Here in Beaufort-by-the-Sea, life is not all about seafood. Pictures and stories from the “first annual” Backstreet Pub “Meatloaf-Off” will be coming soon, along with tips from the winners on how to make great meatloaf.
The best meatloaves arrived on a mission,
Hoping some folks might fail by attrition,
For their fine chefs, you see,
Were all hoping to be
Named the “First” in the first competition.
There’s nothing like a little publicity to mess up a great local event. That must be what the folks in Gloucester, North Carolina were thinking when their down-east Mardi Gras celebration got written up in Our State magazine. As one volunteer confided, “We were hoping for a little bad weather, to keep the numbers down.”
Be careful what you ask for! The evening before the event, Mother Nature dumped an unprecedented foot of snow on the area. This was not a little bad weather. For an area where snow shovels are rare (we saw people raking their driveways), it was a LOT.
Still, Barry and I were only 15 miles down the road, and we had four-wheel drive. It was no problem to drive to Gloucester, a tiny town about as close to the end of the road as you’re likely to get. Our route was lined with snowmen, including one wearing a bikini!
When we arrived, we found friendly folks serving up seafood gumbo with big ol’ crab legs, chunks of fried turkey, red beans and rice, and king cake. Everyone seemed to be wearing a silly mask or hat, so our colorful outfits fit right in. “Wait a minute,” said Pam, when we ran into her, “don’t y’all live on a sailboat? Where do you keep those costumes?”
And then someone shouted, “Laissez les bons temps rouler!” and rowdy dancing began. It was the zydeco band Unknown Tongues, who had started this community Mardi Gras celebration 18 years ago. They set our feet and hearts dancing, right there in that wacky North Carolina snow, especially when they played “You’re Gonna Look Like a Monkey When You Get Old.”
(Weird, small, coincidental world! I just realized, when I read the Our State article, that proceeds from Mardi Gras go to the Woodrow Price Scholarship Fund. That would be the same Woodrow Price I wrote about almost a year ago, when my Dad came to visit.)
Dancing like a bunch of monkeys in the snow from Margaret Meps Schulte on Vimeo.
The chances of finding a favorite Seattle friend living in Morehead City were so miniscule, we thought that Hell would freeze over first. We caught up with Kevin in December — he’d been living here for 3 years, and Flutterby’s been here for 2 years. On February 13th, when he came out to see the boat for the first time, Hell froze over, as evidenced by the photo below.
From Seattle, friend Kevin is witty,
But we’d got out of touch, what a pity.
But then Hell did freeze over,
For this fine Irish Rover,
Has been living in wee Morehead City.
Left: Meps and Kevin, Right: There was no snow when Kevin arrived at the boat. After dinner, here he is (on the far side) cleaning off his truck.
A couple of weeks ago, we heard that some seriously bad weather — namely, snow — was headed to coastal North Carolina. Although it seemed counterintuitive, we could avoid the cold by going north. So we jumped in the Squid Wagon for a road trip.
It will come as no surprise that our destination was a pot pie supper in Odessa Simpson’s cozy farmhouse kitchen. Barry was eager to participate this time, especially since he’d seen both my Pot Pie Nirvana video and the Sand Tart 101 video sent by our friends from Bird-in-Hand, Pennsylvania.
Along the way, we stopped at a Piggly Wiggly grocery store and bought every single can and bottle of Cheerwine soda they had. We delivered the cherry-flavored beverage to Mike and Wes, who can’t buy their favorite soda in Pennsylvania any more.
Just as expected, the snow passed south of us. Washington D.C. got enough to paralyze the city, which only requires about three snowflakes. We enjoyed a romantic dusting, with fluffy flakes falling past the window as we rolled out pot pie dough. There was lots of hanging out and talking, watching videos, cooking, eating, and we even got to see Avatar in 3D. A perfect weekend with our borrowed family.
When we packed the van, the Cheerwine was gone, but we were now carrying a family-sized tub of leftover pot pie. I wondered how we would eat it all.
By Monday evening, D.C.’s snow had melted enough that we could drive to our second destination, Alexandria, Virginia.
We hadn’t seen the Johns family for over a year, and that makes a big difference. Not only do the kids grow up so fast, but Sandy is always adding to her fun house collection. That’s fun house, not funhouse.
