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 ....