tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-384954012024-02-21T05:43:29.289-08:00Toast FloatsToast floats from adventure to adventure. This year the challenge is to float the boat from La Paz to Auckland. It's a really big ocean.Toasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01502441539444340761noreply@blogger.comBlogger468125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38495401.post-59799630411100754082013-01-12T01:00:00.000-08:002013-01-12T01:00:04.222-08:00His, Hers, and Theirs<div style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-top: 10px;">
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/6918569029/" title="DrC's Idea of Patient Care"><img alt="DrC's Idea of Patient Care" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7044/6918569029_3a6024e460_n.jpg" style="border: 2px solid rgb(0, 0, 0);" width="240" /></a> <br />
<span style="font-size: 0.7em; margin-top: 0px;"> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/6918569029/"><br />
Uploaded by </a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/">toastfloats</a>. </span></div>
I am holding in my hands the Jabsco replacement kit for our toilet -- which in the nautical world we call a 'head'. The story of how yachties came to call the crapper a head is just gross. Let's not go into it today. The kit looks nothing like a toilet or even parts of a toilet. It actually appears that a dog ate a box of Legos seasoned with a bicycle tire and vomited them back up again. Fortunately, it comes with a sheet of instructions.<br />
<br />
I believe firmly in the principle of RTFM (read the f*ing manual). For many years, I wrote manuals for a living. I figure I have a vested interest in devoting at least a modicum of my time to ensuring the gainful employment of my professional peers. However, I immediately note something missing in the user guide for the Jabsco. <br />
<br />
"I don't see where in this little booklet it says, 'Make your wife do it'", I inform my husband and captain. <br />
<br />
DrC glances up from his latest multi-millionaire dollar investment in Nigel Calder's editorial future and reminds me, "You did say we should divide up responsibility for the systems on the boat, Toast. You agreed plumbing would be yours." <br />
<br />
"Yeah," I protest, "but I meant the sink, the water pumps, maybe the bilges..." I trail off weakly as really there is no getting around the salient point. The toilet is the very definition of plumbing. Muttering darkly, I spend the next hour more or less covering myself, the port head, and every tool we own in shit. Literally. <br />
<br />
And so we learn our jobs on the boat.<br />
<br />
While Don Quixote has a very firm policy of cross-training, it is also true that virtually all jobs fall into three categories: his, hers, and theirs. This division of labour evolved over time and not without a few rather heated discussions. And despite other more forward thinking and 21st century cruisers on the Raft Up rolls and our family's otherwise liberal to point of absurdity politics, the truth is that Don Quixote assignments have a misogynist, old school feel with the macho tasks firmly in my husband's grasp while I tackle the girly chores.<br />
<br />
On the the hand, the boating world is an arduous and oft-times unforgiving one. It makes sense to split tasks in the most efficient way policy. In other words, sometimes you need a guy to man-hand something. Sometimes you need a gal to finesse it. And it is always easier to have the person work on a system who has a talent, an interest or a personal vested investment in its success or failure.<br />
<br />
DrC is essentially all things mechanical; He supplies water, power, and motion to the boat. I am all things organisational; I do the navigation, provisioning, and scheduling. He makes sure things work; I make sure we have all the right things. The girls keep all the things clean. To be fair, they also get all the things dirty in the first place.<br />
<br />
But there are notable exceptions. As mentioned, I do the plumbing. I also seem to gradually be taking over the lighting for reasons that escapes me. We negotiate the weather, routing, and overall itinerary. I am SSB and radio-girl, finances, insurance and visas. DrC is rigging, haul out, and diesel maintenance. We all haul stuff, wash stuff, rig stuff, and move stuff. We squeeze and pull and scrub and polish stuff. The kids never got paid a dime until we landed in New Zealand. Now we pay them to do major maintenance tasks that we would otherwise hire someone to complete, such as end-to-end wax job or revarnishing the salon wood.<br />
<br />
<div style="float: right; margin-left: 10px; margin-top: 10px;">
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/5972899268/" title="Flapping My Wings"><img alt="Flapping My Wings" src="http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6138/5972899268_b73d7b6e6d.jpg" style="border: 2px solid rgb(0, 0, 0);" width="375" /></a> <br />
<span style="font-size: 0.7em; margin-top: 0px;"> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/5972899268/"><br />
Uploaded by </a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/">toastfloats</a>. </span></div>
Technically, there is another category of work: expensive guy jobs. The expensive guy really needs to visit our boat. Maintenance takes you only so far. At some point, he, she and they can't fix it. Someone with special skills, magic hands, and a box of insanely pricey technical toys must come make a new one. A better one. <br />
<br />
So as I stand in front of the starboard head with a second Jabsco maintenance kit in my hand, I can't help but ask DrC plaintively, "Are you sure there isn't such a thing as a boat plumber guy?"<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *<br />
<h4>
<a href="http://svnorthfork.blogspot.com/" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiD2cAyMWdidgbRMmWMLZB7layocfCGmSK1agYBb1vKs1LwEyVPKIrEm8ZsnyZiRukzhCl-R3cp6nO_l9y4bqlmyZ6n92S0DEnVpeney0iYOZeGNUEr49LqV0dLgpRCxl0OMm9_/s1600/Raft-up-button.gif" /></a>January's Raft-Up Writers</h4>
The topic this month is allocation of labour. We all have different strategies to divvy up chores, responsibilities, and worries. If you haven't already subscribed to these authors, I encourage you to explore the excellent writing my fellows in Raft-Up:<br />
<br />
4 Stacey <a href="http://sv-bellavita.blogspot.com/">http://sv-bellavita.blogspot.com</a><br />
5 Steph <a href="http://www.sailblogs.com/member/nornabiron">www.sailblogs.com/member/nornabiron</a><br />
7 Behan <a href="http://sv-totem.blogspot.com/">sv-totem.blogspot.com</a><br />
8 Diane <a href="http://www.maiaaboard.blogspot.com/">www.maiaaboard.blogspot.com</a><br />
9 Jessica <a href="http://myfelicity.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">http://myfelicity.blogspot.com</a><br />
10 Lynn <a href="http://sailcelebration.blogspot.com/">sailcelebration.blogspot.com</a><br />
11 Verena <a href="http://pacificsailors.com/">pacificsailors.com</a><br />
12 Toast <a href="http://blog.toastfloats.com/">http://blog.toastfloats.com</a><br />
14 Ean <a href="http://morejoyeverywhere.com/">morejoyeverywhere.com</a><br />
15 Dana <a href="http://svnorthfork.blogspot.com/">svnorthfork.blogspot.com</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><!--Creative Commons License--><a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/"><img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width: 0" src="http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc-sa/2.5/88x31.png"/></a><br/>This work is licensed under a <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/">Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 License</a>.<!--/Creative Commons License--><!-- <rdf:RDF xmlns="http://web.resource.org/cc/" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#" xmlns:rdfs="http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#">
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<License rdf:about="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/"><permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Reproduction"/><permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Distribution"/><requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Notice"/><requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Attribution"/><prohibits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/CommercialUse"/><permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/DerivativeWorks"/><requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/ShareAlike"/></License></rdf:RDF> --></div>Toasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01502441539444340761noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38495401.post-70981372184405783302012-10-12T17:05:00.001-07:002012-10-12T17:41:36.509-07:00Raft-Up: Counting Heads<div style="float: left; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-right: 10px;">
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/6918565457/" title="Who me?"><img alt="Who Me?" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7037/6918565457_b16bec7a0a_m.jpg" style="border: 2px solid rgb(0, 0, 0);" /></a> <br />
<span style="font-size: 0.7em; margin-top: 0px;"> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/6918565457/">Who Me?</a><br />
Originally uploaded by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/">toastfloats</a>. </span></div>
"I feel like I'm forgetting something," I muse, staring at the skyline as if miles of ocean horizon can reveal the secrets of my forgetfulness. It is calm, cloudless, and unfortunately almost still as we crawl slowly off the Mexican coastline heading south and west for the equator.<br />
<br />
Aeron helpfully peeks into the dodger locker, "Cat is here."<br />
<br />
DrC grumbles something about fuel from the galley where he is preparing dinner. <br />
<br />
Jaime more or less completely unhelpfully notes that she remembered to check her Facebook account before we left the marina three hours ago. <br />
<br />
And then there is silence.<br />
<br />
In case you haven't been following along, I have three children. Aeron, Jaime, and Mera. We all wait for a few breathless, still moments, the only sound the flapping of the main as it luffs in the gentle swells and off shore breeze. Almost as one, we turn to look at the smudge on the distant horizon. <br />
<br />
"I'll look," says Aeron, jumping down off the cockpit seat and scrambling into the port hull. <br />
Jaime, Dean and I don't move. We are all sharing the same, miserable thought. Oh shit. We left Mera behind. <br />
<br />
It's not like we haven't done this before. In fact, it is something of a habit, leaving Mera behind. Mera is our quiet, studious, bookish middle child. For years as we learned to drive the boat, we would take Don Quixote out every Thursday night for the Elliot Bay Marina races. Roughly half the time, we'd leave her on the dock and for many of the remaining evenings we could honestly state after sailing for an hour that we didn't actually know whether or not Mera was on board. It got so bad that DrC insisted we put a check list on the helm: dock lines and fenders stowed, instruments on, electrical unplugged, radio on, Mera on board.<br />
<br />
Fortunately, the silent miserable tableaux of the three senior crew of Don Quixote is broken mere moments later by a relieved, high soprano voice shouting up, "She's here! She's HERE!"<br />
<br />
Maybe we are just rotten parents. If so, we're probably bad pet owners, too. Twice we more or less accidentally left Dulcinea behind. Once we left the dinghy behind. And on one memorable occasion, we kinda sorta accidentally snuck out of an anchorage in the wee hours of the morning abandoning a pair of particularly obnoxious 'buddy boats.' <br />
<br />
Yet I must confess that my biggest fear cruising has never been that I would stupidly head off shore for a 2000 nautical mile trip one head short of a full deck. My children are clever, capable souls and can handle being alone for a few hours. At age 5, Aeron proved the point when we drove to the grocery store one day and left her at the marina. As an aside, this was also Mera's fault, as Mera's seat in the van was next to Aeron's. How she could get all the way to the store and into the produce section failing to notice something as loud and noisy as her sister was missing baffles me to this day. A panicky 15 minutes later, we arrived back at the marina and found Aeron eating donuts and entertaining the staff in the office where she had -- quite correctly -- immediately tromped after discovering that her bonehead family had driven off without her.<br />
<br />
No, my fear is almost exclusively the loss of one of my beautiful family overboard in the night.<br />
<br />
The odds of finding someone -- even someone wearing a life jacket -- in the middle of the ocean at night are astronomically low. If everyone else is asleep when you fall over, the phrase 'zero chance of survival' is not hyperbole. Beacons, personal EPIRBs, and proximity crew alarms all improve your odds, of course. These options were simply not priced in the affordable range a mere five years go, so the Conger family travelled from Seattle to Auckland without them. If we could have, we would have. If you can, do. If you can't... <br />
<br />
Well even with all the fancy shmancy gear in the world, surviving a midnight fall off an ocean going yacht is mostly a matter of not doing it. Doctor, it hurts when I do this! Don't do that. My fear of falling informs our boat rules and gear. A simple but well-cared for system of jacklines, harnesses, clips, and life jackets tie the helmsman to the boat no matter what the weather. On passage, no one is allowed to step so much as a toe on the deck without this gear from the time the sunlight turns to burnished gold on the horizon to the moment in the morning where the coffee is steaming and its possible to read a book in the salon without additional light.<br />
<br />
<div style="float: right; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 10px;">
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/6396181623/" title="Misty Beaches"><img alt="Misty Beaches" height="240" src="http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6036/6396181623_56ee3f17c0.jpg" style="border: 2px solid rgb(0, 0, 0);" width="320" /></a><br />
<span style="font-size: 0.7em; margin-top: 0px;"> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/6396181623/">Misty Beaches</a><br />
Originally uploaded by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/">toastfloats</a>. </span></div>
And still I am afraid. I still experience panicky moments when I come up at 2 AM for my watch and die a little when I can't instantly track Jaime's movements. Nights when I leap out of my cabin at 10 during DrC's watch, heart pounding, sure he's gone forever. I have tended the boat through 90 knot hurricane winds, managed sails while balanced precariously on the bimini as we pitched in a heaving sea, leaped overboard at midnight to clear a prop with my feet when we were moments from being driven ashore, and watched my children leap like billy goats along a traverse in Zion with a 1000 foot drop on either side. Yet nothing -- absolutely nothing -- scares me like these moments in the night when I know with a certainty that leaves me cold that one of my loved ones is gone.<br />
<br />
Our fears can not define the boundary of our existence or the limit of our reach. To watch my girls swim with whales, I have to let them stand watch in the night. To love them -- to let them live -- I have to trust them not to die. It's hard. It's so hard to count heads and come up one short. And yet every night, we do it anyway.<br />
<br />
I keep counting and counting and counting until the number is five plus a cat, and every time the moment of relief is pure and fresh and profound.<br />
<br />
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *<br />
<h4>
<a href="http://svnorthfork.blogspot.com/" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiD2cAyMWdidgbRMmWMLZB7layocfCGmSK1agYBb1vKs1LwEyVPKIrEm8ZsnyZiRukzhCl-R3cp6nO_l9y4bqlmyZ6n92S0DEnVpeney0iYOZeGNUEr49LqV0dLgpRCxl0OMm9_/s1600/Raft-up-button.gif" /></a>October's Raft-Up Writers</h4>
The topic this month is fear. We all have different fears and different strategies. If you haven't already subscribed to these authors, I encourage you to explore the excellent writing my fellows in Raft-Up:<br />
2 Behan <a href="http://sv-totem.blogspot.com/">sv-totem.blogspot.com</a><br />
3 Steph <a href="http://www.sailblogs.com/member/nornabiron">www.sailblogs.com/member/nornabiron</a><br />
4 Stacey <a href="http://sv-bellavita.blogspot.com/">http://sv-bellavita.blogspot.com</a><br />
5 Tammy <a href="http://ploddinginparadise.blogspot.com/">ploddingINparadise.blogspot.com</a><br />
6 Ean <a href="http://morejoyeverywhere.com/">morejoyeverywhere.com</a><br />
7 Lynn <a href="http://sailcelebration.blogspot.com/">sailcelebration.blogspot.com</a><br />
8 Diane <a href="http://www.maiaaboard.blogspot.com/">www.maiaaboard.blogspot.com</a><br />
10 Jaye <a href="http://lifeafloatarchives.blogspot.com/">lifeafloatarchives.blogspot.com</a><br />
11 Verena <a href="http://pacificsailors.com/">pacificsailors.com</a><br />
12 Toast <a href="http://blog.toastfloats.com/">http://blog.toastfloats.com</a><br />
15 Dana <a href="http://svnorthfork.blogspot.com/">svnorthfork.blogspot.com</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><!--Creative Commons License--><a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/"><img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width: 0" src="http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc-sa/2.5/88x31.png"/></a><br/>This work is licensed under a <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/">Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 License</a>.<!--/Creative Commons License--><!-- <rdf:RDF xmlns="http://web.resource.org/cc/" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#" xmlns:rdfs="http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#">
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<License rdf:about="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/"><permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Reproduction"/><permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Distribution"/><requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Notice"/><requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Attribution"/><prohibits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/CommercialUse"/><permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/DerivativeWorks"/><requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/ShareAlike"/></License></rdf:RDF> --></div>Toasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01502441539444340761noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38495401.post-46567033116060897752012-09-24T15:02:00.001-07:002012-09-24T15:06:29.414-07:00Juicy News<div style="float: right; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 10px;">
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/6268912626/" title="photo sharing"><img alt="" src="http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6223/6268912626_ac90b679a8_m.jpg" style="border: solid 2px #000000;" /></a> <br />
<span style="font-size: 0.9em; margin-top: 0px;"> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/6268912626/">Sundowners</a> <br /> Originally uploaded by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/">toastfloats</a>. </span></div>
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.<br />
<br />
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 <a href="http://www.jointhereboot.com/" target="_blank">Juice Reboot</a>. Babes in the vegan woods.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
So why a more than a little bit trendy fad diet? Maybe just because.<br />
<br />
Because we want to eat less meat for health, environmental, and economic reasons.<br />
Because we need to cut down on the caffeine and wine.<br />
Because we have been eating way too much bread and processed food during the last year.<br />
Because Jaime wants to and we are just that awesome at parenting.<br />
<br />
Or maybe because DrC had trouble buttoning his top jeans button this weekend for the first time in his entire life.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
It's also possible it will just make me gassy.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><!--Creative Commons License--><a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/"><img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width: 0" src="http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc-sa/2.5/88x31.png"/></a><br/>This work is licensed under a <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/">Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 License</a>.<!--/Creative Commons License--><!-- <rdf:RDF xmlns="http://web.resource.org/cc/" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#" xmlns:rdfs="http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#">
