It’s been eighteen whole years since that day,
When we stepped to the bar just to say,
“Yep, I do,” “I do, too,”
“Here’s a ring just for you,”
And our friends raised their drinks and said, “Yay!”
The day before our 18th wedding anniversary, we stopped to investigate a place on Highway 20 called the Beer Shrine and Wedding Chapel. It reminded me of the fact that when we were married aboard the Flying Cloud, the wedding was actually performed under a palm frond arch in front of the bar.
Barry and I learned many things during our visit to the Beer Shrine and Wedding Chapel. We found out that lots of people like the pizza there. We heard from the owner that she is licensed to perform marriages and does about 30 per year, right there in the bar. We confirmed that Barry likes homemade root beer. We confirmed that Margaret does not like beer. Most importantly, we discovered that Barry does not like beer-flavored kisses — so root beer is the only way to go!
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.
A decade ago, when we were living in our not-so-upscale house in the upscale Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle, we had a neighbor with chickens. Like us, she had a not-so-upscale house and a devil-may-care attitude about what the neighbors might think.
During a period of a couple months, I discovered that roosters don’t necessarily crow only in the morning, they crow all day. I thought it was charming. Other neighbors — the upscale ones — didn’t find it charming. They complained, and the flock was made compliant with Seattle law: Three hens, max, and zero roosters.
After that, the chickens were very quiet in their little coop, tucked behind some bushes and against the house in the front yard.
Given this experience, when we were invited to chicken-sit four chickens at a different friend’s house in Seattle, I was puzzled. “How can you have four?” “It’s OK. One of them is not a chicken,” was my friend’s response. This friend will remain nameless, because I’m afraid that the one that is not a chicken acts so much like a chicken, there might be a slight compliance issue. At the risk of being an accessory to the crime, I will not publish any names.
Except for the chickens’ names. First names only.
We arrived at the house for our chicken-sit instructions, and indeed, there were four creatures that looked like chickens. Two brown, two black-and-white. Mango, Frango, and Lucky are chickens. But Clam is simply the most chicken-like clam you’ll ever meet. There is no compliance issue. “This house has three chickens and a clam, Officer.”
Which one of these is not a chicken?
Like the other girls, Clam bursts out of the coop with a rush of flapping, flying energy when you open the door. Then she runs around the yard, clucking and looking for bugs. She digs up the dirt in the side yard, which may explain why the cucumbers are stunted. She hates being cooped up and wants to be top in the pecking order. She runs over and attempts to eat anything you toss on the ground, whether it’s a cucumber peel or a frisbee. She has been seen drinking from the infamous avian-nipple watering system. She produces award-winning volumes of chicken shit.
But lately I’ve noticed that Clam’s behavior is a little different from the others. Yesterday, she came over to me as I was standing on the patio. I thought she might be suffering from insecurity, being the outsider, so she was going to be more affectionate. “OW!” That was not affection, it was aggression! After she pecked me on the big toe, I punished the whole lot of them by vanquishing them from the backyard. And decided it was no longer a good idea to stand barefoot on the patio.
Ow! (Chicken pecking the photographer's foot)
Today, I went out in the yard wearing clogs. Picking green beans, I suddenly felt a sharp pain in my heel. Clam had found the only exposed flesh on my foot and pecked it. Back she went, along with the others, into the Chicken Prison Exercise Yard. Barry seemed relieved.
Barry contemplates the risk of squatting near a clam with a beak
Right now, the chicken-sit is pretty easy; the chickens are too young to lay eggs. But what will happen when they start laying? Will Clam lay eggs, too? Or will she lay clams? She just might be the juvenile delinquent of the chicken yard, in which case, I hope she’ll straighten up and fly right. Otherwise, she’ll be out of here, and her owners — no, I still won’t tell you their names — probably won’t give a cluck.
Clam emphatically proclaims, "I am not a chicken!"
On receiving a call from Iceland in the midst of record-breaking heat:
It’s one hundred and five here, you know,
So your calling and saying “Hello,”
From the Land of the Ice,
Felt quite pleasant and nice,
Although next time, could you please send snow?
The little weather thingie Barry installed on our Mac is great. Down at the bottom of the browser window, it displays a 5-day forecast in tiny icons. I thought they were pretty standard icons — a little cloud, a lightning bolt, a sun.
Until one day, sitting at the computer in North Carolina, dripping sweat on the keyboard, I saw a new one.
icon on fire
“Oh my God! The thermometer is on fire!”
Down at the bottom of the screen, there was indeed an icon showing a red thermometer with flames coming out of it. It very nicely illustrated what I was feeling — a day when I thought I might come around a boat and find Lucifer fanning himself, his pitchfork leaning up against a jackstand.
The thermometer-on-fire icon appeared a number of times in North Carolina, although I never saw the Devil. Too humid for him, I guess. But when we got to Seattle, the icons changed. Now they were back to clouds and sun, no lightning bolts or flaming thermometers. Until one day (you can guess where I’m going here), we looked at Forecastfox, which Barry had set to display Seattle weather, and…
“Oh my God! The thermometer is on fire!”
