Rainy days and Tuesdays...

                                                                   ...just can't get me down.

And shame on me for skewing the lyrics to the Carpenter's 1971 hit. What's really sad is I remember when that song came out!

I had huge plans this past Tuesday which included hanging our laundry on my 'solar dryer' (fancy phrase for red neck clothes line), scrubbing both heads from top to bottom, washing the galley floor, clearing all of our junk from our salon shelves in order to dust and rearrange said junk, and vacuum.

But I knew I was in trouble on Tuesday morning when I was awakened by raindrops hitting me in the face from our overhead hatch.  And since rain to me means closed hatches and high humidity where nothing will ever dry, I figured my day was pretty much screwed. Things got worse when I discovered we were now down to one washing machine (still waiting for that pesky repairman) which required my walking all the way around the marina (in the rain) times two and why I bother with an umbrella I'll never know.
I believe the last good hair day I had may have been back in 2011.

But remember, this is Florida, and by noon the rain had stopped which put a damper on my backup plan of eating Bon-Bons and drinking a pitcher of Wilbur Wow Wows while watching old movies on TCM.

In between laundry runs I lathered our heads in Dawn detergent and then blasted them with the garden hose that I dragged down through the cockpit door.
I love hearing the bilge pumps do their thing.
I only wish I could hear them after cleaning the galley floor, but unfortunately there is no drain there.  Instead, I have to push tons of soapy water into a shallow reservoir (known as the dust pan) in the center of the floor and then sponge and sponge and sponge soapy water into a bucket. I wish there was a better way but I've yet to discover one.

So anyway, even though I got a late start to my day and didn't have time to attack the salon shelves I'll tackle those another time.

We're also in the middle of repairing some damage to the Knotty Cat's gel-coat.

Taped off area to be repaired.

Not sure where all these 'dings' came from.

These are just a few, there are a lot more.

I was looking forward to cleaning those salon shelves tomorrow, however, our friend who's repairing the gel-coat has informed me instead that we need to go to Island Packet in Largo once again for more supplies. 

So that's about as bad as it gets here;  we're talking rainy days not rainy months, and a day of cleaning ruined by a trip that just may involve a detour through a Duncan Donuts drive-thru isn't such a bad thing.

And that's why rainy days here just can't get me down.

Still humming along.

At least my sewing machine is.  

My last post dealt with cleaning and re-hemming our shower curtains. And while I love sewing, I hate the whole 'hauling the machine and all of its accessories out in the morning only to have to put them away again in the afternoon' let alone dealing with the heat from my iron. But thankfully with this cooler weather the iron hasn't been the issue it is during the summer.

This January a very good friend of mine became a grandmother for the first time.  

And it was a girl!

I realize not everyone wants to see everything I made but I will show you the items Wilbur begged to model.

I didn't have enough fabric left over from the dress and ruffled panties  to make a  matching bonnet so I  ended up getting some eyelet for the brim of this hat.
Stunning!

And since I had so much eyelet left over I made a shabby chic head-band.
Wilbur tries his best to look humble.

Unfortunately, much to Wilbur's distress, his big pitty feet just won't fit into these little shoes so you'll have to settle for this very plain picture.
Wilburless.

I've also been working on my own fish-themed wine bag pattern but so far it's been a dismal failure.  Thank God I'm no longer a bartender and I don't have to drink my mistakes or I'd be in big trouble.

 

Slightly gross boat stuff that just needs to go away.

If I had any shame or pride this post would never be written.  However, anyone who knows me knows that my life is basically an open (if somewhat boring) book and I never seem to know when to keep my big mouth shut.

So, this brings me to our two shower curtains.

These curtains are original to the Knotty Cat (circa 1995) and even though I don't think they got a lot of use before we acquired her, the hems were in a bit of a grubby condition.  The first thing I discovered was that the curtains couldn't be removed in an ordinary way like those in an apartment or a house.
 Believe me, I've tried.
But, I had no desire to rip down the caulked track on the ceiling that holds the curtains in place, and that's the only way they can be physically taken down. I'm not kidding.

I tried soaking the hems, as is, in bleach etc... but they still looked like crap and I finally gave up and tried not to look at them.
But they continued to prey on my mind.

Here is what the shower curtain hem looked like to the the casual  (family or friend) observer
.

And an even uglier close up.  Disgusting!

Yesterday, out came my trusty seam ripper and after opening up the hem of one curtain,  I found that it was stitched in a double fold which meant that after being exposed to water and soap, it never had a hope of drying out between uses.

Soaking in detergent.

Aha! After a good scrubbing, an opened up and very clean hem line.

On the port side I had to set my machine on the toilet.  The mirror version on the starboard side had my machine sitting on the sink.