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<License rdf:about="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/"><permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Reproduction"/><permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Distribution"/><requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Notice"/><requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Attribution"/><prohibits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/CommercialUse"/><permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/DerivativeWorks"/><requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/ShareAlike"/></License></rdf:RDF> --></div>Toasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01502441539444340761noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38495401.post-24527319233832040832012-09-11T03:34:00.001-07:002012-09-11T11:53:36.401-07:00Raft-Up: What's in a Name?<div style="float: left; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-right: 10px;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/4232028270/" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" title="That Can't Be Right"><img alt="That Can't Be Right" src="http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4023/4232028270_3fbaa978f5_m.jpg" style="border: 2px solid rgb(0, 0, 0);" /></a></div>
<span style="margin-top: 0px;"> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/4232028270/" style="font-size: 0.9em;">That Can't Be Right</a> <br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"> Originally uploaded by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/">toastfloats</a></span></span></div>
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.<br />
<br />
"Dean. It says Vancouver, BC."<br />
<br />
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."<br />
<br />
I point out, "Dean. We're from Washington."<br />
<br />
He returns his attention back to the loving perusal of our port bow and notes, "There is a Vancouver in Washington."<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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."<br />
<br />
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!!"<br />
<br />
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." <br />
<br />
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." <br />
<br />
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."<br />
<br />
"Yes dear."<br />
<br />
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. <br />
<br />
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. <br />
<br />
No one noticed.<br />
<br />
The U.S. Coast Guard didn't notice.<br />
<br />
The Canadian Coast Guard didn't notice.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
<div style="float: right; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/6827550630/" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" title="Proudly Bears the Don Quixote Logo"><img alt="Proudly Bears the Don Quixote Logo" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7184/6827550630_4f06d990eb_m.jpg" style="border: 2px solid rgb(0, 0, 0);" /></a></div>
<span style="margin-top: 0px;"> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/6827550630/" style="font-size: 0.7em;">Proudly Bears the Don Quixote Logo</a> <br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"> Originally uploaded by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/">toastfloats</a></span></span></div>
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.<br />
<br />
You know who notices our fraudulent logos? <br />
<br />
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. <br />
<br />
And we're all a very long way from home. Pass the Molson.<br />
<br />
<h4>
<a href="http://svnorthfork.blogspot.com/" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiD2cAyMWdidgbRMmWMLZB7layocfCGmSK1agYBb1vKs1LwEyVPKIrEm8ZsnyZiRukzhCl-R3cp6nO_l9y4bqlmyZ6n92S0DEnVpeney0iYOZeGNUEr49LqV0dLgpRCxl0OMm9_/s1600/Raft-up-button.gif" /></a>More Raft-up</h4>
Dana <a href="http://svnorthfork.blogspot.com/">svnorthfork.blogspot.com </a><br />
Jane <a href="http://morejoyeverywhere.com/">morejoyeverywhere.com</a> <br />
Behan <a href="http://sv-totem.blogspot.com/">sv-totem.blogspot.com</a><br />
Lynn <a href="http://www.sailcelebration.blogspot.com/">www.sailcelebration.blogspot.com</a> <br />
Verena <a href="http://pacificsailors.com/"> pacificsailors.com</a> <br />
Diana <a href="http://maiaaboard.blogspot.co.nz/">maiaaboard.blogspot.co.nz</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><!--Creative Commons License--><a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/"><img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width: 0" src="http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc-sa/2.5/88x31.png"/></a><br/>This work is licensed under a <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/">Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 License</a>.<!--/Creative Commons License--><!-- <rdf:RDF xmlns="http://web.resource.org/cc/" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#" xmlns:rdfs="http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#">
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<License rdf:about="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/"><permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Reproduction"/><permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Distribution"/><requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Notice"/><requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Attribution"/><prohibits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/CommercialUse"/><permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/DerivativeWorks"/><requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/ShareAlike"/></License></rdf:RDF> --></div>Toasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01502441539444340761noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38495401.post-32236494297982664472012-08-15T22:59:00.001-07:002012-08-15T23:08:11.291-07:00Another Self Portrait<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/7179788228/" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="photo sharing"><img alt="" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7100/7179788228_85c23ae3fb_m.jpg" style="border: 2px solid rgb(0, 0, 0);" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Another Self Portrait<br />
by toastfloats</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The answer to why we stopped sailing is highly dependent on a number of factors: who you ask, when you ask, and whether or not we have had anything to drink.<br />
<br />
The short answer most consistently proffered is that we ran out of money. It's easy to understand. Frankly, most folks can't imagine how we could afford to take off so many years anyway. Admitting that the cash is gone seems a logical barrier to further adventuring. But of course, it isn't strictly true. We didn't run out of money so much as we ran out of liquid cash. We could have stopped and worked briefly then continued (as did our good friends Totem). We could have made money en route (as do our good friends Ceildyh). We could have sold everything we still own and liquidated the rest of our savings (as have too many boats to name). The last thing I want to do is discourage people from cruising based on the mistaken notion that it can't be done on limited funds. It can.<br />
<br />
And weirdly, the real problems with money started on landing in New Zealand. It's like Murphy -- having largely left us alone for major problems for nearly five years -- decided to move in. It started with just landing in the country: cat ($1300), medicals for immigration ($750), immigration ($1500? I can't remember… I was in a daze), Dean's medical reinstatement (a couple of thousands to various folks… and yes it was all legal), and a thousand dollar transformer so we could plug into New Zealand shore power. Then my nose decided to implode ($5000 USD deductible), the heater melted ($2700), and the batteries exploded (will be ~$2500). Self inflicted wounds include a latte'd laptop ($1000), a trip to the States (~$6000), and an iPhone ($350… yes, I got a 3GS unlocked ). The van was a few grand, school uniforms and "donations" another two, and a business wardrobe for me which probably set us back at least 50 dollars.<br />
<br />
It's hard not to buckle. We can not can not can not get ahead which is an awful feeling. I try to console myself with the knowledge that if even half of this crap went down while we were sailing around last year, it would have bankrupted us. With money coming in, we can basically -just- keep up. But it would be nice to catch a break.<br />
<br />
Or a job. A job would be good.<br />
<br />
The radio silence on the blog these past months resulted from the fact that I finally did get some work. A former employee of mine moved on to bigger and better things, then revisited his past by to hire me as an editor. It was surprisingly fun work to dig into my technical writing roots. The documents were some of the most technical I've ever read, let alone edited. I learned about touch sense capacitors, oscillators, and methods to send IP packets over an electrical power line. I totally geeked out. I actually -- wait for it -- learned how to use the Equation Editor in Word. The single most important lesson from this experience was that Microsoft Word sucks. It is horrible. I will pay clients from now on to switch applications. <br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/7179790786/" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="Aeron Peace Out by toastfloats, on Flickr"><img alt="Aeron Peace Out" height="180" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8028/7179790786_7749fb3a0f_m.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Aeron Peace Out<br />by toastfloats</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Now, I have a new client, the IS team at Tegel Foods. For Americans, think Foster Farms with a Kiwi accent. They want to upscale the docs and training for the self-rolled software systems. I very much look forward to this. The project is in my favorite zone of work -- build awesomeness from raw materials and get paid.<br />
<br />
Paid is good. <br />
<br />
So if Murphy will just park his ass someplace else for a few months, maybe we can finally start saving for Jaime's college education. Gotta start somewhere.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><!--Creative Commons License--><a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/"><img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width: 0" src="http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc-sa/2.5/88x31.png"/></a><br/>This work is licensed under a <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/">Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 License</a>.<!--/Creative Commons License--><!-- <rdf:RDF xmlns="http://web.resource.org/cc/" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#" xmlns:rdfs="http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#">
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<License rdf:about="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/"><permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Reproduction"/><permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Distribution"/><requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Notice"/><requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Attribution"/><prohibits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/CommercialUse"/><permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/DerivativeWorks"/><requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/ShareAlike"/></License></rdf:RDF> --></div>Toasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01502441539444340761noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38495401.post-45851137358494521902012-08-12T00:01:00.000-07:002012-08-12T13:44:15.238-07:00Raft-Up: Laundry Day on Don Quixote<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3092/2584708526_14fc6bf88f_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="by toastfloats" border="0" height="240" src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3092/2584708526_14fc6bf88f_o.jpg" title="White Trash Boating" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">White Trash Boating<br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">by toastfloats</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div class="p1">
"It's not that I don't love them," I muse while shifting roughly a million pounds of stinking, moldy, food encrusted clothing from the hulls into the cockpit. "It's that I would love them more if they did the laundry."</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
My husband apparently agrees, "They're old enough. Make them."</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
I am properly incredulous, "Make them." Make them. Wow. That's simple. Make three girls aged 9, 12, and 14, do something smelly, tedious, and hard. Okay. </div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
"You make them."</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
Proving that my daughters are not the only children on the boat, "No, you make them." </div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
I glare at my husband, hands on hip. "I cooked, I cleaned out the refrigerator, AND…" and here is the triumphal feather in my cap, "I rebuilt the starboard head." Firmly and without any hesitation, I consign DrC to hell, "You Make Them." And with that, I metaphorically wash my hands of the dish towels, panties, and shorts and head below to play World of Goo. </div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
The problem with laundry on a boat is that it's hard. It's laundry without a net. Actually, it's laundry without a washing machine, a dryer, or good quality, environmentally friendly soap. In fact, it's laundry without water since we start with nothing but salt water, a cranky water maker, and an attitude. The problem with laundry on our boat is that we have a lot of it.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
I know people who put washing machines on their cruising sail boats. We call them weekenders. Real cruisers use their washing machines to store foulies or mangos or a replacement halyard. The chandleries sell little jokes called washing tumblers which are both too small and waste far too much water to provide a practical solution to the mountains of filthy clothing produced by three active girls and a pirate. </div>
<div class="p1">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
I, of course, am laundry-less. While cruising, I live in an pair of hi-tech REI shorts (panties built in) and a sports bra, both of which I can wash with a bit of dish soap in a coffee mug and dry by waving them at my husband in a tauntingly sexy fashion. I don't believe there is such a thing as a boat under 100 feet with a clothes drier. This is, of course, why safety lines were invented. It sure as hell wasn't to prevent you or your expensive boat gear from falling off the boat as we have repeatedly proven.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
So. Washing on Don Quixote is an all day affair… at least. Sometimes several days. We pull out several gargantuan plastic buckets. Normal folk in the Real World buy these at WalMart to store things that they don't want but are afraid to throw away. They accumulate like drier lint in the back of closets and in garages and in attics. We fill the buckets about half full of water and a toxic Mexican laundry soap, then jam in every item of clothing we own, an indeterminant number of towels and several pillow cases. </div>
<div class="p1">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
Then we wait. There is a theory amongst the DQ clan that if we wait long enough, the laundry will wash itself. Sometimes, this works… as in the time that the laundry was taken over by a desperate colony of thirsty bees who sucked the water out. Then there was the time it sat long enough that the smell made us dump the entire lot into the ocean rather than touch it to retrieve our belongings. </div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
However, mostly, the wait is for an hour or two and then the hard slogging work begins. Using a toilet bowl plunger or bare feet, we stomp the dirt out. It's like making wine the old fashioned way but without the production of palatable beverages. Then in three-man teams, we wring the sludge out using our hand crank Dynajet wringer. Load up some fresh water, repeat the stomp, repeat the wring. And again. And sometimes again because let's face it… we're filthy. </div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
Drying involves clipping a carabiner to each and every item of clothing. We used to use clothes pins but a 25 knot breeze one evening reduced our underwear stock by roughly 70% and took out my only push-up bra so now we clip everything to the lines in a fashion that would withstand a hurricane. Several hours later, we pull the fresh, hand-washed, line-dried linens off the halyards and sheets, completely faded of all color and with the elastic blown to hell but with the bright smell of chemical lavender.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3415/3549418557_58bc7dcfd2_m.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3415/3549418557_58bc7dcfd2_m.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Laundry Girls<br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">by toastfloats</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="p1">
Only a short while passes while I take on the challenge of moving little balls of electronic, physics challenged goo from one location to another on my laptop, but no sounds of war upstairs is promising. DrC pops his head down into the cabin, and says, "Let's move the boat. We'll go to Bahia El Coyote."</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
My eyebrows go up, "What about the laundry?"</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
The pirate smile starts to creep through his beard, eyes dancing he says, "I had an idea." </div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
Twenty minutes later, we are steaming very slowly south to a new bay. Behind us, the dinghy is full of water, laundry, soap, and children, the mix gently agitating in our steady, bouncy wake. Sitting at the helm while my grinning husband drinks a beer at my side as the girls scream with laughter, I admit, "You're brilliant, you know."<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /><a href="http://svnorthfork.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiD2cAyMWdidgbRMmWMLZB7layocfCGmSK1agYBb1vKs1LwEyVPKIrEm8ZsnyZiRukzhCl-R3cp6nO_l9y4bqlmyZ6n92S0DEnVpeney0iYOZeGNUEr49LqV0dLgpRCxl0OMm9_/s1600/Raft-up-button.gif" /></a></div>
</div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><!--Creative Commons License--><a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/"><img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width: 0" src="http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc-sa/2.5/88x31.png"/></a><br/>This work is licensed under a <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/">Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 License</a>.<!--/Creative Commons License--><!-- <rdf:RDF xmlns="http://web.resource.org/cc/" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#" xmlns:rdfs="http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#">
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<License rdf:about="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/"><permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Reproduction"/><permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Distribution"/><requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Notice"/><requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Attribution"/><prohibits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/CommercialUse"/><permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/DerivativeWorks"/><requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/ShareAlike"/></License></rdf:RDF> --></div>Toasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01502441539444340761noreply@blogger.com12Auckland, New Zealand-36.8484597 174.7633315-37.2550762 174.1316175 -36.4418432 175.39504549999998tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38495401.post-7737813918626260912012-05-22T16:50:00.001-07:002012-05-22T17:01:20.367-07:00On Their Own<div style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-right: 10px;">
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/7179786678/" title="It's Not That Far, Honey"><img alt="It's Not That Far, Honey" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7087/7179786678_bcb2b1d67d_m.jpg" style="border: solid 2px #000000;" /></a> <br />
<span style="font-size: 0.7em; margin-top: 0px;"> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/7179786678/">It's Not That Far Honey</a> <br />
Originally uploaded by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/">toastfloats</a>. </span></div>
