Life among the natives.

Last night we were just thinking about going to bed when one of our immediate neighbors got a bug up his butt (or too much beer in his belly) and decided to test his diesel engines.
Both of them.
Fumes rolled through our boat and after a few minutes Hans was ready to have a talk with him. I asked Hans to just let me handle it and reminded him that Neighbor had promised us another batch of his homemade clam chowder and I really didn't want to mess up a good thing. Neighbor finally shut his engines down and since our cockpit door was still open he hailed me from the dock. He was indeed three sheets to the wind and he came over bearing gifts. I waited until I had the grapefruit and key limes he offered in my greedy little hands before I asked him what the hell he was doing running his engines so late. I can't remember exactly what he said but I told him I didn't care how 'pure' his diesels are, they still stink. I got a happy wave and a "Good night, Sweetheart," in return and Hans said he'd like to know what goes on during the day when he's not here.

Then this morning I woke up earlier than usual when Luvvy BadGirlBadGirl got her daily ass smacking much sooner than normal. With such an early start I've no doubt it wasn't her last one of the day either.

Hans and I love our marina and we're certainly enjoying sunny skies and 70 something temperatures all the while knowing it's gray and cold back home. What we're trying to get used to is adjusting to having one vehicle. I know that sounds spoiled but if Hans takes our one remaining car to work that means Wilbur will not get to the dog park (4 miles away and NO! I am not walking him all the way there) and he will therefore spend his day and unspent energy outsmarting me (not a difficult task I assure you). Since Hans' accident, Wilbur has scarfed down an entire loaf of my homemade banana bread and just yesterday he dug into the bottom of our garbage can and gobbled up the double bagged carcass of a chicken I'd boiled for a homemade batch of chicken soup. I came upon the chicken carnage yesterday after returning from a mere fifteen minute absence. After opening the cockpit door, I was greeted to the sight of shredded plastic bags, garbage, and a guilty pit bull cowering atop of our refrigerator where I've no doubt he was searching for more banana bread.

Digestion can be an exhausting activity.

When I was young I never dreamed I would spend my middle years intently inspecting the output of a pit bull's intestines, but that's exactly how I've spent far too many hours since Wilbur came into our lives.

Wilbur feels quite strongly about the misunderstanding of pit bulls and he demands that all laws banning his beautiful breed come to an end!!

He would probably be taken more seriously if he could just remember his pocket protector.

I'm glad we brought our bikes with us since it's a lot easier and faster for me to get my running around done when Hans has our vehicle. But this also means I'm spending more time out among the local population. A couple of days ago a man hailed me from the parking lot of a medical institution and since he was so insistent, I was stupid enough to stop. He wanted to know if I would like a part time job. I could work from my home. He thought I should know that I'm very attractive ("Nothing personal," he added). He could pay me in cash (he whipped a wad of bills out of his pocket), or he could give me a check (he then tried to impress me with his business acumen by adding that he'd provide me with a 1099 tax form). He certainly hoped he wasn't offending me (something he repeated many times during our bizarre encounter). He also deemed it necessary to fill me in on tidbits of his life; like how when he was a foolish teenager he managed to knock up his girlfriend (now ex wife and current meth addict) and that his daughter only contacts him when she wants money. I squelched the temptation to ask him why he didn't offer this peachy job to them so they could at least earn their money, but my desire to end this impromptu interview was stronger. His shirt was unbuttoned to the waist and in addition to the thick chain around his neck he wore two watches, one of them a huge gold (no doubt knock off) Rolex, and a ring with about a thousand (fake) diamonds. And gee, only just last week he'd made over two hundred thousand dollars. He also kept roughly bumping into me which really made me nervous and I was glad I was on a main drag of highway. After giving me a generic Wells Fargo business card ("That's where I bank," he stated proudly, and I didn't bother to tell him that here in Florida, it's where everyone banks) with his phone number scribbled on it, he pointed to a condo off yonder. "That's where I'm staying," he told me, but by now I was desperately trying to get away so I wasn't looking. He nudged me again, "I said that's where I'm staying," and then added, "I'm in room 309 but I don't want you bothering me."

I have no idea what the job was (or maybe I do!), but can you believe that I'm not going pursue his exciting offer?

As for Hans; on the days he leaves our vehicle with me, he gets to ride the bus. And riding the bus here is very interesting indeed! It's not quite like Europe where thanks to the cost of fuel (not many can afford to pay $11.00/gallon), public transit is the norm.

For some reason the buses were running way off schedule one night so Hans got to sit in the bus shelter longer than usual and it took him over an hour to make the seven mile transit home. The bus shelter is just as interesting as the bus, and it's a great place to bond with your fellow passengers before boarding. You get to share beer, cigarettes, and stories about your last incarceration. Poor Hans, since he doesn't smoke, he doesn't quite fit in.

I'm going to ride my bike to the beach today (and the beach is a whole different story believe me!), and you can be sure that after I get rid of our garbage and hide the brownies I made last night, I'll be peddling like mad and giving room 309 a very wide berth!

When I have time...

... I plan on posting about living aboard a boat in a marina.

