Flutterby left the boatyard almost a year ago, and we started cruising. Sure, we did some projects underway like mounting the oarlocks on the dinghy. Sure, we did even more projects while we stayed at Vero Beach over the winter and spring–We sewed sails and bought and mounted solar panels. But we weren’t hauled out, and more importantly, we weren’t in project mode.
We brought Flutterby back to the boatyard in June, “summerized” her, and drove west.
A week ago, we returned to Flutterby. Yesterday, I dropped Margaret off at the airport; she’s going to Florida to help her Dad through open-heart surgery, and I’ve got a couple weeks to do boat projects.
Finally, for the first time in months, I opened my to-do list, a dozen pages in an Excel spreadsheet. Some things were irrelevant. Some were completed months ago. I crossed those off. I tried to remember all the things I had listed when Margaret asked what we had to do before we could launch again.
Then I went outside with a couple wrenches and took out the bolts holding the tiller arm onto the rudder. I scraped loose the 3M-101 goop that I could get off, then forced the thing away from the rudder. Now it is off, and only a little sticky residue remains. After I clean it up I’ll be making it fit higher so that the steering cables don’t make that AWFUL gritching noise when it hangs up between the quadrant on the tiller arm and the turning blocks.
If this is enough adjustment, I won’t have to adjust the angle of those turning blocks too. Wish me luck on that one.
I’m sure that half of the people reading this are wishing I could have described an exciting job. But moving the boot stripe on the rudder is a later project, so exciting things like sanding, prepping, masking, and painting … repeat … repeat … repeat … will have to wait.
For now, the important thing is that I’m back to working on Flutterby!
Mechanics in town all say Stowe,
Is the very best place you can go,
For a quick valve job, cheap,
But he won’t fix your Jeep,
For he just works on hearts, don’t you know.
—
Indian River Medical Center is my Dad’s hospital, just a few miles from his home. We’ve just learned that Consumer Reports has ranked it the best hospital in Florida for open-heart surgery. What an excellent confidence-booster in the face of tomorrow’s heart valve replacement!
This word once described her: Poquito.
But this bug, with her massive libido,
Must have slept with a cow,
For her offspring are now
Too huge to be called mere “mosquito.”
“I promise, it will be worth it,” said my friend, Sparkle. I had to trust her, but waking up at 4:30 am was a severe test of our friendship.
The beeping alarm didn’t phase Barry, who rolled over and stuck his head under the pillow. I got up in the dark, drank a sleepy cup of coffee — Sparkle had gotten up at 4:00 am to make it — and carried one to Barry in bed as a bribe. We’d loaded the van the night before, so now all we had to do was rouse two pairs of sleeping kids to go with us.
One pair was Sparkle’s youngsters, who’d been through this drill several times before. They climbed into Mom’s car and went back to sleep, knowing that what was in store was worth it.
Nick and Anneliese, waiting for the balloons
The other pair was our traveling companions, Anneliese and Nick, who in their early 20’s are too old to be proper kids but are still young enough to be used to people calling them “kids.”
We parked the van while it was still dark and started walking towards the park. Suddenly, I saw the first one ahead, an enormous colored lightbulb against the indigo sky. It was a full-sized hot air balloon that appeared in the night sky for a few seconds, and then, suddenly, the lights went out.
“Did you see that?” I asked, excitedly.
“See what?” one of my sleepy companions replied.
Just then, it happened again. A balloon started glowing and rising in the sky. Then a second one. The first one went out and a third lit up for a while.
Barry guessed that they were using their burners to light the balloons from the inside. Each time they did this, the balloons would rise in the sky, and when they turned the burners off, they would sink for a little while. Then they’d light up again, but now they were in a slightly different place.
Hot air balloons in the Reno night sky are completely magical. Sparkle was right. It was worth getting up for this.
But there was more to come. When we arrived in the park, there were people everywhere, and vendors selling t-shirts and donuts and pizza. Loudspeakers blared with music and announcements. There were long lines for the port-a-potties. I had never seen so many humans gathered in one place at 5 o’clock on a Saturday morning.