The last time we were there, for a Memorial Day party, three Slurpee machines, one cotton-candy machine, and two ice-cream makers were all cranking out cool treats, while a steady stream of burgers and chicken came off the gas grill. There was a pile of extra bathing suits so that kids who hadn’t brought theirs could go in the pool. Downstairs, in the TV room, shelves were stacked floor-to-ceiling with games, movies, and books. Another room was full of craft supplies. There was a friendly dog, a Sheltie, and a cat who didn’t mind being carried around upside-down by small, well-meaning children.
Isn’t growing up in a house like this every child’s fantasy?
But wait, there’s more! When we arrived last week, we discovered additions: Three pinball machines and a multi-game video console. I noted a commercial-style popcorn cart and a new hot dog oven, too.
The day we planned to leave, there was another little snowstorm, enough to close down the schools but not keep Andy and Sandy from going to work. It was so much fun hanging out with Cindy and Becky that we stayed an extra day.
Despite all the fun toys in the TV room, February’s action was all in the kitchen. Cindy had been selected as a student ambassador with People 2 People, and now she needed to raise money for a summer trip to Europe. Her Mom had an ambitious idea: Why not set Cindy up as a cookie-baker? So they created an email address, cindythecookiegirl@gmail.com, made posters, and sent out an email blast. The response was overwhelming. It seemed like everybody wanted to order The Cookie Girl’s giant heart-shaped, decorated cookies for Valentine’s Day.
For a couple of days, the Kitchen-Aid mixer seemed to run non-stop, and Barry and I pitched in to help. Mainly, we took photos, ate test batches of oatmeal, chocolate-chip, and sugar cookies, and made meals that did not involve sugar, butter, and chocolate chips. We shared our pot pie leftovers and made chili and cornbread. Mostly, though, it was like our visit with Mike and Donna. We were just reveling in borrowed family, enjoying the warmth of a home.
The weather forecasters began predicting another snowstorm, the one they called Snowmageddon and Snowpocalypse. It was time to go. The pot pie was gone, replaced with a beautiful 12-inch heart-shaped sugar cookie that Cindy had decorated with our names.
About an hour after we arrived at the boat, two special guests arrived. Barry’s aunt Jeanine and her partner, Jim, were on their way south from Rhode Island to Florida, and wanted to check on our progress. In a small-world coincidence, Jim is a sailor who had once hauled his boat at Bock Marine for a month. They’d visited us over a year ago, and we had a lot of projects to show off.
Now the yummy circle is complete. The Cheerwine went north to one borrowed family, the pot pie leftovers traveled to the next borrowed family, and the cookies came back with us, to be shared with relatives and our borrowed boatyard family.
We aren’t able to avoid snow — it’s predicted for the boat tonight. But the food-as-love that we brought back with us is keeping us warm, and will for a long time.
(More photos are below — there were so many good ones!)
Since the fall, we’ve gotten word that seven dear friends are struggling with life-threatening illnesses. Initially, I felt shaken and helpless, wishing I could help. Now I just go through my day, thinking about them as much as possible. I hope they’re having a good day today, or at least a good moment right now.
Finally, I sat down at my computer and started going through my photos. I found that I’d taken joyful, exuberant photos of each one of them — boating, working, playing, celebrating, relaxing. So I compiled seven of my favorite photos to share with you.
You may not know these people, but if you did, you’d like them. So could you please send them a wish for a good day? If you do that, I’ll have a great day myself!
My two pirate friends, Goofy and Funny,
Have sailed off to the south, where it’s sunny.
They have left this fine village,
To seek plunder and pillage,
They’re not dumb — but they’re plumb outa money.
Maybe you can look at the photos below and tell me, which one is Goofy and which one is Funny? (that’s Dick on the top and Larry and me on the bottom)
About a week ago, I wrote about our decision to stay here in the boatyard for the holidays. At the time, I was feeling sorry for myself, and my tone was so wistful that friends and family responded with consoling emails (my favorite was the invitation from Australia).
Then the celebrating started, and I forgot to be sad.
My dictionary defines “jamboree” as “a large celebration or party, typically a lavish and boisterous one.” Some definitions involve Boy Scouts or country music.
One of our holiday activities was attending the Christmas show at the Crystal Coast Jamboree with the Bock family, boatyard employees, and liveaboards. But the real jamboree was the evening’s dinner, held at a Japanese steakhouse. The chefs flipped and twirled and tossed the food to us as though we were trained seals. At one point, Kenny egged Dale into eating some wasabi for the first time. “DAMN!” he exploded, practically spitting sushi. “What IS that stuff?”