I have a few cardinal rules for parenting... <br />
<br />
Wait. No... I have several cardinal rules for parenting...<br />
<br />
Hrm. Okay, actually I have bazillions of cardinal rules for parenting. <br />
<br />
One of our hard and fast parenting rules pertains to 'helicoptering' or the avoidance thereof. DrC and I try so hard not to hover that we have achieved a state of zen subterraneanism. The manner in which our children venture forth into the world completely unguarded from the various slings and arrows of outraged Other Folk can and has been described as neglect. I prefer to think of it as creative unobstructionism.<br />
<br />
While cruising, it is easy to forget how unusual we are because we literally swim in a sea of corner-case people. It is also true that the cruising community might well be the most supportive place in the world to raise children. In the absence of winged parents, the girls have spent years with cruisers in all shapes and sizes who want nothing more than to see them to a better place physically, emotionally, and educationally. Maybe small towns are like this, maybe communes. Hard to say. I just know that DrC and I -- never mind our daughters -- owe an exceptional debt of gratitude to the amazing people who raised the girls with us and who continue to support them.<br />
<br />
Which is all to provide context for the oddly Rut Roh! quality of the week. The first hint that we're not the average North Shore family came in the form of an email from one of the girls' deans. <br />
<br />
"Your child missed a day of class without a note and was late for two more. She says she has trouble catching the bus in the morning. Would you please write said child a note and help her get on the bus?"<br />
<br />
"No."<br />
<br />
"?"<br />
<br />
"No really. Her problem. What's your policy for such things?"<br />
<br />
"Um.... detention?"<br />
<br />
"Great. Go for it."<br />
<br />
"No note?"<br />
<br />
"No."<br />
<br />
"No help for the bus?"<br />
<br />
"Absolutely not."<br />
<br />
...[silence]...<br />
<br />
The child in question immediately stepped up to the plate. "Yeah, I screwed up. Yeah, I'll do detention. Yeah, I'm sorry. No, I won't do it again." She's now talking about staying every day after school for an hour in a self-imposed detention since it appears to be the best way to force herself to sit down and master physics. I don't know how much of that I believe, but I do know that she wasn't surprised that we wouldn't defend and protect her. We're not Uncle Sam. Her mistakes, her responsibility, and her job to fix it. And honestly? This child isn't a child any more. She's a very smart young woman who is making her own choices. Some of those appear in the short run to be surprisingly bone-headed while others are so smart they make my eyes water. Ultimately, I am positive she is going to be just fine, assuming we don't all kill each other before we get her off on her own. And if she's making decisions now that mean life will be tougher in the future, she gives every appearance of understanding the trade-off.<br />
<br />
Another befuddling problem is the fact that every single person who interacts with the girls appears to think DrC and I give a damn about their scheduling commitments. I really don't care if they have a meeting, netball practice, rehearsal, or spray tan appointment. The sole service I am willing to provide is to add the events to the family calendar and print it once a week. As soon as the home network gets set up (please let those pay checks start to roll in!), I won't even do that. If paid, I will taxi them around town. You think I'm joking. Every month the girls get a bus allowance. If they want me to drive them because the skies are falling -- and in Auckland this is actually a literal weather condition "Skies Falling" -- then they pay me $1.10/person. I'm just about ready to route all the school notification spam to /dev/null.<br />
<br />
<div style="float: right; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px;">
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/7179797928/" title="Jaime at the Lakes"><img alt="Jaime at the Lakes" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8149/7179797928_363c85f0c6_m.jpg" style="border: solid 2px #000000;" /></a> <br />
<span style="font-size: 0.7em; margin-top: 0px;"> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/7179797928/">Jaime at the Lakes</a> </span><br />
<span style="font-size: 0.7em; margin-top: 0px;"> Originally uploaded by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/">toastfloats</a>. </span></div>
So the question becomes at what point are we failing to provide the supportive and loving environment deemed necessary for kids to thrive? What I believe what might ultimately redeem us is that we will do just about anything the girls ask us to do. Dad, can you please chaperone the intermediate school disco? Yes. Mom, can you put my hair in pin curls every morning for the play? Of course. Dad, can you read my essay? Yep. What makes people mean? Can you find me an alternative to going to college straight out of high school? Can you help me find white knee high socks? Why is my body doing this? What is the square root of 7? Can you stay up with me while I try to make the national level in this math game? Did you download Glee? How do I calculate the volume of a bottle of mustard? Where's the cat? Can you help me build a shelf? Why are people homophobic? Clearly, we are not completely disengaged, though it's hard to say if the pull method of parenting rather than push notifications is any superior.<br />
<br />
So no, Dean Good Guy, we're not going to rescue her. No Director Great Show, we're not going to hold her hand and make her little sandwiches. No Coach Energetic, we don't plan on driving her to morning practice. We suck. Fortunately, the girls don't, so don't worry about it too much. They'll get there.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><!--Creative Commons License--><a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/"><img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width: 0" src="http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc-sa/2.5/88x31.png"/></a><br/>This work is licensed under a <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/">Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 License</a>.<!--/Creative Commons License--><!-- <rdf:RDF xmlns="http://web.resource.org/cc/" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#" xmlns:rdfs="http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#">
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<License rdf:about="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/"><permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Reproduction"/><permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Distribution"/><requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Notice"/><requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Attribution"/><prohibits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/CommercialUse"/><permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/DerivativeWorks"/><requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/ShareAlike"/></License></rdf:RDF> --></div>Toasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01502441539444340761noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38495401.post-87448098910038237222012-05-15T17:17:00.001-07:002012-05-16T11:40:07.320-07:00Do It Yourself - Science<div style="float: left; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px;">
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/7179789604/" title="photo sharing"><img alt="" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5239/7179789604_430ca8c4ff_m.jpg" style="border: solid 2px #000000;" /></a> <br />
<span style="margin-top: 0px;"> <span style="font-size: xx-small;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/7179789604/">Hands Across Takapuna</a> <br />
Originally uploaded by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/">toastfloats</a></span><span style="font-size: 0.9em;">. </span></span></div>
I am not impressed with our global, political leadership. Actually, I am not particularly impressed with their economic leadership, their intellectual capacity, or really any important aspect of their personalities, politics, choices, or methods. In fact, I am becoming That Guy when it comes to politics. Cranky.<br />
<br />
Basically, every single one of them appears to spend their day figuring out new ways to make me cranky.<br />
<br />
Fortunately, my good friends in the computer world introduced me to ways of thinking that I find sufficiently utopian and anarchist to salve my bruised spirits. The <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source" target="_blank">open source movement</a> gives me a nice tingly feeling every time I prowl around and download software or read a well-written blog. When I hear bits of news about progress driven by an <a href="http://www.xprize.org/" target="_blank">X prize</a>, learn of software bazillionaires <a href="http://www.google.co.nz/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=6&sqi=2&ved=0CH0QFjAF&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.reuters.com%2Farticle%2F2012%2F04%2F30%2Fus-space-asteroid-mining-idUSBRE83N06U20120430&ei=2vKyT_fRNYyTiQf14tCmDg&usg=AFQjCNHpJI4DZNA7ikL_0AsT6TORaOTi6Q" target="_blank">funding private expeditions to mine asteroids</a>, or monitor the progress of <a href="https://joindiaspora.com/" target="_blank">Diaspora</a>, a wee bit of optimism returns.<br />
<br />
<span id="goog_1886931307"></span><a href="http://www.kickstarter.com/" target="_blank">Kickstarter</a><span id="goog_1886931308"></span> rocks my world. <br />
<br />
Now I have another in my list of reasons to not despair: the <a href="http://scifundchallenge.org/" target="_blank">#SciFund Challenge</a>. From their web site:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The #SciFund Challenge brings scientists together on <a href="http://www.rockethub.com/" target="_blank">RocketHub</a> to raise money directly from people like you. The goal: To fund research in new ways and to connect everyone to the excitement of doing science. </blockquote>
<br />
Yeah! You want science to move forward, and you don't think your pet interest is getting enough love and attention in the form of public funding? Fine. Pay for it yourself. I like this idea at so many levels. As a serious skeptic, I'd like to see a lot of nonsense debunked with nice, double-blind, ultra-well constructed tests. While there will always be those who choose to ignore the results, having them in hand to argue with is certainly a starting point. Or maybe I would just like to see more SETI research or<a href="http://www.rockethub.com/projects/7579-budding-scientists" target="_blank"> help some high school students do serious science</a> or help someone <a href="http://www.rockethub.com/projects/7530-down-with-the-gown" target="_blank">design a better hospital gown</a>.<br />
<br />
See, it really doesn't matter, right? I can throw my $10, $20, $100 at whatever toots my horn, yanks my chain, drives my curiosity. <br />
<br />
Actually, it's all a bit nepotistic on Don Quixote since I confess that we chose this year to fund <a href="http://www.rockethub.com/projects/7491-evolution-in-action" target="_blank">a friend doing evolution research</a>. One of those things that routinely has us banging heads on the desk is political leaders who think the world is only 6000 years old. Or 3000. Or ending in 2012. Anything that supports evolution science is yummy tasty to both DrC and myself. Siouxsie's project is a nicely blended mix of "support evolution science" and "figure out how to deal with the super bugs evolving to kill us" dripped liberally with flossies. I'm a cruiser. Small bits that float around and phoesforesce is near and dear. For our pledge, she says she will draw a few words of our choice in glowing bacteria. Be still my beating heart. DrC would like her to write "Fiat Lux" while I am rather partial to the completely self-aggrandizing Toast Floats. <br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/c25i4HTWb34?feature=player_embedded" width="640"></iframe><br />
<br />
Your opinion matters! Tell me... what should we have Siouxsie write in bug lights?<br />
<br />
And PS, go fund science. <a href="http://www.rockethub.com/projects/scifund"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-size: large;"><b>Now</b></span></a>.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/uvEUDIUP2o0" width="560"></iframe></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><!--Creative Commons License--><a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/"><img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width: 0" src="http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc-sa/2.5/88x31.png"/></a><br/>This work is licensed under a <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/">Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 License</a>.<!--/Creative Commons License--><!-- <rdf:RDF xmlns="http://web.resource.org/cc/" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#" xmlns:rdfs="http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#">
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<License rdf:about="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/"><permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Reproduction"/><permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Distribution"/><requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Notice"/><requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Attribution"/><prohibits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/CommercialUse"/><permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/DerivativeWorks"/><requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/ShareAlike"/></License></rdf:RDF> --></div>Toasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01502441539444340761noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38495401.post-89436625947223233292012-05-11T20:54:00.001-07:002012-05-11T21:00:13.054-07:00Their Adventures<div style="float: left; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px;">
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/7179800010/" title="photo sharing"><img alt="" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7103/7179800010_cffbffc893_m.jpg" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 2px; border-image: initial; border-left-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 2px; border-right-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 2px; border-top-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 2px;" /></a> <br />
<span style="font-size: 0.9em; margin-top: 0px;"> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/7179800010/">Could Be Mars</a> <br />
Originally uploaded by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/">toastfloats</a>. </span></div>
I need to talk about my children for a few minutes. This is going to be a fatuous, fluttery, overly sweet and sentimental in-your-face-my-children-are-awesome post. Either move on or brace yourself.<br />
<br />
Jaime is climbing mountains. I think I might have mentioned that before. Briefly. I don't mean she is climbing mountains metaphorically. No, I mean that she took her hard earned work money to pay for a trip to Taupo so that she could do the very challenging <a href="http://www.greatlaketaupo.com/new-zealand/TongariroAlpineCrossing/?sitelink=rrm&gclid=CPiVgM_t-a8CFU-HpAodjjdfFw" target="_blank">Tongoriro day hike</a>. This warms the cockles of my heart for several reasons. First, she's spending money on experiences... an expenditure at this age of which I wholeheartedly approve. Second -- and a corollary to the first -- she spent all her money and can now not afford to buy a car, which is another situation of which I wholeheartedly approve since her driving terrifies me. Third, she's hiking across mountains. That is just so awesome! She went without us, which is probably four because it indicates a certain independence of thought and spirit, but... I want to hike across mountains. I might be jealous. <br />
<br />
Okay, I'm jealous.<br />
<br />
Mera is a star. Well, actually she is "Unnamed Young Shark Girl #3." We're okay with that. She is one of the only year 10s in her <a href="http://www.takapuna.school.nz/news/west-side-story-tgs-musical-2012/" target="_blank">high school production of West Side Story</a>, and she is thriving. I enjoy watching her grow more confident, learn about the theater, and become an increasingly better vocalist and dancer. She's pulling that A+ student plus extracurricullar thing with a vengence. Probably more important is she has Friends. Lots of them. She is starting to have a rather busy social calendar. Go Mera!<br />
<br />
<div style="float: right; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 10px;">
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/7179783446/" title="photo sharing"><img alt="" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7230/7179783446_e2397c8115_m.jpg" style="border: solid 2px #000000;" /></a> <br />
<span style="font-size: 0.9em; margin-top: 0px;"> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/7179783446/">You Can Do It Mom...</a> <br />
Originally uploaded by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/">toastfloats</a>. </span></div>
Number 3 is playing netball. Despite our initial groan of comically American dismay, DrC and I are attempting to step up to the parental plate and <a href="http://nynetball.homestead.com/whatnetball.html" target="_blank">learn the rules</a>. All thoughts of this not being a contact sport are evaporating in the face of several team injuries, including Aeron's rather nasty jammed finger and an elbow to the eye. I still find some of the rules bizarre (and do not even get me STARTED on the uniform skirts), but there is no question those girls run for 45 solid minutes per game. She is starting to look like a lean, poorly fed, fiendishly blonde animal. Apparently, a steady diet of fresh veg and fruits, good quality breads and meats, and a glass of warm milk in the morning are insufficient for her current metabolic rate which runs at roughly the same pace as a squirrel on Ritalin. I might break down and start stuffing sausage pies and Pop Tarts into her lunch.<br />
<br />
My husband is a musician. Now would somebody please just give us a call and agree to play with him periodically. It is time he got out of my bedroom and started playing in front of someone other than his sleepy wife. He's better than half the buskers you hear out there. Actually, maybe that's the solution to our money problems too... I could just send him out to busk every night. Hmm.<br />
<br />
I am sort of employed. I should start work next week in fact. Maybe hopefully probably. Before anyone asks, no details forthcoming until the final paperwork gets through the byzantine adminsitrative system of my employer. I don't want to jinx anything. So while the family set the bar pretty high, I'm limping along behind them waving the weekly calendar and chore chart and trying to get them take their fish oil. Sadly, only the cat is impressed.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><!--Creative Commons License--><a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/"><img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width: 0" src="http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc-sa/2.5/88x31.png"/></a><br/>This work is licensed under a <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/">Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 License</a>.<!--/Creative Commons License--><!-- <rdf:RDF xmlns="http://web.resource.org/cc/" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#" xmlns:rdfs="http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#">
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/6340831363/" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" title="photo sharing"><img alt="" src="http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6045/6340831363_fd8055c9f3_m.jpg" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 2px; border-image: initial; border-left-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 2px; border-right-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 2px; border-top-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 2px;" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: 0.7em; margin-top: 0px;"> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/6340831363/">Auckland - The City of Sails</a> <br />
Originally uploaded by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/">toastfloats</a>. </span></div>