Watching a balloon unfold
What we’d just seen was the Dawn Patrol, a small number of hot air balloons that are qualified to fly in the dark. Now Sparkle led us onto a vast field, where we spread our blankets among the crowd, next to a truck marked “balloon chase vehicle.” It was like setting up for Fourth of July fireworks or a picnic on the beach. I wasn’t sure which way to face to watch the action.
But when the Mass Ascension Launch occurred, it didn’t matter which way I was facing. What I hadn’t realized was that the balloons were right here among us. They were just flat, and they were everywhere! Some of the picnic blankets were spectators, but a lot of them belonged to balloon crews who were just waiting for the sun to come up.
There was a gentle pastel-colored dawn, pinks and blues and yellows reminiscent of a baby blanket. The day was clear and free of clouds as the crews fired up their noisy fans and propane burners. Soon, all around us, balloons started growing organically out of the field like huge multi-colored pumpkins.
The kids watch a balloon being inflated
Mouths agape, we tiny humans started walking among the colorful giants before they took off. It was thrilling being in the middle of almost a hundred hot air balloons; the photos do not do it justice.
The balloons didn’t all rise at once. They filled at different rates, and when they were ready, they bucked like horses. Their pilots and passengers climbed into the wicker baskets, and then they were quickly cast off.
One by one, they drifted up into the sky, until the air above us was full of them, silhouetted against the blue. They had left the world of earth and created a new world in the sky. Then the air currents separated them and carried them slowly away, and they drifted over the horizon.
Every year, there comes a time when Burning Man ends and we have to pack our dusty camping gear and clothing. It’s not like packing up just any campsite.Barry's ready to take down the shade structure. We took this picture so he could remember his knots for next year.
First, we have to take down and fold a shade structure that measures about 500 square feet, coiling dozens of dust-laden ropes that held it up. As we untie the ropes, we have to yank out the pieces of rebar that they were tied to, preferably before we trip over one of them and get hurt. Since the rebar was driven into the ground with a sledgehammer, it takes a lot of work to get it out. We have to mop up any yucky water that didn’t evaporate in the shower pond, sort the recycling and garbage, and find a place to burn the burlap bag full of dessicated compost.
We have to do all this while wearing dust masks and work gloves in the blazing sun. Even so, it’s not the most painful part of leaving — saying goodbye to all our friends is. There’s never enough time in one week to spend with all our dear friends in Black Rock City.
In the past, this onerous period has been followed by a painful multi-step re-entry into the “default” world. There are a number of steps to this re-entry, such as the first time I see pavement after a week. The first flush toilet. The first time I interact with a non-Burner. The first time I use a credit card. The first phone call I make. The first phone call I receive: “Hey, what’s that funny ringing noise?”
But this year was different. It has been almost a month since we left, and I am still floating on Cloud Nine, feeling bubbly and happy. Why?
It’s because I didn’t have to say goodbye to my friends right away. Yay!
Anneliese and Sparkle sharing a hug in front of the RV
We camped this year next to a great couple named Shade and Swirly Sue. The two of them had a small RV and an enormous, welcoming shade structure. They were fun and generous, offering cool foot baths to anyone who wanted one. Because of this, they made lots of new friends. By the end of the week, there were six people camping next to us instead of two.
All six left Black Rock City together, riding in Shade and Sue’s RV and towing their gear and bikes in a large open trailer.
We didn’t say goodbye to them when they left. We also didn’t say goodbye to our campmate, Sparkle. Or our friends in Silicon Village, Philip and Claire.
A couple of hours after we drove out of Black Rock City, we walked into a furniture-free rental house in Sparks, Nevada. “Guess who had a flat tire?” I called out to the assembled group, which included all nine of the fine Burners mentioned in the above paragraph. They were sprawled on the carpet in the living and dining rooms, eating cold, fresh food like lettuce salad and ice cream. All were enjoying life without dust for the first time in a week. As the evening wore on, each dusty person would disappear for a while and then return from the shower, unrecognizable.
The impromptu house party was hosted by Sparkle, who’d just attended her first Burn and had taken to it like a fish to water. Looking around the room, I remembered her asking me about the principle of Gifting. “What should I bring to give away?” she asked me, referring to items she could buy in advance. I suggested she not bring anything for her first year, just enjoy the experience and know what to bring the next time.
