waterfront property and it was just too tempting to visit them by boat. We went for a day sail on Saturday and finished by dropping the hook off Truxton Park. We could just hear the announcer calling the Navy football game.

Rowing in to the party certainly made for a dramatic entrance and a great conversation starter. I even managed to keep my white pants clean, no mean feat when the dock was high enough that I had to climb out on my hands and knees. The guests were a fun mix of their neighbors, soon-to-be-inlaws, and boating friends like us. Many photos were taken of the happy couple with the sunset and the anchored boats in the background. Time passed way too quickly, and it was dark by the time we went back to the dock. The tide had risen and it was an easy step back into the dinghy for the row back home.

Next day, we had hoped to have our friends over for coffee in the cockpit, but they were just too overwhelmed with the party and their houseguests, so we decided to save that for another time. Instead, our day included a long chat with the folks anchored next to us. We took the dinghy and rowed up to the very end of the creek, far too shallow for our "big boat" to go. A man in a kayak smiled at us and said not a word as we watched a heron stalking the shallows, moving in that odd, articulated, mechanical way they have. It felt like another world, although less than an hour by boat from our somewhat congested home on Back Creek. But it *was* time to go back to reality, so we packed up and headed out, trying to time our arrival with the every-half-hour bridge openings at the Spa Creek bridge. After all those times we waited in traffic behind the open bridge to get downtown, or Dan stressed behind the open bridge wondering if he would be late for work, now the traffic was stopped for *us*, as the bridge tender raised the bridge and through we went.

2008-09-20 -- 8:27 am
Of jellyfish and plastic bags
If you google "beaches" and "jellyfish" together, you get articles from the Med to Australia about resorts inundated with these stinging blobs. Here in the Chesapeake, NOAA publishes predictions of the likelihood of encountering sea nettles, based on water temperature and salinity: http://155.206.18.162/seanettles/ People are reduced to swimming in Lycra skins or in small areas fenced off with fine mesh nets. And much of the population explosion is due to overfishing the jellyfish's natural predators, sea turtles and tuna and other similar large fish.The poor sea turtles! If that wasn't bad enough, when they do try to get a jellyfish meal, they can be far too often tricked by an imposter in the form of a plastic bag. We tried a little experiment:We tried to see if we could make a plastic bag look like a jellyfish by putting it on the end of a boat pole and swirling it around in the water.
Here's a jellyfish we photographed in Mill Creek last month.

And here's our best attempt with the plastic bag.
Okay, it wouldn't necessarily fool me, but then, I'm not swimming in the murky water, either. And if nothing else, it was the starting point for some great conversation on the dock!
I doubt this was what the City of Annapolis had in mind when the plastic bag ban was being discussed last year. I hate seeing plastic bags caught high in trees or pasted to fences, and we've seen them, and mylar party balloons fallen back to earth, 50 miles off shore in the emptiness of the Atlantic. On the other hand, I'm not particularly a fan of such things as bans, it seems to me awfully like trying to regulate common sense. We bring reusable cloth bags to the grocery store (when we remember). Whether we do paper or plastic is so much about how we can reuse the bags after they've carried our stuff home. Paper bags so rarely work in our boat life - they are heavier, bulkier, and besides - you can hardly use them to pack your wet swimsuit home from the pool!
