And a Lovely Monkey with Lollipop Paws

I wish I could lay claim to inventing that title. I normally scroll through my junk mail before deleting it, just to make sure nothing important gets trashed. Often some of the spam titles are catching, but this one gave me the belly laugh that I needed at the end of a long day of hard labor:

"mylhyn_lovendino: And a lovely Monkey with lollipop paws‎ - The Fimble Fowl, with a corkscrew leg -Where the early pumpkins blow -And your head so large doth …"

I was so tempted to open that email to see what other gems might be in there. But I managed to restrain myself, just in case giant trojans (no not the condoms) got released and inserted into the nether corners of my laptop.

I'm off to bed now, to dream of lovely monkeys with lollipop paws.

More Perks at the New Place

There's a new furnace:


And there's even a lawnmower:


To mow the grass:


I know I have it good, no, better than good.
I have it darnfreakintastic.

Moving day is a week from Friday.

Notes on becoming a landlubber

How did this happen? How did I, the person who spent the last 20+ years saying that I would sail until I someday sailed off the edge of the world, hopefully when I was so old and gray I could barely handle the boat, how did I go from that to deciding to go live in the woods?

Is this a permanent illness? Or is there a cure? Do I want to be cured?

I had always viewed landlubbers as, well, somewhat lacking. And, dare I even say it, possibly even slightly retarded. No offense meant to those of you I know and love, and even those of you I don’t. But I failed to see that given a choice, how could anyone stand to live in a house? Houses, for the most part, barring earthquakes, landslides and termites, just sat there. They didn’t carry you to far away lands. If you wanted to go somewhere else, instead of merely raising an anchor and sailing off, taking along everything you owned, you had to pack. What a silly thing, trying hard not to forget anything vitally important, like your Viagra. Although if you were going to Mexico, ‘hay no problemo, tengo aqui’, on every street corner of every village. That and valium. The magic ‘v’s…

I had visited people who lived in houses, and while unlimited hot water, heck, even running water, period, could be a real novelty, was it worth the price? Was it that great to spend each and every day in the same place, watching the same cars come and go at the same time every day, listening to the same screaming drunken fights, or having one, every weekend? Where was the thrill in that, when you could be out in 30 foot seas getting your butt and your boat royally kicked by mother nature?

What was wrong with everybody? Damn landlubbers.

And now here I am, one of you. Waking up looking at the same squirrel in the same tree every morning.

???

Tear it up

Has your lovely cruising sailboat gone from this:


To this:


Did your interior morph from this clean, comfy home:


Into the dumpster from hell like this?

Is your family now sheltering in a hotel, threatening to hire a hit man if you don’t put it all back together ASAP? At night, are you having trouble sleeping in a pile of nuts and bolts? Can’t find your clean underwear in any of the sailbags piled in the head?

Never fear, this is what the sailing life is all about. Days, weeks, months of upheaval, all for a few short weeks of getting the crap kicked out of you in squalls one after the other, giving you the opportunity to see what projects you forgot to do when stuff breaks while you’re cruising in a country that your government does not approve of.

Is there anything else in life worth doing besides messing around in a torn apart boat, putting it all back together for the challenges that come next?

I can’t think of anything I’d rather be doing.
Unless it's becoming a landlubber and gardening.
Ain’t life funny?

AP: Pakistani leader: Bin Laden 'may be dead' — or not

I don't think I can get any funnier than that headline.