Now, after one week in the desert, she was demonstrating that she understood the principle of Gifting perfectly. In fact, she also was helping us experience Radical Inclusion, Participation, Immediacy, and Communal Effort, more of the Ten Principles of Burning Man.
After showers and a meal, two of our friends had to leave that first night, driving through the night to the Bay Area. They got a lot of hugs to help them on their way. Four others took off the following day. But five of us stayed through the week, forming a sort of family group in the Sparkle House.
Our little family at the balloon racesYours Truly with a couple of thought balloons
One evening, we descended on a laundromat together and took over 13 washing machines. Then we ate pizza, played games, and drew crayon pictures for each other at the Blind Onion. Another day, we drove to Lake Tahoe, where all five of us had to share one camera. We lived even more of those Burning Man principles, namely Radical Self-Expression (we sat around making jewelry from glass and wire), Decommodification (no TV!), and Radical Self-Reliance (cleaning all the dust off our gear). The grand finale was the Great Reno Balloon Race, which we all attended at the end of the week. Words do not do it justice — more photos are coming.
It was a magical time, a chance to experience intentional community outside of Burning Man. We’d only met Nick and Anneliese a few days earlier, but they were so easy to be with, it was as though we’d known each other all our lives. My connection to Sparkle was even more amazing. We’d known each other at school 30 years earlier, but had been out of touch ever since. When she arrived at Burning Man, it was the first time I’d seen her since we received our high school diplomas. Now she’s like a sister.
Eventually, we did have to leave and say goodbye to Sparkle and the kids. That was a tough goodbye, but we did not have to say goodbye to Nick and Anneliese. They went along with us to our next adventure.
To this day, people are still asking us, “How was Burning Man?”
“It was great! The best ever!” Barry and I say, in unison.
And, I might add, it’s not over yet. As long as there are Burning friends in my life, it might just go on forever.
For over two hours, Irene’s eye,
Looked down on our dear Flutterby,
No damage was done,
And after that fun,
Great news: All our bilges are dry!
All’s well that ends well! Thanks to Kevin, Jonathan, Libby, and Nancy & Kenny for taking care of things in North Carolina. And to our parents for letting us know that everything was OK! Thanks to them, we were able to relax and enjoy our time in Black Rock City.
But we are three thousand miles away, on our way to Burning Man tomorrow. For the next 12 days, we’ll be incommunicado with 50,000 of our closest friends.
What should we do?
Not this: “When in trouble or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout.”
Instead, this: Practice non-attachment.
Sure, we’ve done some preparation. We left the boat on the hard in one of the best boatyards in the country. We removed everything from the deck before we left. A good friend has secured the dinghy so it won’t fly or float away. Another has agreed to check on the boat once the storm passes.
There’s nothing more we can do, physically. All the work now is mental and emotional. The worst thing that can happen is not damage to our boat, but pain or injury to dear friends who live in the path of the storm.
It’s just a matter of perspective. I lost my brother this year. Losing a boat would be nothing compared to that. A mere scratch to my psyche.
So I wait to see what happens, and I send calming thoughts to my friends in the path of the storm. I head to Burning Man with the knowledge that an entire city can be built and removed in the space of a week.
Flutterby has been “totaled” in a hurricane before. She was built and rebuilt, and rebuilt, and rebuilt. She can be repaired and rebuilt again, and we have the skills to do so. I’d gladly rebuild her again if I could have my brother back. As I often say, “It’s only stuff.”
Hurricane Irene: Keep it in perspective. Stay safe. And keep breathing.
What I wanted was just to relate,
To the mother of my chosen mate,
So we stared at the screen,
Of an Apple machine,
And we chatted of things like baud rate.
Though that’s twenty-three years in the past,
And our new Mac computers are fast,
We still sit back-to-back,
In the family shack,
And we surf and play games — what a blast!
As froggies go, he wasn’t very big. He was about an inch long, smaller than all but the tiniest plastic ones in the toy store.
He wasn’t plastic, though. He was real.
The day we picked up my brother’s car was a tough one for me. The car was the largest thing Stevie had owned, and although my job was to eventually sell it for his estate, I was emotionally attached to it. Standing beside the plain-vanilla Camry with the keys in my hand, I got a little teary-eyed.