2008-09-11 -- 3:36 pm
Over-promised and Under-delivered
When a business gets you all excited advertising a new product or service, but the reality doesn't live up to the hype, you can be justifiably annoyed. But when a hurricane turns out to be less than predicted, instead of annoyance, there's relief. That's what happened with Hanna. We were prepared for stronger winds and more rain than we received, and had no damage.
2008-09-05 -- 9:24 am
Hurricane Season
Images of flooding at our marina, 5 years ago during Hurricane Isabel. Wonder what will happen this time?
It's an impossibly clear, gorgeous morning, and if we didn't know better, it would be hard to believe that we're expecting an unwelcome guest tomorrow - Hurricane or Tropical Storm Hanna. We're nervously watching NOAA and the storm track and hoping we don't have a repeat of Isabel 5 years ago. Along the docks, everywhere you see people frowning and drawing counterclockwise circles in the air as they talk. They are describing the direction of wind moving around the eye of the approaching storm and trying to decide how it will affect them.
We don't have quite the same worries as our friends who are in houses. We're not as concerned about flooding, for example, we just float up on the rising floodwaters. Nor are power outages a big deal - we're designed to be self-sufficient and make our own power. You couldn't very well run an extension cord to the middle of the Atlantic. On the other hand, if the folks in houses do it wrong, they or their furniture might get wet. If we do it wrong, we might sink!
One of our Caribbean liveaboard friends told us it takes four days to have a hurricane: a day to prepare your boat, a day to have the storm, a day to rest and recover, then a day to put everything back together. And that's if there's no damage!
Almost as soon as it was light, before the breeze came up, we took off the jib (forward) sail and the bimini (the canvas shade awning over the cockpit), both to decrease the area we expose to the wind, and to keep them from damage. We lashed the dinghy down on deck, topped up the water tanks and moved our cars to high ground. We packed our abandon-ship bag with computers, cell phone, cash, meds, a couple of energy bars, and water. Still working on the dock lines - for Isabel, we tied a spiderweb of 17 dock lines holding us in our slip against wind from any possible direction. They were extra-long so we could ride up on the storm surge. We went around the boat about every hour through the night, easing lines and making sure they didn't chafe through. In between times, we tried to read. I gave that up when I realized that I'd been staring at the same page for 45 minutes, and I had no idea what it said.
Our reward was that we ended up with no damage. But we proved our Caribbean friend's words true when we spent the entire next day sleeping, chatting, but not having the energy to put things back together until the day after!
Two more pictures from Isabel: our dock-neighbor Bill's boat at normal water level, and then in high water after surviving the storm. Hoping we all do as well this time!