I opted to turn the hem up on the outside as opposed to the inside of the shower. I didn't sew a double hem either and thanks to the holes from the previous stitching I hope less moisture will build up.

Why I decided to do this on Valentine's Day I'll never know.  Because in addition to all this cleaning, scrubbing, and sewing, I stuffed and roasted a chicken, made mashed potatoes and gravy, baked an apple pie, and found time to take a shower and wash my hair.  As a former waitress I refuse to go out to dinner on this particular holiday.

I'm loving my Winn-Dixie flowers and I love my coffee pot vase too (I've had this coffee pot for over 25 years).

I feel like I should get a Home-Ec-Gold-Star-Blue-Ribbon Reward for my day but then I remember that back in the day this is what women used to do on a regular basis.

Oh, what the hell, I still want that award!!

Observations I'd prefer not to hear (or say) while on a boat.

Things like:

What's that smell (and smoke is a tiny bit more important than the head)?

Where the hell is all that water coming from?

Why is all that smoke pouring out of the exhaust (or in our case two exhausts)?

Why are my feet wet?

Why does the bilge pump keep going off?

Hey! What happened to the water pressure (especially bad if one has a head full of shampoo lather)?

Have you seen the dog (or cat)?

Did you feel that bump?

These comments are bad enough to hear in a slip but while at anchor they become a lot more ominous.

So anyway, this past weekend we headed out into the Gulf where we hoped to do some fishing and sailing. We put up the main and the jib, threw out two fishing lines, sat back ... and watched all the wind die.  We were literally sailing at 0 knots and our fishing lines sank to the bottom.  So we started up the port engine in order to create a little of our own wind and contemplated calling it a day when all of a sudden the wind kicked in and we actually ended up sailing very nicely for a couple of hours.
We didn't catch any fish but, you can't have everything.

We decided to anchor in Gulfport for the night.  However, we ended up at the far end of the anchorage where we normally don't go and within close sight of a sunken sailboat with its mast sticking out of the water at a drunken angle. Hans dropped the anchor and while sitting at the helm I could feel it dig in.  After backing down on it and seeing that we were going nowhere we settled in for the night.
It was around eleven PM while we were playing Scrabble when I heard a weird sound.

"What was that noise (yet one more scary observation you don't want to hear at anchor)?"  I asked Hans.  "It sounded like a 'twang'."

We then went through a ritual that we seem to always go through while at anchor.  Hans went into the cockpit and declared he was sure we were closer to another boat than we should be. I continued to review my Scrabble letters in an attempt to come up with yet one more brilliant move that involved the letter Q, so in addition to my staying put I assured him the Knotty Cat was too.  A couple of more of his,  "I think we're closer comments," made me heave myself up off my butt to take a look for myself.
"We're fine,"  I said just as we whizzed past a well lit trawler.

"Oh my God, we're dragging!"

Before we knew it, we had both engines going and with Hans at the bow and me at the helm we got the anchor up lickety split, moved away from the sunken hulk, and re-anchored. It wasn't until we were down below again that we realized how well we had worked together considering the circumstances and tried not to think about what would have happened had we been asleep. Hopefully one of us would have awakened at the twanging noise I heard but you never know.

Now, Gulfport is a great anchorage but I have a funny feeling we were maybe hooked up to some debris from the sunken boat and after swinging on the hook in some pretty steady wind we finally broke free. We've never had a 'drag' alarm that so many people have talked about because we'd heard that they go off if you swing around a lot, but I understand there is an App available that takes that into consideration so I'm going to check it out.

As for the Scrabble game, just as we were going to bed I tossed my lap blanket towards the settee and it hit the game board instead and sent all our tiles flying. I think everyone in the marina should be grateful they didn't have to 'hear' me because you see, I was ahead in the game and I never did get to use that damn letter Q.

Happy Birthday Wilbur...

                   
              ... oh, and to my mom too!

When we took Wilbur in we knew from his vet records that he had originally been adopted out at approximately 11 weeks of age.  His previous owners (back yard breeders) only had him for one day when one of their pregnant female pit bulls nearly mauled him to death. After his owners relinquished custody of the little guy to the clinic and he landed in our life we calculated his age, went back in time, and figured he had most likely been born in mid January.  My mother's birthday is January 16th so we thought, what the heck, she won't care.
And as an animal lover she certainly didn't.

Fractured scull, punctured throat, torn ear, damaged eye, and many contusions.

A very handsome little man on the mend.

From poster boy to calender boy (Wilbur was the June, Hunk of the Month,  in last years Pit Bull Frog Calendar).