I love cites in the morning. Marching through the brisk air with a spring in my step and head buzzing with ideas for what I want to accomplish, it is finally time to admit that I missed this. I still pine for the people we left behind in the States, but most of the life we precipitously abandoned causes me no pain of loss. But this... these cool mornings in a city just waking up, the air fresh from sea breezes, the sky almost painfully blue, the commuters all around pushing through the crowds with feet on auto-pilot while they check email on their phones, the busses rumbling by and the cars getting jammed up at the corners. This city is so familiar, and this walk is reminiscent of hundreds of similar mornings in That Life. The one part of that life I unequivocally loved was going to work downtown with people I absolutely adored, respected, savored.<br />
<br />
I play a game as I walk, people watching and trying to match the outfits with their job description. The women are easy, the young ones in tight little outfits with costume jewelry say new to the business world, probably working as assistants, clerks, receptionists. While the wiser, older women in the same outfit are much sleeker, the gold and gemstones real, the shoes fine tooled leather and the overall look so much more polished in a way that says management or executive. Males in New Zealand are either white colar in blue, black or grey suits, open dress shirt of a light color and faint pin stripe, no tie, leather shoes, or they are blue colar and sport some form of flourescent vest. Sprinkled throughout are the geeks -- the IT professionals are an entire gender-less class in expensive jeans, software branded t-shirts, ear buds firmly lodged under hair cuts that are inevitably at least a month past their prime. There are a few students either young enough for school uniforms or scruffly shlepping their way to University. They are hard to distinguish from an entire subdivision of the service sector on their way to retail shops. The baristas are, of course, already in place as are all the many newly arrived entrepreneurs who have opened Korean, Thai, sushi, curry, and Chinese food shops all over the city.<br />
<br />
It amuses me to wonder what I am saying to the world with the look I sport this morning. The rough, tattered backpack says tourist or college student, but the iPhone says money and the expensive leather boots say management. The wash and wear haircut, no jewelry, no makeup put me squarely in the old-school feminist camp but the gawdy tanzanite and diamond ring DrC likes me to wear is so girly it messes with my dyke groove. But the strongest signal I send this morning is probably the jeans and t-shirt look.<br />
<br />
A confession... During those dot-com boom and bust days when I was a pregnant, tech writing matron, it's true that I found it delightful to watch the eye candy of Hbunny, Noey and Greg parading around in their artfully aged, insanely expensive jeans. The boys (and they were boys at the time even if now they are quite clearly attractive men who would balk at the diminutive) were appealing in a way that a mother, wife and manager should not ever admit. So yes, they are the inspiration for my current outfit. Because it's 10 years later, and I can't resist painting these pants on to my newly sleek legs. Every time I pull on a size 10, I chortle and preen. I strut through the city with the slight bell sliding over my black, pointed boot toe and like to think that I am even half as sexy as my lovely young friends were in the same styles. Of course, the very fact that I am hiking up Queen Street in jeans that cost roughly the same as a smartphone screams tech.<br />
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<a -="" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/5972878814/" mermaid"="" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" the="" title="Aquarium" toast=""><img alt="Aquarium - The Toast Mermaid" src="http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6027/5972878814_95580c522e_m.jpg" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 2px; border-image: initial; border-left-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 2px; border-right-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 2px; border-top-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 2px;" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: 0.7em; margin-top: 0px;"> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/5972878814/">Aquarium - The Toast Mermaid</a> <br />
Originally uploaded by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/" target="_blank">toastfloats</a>. </span></div>
A casual people watcher might be confused about the mixed signals I send with my basic tech mixed with executive and college student look. That's okay. Frankly, I'm confused, too. I don't know what I want to be when I grow up. Part of me wants to stay scruffy, barely off the boat and picking up the occasional contract to plump the cruising kitty. Another part wants to dive hell-bent into the management career track I left in Seattle. I love telling other people what to do. As with my clothes, the only clear signal my heart is sending my head is tech tech tech. I want to stay in software and hardware development if I can. I love the gadgets and the newness and the constant change and the insane schedules. I like the sexy young engineers who don't know they are sexy because they are so frickin' smart and so incredibly dorky. I want the bleeding edge crap that breaks every time I work with it and sales teams who straddle some strange line between engineer and carnival barker. I love the feeling that I know what's going on in a world that most people find necessary to their very lives but completely incomprehensible. I want to crawl back into the black box.<br />
<br />
My pack weighs heavily on my back, chock full of a Windowsian brick, power cords, and a newly emptied to-go mug as I turn the corner on the last stretch to my client. Today, I get to restructure a single-source database for a software company in the business of electronic medical records. It's a start in the right direction. Passers-by can attribute my little smile as amusement at the podcast feed trickling into my ears, but I know it's because I'm exactly where I want to be.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><!--Creative Commons License--><a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/"><img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width: 0" src="http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc-sa/2.5/88x31.png"/></a><br/>This work is licensed under a <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/">Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 License</a>.<!--/Creative Commons License--><!-- <rdf:RDF xmlns="http://web.resource.org/cc/" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#" xmlns:rdfs="http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#">
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<License rdf:about="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/"><permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Reproduction"/><permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Distribution"/><requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Notice"/><requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Attribution"/><prohibits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/CommercialUse"/><permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/DerivativeWorks"/><requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/ShareAlike"/></License></rdf:RDF> --></div>Toasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01502441539444340761noreply@blogger.com157 Victoria St W, Auckland, 1010, New Zealand-36.8484597 174.7633315-37.2550762 174.1316175 -36.4418432 175.39504549999998tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38495401.post-76941582422072681602012-04-22T22:49:00.001-07:002012-04-22T23:01:36.886-07:00Kidz These Days<div style="float: left; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px;">
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/6918590729/" title="I'm Having Fun. Really."><img alt="I'm Having Fun. Really." src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7200/6918590729_8e4b2d0a90_m.jpg" style="border: solid 2px #000000;" /></a> <br />
<span style="font-size: 0.7em; margin-top: 0px;"> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/6918590729/">I'm Having Fun. Really.</a> <br />
uploaded by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/">toastfloats</a>. </span></div>
It probably comes as no surprise that I am a big fan of <a href="https://www.google.co.nz/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CEUQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thestranger.com%2Fseattle%2FSavageLove&ei=I--UT5W9CISRiQe71tiLBA&usg=AFQjCNHJsz3_TfIQnbc9c7KXJIUWfsW60A" target="_blank">Dan Savage</a>, the Seattle-based sex advise columnist whose philosophy could largely be summarized as play nice with friends, lovers, and strangers. I'd say it was the Golden Rule except he does advocate "Do unto others what they ask you to do to them even if you wouldn't ever in a million years want to have that done to yourself." Which, you have to admit, is a rather significant variation.<br />
<br />
How Dan enters this blog is that he routinely fields questions from people who have been prowling around in someone else's online space and found stuff that terrifies/horrifies/saddens/maddens/freaks them out. To which Savage points out, you wouldn't have known about this if you hadn't been a slimy, spying twink hacking into something you had no right to poke into.Then at the same time, I keep reading links, posts, articles for parents and about parents where the story is identical, just change the players. Parents hack the computers and online accounts of their off spring and find things that just twist their knickers into hysterical bunches.<br />
<br />
Turns out our teenagers are really horrific people with crude sensabilities, miserable grammar, no ability to spell whatsoever, and about the same sexual mores as minx in heat. They are not like us. Kids these days just do not know how to behave. They listen to awful music, dress in ways that encourage licentious behaviour, and eat poorly. They drink when they shouldn't, make bad choices regarding companions, and *gasp* talk about sex drugs and rock and roll all the f<bleep>ing time.</bleep><br />
<br />
Surprise surprise! The generation gap isn't different or more extreme than in any prior generation. It's just gone digital! Technology enables the snoop parent to actually walk in the shoes of their spawn, dive into the sticky morasse of teenage lives. It's icky. It's a bit scary. It's oft times stupid, and it's sometimes dangerous. However, there is really nothing new here.<br />
<br />
So just keep moving. Do not hack your child's account. Do not try to log into their Facebook page. Resist the tempation to look over their virtual shoulders. Just because you can does not mean you should. You are not helping your child become a good citizen of the networked world by becoming yourself a twink and a spy. In fact, you suck. You are modelling the worst kind of trollish behaviour.<br />
<br />
We teach our kids to be safe and healthy online the same way we teach them everything else. Model smart, supportive, safe behaviour online. Participate in discussions for which you have passion and knowledge. Lurk in those for which you have an interest but are as yet a n00b. Friend people you know, ignore people you don't, follow people who interest you, but don't stalk them. Only put online information and photos which you do not mind sharing with absolutely everyone in the world including the government, your mother, and the creepy guy that stands at the bus-stop breathing heavy as the nubiles parade past. Block people who send you spam, ask you for money, or solicit you for sexual acts (unless you actually want to deliver them). Stop being a monkey and clicking everything! Avoid flame wars, do not feed trolls, avoid breaking Godwin's law, make a regular habit of doing a vanity search on the major search engines to make sure your name isn't being taken in vain. Own your own domain.<br />
<br />
<div style="float: right; margin-left: 10px; margin-left: 10px;">
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/6918564617/" title="They Say It's a Sexual Experience"><img alt="They Say It's a Sexual Experience" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7181/6918564617_8b604292ba_m.jpg" style="border: solid 2px #000000;" /></a> <br />
<span style="font-size: 0.7em; margin-top: 0px;"> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/6918564617/">They Say Unboxing an Apple is<br /> a Sexual Experience</a><br />
uploaded by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/">toastfloats</a>. </span></div>
Can you do all that? If you can't, get your own house in order before you start trying to tell your teenager how to behave online. If you can and do, then make sure your kids know it. It doesn't hurt to market your blog feed, web site, Twitter handle, and Facebook profile to your kids. Link up with them when they let you (it goes in phases), follow them, read and comment in meaningful ways on what they post. It's okay to friend their friends IF you consider them friends in the Real World. Same with the parents of their friends. When your kid drops you like a hot potato or puts you into a ghetto circle where nothing is visible, be patient. They get over it and start talking to you again eventually.<br />
<br />
Will your children do something stupid online? Of course they will. Will it be a part of their permanent record? Yep. Welcome to the 21st century. Are the college admittance officers and employers of the future going to take all this drunken photography, illiterate rambling, and questionable linking seriously? Not if they want to keep their own youthful puffing-without-inhaling on the downlow.<br />
<div>
<br /></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><!--Creative Commons License--><a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/"><img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width: 0" src="http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc-sa/2.5/88x31.png"/></a><br/>This work is licensed under a <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/">Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 License</a>.<!--/Creative Commons License--><!-- <rdf:RDF xmlns="http://web.resource.org/cc/" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#" xmlns:rdfs="http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#">
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<License rdf:about="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/"><permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Reproduction"/><permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Distribution"/><requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Notice"/><requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Attribution"/><prohibits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/CommercialUse"/><permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/DerivativeWorks"/><requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/ShareAlike"/></License></rdf:RDF> --></div>Toasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01502441539444340761noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38495401.post-18582011860320018282012-04-16T22:26:00.001-07:002012-04-16T22:36:44.442-07:00Little Obstacles<div style="float: left; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-right: 10px;">
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/6631193941/" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" title="photo sharing"><img alt="" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7011/6631193941_ac284968ed_m.jpg" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 2px; border-image: initial; border-left-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 2px; border-right-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 2px; border-top-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 2px;" /></a> <br />
<span style="margin-top: 0px;"> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/6631193941/" style="font-size: 0.9em;">Chatting with Daddy</a> <br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">uploaded by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/">toastfloats</a></span></span></div>
Small changes can really bollux the day. Today, the problem is a kayak. The floating tennis court next door (otherwise known as s/v Pzazz) has always been a large white shadow next to Don Quixote. She's absolutely enormous. Her engines are incredibly loud, and she's embarassingly clean. We really like the owners, of course, but let's face it. Pzazz makes us look bad. <br />
<br />
But as I said, the problem today is actually the kayak. First, it doesn't match the rest of Pzazz. Kayaks are inevitably made of some highly visible shade of orange, red or yellow. This kayak somehow manages to be all three simultaneously. So the big white building in the dock next us is now a big white building with a toothpaste toob of fluorescent flame. Worse, the kayak is somehow ideally positioned to completely block our view of the rest of the marina, including the brand new Lagoon 400 which moved in last week on Dock E.<br />
<br />
So on second thought, maybe the kayak is a good thing. If there is one thing worse than being an old, abused family catamaran toddling next to an elegant modern mega yacht, it's being an old, abused boat across the aisle from a brand new boat of the same model. The neighborhood keeps getting nicer. This is going to be a problem when we go to sell the old girl.<br />
<br />
The whole thing reminds me forcibly and metaphorically that I too am an abused, old family boat surrounded in beautiful younger models. I thought it was distressing when the girls started to outgrow the sobriquet 'little girls' as they became teenagers. This recent phase of becoming young women, however, is so much worse. As is often the case, the newer models fix many of the deficiencies of the earlier iterations. The new ones are prettier, smarter, faster, and all around nicer than their increasingly canterkous, much-patched mother. The metaphor breaks down only when we start talking storage space and bilges. Let's be honest. I've got them beat all over when it comes to places to store extra calories.<br />
<br />
While I could itemize the many broken bits on the good ship Toast, it seems a pointless waste of bytes. I'm more interested in this damn kayak blocking my view. The owners are good people. As soon as I bring it to their attention, they will move the kayak. As I am given to lyrical metaphor and infected with GTD goodness (having committed to rereading the complete David Allen oeuvre as penance for not getting a job fast enough), I wonder what this kayak really means to me. What other obstacles are there between me and what I want. What flaming walls of smelly new plastic stand between me and my hopes and dreams?<br />
<br />
<div style="float: right; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 10px;">
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/6918585311/" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" title="Moon Over Don Quixote"><img alt="Moon Over Don Quixote" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7189/6918585311_ac2e893ba1_m.jpg" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 2px; border-image: initial; border-left-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 2px; border-right-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 2px; border-top-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 2px;" /></a> <br />
<span style="margin-top: 0px;"> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/6918585311/" style="font-size: 0.7em;">Moon Over Don Quixote</a> <br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">uploaded by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/">toastfloats</a></span></span></div>
Six months ago, my horizons were literal. I am mean literal in the most literal possible sense of the word. The horizon was the HORIZON. It doesn't get any more horizon-ish than staring out across the big blue Pacific 500 miles from anything. Now it feels like there are stoppages and blockages between me and absolutely everything. In only months, the family has accumulated so much cruft it feels like we are already due for a good colonic. We are literally trapped in this slip by weather, broken engine, and inertia. Even if we could get out, we can't get together as every time I try to schedule something, one or more of the crew have a prior committment. It's exciting to see everyone engaged in off boat activities -- plays, climbing mountains, netball, friends, boyfriends (okay that's just weird), music lessons, jobs. However, the family that spent so long living with only each other, now appears to be have burst apart like an overfull water balloon on hot concrete.<br />
<br />