Here's part of the spiderweb of lines holding us in place, as the waters started to rise:
2008-08-18 -- 11:34 am
Housebarges?
I was all set to blog about jellyfish, sea turtles, and the plastic bag ban when this article about housebarges appeared in the Capital: http://www.hometownannapolis.com/cgi-bin/read/2008/08_17-38/BUS Links to articles in the paper expire in 30 days unless you access them from a library, so I'll try to summarize: the article is about the growing popularity of houseboats and the controversy over whether they are allowed in Annapolis. Current zoning is very restrictive, the manufacturer wants to have "discussions" with the City. Similar discussions are popping up in a lot of places, like this NY Times article "Houseboats Emerge as a Cheaper Form of Housing: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A0DE1DA1139F934A3575AC0A960948260 The manufacturer's spin on them is here: http://www.bayacht.com/aaa/Marina/InvestorMarina.htm Note that they're billed as "cheap waterfront living" NOT as boats. If your 3-year-old nephew saw one, he wouldn't say "Oh, look at the pretty boat." Nor would your Aunt Betty from Kansas. And that's my point.Those barges? They look to me like doublewides on pontoons. And despite the manufacturer's claim, they aren't boats - can you imagine being in even mild waves in one of them? It is generally accepted that they don't move often, if at all. There are waiting lists for boat slips at many marinas here for recreational boats - do we really want to further decrease the opportunities?I'll admit to my obvious prejudice - I live aboard because I love boating. The waterfront view and the community are tremendous plusses, but most of all I live this way simply because I like to sail. Most of all I think what offends me is this: Annapolis has tried hard to preserve its maritime heritage and feel. Enterprise zones to encourage marine industries to stay on the waterfront instead of ripping out marinas to replace them with endless condos. These housebarges impress me as a disrespectful way of trying to do an end run around that zoning.
2008-08-16 -- 12:19 pm
Tourist in My Own Home Town
The weekend weather forecast was absolutely astonishingly perfect, and we couldn't *not* go out and play. We motored around after work on Thursday to take a mooring for the weekend in the thick of the action in Annapolis Harbor. What a treat, to travel like a turtle, taking our home with us, and not have to pack! Mostly we just sat in the cockpit and watched the world go by - the water taxis and power boats making their tours of Ego Alley, the silent glides of the classic WoodWinds, the kids shrieking with delight as they played pirate on the Sea Gypsy.My very favorite thing to do as a tourist is to walk and people-watch, and the weekend didn't dissappoint. It was the first weekend that the plebes from the class of 2012 had liberty, so downtown was full of mids in dress whites. Each one seemed accompanied by at least 4 or 5 others - parents, a kid brother or sister, a girlfriend or boyfriend. Lots of people on City Dock looking at the boats in the harbor - hey, that's us! And of course my very favorite Annapolis anachronism - tour guides in Colonial dress, on Segways. We did all the tourist things - checked out all the shops, bought the obligatory ice cream, went out to dinner (grilled salmon in citrus butter, yum!).Somehow this visit had a different 'vibe' than I'm used to when we go to events downtown and I wondered what it was. Maybe just that our boat/home was right there? Then I realized ... parking! Anything we do in town is twice as enjoyable when there's no roaming the streets looking for a spot, or paying the meter. We simply took the dinghy, tied it at the restaurant dock or a public dock downtown, and started walking. There's a moral in there somewhere, but it'll have to wait for another time <*grin*>.
Parking Dilemma Solved at City Dock
2008-08-03 -- 5:01 pm
Getting started
"So," asked my new colleague Trish sociably, "how're you settling in?" I had just moved here from Michigan and it was Day 4 of my new job at Headquarters. Husband Dan was still in Michigan finishing his teaching commitment; he would join me at the end of the semester."Well," I told Trish, "I'm still experimenting. I still haven't figured out the right time to leave to miss the worst of the traffic on the Beltway."She rolled her eyes at my naivety. "Have you tried 4 AM? Why Annapolis, anyway? Why not somewhere closer to the office?" So I told her about our love for sailing and the water, and how we couldn't get this close and not take advantage of the opportunity to live in a place with such a distinctive character. Then she casually asked the question I'd been expecting and dreading: "How about your new place?"Choosing my words very, very carefully, I answered, "Well, it's reeeally reeeally small, but it has everything - a place to socialize, a place to sit and think, a place to cook, and a place to sleep. And, if I look out the window over the range I can just see the boats going up and down the creek." Every word was perfectly true...and perfectly misleading. Because the part I'd left out was that our new home on the water was "on" the water in a literal sense - we were planning to live on our sailboat.Why the secrecy? Well, I didn't have a sense of how my new boss would react - he was old-school gracious and stunningly conservative. Would he have second thoughts about his newest employee, wondering if he'd hired a hippie rebel, and how would she fit in? Nor did I know how Dan and I would react, if we would find friends in the people around us, and if even after 20 years of marriage we could fit our lives into a 33 foot boat. If our great experiment was to be a failure or a career-inhibitor, I wanted as few witnesses as possible.Fast forward 5 years.Living on a boat has been, most of all, fabulously fun. I've learned a lot about boats, and weather, and Bay ecology, and downsizing. I've learned how to figure out what things really matter. I've got a different relationship with my "stuff." I've found a tremendous sense of community in my fellow boaters and liveaboards. And my boss? My fears on that score were groundless. Most people were more curious than judgemental.That curiousity is what inspired this blog, random thoughts about what day-to-day life in Annapolis is like, when "home" is a sailboat.(An article about living aboard by the same title first appeared in the Capital on 5/27/07)