The days grew shorter and the nights longer. On December 21st, we celebrated the Solstice with a bonfire — well, actually a little campfire on the edge of the sandblasting pit. We ate roasted weenies, melted cheese sandwiches, and toasted marshmallows. Most importantly, we ran a 100-foot extension cord and plugged in a crockpot full of mulled wine. We were warmed inside and out.
It takes more than food and fire to properly celebrate the Solstice, though. This is the window between the lunar and solar new years, when evil spirits inhabit the earth and must be kept at bay by merriment and partying. At least, that’s what Philip of Oryoki said.
Our merriment included dancing around the fire in leafy green headdresses and playing some extremely loud percussion. “Extremely” means that some steel boats are more fun to beat on than drums. We bid the moon farewell (guess who did so by actually mooning it) and listened to every song I could find in our collection about the sun. “Eu Quero Sol” and “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me” were the most apropos.
Then came the event that was my real reason for staying over this Christmas: A North Carolina oyster roast. I stuffed myself on steamed oysters dipped in melted butter, and Barry ate multiple helpings of deer stew and hush puppies. Dale sucked down more hot vinegar sauce more than wasabi peas, though. Everyone was smiling as we stood around the fire barrel, relaxing and enjoying each other’s company without any of that silly boat work.
After the oyster roast, the boatyard closed for the holidays, but we kept the fires of holiday spirit bright, celebrating Christmas Eve and Christmas aboard our boats. Flutterby was chock-full of little wrapped gifts, sent from Washington and Florida and Oregon and Ohio, and cards — some of them homemade — from everywhere. Oryoki was decorated with garland and colored lights. We sported Santa hats around the boatyard and debated on which side the pom-pom should dangle.
Our Christmas dinner was a delightful sort of scavenger hunt — I got my 12-pound turkey out of the refrigerator on Ula G and took it to the lounge to wash it. Then we plopped it onto the huge propane grill that we’d rolled from Pelican (a monohull) to Oryoki (a catamaran) to keep it out of the rain. The turkey was just the centerpiece — the table on Oryoki groaned under cranberry sauce and stuffing and homemade rolls and veggies. The butterscotch pie waited out in the cockpit, and the whole thing was washed down with Marilyn’s homemade egg nog.
Beginning on the 18th, each day the spirit of generosity and gratitude increased in my heart, until I felt like the Grinch — my heart was three sizes larger. I was connected to friends and loved ones all over the world, even when the phone stopped working for 24 hours on Christmas Day. There was so much love, right here! How could I ever feel wistful or sad? It was the best Christmas EVER.
Our friend Alex was feeling quite blue,
For a flock of demonic birds flew,
Over each perfect mast,
And he watched them, aghast,
As the paint job was ruined by doo.
So he came out to paint them anew
And the finish was ruined by dew,
Now he frets at the weather,
And fears every feather,
And says, “Will I ever be through?”
Barry and I hired Alex Baker to give our carbon fiber masts a beautiful professional paint job. Unfortunately, Alex has been unable to control the outdoor conditions where he’s working! After the doo and dew, Alex was thwarted by heavy wind, rain, and cold. We all hope the third time’s the charm.
The photos below show the working conditions out in the “sand pit” before the masts were painted. Alex, Barry, Kenny, and Dick had walked out to look at our innovative mast-suspension system. A portion of Dick’s broken mast (right side, top photo) was used as a derrick to suspend both masts.
When I arrived at Hank’s apartment in Ohio, ready for our vacation together, he gave me a present. “Here,” he said, handing me a toothbrush. “I got one from my dentist last week, and he said to give you one, too!”
I’ve never met Hank’s dentist, so why would he send me a toothbrush?
The answer is my brother’s infectious enthusiasm. He’d been living in anticipation of our road trip for months, talking about it with everyone he met. It’s no surprise that his dentist would send me a bon voyage present.
Or maybe he just knew that traveling with Hank, people would see my teeth, because I’d be smiling a lot.
In the meantime, I’d been feeling apprehensive about the trip. I’d just spent three weeks not having to answer to anybody, even my husband. Now I was taking responsibility for someone who seems healthy and strong, but is actually a little fragile. Hank told me he’d recently had an epileptic seizure at night and woken on the bathroom floor in the morning. That terrified me.
Then there was the pressure from people who looked at me like I was some kind of saint. When I explained to my new friends in Summit that I couldn’t stay for the Fog Festival because I’d promised a road trip to my disabled brother, Mike said, “It takes a special person to do something like that.”