It's hard to go from unlimited outlook to a kayak in the face. Even if all I have to do is go over and ask them to move it, it's still there. Getting it out of the way takes time and effort. Getting the kids mustered out for a weekend up in Russell took time and herculean effort. Unfortunately, what stands between me and my children is my children who are not children any more but sexy new models ready for boat shows and yacht races and all sorts of new adventures. And no amount of bitching about it is going to move them out of the way to restore my view of our future as a place where we all bobbed along side by side, linked by a network of docks, lines, and shared goals.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><!--Creative Commons License--><a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/"><img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width: 0" src="http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc-sa/2.5/88x31.png"/></a><br/>This work is licensed under a <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/">Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 License</a>.<!--/Creative Commons License--><!-- <rdf:RDF xmlns="http://web.resource.org/cc/" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#" xmlns:rdfs="http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#">
<Work rdf:about="">
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<dc:type rdf:resource="http://purl.org/dc/dcmitype/Text" />
</Work>
<License rdf:about="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/"><permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Reproduction"/><permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Distribution"/><requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Notice"/><requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Attribution"/><prohibits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/CommercialUse"/><permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/DerivativeWorks"/><requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/ShareAlike"/></License></rdf:RDF> --></div>Toasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01502441539444340761noreply@blogger.com2Ferry Terminal - Bayswater, 0622, New Zealand-36.822202782575957 174.76638793945312-36.834915282575956 174.74664693945311 -36.809490282575958 174.78612893945314tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38495401.post-39558771037904364402012-03-15T20:53:00.000-07:002012-03-15T20:53:02.188-07:00How Do You Eat a Boat?Obviously, one bite at a time... and invite absolutely everyone you know.<div style="font-size: 0.8em; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0 0 10px 0; padding: 0;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/2480849792/" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="Time to Go"><img alt="Time to Go by toastfloats" height="240" src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3248/2480849792_fc0e30883a_m.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/2480849792/" style="font-size: 1em; line-height: 20px; text-align: -webkit-auto;">Time to Go</a><br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/" style="text-align: -webkit-auto;"></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/" style="font-size: 0.8em;">toastfloats</a><span style="font-size: 0.8em; line-height: 20px;"> on Flickr</span></div></td></tr>
</tbody></table></div>Our trip is over. As with any great life passage, we punctuated our journey with a big party at the beginning and end: opening and closing ceremonies at the Olympics, baby shower and wake, bridal shower and girls' recovery night out, bon voyage and fin du voyage. Our Bon Voyage party was in May 2008. We invited our neighbors, our friends, our family. It was a stunningly beautiful day as only Seattle can be when the weather is perfect. In fact, the mountain was out... a statement meaningful to anyone who has lived in the Puget Sound for any length of time. We were happy and scared, excited and absolutely ready to embark on completely new lives.<br />
<br />
Our Fin du Voyage is a bit diferent. We are bringing to a close an amazing phase of our lives. We aren't quite moving forward into something utterly new and strange. Yet, we aren't really doing anything we've ever done before. Living aboard a boat, going to public schools, working... it's been a long time. Morever, when we did these things last, we were very different people with utterly different priorities. It's possible that our emotional roller coaster could be described using almost the same adjective: happy, scared, excited, ready for a new way of life.<div style="font-size: 0.8em; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0 0 10px 0; padding: 0;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/6827550628/" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="Don Quixote Girls Marvel at Our Boat Cake"><img alt="Don Quixote Girls Marvel at Our Boat Cake by toastfloats" height="240" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7193/6827550628_45343fa6ea_m.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/6827550628/" style="font-size: 1em; line-height: 20px; text-align: -webkit-auto;">Don Quixote Girls Marvel at Our Boat Cake</a><br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/" style="text-align: -webkit-auto;"></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/" style="font-size: 0.8em;">toastfloats</a><span style="font-size: 0.8em; line-height: 20px;"> on Flickr</span></div></td></tr>
</tbody></table></div>We broke our Fin du Voyage party into several separate gatherings. If we've learned anything over the intervening years, it is that there are a finite number of people you can host on Don Quixote at any given time. A few too many and she starts to sink. Her waterline way back when with all those people on her was a bit terrifying in retrospect. So we broke the party into bits hoping that the fickle weather gods of this Lousy Summer from Hell would cut us a break and at least one of our parties would be pleasant. Give those fickle gods credit for consistency. The weather sucked each and every time. As a rule, the weather was perfect either the day before or the day after each gathering. On the day of the BBQ, cruise, or gathering, however, it was either a) super windy, b) overcast and drizzly, c) colder than Idaho caves, or d) all of the above. <br />
<br />
As a result, we had a far fewer guests joining us during our Fin du Voyage do's than we had hoped. It's also fair to say that we just don't know all that many people yet. We know a few amazingly cool people, mind you, but it's not like we spent our first year in New Zealand becoming the social life of the Auckland party. DrC and I are not all that good about getting out of the house as it is. Give us the mistaken notion that we're only going to be in New Zealand for "a few months", and we basically failed to extend our reach beyond a very tight, close circle in Pukekohe.<div style="font-size: 0.8em; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0 0 10px 0; padding: 0;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/6827550622/" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="Never Sail Without Your Cake Dinghy"><img alt="Never Sail Without Your Cake Dinghy by toastfloats" height="240" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7193/6827550622_9e2c3ac258_m.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/6827550622/" style="font-size: 1em; line-height: 20px; text-align: -webkit-auto;">Never Sail Without Your Cake Dinghy</a><br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/" style="text-align: -webkit-auto;"></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/" style="font-size: 0.8em;">toastfloats</a><span style="font-size: 0.8em; line-height: 20px;"> on Flickr</span></div></td></tr>
</tbody></table></div>It is probably time to change that approach, however. First, Pukekohe is 30km and 45 minutes south of here. We can't simply pop over for a glass of wine of an evening when we are in the mood. So as a start, we are making a concious effort to reach out to our marina neighbors. The summer (that really an inappropriate word for it but for lack of a better one...) is winding down. The fair weather sailors and the owners of stunning dock jewelry are gradually abandoning the liveaboards for the duration. The nights are chilly, the parking lots emptying out, and our sense of the marina as belonging only to the live aboards increases weekly. Time to dig in for the winter.<br />
<br />
So to speak.<br />
<br />
To kick off this spirit of neighborliness, I've been pushing for bi-weekly liveaboard dinners. I have read countless accounts of liveaboards who talk about their marinas as the best neighborhood possible. Liveaboards in good marinas take care of one another. They take care of the boats around them. So, we kicked off dinner this month at the lounge with a feast of boat cake.<br />
<br />
The boat cake was the best idea ever. The genesis -- as with so many good things -- was over a glass or two or three of wine while we visited with a friend before leaving for Mexico. Peter's vocation is computer geekery. His avocation, however, is cake making. He crafts the most amazing cakes. We thumbed through pictures of his many creations ooo'ing and ahh'ing. Somewhere it just popped out, "You should make US a cake! When we get back!"<br />
<br />
"What do you want?" asks Peter.<div style="font-size: 0.8em; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0 0 10px 0; padding: 0;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/6827550616/" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="Peter With His Creationt"><img alt="Peter With His Creation by toastfloats" height="240" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7037/6827550616_b5f8795fb5_m.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/6827550616/" style="font-size: 1em; line-height: 20px; text-align: -webkit-auto;">Peter With His Creation</a><br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/" style="text-align: -webkit-auto;"></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/" style="font-size: 0.8em;">toastfloats</a><span style="font-size: 0.8em; line-height: 20px;"> on Flickr</span></div></td></tr>
</tbody></table></div>"I don't know... the sea, the Toast Floats logo, our navigation path..." my voice trails off.<br />
<br />
Aeron pipes up, "Don Quixote! You should make Don Quixote." <br />
<br />
I think DrC and I laughed. Whoever heard of a cake boat. Or a boat cake. Far too fancy. Far too much time and trouble. Never mind. The Don Quixote cake was stunning. <br />
<br />
My favorite bit was the dinghy on the davits at the back complete with a wee outboard motor. I think I'll just throw a bunch of pictures on this post and call it done. <br />
<br />
The cake really speaks for itself.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><!--Creative Commons License--><a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/"><img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width: 0" src="http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc-sa/2.5/88x31.png"/></a><br/>This work is licensed under a <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/">Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 License</a>.<!--/Creative Commons License--><!-- <rdf:RDF xmlns="http://web.resource.org/cc/" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#" xmlns:rdfs="http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#">
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<License rdf:about="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/"><permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Reproduction"/><permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Distribution"/><requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Notice"/><requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Attribution"/><prohibits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/CommercialUse"/><permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/DerivativeWorks"/><requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/ShareAlike"/></License></rdf:RDF> --></div>Toasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01502441539444340761noreply@blogger.com3Bayswater Marine Tce, Auckland 0622, New Zealand-36.820922 174.7673-36.8463435 174.727818 -36.7955005 174.806782tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38495401.post-63912022522116974252012-03-02T08:00:00.000-08:002012-03-02T08:00:14.025-08:00A Gift for You<div style="font-size: 0.8em; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0 0 10px 0; padding: 0;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/4071132220/" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="Our Boat Parrot is a Cat"><img alt="Our Boat Parrot is a Cat by toastfloats" height="240" src="http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2494/4071132220_8198d4e811.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/4071132220/" style="font-size: 1em; line-height: 20px; text-align: -webkit-auto;">Our Boat Parrot is a Cat</a><br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/" style="text-align: -webkit-auto;"></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/" style="font-size: 0.8em;">toastfloats</a><span style="font-size: 0.8em; line-height: 20px;"> on Flickr</span></div></td></tr>
</tbody></table></div>We are awakened in the wee hours to the sound of bells chiming like nautical reindeer past the gatehouse, down the ramp and up our transom. DrC launches himself abruptly skyward. I put out a hand to stop him, "No. Don't worry. No kill."<br />
<br />
"What?"<br />
<br />
"No announcement, no kill." <br />
<br />
This makes sense to my husband who, apparently not actually awake, simply flops back into somnolence and resumes snoring. It occurs to me to wonder how many patients were the beneficiary of this half-asleep wakefulness during his medical residency. In the meantime, Dulcinea rummages around the salon for a few minutes while she waits out the latest summer squall. <br />
<br />
Dulcinea doesn't like summer in Auckland. Like the rest of us, she is waiting for weather that could be more reasonably credited with the sobriquet summer. Chill overcast mornings, frequent squalls, long days with no sun whatsoever, this is hardly summer. Dulcinea doesn't like prowling in the rain. Rain is wet. Wet is bad. Bad is not good. Not good means we must all suffer her frustration and unhappiness. There is scratching of the scratch post and nibbling at the nibble bowl and slurping at the slurp bowl. There is thumping up on to salon seats, bunks, cockpit benches and the boom. There is thumping down off seats, boom, and benches. All this activity is accompanied by the cheery sounds of Dulcinea's collar bell, only the most recent in my husband's efforts to prevent our cat from decimating New Zealand's precious wildlife. Then the squall stops, Dulcinea ventures out, peace and quiet descends, and I drop back into sleep.<br />
<br />
Some unknown time later, bells chime and DrC repeats his leap out of bed act. This time I let him. Dulcinea is yelling about how wonderful she is, announcing to all and sundry that she is the most magnificent hunter on all the dock. I can also hear a buzzing whirr of wings. Experience compels me to tell my husband, "Beetle." In other words, don't bother getting out of bed. By the time you get up there, she will have eaten it. First, however, we must acknowledge the kill. I call out to my cat, "Good kitty. Wonderful kitty. Shut up you lovely wonderful hunter. Just eat it and shut up." This is all said in the most loving tones. It reminds me of those times when the girls were small and suckling at my breast when I would say in the most sweet, motherly tones, "Of course mommy loves you, you little shit. I can't believe you woke me up at 2am. Now just suck it up and go back to sleep, beautiful girl." A loud crunching sound from the salon affirms my conviction that it is merely the tone of voice that matters in situations like this one. Beetle wing sounds disappear, yowling stops. Quiet again. <br />
<br />
The days when Dulcinea brought us wingless, legless crickets and laid them on our chest are long gone. I believe the night I launched her out the cabin, down the hall and halfway to La Paz was probably the end of that routine. Now she brings her catch only as far as the salon where she waits until she receives proper respect and accolades for her skill and cleverness. As soon as she catches something, she exults in her superior hunterlyness, shouting to the world about the wonder that is Dulcinea. As a rule, the yowling starts somewhere in the parking lot, then she'll trot past the gatehouse and down the ramp, across the dock and up into our boat chattering about the event all the way. The incongruity of her chirruping, shrieking merrowwing combined with the friendly tinkle of bells wakes me every time.<br />
<br />
She is a very loud cat. She is probably the loudest cat in all of New Zealand. She is also an extremely good hunter. While we crossed the Pacific, Dulcinea focused her attentions on the squid and flying fish who inadvertently launched themselves into our orbit and from there succumbed to Dulci's voracious appetites. Here in Bayswater, she gives every domestic housecat a bad name as she brings home mice, birds, bugs, and on one memorable occasion a foot long rat. Worried that perhaps we might somehow be single-paw-ed-ly destroying a New Zealand endangered species, I verified with the harbor staff that there are no kiwis in Bayswater. In fact, there is nothing particularly precious in our neighborhood. The staff is all for Dulci eating the mice and rats, don't mind so much the occasional finch, and are rather hoping she'll take a liking to the flying roaches. <br />
<div style="font-size: 0.8em; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0 0 10px 0; padding: 0;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/6918599173/" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="The Intrepid Hunter Rests Quietly"><img alt="The Intrepid Hunter Rests Quietly by toastfloats" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7047/6918599173_3e52e9437a.jpg" width="240" height="180"/></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/6918599173/" style="font-size: 1em; line-height: 20px; text-align: -webkit-auto;">The Intrepid Hunter Rests Quietly</a><br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/" style="text-align: -webkit-auto;"></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/" style="font-size: 0.8em;">toastfloats</a><span style="font-size: 0.8em; line-height: 20px;"> on Flickr</span></div></td></tr>
</tbody></table></div>It's not as easy being the proud parent of such a voracious hunter, however. If Dulcinea were silent… if she could just eat with her feline mouth closed… it wouldn't be so bad. The nightly ritual, however, in which either DrC or I must go up, examine her kill, pet her, and then stumble back to our beds has grown stale. A few nights ago, her catch was a small bug of indeterminate species. She had it eaten before I had even turned around and started back down the companionway, upon which she started yowling again. I spin on one heel presented with the sight of that damn cat sitting next to her bowl quite clearly demanding that I feed her. "It's three o'clock in the morning and you couldn't be bothered to catch more than a half inch beetle and you want me to feed you?"<br />
<br />
Apparently so. <br />
<br />
Did I mention that she is loud?<br />
<br />
Tonight, we are awakened by a third hunting alarm. Patting my husband on the shoulder, I go up, fill the dish, toss a cricket overboard, pat the cat, rub my tummy, and go back to bed. As I climb in, my husband mutters at me asking what I think I am about. "Why do you keep going up there?"<br />
<br />
I groan as I settle back into the sheets, "I am completely pussy whipped."<div class="blogger-post-footer"><!--Creative Commons License--><a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/"><img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width: 0" src="http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc-sa/2.5/88x31.png"/></a><br/>This work is licensed under a <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/">Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 License</a>.<!--/Creative Commons License--><!-- <rdf:RDF xmlns="http://web.resource.org/cc/" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#" xmlns:rdfs="http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#">