Still Simplifying

I first met my efriend Krissie on a message board titled "Simplify Your Life" where we talked about clutter, possessions, excess materialism. All those lessons were brought home to me - er, slammed home to me - when we had to do the radical downsizing to move aboard the boat.

So when she sent a note asking if I was still simplifying, my first thought was - how much further can I go? My clothes closet has 11 hangers, my husband and I fit all our possessions and all our living into less than 300 square feet of space, I traded my CD collection for an iPod and my cookbooks for a Word file, what's left?

But there are some jobs that you can't do once and they stay done - like feeding yourself, it's an ongoing project. Books, t-shirts, condiments have a sneaky habit of accumulating when you aren't looking, and need to be purged on a regular basis. Fellow liveaboard Scott says that if he didn't do a major cleanout every change of season, he'd accumulate enough junk to sink his boat.

Last winter, we sorted through all our clothing and donated half. This fall, we did it again, and now I'm getting close to feeling right. Hmmm, not what the manufacturers want to hear. Have you noticed that here in the States when someone says "I have nothing to wear" it means there's nothing in their closet that suits their fancy at the moment? There are places where having "nothing to wear" is the literal truth.

My next, toughest of all decluttering challenge is going to be purging my address book. The glory of the modern technology is that distance no longer matters. The problem with modern technology is that you can't let friendships that have outlived their relevance just gracefully fade away. (If you have this blog link, don't worry, you're not one of the ones I'm thinking of shedding!)

So yes, Krissie, I'm still simplifying - and I'd love that link!

the magic of physical therapy!

When I told my now ex-neurologist that whenever I walked too much, sat at the computer too much, or stood on tiptoes, my back muscles spasmed, locked up, and I couldn't walk until it subsided, he essentially said, well, don't do that any more, then. Huh? Passive is so NOT my style. So I asked him for a referral to physical therapy, which has helped in the past. I had my first appointment for evaluation on Thursday afternoon.

Best news for me - the therapist does NOT believe there has been significant nerve degeneration. She did a convincing demonstration, she had me sit in a chair and she did leg-strength measurements. Then she used a special lumbar support pillow to change spine curvature, and re-measured. On the second test I was noticeably stronger. That, she said, showed that the problem wasn't nerve damage - if it was, strength would have been the same either way. Instead, she attributes a lot to pressure from the bulging disk -- and that, she can address. I'll be 3x/wk for a couple of months. It's fantastic to work with someone who believes I will get well!!

Quick update

Been sick. Been really sick. Been two-trips-to-the-ER sick. But now I'm feeling optimistic, it turned out that my thyroid crashed and burned and that was the cause of the horrible muscle cramps, and maybe some other problems besides.

Went to NY one last time, hoping to have some time to write about that in the future.

Nervously watching the sky, anticipating a hurricane tomorrow - yikes!

Am really having a blast with my blog for the local paper. Now if only I could get the formatting glitches solved! Anyway, the link is here: http://www.hometownannapolis.com/blog_jlunsford.html

Oops! I volunteered for something *again*!

Yup, I did it, my blog proposal for "Life Afloat" - everyday life in Annapolis, seen through liveaboard eyes - got accepted this afternoon. OMG! What have I gotten myself into?

But I've got so many stories I want to tell - about how having guests makes me see Annapolis thru "new eyes;" about how going into town by dinghy and not having to worry about parking changes everything; about wanting to stay home and alphabetize my spices while Dan wanted to go sailing ISN'T contradictory; about needing two uses for everything before bringing it aboard (except the pineapple corer); about inviting Eric and Carleen over for dinner and bringing dinner to them anchored in front of their condo; about the community of liveaboards and Ellen's incredulous question "You KNOW your neighbors?"; about the awful thud when J&E's South Pacific charts were thrown out the window as we cleaned out their storage unit.

Terrified and excited - I've either agreed to deliver a boat from somewhere I've never been, to somewhere I've never been; or to sail unknown waters of the mind in some experience.

Just thought of another one - he who dies with the most toys wins. Or is it friends? Or experiences?

And another - dinghy rides to the kid at the Fleet Club.

They still don't get it!

One of our dockmates is leaving this week for a 2-year cruise , up the East Coast, into the Great Lakes, and down the Mississippi/Tennessee/Tombigbee into the Gulf Coast, around Florida and closing the loop back to Annapolis - the "Great Loop" or "Great Circle." She's been planning the trip for years; bought a trawler a couple of years ago, improving her skills, studying maps, and working a kazillion hours of overtime to build up the cruising kitty. She's been pretty quiet about her plans until recently, and several of the neighbors that I invited to her bon voyage party still didn't know at the time of the invite. Melissa is smart and strong and competent and well-prepared. Now, when one of the single guys takes off, folks at his party might ask, "Is he single-handing?" Like, maybe he is, and maybe he isn't. But about Melissa, they ask, "Who is she taking with her?" My feminist soul is offended at the assumption that she wouldn't even be capable of going alone. Why? Because she's a girl? Hah!