This dog has been nothing but a joy to us ever since the day he walked (and grunted like a pig) into our lives.  He's been a wonderful boat dog, a heating pad on cold nights (and hot nights whether we like it or not), a fantastic pre-dish-washer-plate-cleaner, and a very patient listener while I yak and yak and yak at him all day long.

He's put up with horrendous heat (2 months of nearly 100 degree temps during our Chesapeake Bay debacle back in 2010), rough overnight passages, and choppy seas, yet he continues to give us unconditional love.

So, today he got to spend his special day at Doggy Day Care where he played all day long with his doggy friends and came home with a little birthday bag full of treats. And even though he's usually stuck to us like glue, he was so tired tonight he went down below to our berth a couple of hours ago and has been snoring away ever since.

The only spoiler here will be attempting to move the little stinker into a more favorable position when we try to get into bed as Wilbur has apparently acquired a pretty handy dandy no fail anchor.

But it's his birthday and we'll just have to live with it.

Motel Life Continues

As I mentioned earlier, when we arrived here at our Motel away from Home we noticed (yet weren't surprised) to find a police presence in the parking lot. An unfortunate sign of our times seems to be that that wonderful safe haven for travelers, once known as Motels, has since then turned into hovels for those on the dole.

And what a shame because motels once gave me a feeling of nostalgia. I used to associate them with visions of families traveling in their huge gas guzzling cars complete with home-made ham salad sandwiches, a bunch of cranky kids, and a tired mom.

Not so much anymore.

After putting up with the screaming antics of one of the regulars here, and being awakened at midnight by slamming doors and yelling on the floor above us, I was horrified to hear on the local news that the body found in one of the rooms here the day we arrived was the result of a homicide. And I sucked in my breath when the news station zoomed in on the finger print dust smeared door, and I saw the room number. It was one off from ours. It took a bit of deduction before I finally figured out that the room in question was directly behind us. We front the courtyard and that room borders the parking lot. Anyway, the news continued to say that the young lady (24 years old) put up quite a fight and the family is distraught. She'd apparently been there with a boyfriend who has yet to be questioned and we've heard nothing further on the matter.

I guess this explains why we found the business card of a homicide detective in our door. I have to wonder if they even bothered to find out who checked out of our room right before we checked in.

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So on a lighter note.

Sitting in a motel room all day long is claustrophobic and just plain weird.

Wilbur strikes a Pit Bull Frog pose in front of the TV while we watch Turner and Hootch (I kid you not!).

I couldn't take sitting around any more and finally said, "ENOUGH!" and took Junior to Doggy Day Care for a half day while I did some running around and then we were off to the Dog Park to kill time before picking up Hans from work.

The end result of six hours of play time.

Ditto for today which also included an especially intense 15 minute tug of war with another dog.

That's a brand new Hedge Hog lying beside the little man.

He has not performed a squeakerectomy on it.

He must be tired.

Tomorrow we finally get to move back onto our Knotty Cat with her newly painted and very pretty bottom.

Honestly, I can't wait!!

 

From Live-aboard to Motel Dweller

Oh My God!!!! I want to go home!

I mentioned in a previous post that while the Knotty Cat is on the hard in order to get her bottom cleaned and painted; Hans, Wilbur, and I get to luxuriate (read sarcasm) at a motel.

And I gotta say, I don't know how people do it.

The fun started around midnight last night when I was awakened by slamming doors and yelling people. Why, oh why, do people wait until the dead of night to start fighting? Luckily this was a very short lived event and then everything was quiet.

Then while I was at the dog park this afternoon I found out that a body had been found at our particular motel the day before. I guess this explains why the police were here all day and a homicide detective left a calling card in our door.

So tonight while eating our dinner of pizza (I love pizza but I'm already longing for a home cooked meal) the yelling and door slamming started again. This time it was right across the court yard from us and as I peeked through our curtain (I'm destined to be Gladys Kravitz wherever I live) I recognized a man I'd seen earlier on my way to the ice machine and even then I could just feel the anger coming off of him. He was now storming up and down the walkway and screaming into his phone. Hans made me get back from the window and we could hear many doors slamming, and more than one voice yelling. I looked out again and Angry Man (skinny and wearing no shirt) was still pacing and I could see the glowing screen of his cell phone clutched in his hand. When he started shouting again to someone about his having three thousand dollars in the bank by Friday so leave him the 'F' alone we called the front desk. We were informed that Angry Man had just been told to shut up right now or he was going to get kicked out.

Things finally quieted down.

I have to wonder why anyone would feel the need to leave the privacy of their room in order to have a loudly nasty conversation on their cell phone.

What's sad is the fact that this really is a nice motel. It's clean, well maintained, and the staff is very friendly.

I have my own opinion about why this kind of crap happens these days but I don't intend to turn this post into a political debate so I'll stop right now.

Wilbur wants to go home too!