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<License rdf:about="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/"><permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Reproduction"/><permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Distribution"/><requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Notice"/><requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Attribution"/><prohibits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/CommercialUse"/><permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/DerivativeWorks"/><requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/ShareAlike"/></License></rdf:RDF> --></div>Toasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01502441539444340761noreply@blogger.com5Ferry Terminal - Bayswater, 0622, New Zealand-36.821790537089996 174.76604461669922-36.834503037089995 174.74630361669921 -36.809078037089996 174.78578561669923tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38495401.post-59233417341229625352012-02-27T20:00:00.000-08:002012-02-28T13:15:58.617-08:00Working Away<div style="font-size: 0.8em; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0 0 10px 0; padding: 0;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/6918578377/" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="Getting Run Down by the Spirit of New Zealand"><img alt="Getting Run Down by the Spirit of New Zealand by toastfloats" height="500" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7208/6918578377_a44182228b.jpg" width="375" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/6918578377/" style="font-size: 1em; line-height: 20px; text-align: -webkit-auto;">Getting Run Down by the Spirit of New Zealand</a><br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/" style="text-align: -webkit-auto;"></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/" style="font-size: 0.8em;">toastfloats</a><span style="font-size: 0.8em; line-height: 20px;"> on Flickr</span></div></td></tr>
</tbody></table></div>We've been in New Zealand since mid-October. The original plan -- such as we plan anything any longer -- was to get DrC settled into work, the girls into school, and then I would begin the long slow process to rebuild my consulting business. When I say rebuild, it is perhaps an exaggeration. For most of my consulting life, I have made little or no attempt to be fully employed. Usually, I use contracting as a method to work part time at things I enjoy so that I can spend the rest of the time doing tasks I truly love. Whether it is raising babies, homeschooling little girls, or sailing big girls across oceans, I realize now that contracting has been for me a gateway to spending time with my children.<br />
<br />
However, now my children do not really need me so much any longer. They need the love and the support, sure. They don't really need me to wipe their noses or pick up their toys. Granted, I didn't really ever spend much time wiping either noses or toys. I remember wiping a lot of asses, actually. Come on. You were thinking it. Someone needs to have the courage to stand up and say, "Children are about butt wiping." They are not cute or fluffy or particularly fun, especially not in those early years when the quantity of crap flowing out the back end is truly mind boggling. Seven straight years of diapers and look where it got us… ten straight years of high school girls. I am somehow failing to see how this can be interpreted as the golden statue for Lifetime Achievement in Diaper Pinning. <br />
<br />
Yet, there they go. Strong, independent Jaime. Beautiful, talented Mera. Charming, clever Aeron. Little people all grown up into bright young ladies with not the slightest interest in whether or not I stay home as long as there are plenty of snacks in the bin when they get back to the boat after school. The adjustment to institutional school life is going much smoother this round. I don't know if this is because the schools are better, they learned a great deal about public schooling the first go in Pukekohe, they are more mature, or some combination of the above. We are only three weeks into the year, and they have already established patterns and connections which bode fair well to ensuring I never see them.<br />
<br />
Jaime has perhaps the hardest road this year. A combination of senior year pressure and a failure to do anything strictly educational last year means that her academic load is fierce. To this she added water polo, a job, and a boy friend. Kids these days. I have no idea how she'll handle it. She might not. Look, I know it can be done. I did at least that much my junior and senior year. I just don't know if Jaime is the one to do it. My only contribution to the decision making process is to offer my support, rides to 5:30am practice, and a lesson on GTD should she choose to go ninja on her personal productivity. After that, we'll have to see what she is made of. Smart bet is she either takes me up on learning how to get organized or she selectively reduces her work load until she has the bandwidth to do it all well. The one extremely good sign is that her eyes are wide open, fully aware that she may have taken on too great a load.<br />
<br />
While Mera's choices appear on the surface marginally less ambitious, she is something more of a perfectionist. She is enrolled in Y10 accelerate which as near as I can tell means that functionally she is a Year 11 taking her NCEA Level 1 college qualification courses this year. The academics are a larger work load than she is accustomed to. More importantly, she goes through school with an odd combination of sublime arrogance and complete lack of confidence. I can not fathom it. One minute, she's the smartest kid in the room and not afraid to let you know it. The next she is dithering and fussing and agnsting over the micro details of a paper due on Monday, fearful of tests and worried about how her teachers will respond to her presentations. The worry causes her to spend energy and time perfecting every assignment, perhaps well beyond what is strictly necessary. For extra curricular, she was cast as a Shark girl, plays badminton on the weekends, and… much to the entire family's delighted surprise… made some friends with whom she actually *gasp* does things. Our little Mera, hanging out uselessly at the mall eating bad food and browsing shops. We're so proud. Really. Sometimes we can convince her not to take her Kindle on these excursions. We all count this as a major step forward.<br />
<br />
Aeron is no longer the baby of the family, but she does at least have the advantage of being the youngest and with thus the lightest pressure. Her middle school is only moderately challenging academically, so she is channeling her boundless energies elsewhere. Horrifying both her father and myself, she wants to take up netball. In our opinion, netball is what you get when you take cheerleaders, put them on the basketball court, and make it impossible for them to smash into one another or do anything even moderately interesting. On the other hand, it is a huge sport down here, and I suspect Aeron will prove outstanding. She's scrappy, strong, and highly athletic. She was voted her class captain last week. No surprise, really, with her empathy and charm she's a natural leader and politician. DrC and I are thoroughly underimpressed with her course of study so we're supplementing in the evenings with math and French. We'll see how she goes.<br />
<div style="font-size: 0.8em; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0 0 10px 0; padding: 0;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/6918576703/" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="Couple of Walkers"><img alt="Couple of Walkers by toastfloats" height="180" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7189/6918576703_544e2c3e31_m.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/6918576703/" style="font-size: 1em; line-height: 20px; text-align: -webkit-auto;">Couple of Walkers</a><br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/" style="text-align: -webkit-auto;"></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/" style="font-size: 0.8em;">toastfloats</a><span style="font-size: 0.8em; line-height: 20px;"> on Flickr</span></div></td></tr>
</tbody></table></div>And then there is the good doctor. I was supposed to start work in January. Instead of working and starting the family down the path of putting money into accounts, I have spent the past two months either prepping for or recovering from surgery. As a result, our finances are worse than anemic. DrC stepped into the breach. He has been picking up extra shifts at every possible opportunity. When he isn't doing doctor stuff, he is scraping away -- sometimes quite literally -- at the back log of boat maintenance chores. It would be hard to be more impressed with this work ethic, diligence, and emotional strength. He is a good life partner in so many ways. It didn't take this experience to make me recognize it, but it never hurts to be reminded that I made an outstanding choice and am lucky to have him.<br />
<br />
So that's it. While I've enjoyed some amazing professional experiences, I haven't worked full time since 2005. On ramping isn't going to be easy. On the other hand, I look like the sole slacker in a family of over-achievers. Might be time to remind these Congers where they got that hyper-activity, more is more, I-can-do-anything-better-than-you gene.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><!--Creative Commons License--><a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/"><img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width: 0" src="http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc-sa/2.5/88x31.png"/></a><br/>This work is licensed under a <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/">Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 License</a>.<!--/Creative Commons License--><!-- <rdf:RDF xmlns="http://web.resource.org/cc/" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#" xmlns:rdfs="http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#">
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<License rdf:about="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/"><permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Reproduction"/><permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Distribution"/><requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Notice"/><requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Attribution"/><prohibits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/CommercialUse"/><permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/DerivativeWorks"/><requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/ShareAlike"/></License></rdf:RDF> --></div>Toasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01502441539444340761noreply@blogger.com327 Sir Peter Blake Parade, Bayswater, Auckland 0622, New Zealand-36.821240872987595 174.76638793945312-36.833953372987594 174.74664693945311 -36.808528372987595 174.78612893945314tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38495401.post-34714111005977264892012-02-23T19:30:00.000-08:002012-02-24T10:50:24.100-08:00Friends of Friends<div style="font-size: 0.8em; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0 0 10px 0; padding: 0;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/5903067500/" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="Dean Learns Tahitian Dance"><img alt="Dean Learns Tahitian Dance by toastfloats" height="180" src="http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6049/5903067500_53d608a053_m.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/5903067500/" style="font-size: 1em; line-height: 20px; text-align: -webkit-auto;">Dean Learns Tahitian Dance</a><br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/" style="text-align: -webkit-auto;"></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/" style="font-size: 0.8em;">toastfloats</a><span style="font-size: 0.8em; line-height: 20px;"> on Flickr</span></div></td></tr>
</tbody></table></div>The crew of s/v Ceilydh is here in Auckland due to a completely unreasonable and absurd requirement of Australian immigration law. With very little forewarning, Evan, Diane, and Maia showed up on our transom looking for a place to stay while they sort out the kerfuffle. Unsurprisingly, they settled into our boat with grace, ease, and little disruption to our crew. Frankly, the best guests to have on a boat are fellow yachties. They know not to bring a lot of luggage and to immediately store the luggage out of the way. They never put toilet paper down the head, immediately start helping with boat chores, and when the time comes to leave the boat for the day, they don't leave the hatches open, the lights on, or their crap lying around. In fact, Ceilydh makes betters guests than my eldest daughter to whom I should probably secure everything she owns with a spring loaded, retractable tether.<br />
<br />
The homeschool community routinely faces the question of socialization. Boat schoolers must address this issue to an even greater extent. How can we explain to land-based folk just how well socialized our children have become? Our children learn to play with kids of all ages, become instant play mates, enjoy the presence and company of adults. They can talk with anyone, share games and ideas regardless of age, race, or country of origin. Why did it not occur to me until tonight that the same processes that make my girls so capable -- such confident, well-spoken young people -- worked their magic on DrC and I as well?<br />
<br />
Tonight as I watch Evan and Diane slip easily and comfortably into a group of Don Quixote's New Zealand friends, I recognize another truism of cruisers: We do well with strangers. Cruisers quite literally drift in and out of each others lives. We meet each other in one anchorage, have a dinner and sundowners, maybe go on a hike, and then we depart in different directions. It is a survival skill to become amiable, to take genuine interest in the lives of people known for less than a day. We learn how to be entertaining ourselves and in turn be diverted by newness, friendly and comfortable in a crowd of people formed of varying social strata, education, political or religious ideology. This isn't the artificial amiability of the politician, but rather a sincere adaptation to a transient social environment.<br />
<br />
Just look at my husband. I remember the night years ago in Seattle when my good friend Wyatt looked at me over a glass of red and admitted, "I've known you for a long time. It's only now I think I understand why you married Dean." It took years for my husband to open up enough to let Wyatt know him, to reveal to someone outside our family the deeply sensitive, strong, and giving person inside. DrC has a wicked sense of humor, a keen and insightful intellect, and a wide ranging interest in the world. He is articulate, well read, and very current in his understanding of politics, economics, and society. But back in the day -- in those days before we become cruisers -- I was one of the only people in the world who knew this. He was shy, quiet, extremely private. At parties, he would functionally disappear, particularly in the presence of my loud, widely gesticulating, opinionated self. It was partially my fault, as I was unfortunately the obnoxious bore who would talk way too much, way too loudly, and with rarely a pause to listen. It was partially his fault, as he was a man who listened intently but almost never participated in the conversation.<br />
<br />
Yet, here we are. I am settled on the couch listening to Deb tell me all about her broken leg. Moreover, I genuinely am interested; I am not just waiting until she takes a breath before I start in about me-me-me. Her story is actually a bit horrifying, a nasty break with lots of fits and starts in the healing process and the plot includes a great deal of morphine. My participation consists of a skill I learned from my husband, active and engaged listening, comments injected only to spur more revelations from Deb. It is such a pleasure to sit, sip my wine and listen to her voice, take inspiration from her strength both physical and emotional. In turn, DrC is actively engaged across the room sharing ideas about some dang thing with a man I know he's known for all of a half hour. His arms are waving, and he laughs at a comment while maintaining a running stream of dialog. We haven't switched places. I'm not silent, he's not loud and overwhelming, but we are also not the same people. Evan and Mark are sitting on the couch chatting about the performance characteristics of some old schooner Mark used to crew. Diane is giving Steve ideas how to get started in the travel writing business. My cruising friends have slipped seamlessly, effortlessly into this crowd of strangers. All four of us appear to be enjoying ourselves, and perhaps just as importantly give every appearance of providing interest, pleasure and mutual entertainment to the people with whom we interact.<br />
<br />
"What about socialization?" The They of the world always ask. <br />
<br />
"You mean ours, don't you?" I will now respond. DrC and I have finally completed our socialization, and for damn sure we didn't learn it in school. While DrC and I were out with our daughters on quiet anchorages and busy little port towns, our girls showed us what it means to be well socialized, highly functional members of society. I finally feel like a grown up.<br />
<center><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/6268889642/" title="Don Quixote and Ceilydh by toastfloats, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6119/6268889642_fd1486b7fe.jpg" width="500" height="354" alt="Don Quixote and Ceilydh"><br><small>Don Quixote and Ceilydh<br>by Toastfloats on Flickr</small></a><br />
</center><div class="blogger-post-footer"><!--Creative Commons License--><a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/"><img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width: 0" src="http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc-sa/2.5/88x31.png"/></a><br/>This work is licensed under a <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/">Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 License</a>.<!--/Creative Commons License--><!-- <rdf:RDF xmlns="http://web.resource.org/cc/" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#" xmlns:rdfs="http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#">
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<License rdf:about="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/"><permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Reproduction"/><permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Distribution"/><requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Notice"/><requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Attribution"/><prohibits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/CommercialUse"/><permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/DerivativeWorks"/><requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/ShareAlike"/></License></rdf:RDF> --></div>Toasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01502441539444340761noreply@blogger.com2Pukekohe, New Zealand-37.20213 174.9035127-37.252720499999995 174.82454869999998 -37.1515395 174.9824767tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38495401.post-86320823784022455462012-02-19T19:12:00.000-08:002012-02-20T12:55:26.597-08:00Welcome Back<div style="font-size: 0.8em; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0 0 10px 0; padding: 0;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/6631202867/" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="Low Income Ginger Housing"><img alt="Low Income Ginger Housing by toastfloats" height="240" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7167/6631202867_79744784fd.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/6631202867/" style="font-size: 1em; line-height: 20px; text-align: -webkit-auto;">Low Income Ginger Housing</a><br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/" style="text-align: -webkit-auto;"></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/" style="font-size: 0.8em;">toastfloats</a><span style="font-size: 0.8em; line-height: 20px;"> on Flickr</span></div></td></tr>
</tbody></table></div>I am frequently asked, "How do you write so well? How does one create and maintain a successful blog? Where do the ideas come from? How do you get the words to flow?" This is perhaps the single commonality amongst every writer in the world, regardless of culture, creed, age, gender or language. We are all asked this question. If you write, particularly if you do so with any sort of success whatsoever, people who do not write want to know how you do it. They want the magic PowerPoint bullets which will transform them from a person with great ideas to a person who has written those great ideas down in a form that is entertaining, insightful, or compelling. Consistently, every author interviewed delivers a variation of the same response to this question: writing is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration. <br />
<br />
Writing -- whether it be scripts, music, blogs, novels, or science papers -- is work. If you do it for a living, you need to work even when the 10% chooses not to show up for the day. The problem is that while you can train diligence, inspiration is fickle. At times, the muse screams like a banshee, and a writer literally can not get the words down fast enough. Personally, I relate strongly with novelists who talk about characters who literally won't shut up, characters that have lives and notions of their own, characters that veer the story in a completely unexpected direction, characters that ruin the plot, characters that take over the book and require sequels ad nausea. In my case, articles oft times spring full grown into my head like Athena emerging from the head of Zeus. Other times, I'll start an article on one topic and an idea sends me spinning orthogonally in an entirely different direction. Good writers let this happen. A writer allows the organic flow of their creative self to take over the process. Editing, self-censorship, second thoughts all come later. The first trick is to let those ideas get out of your head, on to the page or into your music, let the fresh air blow through them and give them time to spread out. The 90% is spent cleaning up the resulting mess, paying bills, and answering fan mail. <br />