So what do you do in the Northwest when the thermometer is on fire?
We drove down to Yelm, where Tom took us to a special swimming hole. The only slight problem was the fact that we hadn’t brought bathing suits. Tom assured us that they wouldn’t be necessary; it was a private spot, and after all, it was Tuesday.
We drove through cow pastures, parked, and waded, clothed, into the Nisqually River. The banks were lined with evergreen trees, and the water rushed over rocks and little rapids and our ankles. It was totally cool and refreshing — but what was this? Around the corner came an overloaded rubber raft, packed with Mom, Dad, and the kids. It was followed by additional family members in inner tubes. Then a couple of guys popped out of the woods across the river with fishing poles. And another raft went by with two guys, whooping and hollering, and a cooler.
I had resigned myself to wading, when from behind us, yet another person appeared. This place was like Grand Central Station! This time, it was a woman in a sarong who said her name was Boopsie. I’m not sure if that’s her real name, or if that was a skinny-dipping alias. If so, I need a skinny-dipping alias.
Boopsie charged into the river and nearly lost her sarong in the current. Tom chivalrously helped her hang onto it. At least, I think that’s what he was doing. She made her way to a big rock, perched on it like a mermaid, and entertained us with stories of bathing-suit-free adventures in this spot. “I was here one time,” she said, “and I couldn’t hear anything but the rushing of the water on this rock. Well, along came a helicopter from Fort Lewis, super-low over the water, and before I realized what was happening, there I was, eye-to-eye with the pilot. He just hovered there, staring at my you-know-whats and giving me a big grin.” We also grinned and decided to join Boopsie in the river.
Of course, more rafts came by, but when they did, I submerged myself so they wouldn’t see any you-know-whats. Then a helicopter flew by from Fort Lewis, as low as he possibly could. Boopsie waved at the pilot. I sank down so only my nose was above water. Eventually, we got out, refreshed and covered in goosebumps.
My 2003 polar bear swim
The following day, when we got up, guess what we found? The thermometer was on fire AGAIN. Luckily, we’d made plans to meet Brett and Ann and sail on their Thunderbird, Naumachia. This time, I took my bathing suit. Hard to believe this toasty giant bathtub was the same Lake Washington where I did my first polar bear swim on New Year’s Day 2003. The water temperature was in the 40’s that day, as you can see from the old photo.
And as a result of the trip on Naumachia, I have a bit of useful information for the next record-breaking hot day. On the west shore of Lake Washington, there is still a nude beach. At least, when we motored by, half the people there were wearing flesh-colored bathing suits. And there were no gawking helicopter pilots or people in rafts, only gawking people on sailboats. Now I’m set — if I can just come up with a skinny-dipping alias as good as “Boopsie.”
Our friend Leilani has been in the hospital so long, with such a cheerful attitude, she inspired the doctors on the staff to write her a haiku:
Germy Pacemaker
Last few days of ABX*
Feels okay today
*Their abbreviation for antibiotics
After seeing the attention lavished on her, I was inspired to write a limerick:
All the nurses and docs in the ward
Had ennui — they were terribly bored.
But then much to their joy,
Came Leilani McCoy,
Leaving all other patients ignored.
When we first walked in, I thought we’d mistaken her room number for the gift shop. There were that many cards, plants, flowers, and gifts!
Now there once was a pirate of yore,
Who I met as I strolled on the shore.
“You’re a rake, sir!” I cried,
I was held at his side,
And he tickled me ’til I was sore.
I don’t make this stuff up! At the Seafair Pirate Landing on Saturday, I met a good-looking pirate (at least he had no blood on his teeth) who was smooching passing wenches. When I queued up for my fair share, I was captured and tickled, as you can see from the following photos.
I just closed the window, here on Camano Island, Washington. After leaving North Carolina, it’s a strange feeling to be cold in the summer. But I’m glad for the warm laptop on my legs, and I’m thinking of putting some socks on my chilly feet.
Last year, we drove across the country three times, slowly. We haven’t been on a plane since the end of 2007, so the flight on Wednesday from New Bern, North Carolina to Seattle was surreal and left me disoriented. Not to mention winded from that flat-out run through the Atlanta airport! I feel like I’ve been squeezed through a very tiny aperture and popped out in another universe.
Meps in front of the high bridge from Radio Island to Morehead City
The differences between our North Carolina home and our Pacific Northwest home are vast — starting with the butter. Did you know that butter on the East coast and butter on the West coast is shaped differently? In the east, no matter what brand you buy, sticks of butter are long and skinny. In the west, they are short and fat. You have to have different butter dishes!