That’s when the the little green guy appeared. He crawled out from behind the passenger-side mirror and looked at me with big round eyes. Did he know he was an omen, or did he think he was just a frog? Was he really a Froggie?
When he passed away, Stevie’s living room walls were decorated with paintings of beaches and lighthouses, and in the center hung his doctorate, double-matted, in a heavy gold frame. In the place of honor, right below the doctorate: His froggie collection. That’s right, froggies. I never once heard him use the word “frog.”
Stevie's Froggie collection
Stevie had stuffed froggies, glass froggies, ceramic froggies, metal froggies, and plastic froggies. Some were elegant, some were goofy. One of them used to make croaking sounds, although I accidentally destroyed that capability when I ran it through the washing machine.
The first one came from a coworker, 15 years ago. He had such fun with it, calling it “Froggie,” and making up stories about it, that others began giving him froggies as well. A friend of his mentioned a “Froggy Battle,” which sounded epic. Dad sent froggies for birthdays and Christmas, and I gave him Seattle-themed froggies. Stevie never bought a single one for himself.
He referred to them by silly names: Santa Froggie, Big-Mouth Froggie, Squeaky Froggie.
Stevie was very protective of his froggies. When I sent him a stuffed gorilla named Curious George, he wrote back, “Did I tell you that curious george can stay but that the Froggys and their extended family have eminent domain!”
Stevie was in rare form with his thoughts about a February event called GroundFrog Day, in which a bullfrog by the name of Snohomish Slew offers his weather “frognostication.” He wrote:
“Snohomish Slew and I could become very good friends although as long as Mr & Mrs Froggie are around they cannot be replaced by an upstart tadpole from who knows where who can barely speak froglatin and does not see his shadow cus he probably don’t have one!! Plus he makes BAD predictions and as anyone knows…when you’re frozen like he was you are usually braindead upon arrival!! I guess I’m kinda hard on Slew this morning but ya gotta be kind of jealous towards someone who gets to live in a place called Flower World!”
At Stevie’s memorial, we displayed all the froggies, and afterwards, family and friends could choose one to keep as a memento. I ended up with more than my share of Froggies — Bendy Froggie, Spitting Froggie, Playskool Froggie, Sparkly Froggie, and a bunch of tiny plastic ones.
With Stevie on my heart, you can imagine what I thought when that live little frog climbed out from behind the car mirror, looked at me, and climbed back into his hiding place again.
I am sure that there are people who find frogs on their cars all the time. I am not one of them. Until that day, when I picked up Steve’s car, I had never in my life seen a frog on a car. So I had a name for this little guy: Omen Froggie.
Tiny Omen Froggie, sitting on top of Stevie's car
Omen Froggie was tucked safely behind the mirror when we drove the car to town for dinner. There was no sign of him when we came out of No-Name Pizza. Was he still in the mirror? Was he chowing down on pizza scraps? Was he hopping around Beaufort?
It was on the way home that he reappeared. At 55 mph, he decided to make his move. “Look! Froggie!” said Barry, who was in the passenger seat. Our little friend had crawled out from behind the mirror and was now clinging to the passenger window. With his tree-frog toes spread wide and his skin blowing in the wind, Froggie was enjoying a perilous — surely terrifying — joyride. “Hang on, Froggie, hang on!” I cried. I was a very distracted driver, paying more attention to the tiny passenger on the outside of the window than to the other vehicles on the road.
I didn’t want Omen Froggie to go flying off along the road and get killed. He was a Very Important Froggie, and I needed to return him to the boatyard, where he had come from.
Or had he come from the boatyard? Perhaps he had come from another dimension! Maybe he just popped into this universe to let me know Stevie was keeping an eye on his car. And me.
Omen Froggie did not fall off the car. He made it safely back to the parking space where we’d found him. I took a picture of him sitting, serene, on the roof of the car. And after that, I never saw Omen Froggie again.
~~~
(Click on a thumbnail to see full size)
Julie with Tree FroggieHank with Squeaky FroggieDaisy with the Wacky Quacker and Mt. St. Helens FroggieMeps with Seattle Bubble Froggie and Bendy FroggieBarry with Mr. and Mrs. FroggieJoy with Huggie FroggieJeanie with Glass FroggieMeps with Playskool Froggie, Sparkle Froggie, and the Little Froggies