<br />
Now if I were a professional writer (e.g. if you all PAID for these hundreds of thousands of words I've spilled over nearly six years), I would not have the luxury of failing to write for three weeks. Pretending professionalism, I have in the past queued up articles in advance of major life events just in case I could not or would not be able to post new content. It has been a point of pride, in fact, this ability to consistently deliver new material over an extended duration… A test, as it were, of my ability to masquerade as a columnist rather than as the technical writer and project management consultant I am in the Real World. However, the tumor and extensive plastic surgery required to patch me up derailed me completely. I just couldn't bring myself to do the 90% required to get articles onto the page and into the queue. Maybe my id is secretly both spiteful and incredibly vain and decided to make everyone else suffer while my face was reconstructed. Maybe facing my return to the paid work force, I was taking the first steps towards letting go of the Toast Floats project. Or, maybe I'm just lazy.<br />
<br />
I marvel at the self-discipline of columnists and journalists who crank out articles year after year with the full knowledge that sometimes they are writing in complete absence of any interest or inspiration in their own work. The real giants in the field must somehow infuse their writing with freshness even in the presence of complete ennui, just as a Broadway actor must deliver a compelling and genuine performance even on the 100th night. Amateurs bloggers like myself, though, have the luxury of simply stopping when the 10% takes a flier. In my case, Inspiration took one look at the estimates for forehead flap surgery, told me to go to hell, and went on vacation. So lacking any self-discipline or any financial incentive or frankly even the faintest shame or remorse, I stopped. <br />
<br />
In any case, yesterday I was at a wine festival with some of the best, warmest people in the world -- Ceilydh's Evan and Diane and Lauren of Pico -- and an article sprung full blown into my head. Another swam through my hind brain as I drifted off to sleep last night. A third smacked me literally between the eyes as my wonderful surgical nurse Susan was cleaning goo and scabs off my second nose this morning. Inspiration started whispering in my ear on the walk to the cafe. She took over as soon as I pulled up TextEdit. I started to write about the wine festival and instead this came out… these words you are reading now, written in a Starbuck's knock off in Remeura with an insanely expensive latte cooling on the table beside me. <br />
<br />
Writers are compelled to write. The dirty little secret is that there are no PowerPoint bullets that can help you. If you don't write, you don't have to. If you write, you write because you have no choice. <br />
<br />
Toast to Ms. Inspiration: Welcome back, babe. I missed you.<br />
<center><div style="font-size: 0.8em; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0 0 10px 0; padding: 0;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: center; margin-top: 1em; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/6872299251/" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="Olympic Windsurfers Sans Wind"><img alt="Olympic Windsurfers Sans Wind by toastfloats" height="375" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7061/6872299251_3a0b9aa8d8_z.jpg" width="500" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/6872299251/" style="font-size: 1em; line-height: 20px; text-align: -webkit-auto;">Olympic Windsurfers Sans Wind</a><br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/" style="text-align: -webkit-auto;"></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/" style="font-size: 0.8em;">toastfloats</a><span style="font-size: 0.8em; line-height: 20px;"> on Flickr</span></div></td></tr>
</tbody></table></div></center><div class="blogger-post-footer"><!--Creative Commons License--><a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/"><img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width: 0" src="http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc-sa/2.5/88x31.png"/></a><br/>This work is licensed under a <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/">Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 License</a>.<!--/Creative Commons License--><!-- <rdf:RDF xmlns="http://web.resource.org/cc/" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#" xmlns:rdfs="http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#">
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<License rdf:about="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/"><permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Reproduction"/><permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Distribution"/><requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Notice"/><requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Attribution"/><prohibits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/CommercialUse"/><permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/DerivativeWorks"/><requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/ShareAlike"/></License></rdf:RDF> --></div>Toasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01502441539444340761noreply@blogger.com827 Sir Peter Blake Parade, Bayswater, Auckland 0622, New Zealand-36.821601590500087 174.76572275161743-36.82319059050009 174.76325525161744 -36.820012590500085 174.76819025161743tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38495401.post-49671225935478875752012-01-30T21:29:00.000-08:002012-01-30T21:29:49.180-08:00Back to Form<div style="font-size: 0.8em; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0 0 10px 0; padding: 0;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/6793910595/" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="We Are Out Again!"><img alt="We Are Out Again! by toastfloats" height="240" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7014/6793910595_2c50b0cf3d.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/6793910595/" style="font-size: 1em; line-height: 20px; text-align: -webkit-auto;">We Are Out Again!</a><br><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/" style="text-align: -webkit-auto;"></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/" style="font-size: 0.8em;">toastfloats</a><span style="font-size: 0.8em; line-height: 20px;"> on Flickr</span></div></td></tr>
</tbody></table></div>We did it. We got out of the marina. We actually took the boat. We started the motors. We dropped off the lines, and we motored around the corner.<br />
<br />
Amazing.<br />
<br />
I was beginning to think we might never go out again. After arriving in New Zealand and settling into slip F3 in Bayswater, we started to grow roots… both figuratively and literally. While other boats celebrated summer -- the summer that never was down here where the weather has been absolutely miserable since we arrived, Don Quixote sat on the dock. When the sun actually decided to make an appearance after months of avoiding Auckland, we sat on the dock. We even sat through holiday weekends as the entire country took off three weeks for Christmas and New Years. <br />
<br />
Our neighbors were astonished, and I mean that in the most negative way possible. You have this lovely boat all prepared for cruising, yet you don't want to go out for the week? Why ever not? But six months of living on the hook somehow made going out the most unappealing prospect possible. When the weekends came, it felt good to just sit here. At night, we could sleep even when the wind started to howl. The girls could get off and go both other people's parents. The cat prowled every night. We took showers whenever we felt like it… and the water was HOT.<br />
<br />
Until last week. Jaime asked us to take her friends out on a harbor cruise to celebrate her sixteenth birthday. Honestly? I was a bit surprised. There are times when it feels like Jaime would do positively anything to distance herself from her family, her history, her boatiness. So I greeted this somewhat out of character enthusiasm for the boat as a positive sign of maturity and reattachment to family matters. I know. I can read an entire, heartrending story of family reunion into a simple request to get drunk on a boat with friends. You'll just have to trust me that it worked for both of us.<br />
<br />
The evening was neither perfect nor glorious, but it was fun. Don Quixote -- laden with all our worldly goods, full tanks of water, gas, and beer, as well as a dozen teenagers, my client and his wife, and a partridge in a pear tree -- was about as fun to drive as a stoned hippopotamus. Instead of dancing gracefully over the waves, she slammed into them with indomitable will and an almost barge-like competence. At the end of the evening, it took the rugby team of teenagers, a dock hand and both engines to wedge ourselves back into our slip looking somewhat like a fat lady rolling on the couch while squeezing herself into a 10-year old pair of jeans. Parts of us kept squirting out sideways until we nailed her down with a spider web of lines. It was a complete farce and had me red-faced on the potty run for the next few days, afraid of chance encounters with witnesses on my way to the shore showers.<br />
<br />
<div style="font-size: 0.8em; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0 0 10px 0; padding: 0;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/6793911817/" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="Summer Weekend on Waiheke"><img alt="Summer Weekend on Waiheke by toastfloats" height="240" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7141/6793911817_6c3190f566.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/6793911817/" style="font-size: 1em; line-height: 20px; text-align: -webkit-auto;">Summer Weekend on Waiheke</a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/" style="text-align: -webkit-auto;"></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/" style="font-size: 0.8em;">toastfloats</a><span style="font-size: 0.8em; line-height: 20px;"> on Flickr</span></div></td></tr>
</tbody></table></div>What the evening did accomplish, however, was remind the entire family why we live on this boat. It is not too much of a stretch to say it reminded us of who we are. It is true that we are the loud, funky American family with the loud funky and very silly tortoise shell cat who lives on dock F. We are also That Family, the definition of which is ever so much more interesting and ever so much more family-like than the fractured, busy, almost normal group of people who have been sharing these hulls for the past few months.<br />
<br />
So That Family went on a real sail this weekend. We took off for the islands. There really is no point in my describing the details. If you've read my blog for any length of time, there will not be one single thing about the experience that is any way unique or interesting. Waves, boats, wind, islands, anchors, dinghies, little towns to explore and fishing boats to dodge, shops to drift around in, beaches on which to hunt shells, sail drives to service, zincs to check, thru hulls to clean. It was all so very normal. <br />
<br />
Just a family together, sharing dinner and a card game and a movie, on a boat, at anchor, off shore of a pretty island surrounded in water and wind and birds and ocean.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><!--Creative Commons License--><a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/"><img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width: 0" src="http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc-sa/2.5/88x31.png"/></a><br/>This work is licensed under a <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/">Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 License</a>.<!--/Creative Commons License--><!-- <rdf:RDF xmlns="http://web.resource.org/cc/" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#" xmlns:rdfs="http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#">
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<License rdf:about="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/"><permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Reproduction"/><permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Distribution"/><requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Notice"/><requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Attribution"/><prohibits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/CommercialUse"/><permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/DerivativeWorks"/><requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/ShareAlike"/></License></rdf:RDF> --></div>Toasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01502441539444340761noreply@blogger.com6Ferry Terminal - Bayswater, 0622, New Zealand-36.821790537089996 174.76621627807617-36.83443403709 174.74656127807617 -36.809147037089993 174.78587127807617tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38495401.post-59993253767961533482012-01-18T01:22:00.000-08:002012-01-18T01:22:30.490-08:00Take Time to Express YourselfYou get the government you work for. Congress is starting to listen on the issue of SOPA and PIPA. If you have not yet taken time to educate yourself, there is still a chance to make your voice heard, your concerns understood. Today, this blog is brought to you because there is no government who can tell me not to publish and no efficient technical mechanism to prevent its distribution. If SOPA and PIPA passes, that might not always be the case. Freedom, like happiness, requires maintenance.<br />
<br />
Learn more: <a href="http://americancensorship.org/" target="_blank">Stop American Censorship</a> and let President Obama know your sentiments as well: <a href="https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions#!/" target="_blank">Petition the President</a><br />
<br />
<br />
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<a href="http://americancensorship.org/" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL6zOD8Jg7IwUEQCzfp7Br-041TpPPqvaq5uJFzTJkb2ONAAOfWLMarc2mWf0scIdfCVi5n0OFNs5_5X3aZgJViw5G5AS_6LgJnCrgvS8VMjwV1QeM8sNs0TxTkhGV9gAeonzr7Q/s400/stop_sopa_large.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<License rdf:about="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/"><permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Reproduction"/><permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Distribution"/><requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Notice"/><requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Attribution"/><prohibits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/CommercialUse"/><permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/DerivativeWorks"/><requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/ShareAlike"/></License></rdf:RDF> --></div>Toasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01502441539444340761noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38495401.post-34888369286467506582012-01-14T22:57:00.001-08:002012-01-14T23:08:26.144-08:00Opportunity Costs<div style="font-size: 0.8em; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0 0 10px 0; padding: 0;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/6699379651/" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="My Teeth Are DONE"><img alt="My Teeth Are DONE by toastfloats" height="320" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7006/6699379651_be903eeeec.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/6699379651/" style="font-size: 0.8em; line-height: 20px; text-align: -webkit-auto;">My Teeth Are DONE</a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/" style="text-align: -webkit-auto;"></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/" style="font-size: 0.8em;">toastfloats</a><span style="font-size: 0.8em; line-height: 20px;"> on Flickr</span></div>
</td></tr>
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</div>
I am sitting in the orthodontist's office as the kind, competent staff install hardware in my eldest daughter's mouth which will cost us roughly the same as a new main sail. We do not sail the high seas any longer. In fact, it may be six months before we even consider taking the boat out for a harbor cruise. Nevertheless, I would really prefer a new main sail.<br />
<br />
I suspect Jaime would also prefer a new main sail. Idly I ask, "Jaime. If you had $7,000 to spend on the boat, what would you buy?"<br />
<br />
"A car." <br />
<br />
I blink. Even the dentist blinks. He looks at me, so I say it again, "On the boat?"<br />
<br />
"Oh. Ahh boh…" There are now hands in her mouth. She thinks for awhile. "Uh caw."<br />
<br />
Okay, still the car. "The Boat."<br />
<br />
Fine. Jaime grimaces. It could be something the dentist did. Alternatively, it could be my persistence. The hands leave her mouth long enough for her to blurt out, "New galley. Top to bottom."<br />
<br />
She has a bit of a lisp at the moment, but I can understand. Yes, if I had a lot of money, the galley would probably come before the sail. It would definitely come before a car. An oven that works without using elastic and a knife to jam the solenoid would be lovely. A stove that actually browns meat would be even better. I nod in agreement, "Good thinking, Jaime."<br />
<br />
"Whai?" The mouth is wide open, ablaze with light, and looking rather sparkly with the new bits getting glued to the upper jaw.<br />
<br />
"That's how much this is costing us."<br />
<br />
We both sit grimly, silently, as the dentist installs our new countertop and sink. As he finishes, we both sigh at the lost opportunity. I try to look on the bright side, "With those blue elastic bands, you match the boat."<br />
<br />
Her tongue probes the edges of her new mouth, "Huh." She doesn't sound mollified. "It hurts." <br />
<br />
Thinking of the coming winter sans galley upgrade, new sails, or a functioning heater since we now can't afford to replace that either, I hug her quietly. "Priorities, my love. Priorities. We can do this." Her unexpected return squeeze and quiet, "You'll be okay, Mom," cements the deal.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><!--Creative Commons License--><a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/"><img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width: 0" src="http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc-sa/2.5/88x31.png"/></a><br/>This work is licensed under a <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/">Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 License</a>.<!--/Creative Commons License--><!-- <rdf:RDF xmlns="http://web.resource.org/cc/" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#" xmlns:rdfs="http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#">
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<License rdf:about="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/"><permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Reproduction"/><permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Distribution"/><requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Notice"/><requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Attribution"/><prohibits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/CommercialUse"/><permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/DerivativeWorks"/><requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/ShareAlike"/></License></rdf:RDF> --></div>Toasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01502441539444340761noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38495401.post-14156596535658685902012-01-02T22:24:00.000-08:002012-01-02T22:26:13.563-08:00Elephantine Musings<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/6341574898/"><img alt="The Girls Contemplate Our New Home" border="0" height="240" src="http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6222/6341574898_b19461cea6_m.jpg" width="180" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/6341574898/" target="_blank">The Girls Contemplate Our New Home<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: xx-small;">Uploaded by toastfloats</span></a></td></tr>
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At times I am convinced that the Fates are determined to prevent me from successfully reentering the work force full time. I swear it is not merely an elaborate form of laziness which over the years has pulled me out of the employment market. Homeschooling, cruising, extended stays in foreign countries, all these are arguably my fault but I OWN them. I fully admit that life distracted me. I did it on purpose with a purpose.<br />