Luckily, a typical day

This is what working at home is supposed to be. The sun is shining, the birds are chirping, I'm sitting in the cockpit reading a fairly interesting EIS for a coal mine in southeastern Montana, looking up occaisionally to watch the boats going out for a race. I've got a pot of lentils simmering on the stove, planning to try a recipe lemony lentil salad with salmon for lunch with Dan (which will no doubt include a glass red wine). Yyup, I get paid for doing this.

When I first started telecommuting I always wore shirts with our corporate logo when I worked at home, to help remind me that I was on work time. Took me about a year to get the hang of it. My boss (who I adore) is going to start working at home next week. (Wait till he learns how great it is, and he'll totally understand why I turned down a promotion because it would have been to an in-office job). "Home" for him is going to be a lakefront house in Florida, 800 miles from here. So I figure an appropriate farewell gag gift for him will be "corporate logo" gear appropriate to his new circumstances ... flip-flops, sunglasses, maybe a straw hat ... with our green and white banner on them. I'm excited by the joke gift idea, very happy for him, curious to see how our work will evolve with him so far away, and know I'll miss my 7:30 chat buddy - all at the same time.

It's my blog and I'll cry if I want to

Dave & Charly's boat ---->

Today is a day of dreary misty drizzle, it can't even summon enough energy for a good rainstorm, and suits my mood perfectly. We've just come from the memorial service for Dave. It was packed - standing room only and I'm sure we broke the fire codes. Friends from his engineering business, his music, his sailing. When I know someone from one area of life, and think of him/her in one context, it's always amazing to see the other facets of a complex person.

We first met Dave and his wife Charly in Trinidad and it was everything the cruising dream *wasn't.* The boats were "on the hard" (on dry land, being worked on) in the boat yard and it was dusty and hot. Many boat systems, like the refrigerator, a/c, and *bathroom* don't work when out of the water, so living aboard was definitely camping out. They seemed pleasant enough, we smiled at our circumstances - the sacrifices we make to see the world on our own terms - and treated the inconveniences more like the minor annoyances they were than major drama. But I thought little of it, likely we'd never see them again.

Wrong. Less than a year later, in Maine, there was a graceful schooner on the horizon ... when they reached the anchorage, this time the meeting was the "travel brochure of cruising." Sitting in their cockpit in the late afternoon sun, 3 couples sharing wine and stories and then Dave took out the guitar that he'd built himself(!), singing in a rich baritone and playing old sea chanties. The one that stuck in my mind, Bay Of Fundy talked about the fog and a sailor who didn't want the "cold (or long?) green wave to be his watery grave." Ah, this really is the life!

Dave and Charly, and Dan and I, were married within a few months of each other. Dave was the same age as Dan when he was diagnosed with a brain tumor. They both went to the same hospital and had the same radiation tech, a delightful woman named (how appropriately!) Faith. But Dan is fine and Dave ...

I've had too much death in my life recently.

So often, the people that shape our lives cross our paths only briefly, and after the chance is lost, we say, "I wish I'd had the chance to know him better. I wish I'd learned more from him."

Dave introduces one of his songs, Turning Toward The Morning, and say it "gives us hope that maybe, eventually, the morning (Spring) will come again." Tomorrow maybe I'll wear sunshine colors, yellow or orange. Do you think it'll help?

"Stuff" -- just stuff

Moving from a 3500 sq ft house to a 33 ft sailboat has been an adventure in downsizing. Its gotten me thinking ... rambling really ... rambling mentally while drinking rum in the cockpit (thus the name) ... about possessions and our relationship to our stuff, what enables us, what defines us, what confines us and what we keep without questioning.

My mom's family escaped Russia when the communists took over in 1917, with just what they were wearing. Mom was fascinated with antiques - since she could have no heirlooms, she sought possessions that had a past, any past, even if it wasn't hers. Dad was brilliant and could always visualize a use for the most random broken or puzzling things, so his parts of the house were more like a storage area than a living area.

Then when mom was diagnosed with cancer, she moved to a tiny apartment not too far from the hospital, streamlined. Everything was white or clear crystal & lace. No clutter, just a few beautiful and elegant things. She said, "I spent 40 years acquiring things, and now I'm trying to get rid of them." I expressed admiration, envy, for her new streamlined lifestyle and she said, you'll get there. It probably won't even take you as long as it took me. That was before the sailboat ....