The truth is, I’m not a saint or a special person. I’m a hedonist, and I expected this trip to be fun. Some fun just takes more effort than other fun.
Finally, after all of Hank’s anticipation and my apprehension, we set out on the road.
At Canadian Customs, the traffic director in the orange vest leaned on the window for a chat.
From the passenger seat, Hank told him, “My sister is taking me to Canada because I’ve never been there.” That’s when the man realized that Hank was special, and he looked at me like I’d suddenly sprouted a halo.
“I have a special needs daughter,” he said. “I hope someday her brother and sister will take her on vacation…”
I smiled and said, “You know, it just depends on the example their parents set.”
He nodded thoughtfully. “God only gives you what you can handle.”
Two days into the trip, I realized that this sister had taken on more than she could handle. It was the most exhausting travel I’ve ever done. How could someone so slow make me run so fast?
I found myself crawling on my hands and knees, looking for a tiny dropped pill. I listened through the bathroom door for 10 minutes as he argued — out loud — with the shower curtain, trying to get it to stay inside the tub, then, exasperated, his voice now several octaves higher, he called me in to help. I unloaded our luggage, carried it to our room, and in the morning, carried it out again. Back on my hands and knees, I checked for lost items under the beds. “Is this your toothpaste?” I asked, finding it there.
As we drove across Canada and the midwest, I gave Hank a running description of the scenery he couldn’t see. To my surprise, he didn’t respond to many of the things I pointed out. I’d be describing a cute Halloween display or reading a funny sign, and he’d interrupt me and start talking about a frozen dinner he’d eaten last week.
Our worlds were out of synch — why was he always talking about the past or the future? Why couldn’t he live in the present moment with me? He was happy, but would he have been just as happy at home?
It wasn’t until after the trip was over that I understood. Hank’s brain works differently — he gathers life’s experiences, stores them up, then processes them at his own speed. He simply can’t process them on the fly.
He actually told me at one point, “I think better when I’m sleeping.”
A day or two after each event, he’d begin to relive it with greater and greater relish. One example of this was in Detroit. I asked him, “Hey, Hank, have you ever been to a Hooters?”
“No, but I’ll buy you dinner!” Obviously, he knew something about Hooters.
Once inside — neither of us had ever been in a Hooter’s — Hank was a lot more interested in the baseball game on the big-screen TV than in the waitresses. He ate his chicken and drank his non-alcoholic beer, and when we were done, I got a picture of him with six sexy smiling waitresses.
He did notice that their shorts were kinda short. “What do you call those again?” he asked me. “Hot pants,” I told him.
A couple of days later, he was on the phone with his friend, Juanita. “The waitresses were wearing these, um, orange, um, hot pants,” he told her. “And I got a picture with all of them!”
Watching him interact with people, I could see why we had to do this. Taking Hank on a road trip was like giving the gift of a smile to many people. He’s so bubbly, he makes people happy. That sort of happiness needs to go on a road trip and be spread around. Even if it wears out his driver.
When we got back to his home, Hank had finished his processing. The trip was a huge success, and he couldn’t wait to call his friends. I heard him telling them about the big storm on Lake Huron, the Ford plant, the museum, the restaurants, and the nursing home where we’d visited our aunts. He couldn’t wait to get his pictures developed, and he couldn’t decided which of his new t-shirts to wear first. He had presents to deliver, too.
A couple of days later, we got together with Steve and Carol to eat pizza and catch up on news. Carol and I went upstairs for girl talk, and Steve and Hank sat outside making guy jokes and drinking non-alcoholic beer. Eventually, the guys came bounding up the stairs with some big news.
“We’re planning a trip to Niagara Falls next year!” they told us. “We’re going to rent a minivan, so we can all go together!”
I was flabbergasted. I looked closely at Steve, who was rattling off the details of the trip they had planned. Was that a faint halo over his head?
Before I left Columbus, Hank asked me, “Am I still fun to take on vacation?”
“Absolutely!” I said, with enthusiasm. I’d caught up on my sleep (while he was at work), and now I was anticipating the future eagerly. Steve and Carol and Barry and I may all need new toothbrushes — we’ll be smiling a lot, at Niagara Falls next year.
There once was a lady named Clam,
And she said, “To the public, I am
Such a nice quiet pet,
One who likes to just set.
Omigosh! I just laid an egg, Ma’am!”
If this makes no sense to you, go to the Adventures page and read “Cock-a-doodle Who?” You’ll find a photo of Clam there.