The sounds are different, too. In NC, I’m attuned to the sound of the Travelift and the crane, overlayed on the rhythm of cicadas on a hot day. I can identify many boats on the waterway by the sound of their engines, even before I see them. And the voices — I love listening to people speak with Southern accents, even if I can’t understand half of what they say (or, in the case of Randy, all of it). At the end of the day, Anique says she’s going “hame,” and it makes me wish I was born to talk like that. Here, the accents are flat, nonexistent. But I’m delighted to hear the call of the bird Barry and I call the “Sweetie, come here” bird. This afternoon, I napped on the grass — no fire ants or mosquitoes — and listened to the wind whispering like a person breathing in the top of 40-foot pines.
Then there are smells. Last weekend, we went out with Kenny and Nancy and Carlee in their skiff, and I breathed in the smell of the Atlantic Ocean and the marshes along the Intracoastal Waterway. I wanted to etch it in my memory, so I could compare it to the air here, where the tangy scent of fir trees fills the air like incense.
Sunday: Barry, Kenny, and Nancy on the boat with Beaufort in the background
We visited a beach today, Iverson Spit. We waded in the shallow water of Port Susan, ringed on all sides by blue, snow-capped mountains. There were a few other people on the beach, but their quiet energy was completely different from the beaches we visited in the past two weeks — Shackleford Bank, full of exuberant people on boats, and Atlantic Beach, with great big waves and surfers and swimmers. The hot, bright sunshine makes the air shimmer with heat.
Friday: Barry, Julie, Gabriel, Sharon, Emanuel, and Dave wading at Iverson Spit with Mount Baker in the background
The character of the light is different, going from south to north. It’s 9 o’clock now, and it would be dark at the boat. We’d have put our mosquito screen in the companionway and turned on the lights. But here, I could still read outside, it’s so light. The twilight will last for another 90 minutes, as though the light is reluctant to go away.
Only then will we slip out to the hot tub. Under the starlight, we’ll listen to the sound of the wind in the pines and breathe their scent. And miss our dear friends in North Carolina, whose voices are like music, on the other side of the butter divide.
“What’s wrong with your cat’s leg?”
“She’s not my cat.”
“You’re flying to Seattle? What are you going to do with your cat?”
“SHE’S NOT MY CAT!”
To other people, fostering a cat family looks a lot like having cats. We had a cat door, food and water bowls, and a playful, frisky kitty named Buttercup who followed us around the boatyard and frolicked under our boat. All of which explains the number of times in two weeks that we had to protest, “SHE’S NOT MY CAT!”
Aboard our boat, her two kittens spent all their time sleeping and nursing. When their mother climbed into the berth with them, they would make tiny, cute squeaking sounds, and she would respond with chirps. Then they’d find a teat, suckling quietly, and she would purr.
Barry with two not-his-kittens
One night, just after I went to bed, I heard agitated squeaking. Buttercup was responding with more than the usual meeowing, purring, and chirping. When I went to see what was up, there was a soggy kitten on the galley floor. Buttercup’s water bowl was a small Tupperware cup, just big enough for one kitten — and one kitten had fallen in!
That night, she decided the quarterberth was not a safe place. She moved the kittens under the stove, where we had to get on our hands and knees to see them. They hardly noticed us, since their eyes remained closed. We tried not to spill popcorn or sauteed onions behind the stove.
Buttercup Not-My-Cat comes out from under the stove
Less than a week before our departure, we got a very welcome call. Donna of PAWS had found a foster home for the three with a retired couple who are dedicated to cats. Imagine a large house in the country, surrounded by miniature houses, each with carpet, windows, and air conditioning. Our single mother and her babies were going to live in a real cathouse!
So we dropped them off at a vet for the transfer. Even after just three weeks, it was hard to say goodbye. We drove back from the vet wearing PAWS bracelets that say, “I saved a pet.” And in our email box was a timely message from our cat rescue mentors, Blaine and Suzy: “hero merit badges earned!”
But the boat was quiet and empty. The feral cats we feed sat at the bottom of our ladder, puzzled. “Where’d that girl kitty go? We didn’t mean to chase her away!” they seemed to say. We threw ourselves into finishing the masts and packing for our trip, as if working 19-hour days would distract us from missing the friendly cream-colored cat.
We’re in the Pacific Northwest now, with even more distractions. Still, I find myself looking at the photos of Buttercup Not-My-Cat — of which we have way too many — and thinking, “Yes. For a short time, you were my cat. Thank you.”
Two kittens have lived worry-free,
In our boat at the edge of the sea,
But they snoozed and they dozed,
With their four eyes all closed,
So they never knew Grandma was me.
We found a foster home for our rescue cat and kittens through PAWS, two days before we left for Seattle. The kittens took so long to open their eyes, though, I thought they never would! We finally saw their eyes on July 4th, two and a half weeks after they were born.
The day before our 18th wedding anniversary, we stopped to investigate a place on Highway 20 called the Beer Shrine and Wedding Chapel. It reminded me of the fact that when we were married aboard the Flying Cloud, the wedding was actually performed under a palm frond arch in front of the bar.
