Juicy News

Sundowners
Originally uploaded by toastfloats.

Jaime wants to reboot. Actually, I think she just desperately wants to look amazing for The Ball in two weeks. I can't see how eating nothing but pulverized produce for a week is going to help attain that objective, but I m not 16. At 16 literally anything is possible. The real question isn't why Jaime is juicing, but why DrC and I plan to join her.

I confess that we come late to this fashionable new trend. As soon as I started researching the subject, it became clear that as far as health fads go, we are probably the last people in the world to the table. Maybe this was super hot while we were on Mexico or in the middle of the Pacific with no bandwidth. Regardless, we are complete novices to the notion of the Juice Reboot. Babes in the vegan woods.

Of course, normally we don't do stuff like this. DrC is both a qualified doctor of Western style medicine and a skeptic... Some would say a cynic,actually. We dont go much for hokkum, snake oil, or homeopathy. We are more the ibuprofen, fish oil, and water types. We never went Atkins and my South Beach phase never made it past the third day. DrC's first considered medical action regarding my health nearly 25 years ago was to force-feed me beef to address my anemia. And when I say force fed, I mean it, complete with two inch thick fillets, crumbled bleu, Ceasar salad with fresh garlic croutons, and a really fine Cabernet. He is a truly horrible beast.

So why a more than a little bit trendy fad diet? Maybe just because.

Because we want to eat less meat for health, environmental, and economic reasons.
Because we need to cut down on the caffeine and wine.
Because we have been eating way too much bread and processed food during the last year.
Because Jaime wants to and we are just that awesome at parenting.

Or maybe because DrC had trouble buttoning his top jeans button this weekend for the first time in his entire life.

So this week we embark on a 5 day Reboot. Actually, this week we prep. We need to scope our local, fresh produce, get a decent juicer, make meal plans, go shopping. We pinky promised to start reducing the processed, the white, and the booze. Jaime is pulling down recipes, DrC nutritional info, and me the meal plan recommendations.

The official juice-only days start Monday. I think I will blog it end to end. Reboots have been blogged a million times by people all over the world, so I will add precisely nothing to the conversation. There is, however, something delightfully naughty about allowing myself for the first time to consider blogging what I had for lunch. The slow slide into rut-dom over the last year has been depressing emotionally and creatively. Maybe a steady diet of nasty tasting smoothies will inspire me.

It's also possible it will just make me gassy.

Raft-Up: What's in a Name?

That Can't Be Right
Originally uploaded by toastfloats

It's a lovely Saturday afternoon, and I am standing on the dock at Elliott Bay Marina in Seattle Washington staring at the back of my boat. Hands on hips, head cocked at angle, I study the old style script lovelingly plasticized to the transom of our 380 Lagoon catamaran. There's no hope for it.

"Dean. It says Vancouver, BC."

He glances away from his self-satisfied perusal of the brand new, 4-foot tall reproduction of Picasso's Don Quixote sketch afixed to the bow only yesterday. He agrees, "It does."

I point out, "Dean. We're from Washington."

He returns his attention back to the loving perusal of our port bow and notes, "There is a Vancouver in Washington."

It's hard not to agree. I can read a map. I even got a ticket once in Vancouver crossing over the bridge from Portland. A real speed trap there as you cross over the Oregon border... you've been warned.

So I agree,"True." I stare at the graphic giving the problem further consideration and chew my bottom lip. "Dean, we're not even Canadian."

He finally recognizes that I face a deep moral quandry. I'm unhappy, and, good husband that he is, he walks down the finger slip, around the corner and drapes his arm around my shoulder as he pronounces cheerfully, "But we could be!" At my skeptical look, he waves an arm at the city and adds,"We might as well be!!"

I look at the sky line full of puffy clouds, sparkling waters, gorgeous mountain backdrops with tall pine trees framing a beautiful, bustling waterfront city. It does look like Vancouver. I concede, "That's also true..." But my reservations persist, and I must make the case for sanity. "I bet the U.S. Coast Guard doesn't have much of a horseshoes and hand grenades approach to port call signs."

This momentarily dims my husband's enthusiasm. The U.S. Coast Guard. Hadn't of that, had he. I start to feel a bit smug, "This has got to go Dean. We're not Canadian." It bears repeating. I like Canada. I like salmon and rockies as much as the next person, but my eh is more of a California girl uh, and I can not fathom why people watch curling. "We just can't pass."

We are different, Dean. My husband, my love, my insane captain. They are of Canada with a capital C, and we are a US flagged vessel with a capital U.S. So, "Call the graphics company and get them to fix it."

"Yes dear."

I then promptly forget about the graphic faux pas. In our flurry to cut the lines by May, I have many 100s of tasks to accomplish. Even in the simple realm of boat branding, there are boat cards to design and print, an embossing stamp to order for official paperwork (which we never in five years of cruising actually used, by the way), t-shirts to buy, and a flag to sew. We take pictures for the web site, which is a design effort in and of itself. I iron our logos on to hoodies for cold weather, and then I register the svdonquixote.org domain in addition to toastfloats, toastworks and pretty much every variation of wemustbecompleteidiots.com.

Which is why in May 2008, we cut the lines and sail away from Seattle on a boat proudly flying the U.S. flag and the home port esignia of our neighbors to the north.

No one noticed.

The U.S. Coast Guard didn't notice.

The Canadian Coast Guard didn't notice.

The Mexican Armada was most interested in our completion of the "Did You Have a Satisfactory Boarding at Sea Experience" card. I'm not sure they even checked if we had visas and the legal right to be in the country, let alone whether the home port emblazoned on the boat was the same as the home port specified in our boat documents.

Proudly Bears the Don Quixote Logo
Originally uploaded by toastfloats

French Polynesia never looked at our boat, let alone the back, and while the Cook Island folks were thorough, we were checked into the country at a port where every resident of the island had a vested interested in assuring our safe and happy passage through their island nation. I don't think Tonga realized we had a boat, though they did go to great lengths to discuss the proper disposal of our trash.

You know who notices our fraudulent logos?

You got it. Canadian yachties. Every single one dingies up and finds out to their great dismay that we are Seattlites. We've faked them out. We are not carrying a cache of CBC shows. We don't watch hocky. We're clueless about the latest doings of the Prime Minister. Fortunately, Canadians a generous people. And frankly, we are from Washington. Which has a Vancouver. It might as well be Canada.

And we're all a very long way from home. Pass the Molson.

More Raft-up

Dana svnorthfork.blogspot.com
Jane morejoyeverywhere.com
Behan sv-totem.blogspot.com
Lynn www.sailcelebration.blogspot.com
Verena pacificsailors.com
Diana maiaaboard.blogspot.co.nz