But, just when I think I have a minute I realize there's something I forgot to take care of. Like filling our water tanks, and considering that we use the bath house for most of our showers we still manage to go through about 70 gallons of water in less than a week.

I've finally decided to save myself about a half hour of time by just waiting for Hans to get home from work and handing me the hose from the dock while I grab it with a boat hook. This is way more simple than me trying to get it in the boat without dropping it in the water (and dock water is gross!). This week after filling the tanks I couldn't help but notice how dirty our cockpit was and decided to hose it out. I'll give it a good cleaning some other day I told Hans, but then I decided to take advantage of the cooler temps and ended up scrubbing the whole thing. And then I saw grease spots on the outer deck that had dripped from our grill, and what is that stain up at the bow... ? I think I now have scrubbing elbow and sadly this will all have to be done again next week.

I'll think of something that makes our life interesting but remember I need to get to the office for ice and since Wilbur needs to take a walk I'll kill two birds with one stone and take him with me. And with Junior along that little job is guaranteed to take twice as long (I'm pretty sure a lusty blood hound once took unfair advantage of one of Wilbur's ancestors because there's not a blade of grass that goes un-sniffed during these excursions). Our mailbox is also over at the office but do I ever remember to take my key with me? And there goes another trip.

I'll go to sit down at the computer and remember I need to do my daily creative shuffling of our refrigerator's interior. We have a wonderful Adler Barber refrigerator with freezer. But everything on the bottom of the fridge ends up freezing and the stuff on the shelves up and away from the freezer don't get as cold as they probably should. This isn't a defect, it's just the way it is. So everyday I swap thawed out ice packs with frozen ones. I also have a couple of pliable sheets of stuff that look like bubble wrap and I lay our eggs and butter, sour cream etc... on these. I sit our milk and things like potato salad right on top of the freezer, they don't freeze but they stay very cold.

I take our bunk apart and convert it back to a sitting area (something we do everyday since it's too hot to sleep in our berth) and think, today I'll start a post but then notice our carpet is dirty again which is what happens when your carpet is one tone and you have a dog and feather pillows and you live on a boat! Not that sweeping these small areas is so time consuming but in order to get to the sweeper, I have to crawl over the obstacle course that's taken over our port berth to the locker where the sweeper resides.

I decide I don't feel like collecting all my shower stuff and then trek all the way to the bath house so I shower on the boat. Aha! with all the time I saved I'm going to take it easy and upload pictures that have been sitting on my camera for over a week. But then I realize I can't remember the last time I cleaned out the shower filter and after venturing into the engine room to dismantle it I'm completely grossed out over how filthy it is. And while I'm at it I should probably see if I can figure out why the sink is draining so slowly.

I swear I go to the grocery store every day. It's not that I buy tons of stuff but I try to watch for sales and now that we're within a stones throw of a lot of stores I don't need to keep tons of provisions on board and can actually use the cupboards in our berth for our clothes and not ten boxes of tuna helper.



Isn't this lovely?

We had to use tarps to cover the dead lights (or windows) in our cockpit in order to keep out the hot Florida sun. We've also re-purposed our cockpit cushions by covering our hatches with them. This also keeps out the sun and who cares if it seems like we're living in a cave? It's better than living in an oven.








Just try to get some sewing done with a pit bull lying at your feet. I pray he doesn't knock that support out from under my table. And the other day I had a heart stopping moment and nearly sent for a priest when my sewing machine started sewing all by itself. Then I realized Wilbur had flopped down on the foot peddle. He's mommy's little helper.

Now that Hans is gone all day long, someone misses his daddy!

This past Sunday we spent the day at the beach with some very new friends and watched speed boat races. This is the first time we've left Wilbur alone for more than a couple of hours and right before we left the boat we were a bit puzzled about the air conditioner. It didn't seem to be blowing cold air. But the day was very cool and the unit was very new so surely we were imagining things.

When we got home eight hours later we were horrified to realize we could smell our head from the dock and were even more horrified to enter a very stuffy and very warm boat!

Yes, our air conditioner was indeed on the fritz and our holding tank took advantage of the situation and developed a bizarre case of the vapors.

I'm just very thankful that it had to happen on the coolest day we've experienced since we've been here and never again will we leave Wilbur alone for this long unless the promised highs for the day won't go above the 70's!

I spent the next day getting a new unit (covered under warranty), calling our dentist's office in Pittsburgh (for the third time) and asking why they're still sending their bill to our old address, and making sure to buy a bottle of bourbon.

You see, after finally moving the now defunct air conditioner to our vehicle (which required said vehicle to be emptied of our winter stuff and ramming it all into our already overflowing port berth and now I'll never find that damn sweeper!), feeding and walking our neglected and bewildered baby, we sat down (in our very smelly boat) to a crappily thrown together dinner of tortilla chips, nacho cheese, and the tiny amount of salsa I was able to scrape out of the bottom of what I had thought was a full jar! I was looking forward to a well deserved drink, and realized I was out of bourbon! Talk about the straw that broke the camel's back!

So anyway, if and when I get some time, I fully intend to post about what it's like to live on a boat in a marina!