<br />
Now, however, I want to work. Okay, world? I want to work. I work hard. I'm good at what I do. Let me work.<br />
<br />
Except not for the last two months while I sorted our immigration paperwork, got DrC all spiffied up and off to work himself, and scrapped nearly 8 months of indescribably icky goo off our bodies and out of the boat. <br />
<br />
And not this month while my Mommy is in town.<br />
<br />
And apparently not next month while I have a good chunk of my face reassembled. <br />
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It turns out that the little bump on my nose which initially appeared like the world's most persistent and slow forming zit is actually not a zit at all. It's a zebra case of a tumor which is going to just keep growing until I either cut it off or I can't see past it and run my car off a cliff. The medical definition of a zebra is a disease or condition that is so uncommon that a doctor only learns of it because medical schools engage in a form institutionalized hazing which in any other context would be declared a felony. Any given zebra only shows up in the average medical practice once or twice in a doctor's entire career, if that. Such cases are shared with colleagues over a slice at lunch or at the annual Christmas party after a few drinks. Professors make presentations about zebras, others make a living doing research on them and publishing the results in esoteric journals. <br />
<br />
This zebra tumor has -- as is usual in such cases -- an unpronounceable, unspellable name which I promptly forgot but which DrC rattles off with élan whenever the topic arises. It apparently has been there for years and years… maybe even since childhood! … just waiting till the perfect moment when lack of ready cash, a high deductible insurance plan, and extraordinarily pent up demand to get back to work combine to make this the worst possible moment to erupt into sight. Now that it's growing, however, the thing is on a roll. Depending on my mood, the girls either refer to me as The Two Nosed Witch or Rudolph, the Double-Nosed Reindeer. It just gets bigger from here. Fortunately, there is just about zero chance it means death to Toast unless I am foolish enough to allow it to grow so large as to block my ability to eat.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately, getting rid of it is fraught with all sorts of horribleness. It'll be expensive. It'll leave a really nasty scar. And, I am not shitting you, I am going to spend three weeks with an "elephant trunk made out of skin" stuck gobsmack in the middle of my face. Explaining how this works may require a diagram. The idea is the plastics doc cuts a strip of my forehead, backs it with a chunk of belly fat, then without detaching it, twists it over and down and attaches it to my nose where the dermatologist has left a great gaping hole after cutting out the tumor. Then we let the thing sit there for nearly a month while the skin grafts together after which we "trim the tusk off". You're damn right you are going to trim that off. <br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/6268916720/"><img alt="Climbing Out" border="0" height="240" src="http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6213/6268916720_ee7900a1cd.jpg" width="180" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/6268916720/" target="_blank">Climbing Out<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: xx-small;">Uploaded by toastfloats</span></a></td></tr>
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On the upside, <a href="http://blog.toastfloats.com/2011/12/my-facebook-rant.html">I told you</a> I didn't need all those 'get rid of belly fat' Facebook adverts. I have my own creative ways to reduce that flab. On the downside, I'm not entirely clear how I'm supposed to go on a job interview with a skin trunk curling up from my nose. I'm going to look like a Star Trek character, and I don't mean that in a good way. I know I should be happy that I'm not cast as a Red Shirt in this drama, but I just keep thinking that no one really ever thought the Ferengi were doable, no matter how lovable Quark got towards the end. <br />
<br />
Tonight, I'm glib about this, able to tell jokes and contemplate the whole thing with some degree of distance and equanimity. I have to be honest, however. After leaving the plastics consult, I just sat down for awhile and cried. I don't want to do this. It's expensive, painful, and scary. I have no real hope I'll look like Nicole Kidman after my surgery is complete. I'll probably look like someone who has been through a far worse experience like a car crash or the collapse of a building in an earthquake. It'll take a long time to heal and might require several additional surgeries before I don't look like someone grafted a piece of my ass on to my face. I had a real zit on the other side of my nose this morning which almost sent me into hysterics. I want to be brave and strong and reasonable, but my inner me appears to just want to scream and jump up and down and bitch about the unfairness of it all. Fairness, of course, has nothing to do with it. Our own troubles touch us more profoundly than the most terrible trials of others, because they are our own. That doesn't make my trouble less to me, the thought does help me with the reasonableness of it all. It's a benign tumor. While I can't see how it could possibly make me stronger, it isn't going to kill me. I am not a great beauty to begin with and this isn't going to make me less so.<br />
<br />
Getting down to brass tacks, what I really need is some work to do for the month of February that does not involve seeing people. Reasonable or not, I don't think I can shake hands with a client and keep a straight face when my face isn't.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><!--Creative Commons License--><a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/"><img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width: 0" src="http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc-sa/2.5/88x31.png"/></a><br/>This work is licensed under a <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/">Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 License</a>.<!--/Creative Commons License--><!-- <rdf:RDF xmlns="http://web.resource.org/cc/" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#" xmlns:rdfs="http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#">
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<License rdf:about="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/"><permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Reproduction"/><permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Distribution"/><requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Notice"/><requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Attribution"/><prohibits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/CommercialUse"/><permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/DerivativeWorks"/><requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/ShareAlike"/></License></rdf:RDF> --></div>Toasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01502441539444340761noreply@blogger.com14Bayswater Marine Tce, Auckland 0622, New Zealand-36.821240872987595 174.76707458496094-36.833952372987596 174.74733358496093 -36.808529372987593 174.78681558496095tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38495401.post-79627556112349434052011-12-29T23:15:00.000-08:002011-12-29T23:15:14.044-08:00My Facebook Rant<b><span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">[EXPLICIT]</span> </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">This post includes explicit language. I was in a Mood.</span></b><br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/6268910056/"><img alt="Mom's Scoping the Business" border="0" height="180" src="http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6230/6268910056_ce2e2e427a.jpg" width="240" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/6268392315/" target="_blank">Mom's Scoping the Business<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: xx-small;">Uploaded by toastfloats</span></a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I am not a great fan of Facebook. Its user interface lacks elegance, and Zuckerberg's machiavellian approach to privacy is profoundly annoying. It is, however, the AOL of its time. All the people we want to know, all the people with whom we are interact, they live on Facebook. We are, in a word, stuck.<br />
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Stuck with the fat ads. Those assholes. I have never in my life clicked an ad for botox, a fad diet, or magical ways to get rid of belly fat. Nevertheless, the pricks that wrote the algorithm on Facebook insist that because I am a woman of a certain age with children, these are my Must See adverts. I imagine a pimply faced, sun-deprived graduate of the Stanford comp sci department sitting in a cubicle in Silicon Valley tweaking the selection algorithm to prioritize diet ads above every other possible option for all self-avowed females who also admit that they eat. I have down-voted these ads countless times. In vain, I once attempted to up-vote a series of "Have Sex with this Russian Beauty" ads that somehow slipped through Facebook's no-porn policy. I figure if I'm having sex with Russian beauties with enormous tits, I am clearly comfortable with my extra tonnage and don't need any further assistance. My next foray will be to up-vote anything having to do with a penis. Penile implant surgery on my non-existent manly appendage would be vastly more appealing to me than a magically surprising way involving eggs and a tire to resize the waistline.</div>
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Stuck with the crazy as chick who I vaguely remember from high school who posts semi-nude photos of herself, the one probably also clicking those belly fat ads. How the hell do these make it into my feed, anyway? I mean, yeah… at one point I was stupid enough to agree to join the group devoted exclusively to my fellow high school alumni. I was a problem child. As I had zero social life in high school, loathed most of those people at the time, and abandoned my hometown with no regrets nearly 20 years ago never to return, I'm not sure what the hell I was thinking. I just spent the last 5 years utterly sabotaging the usual geek's revenge of owning the companies where my former class mates work as well as sporting a better hair cut, gorgeous eye candy husband, and fantastically higher standard of income. I suspect that no one 'back home' is going to be impressed with the fact that DrC and I dropped out as it rings eerily familiar to so many of them. I have no interest in their lives or their children, and I am utterly convinced that the feeling is profoundly mutual. So I unsubscribed or declicked or unchecked or something which was another completely pointless exercise. Once a relationship lives on Facebook it is like a stain on a white fiberglass boat deck and remains forever to remind you of the error of your ways. </div>
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Stuck with requests to take this or that poll, join this or that cause, or participate in this or that quiz. I believe that Facebook proves we are all monkeys banging away at the keyboard attempting to produce Shakespeare and instead generating enough demographic data to keep a football stadium full of marketing executives cumming in their boots till they all pass out in brand awareness nirvana. What these clicks do not do is make a damn bit of difference in the greater scheme of things. There are ways that social media is a force for change. Facebook is not a participant in any of them. </div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/6268914534/"><img alt="That Steep, Really..." border="0" height="240" src="http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6117/6268914534_14b5572893_m.jpg" width="180" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/6268914534/" target="_blank">That Steep, Really...<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: xx-small;">Uploaded by toastfloats</span></a></td></tr>
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I think the only thing more annoying than a Facebook friend who plays Farmville, participates in every poll, and feels compelled to Share every link in their feed, is a relative who insists that Facebook is the anti-christ, refuses to check their pages, and then whines that they have no idea what's going on in your life because you "don't write any more." Wake up and smell the bits, people. The letter is dead. Frankly, so is the phone. If you want to know what I had for lunch, by all means look it up. I have absolutely no privacy any more, but don't expect me to spoon feed you. This is a pull economy. If you want it, pull it down; I will never send it to you again. You should be thanking me for not filling your life with a monthly, landfill-worthy missive detailing the size of the growth on my nose and the length of the seaweed on Don Quixote's transom. It is so much easier to avoid my drivel now than it ever was before. Just get Facebook to stop displaying it. Oh wait… good luck with that.</div>
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Techies know Facebook is crap, hate the cascading absurdity of Facebook's privacy setting changes, and would like to put a gun to head of every Zynga developer and executive while forcibly requiring them to grow strawberries on a real farm surrounded in singing and dancing middle school students dressed as badly drawn mange characters. Nevertheless, it is foolish for us to believe it is going to go away or that we can convince our family and friends of the superiority of any other social network. What we need is time. In the list of great where are they now social sites, we have Orbit, LiveJournal, AOL, and -- perhaps most memorably -- MySpace whose decline and fall signals in my opinion one of the greater triumphs of form and function over sheer numeric dominance. Like Rome, the British Empire, and American Hegemony, Facebook will ultimately fail to be replaced by something even yet more inane and intrusive. </div>
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As long as it includes a heads up display and lets me down vote the bitch who cut me off on the highway this morning, I'll be there.</div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><!--Creative Commons License--><a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/"><img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width: 0" src="http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc-sa/2.5/88x31.png"/></a><br/>This work is licensed under a <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/">Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 License</a>.<!--/Creative Commons License--><!-- <rdf:RDF xmlns="http://web.resource.org/cc/" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#" xmlns:rdfs="http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#">
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<License rdf:about="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/"><permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Reproduction"/><permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Distribution"/><requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Notice"/><requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Attribution"/><prohibits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/CommercialUse"/><permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/DerivativeWorks"/><requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/ShareAlike"/></License></rdf:RDF> --></div>Toasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01502441539444340761noreply@blogger.com14Ferry Terminal - Bayswater, 0622, New Zealand-36.822202782575957 174.76655960083008-36.834915282575956 174.74681860083007 -36.809490282575958 174.78630060083009tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38495401.post-78691624631046414372011-12-27T12:34:00.000-08:002011-12-27T12:34:00.253-08:00School Just Isn't<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1903741232"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6105/6341611648_af9e22b217.jpg" width="240" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/6341611648/" target="_blank">Mera Goes to High School<br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: xx-small;">Uploaded by toastfloats</span></a></td></tr>
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It is time to close the Don Quixote Academy. Homeschool for the Conger family is over. There are two major reasons for making this move: social and financial. While we have met many great homeschooled teenagers, there are definitely some advantages to socializing your children with the great unwashed in the soup which is public high school. Every bit of frustration and mediocrity and pettiness they experience in a big institution will go towards thickening the skin in preparation for leaving home and heading out into the much more challenging working environment. Also, good high schools have opportunities for sport, performance, and hands on science which are almost impossible to replicate in the homeschool environment.<br />
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Then there are the financial and professional motivations. We have drained the cruising kitty bone dry. College and/or trade schools loom on the near horizon with almost literally nothing in the bank to fund them. Don Quixote herself needs some expensive upgrades and maintenance. While DrC’s salary is good and we live simply and small, saving is slow with one income. Two would be considerably faster. Moreover, I want to work. I’ve been on sabbatical for a very long time. Even with the contracting, getting back into the professional world will be a difficult and slow process. Women who off-ramp to raise children are inevitably penalized, professional careers damaged sometimes beyond repair. The longer I go without full time work, the less likely I will ever be able to obtain the kinds of responsible management positions which are my favourite way to earn a living.<br />
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So, long ago we made the decision to close our homeschool and send the girls to public school on returning to New Zealand. On our arrival, we immediately went to the local schools to enrol the girls only to come up against a number of obstacles. First, it is near the end of the school year. For kids Jaime’s age, exams were about to start. No one saw any point in Jaime attending school for a week and then stopping. Second, the intermediate school refused to enrol Aeron. They said she was too young and must attend primary. Aeron just isn’t primary school material – she’s bigger, more mature, and academically near mid-high school. <br />
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This leaves us with only Mera. Mera started school two weeks ago. She attends Takapuna Grammar School as a Year 9 student. Year 9 in New Zealand is roughly equivalent to 8th Grade in the United States except kids in Year 9 attend with all the high school kids. Secondary school as a result is 5 years long – Y9 to Y13. Takapuna Grammar is a high decile school which basically says that we live in a posh neighbourhood with a lot of families who are well-educated and send their kids to university. <br />
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While it isn’t a sure bet, high decile schools in New Zealand are generally thought to provide a better quality education as well. Active, engaged, educated, and wealthy parents are highly correlated with good schools. Apocryphally, there are statistics, damn statistics, and reality. While Takapuna is a high decile school, it is still a public high school. There are a lot of children, few teachers, and an insane amount of aerosolized human hormone. While there are lots of really smart kids and probably some fantastic teachers, the pill sorter process which dumped Mera into classes during the final weeks of the school year has ensured that my daughter doesn’t get to see these academic pearls. Mainstreamed into the general school horde, Mera is largely unimpressed.<br />
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Part of the problem is that we run a rather strict homeschool. When it is time to study, we try to keep quiet, listen to each other, focus on our work. In the classes Mera attends, students speak out of turn, the teachers yell to little affect, and there appears to be a complete and utter disregard for the learning process. Another issue is the incredibly poor quality of the course materials. Mera mastered the subjects covered in her year 9 textbooks years ago. In fact, the entire tone and level of the books seems grossly dumbed down. I would swear we’ve been using age appropriate texts to teach the girls, but you would never know it comparing the materials used in Don Quixote Academy with those used at Takapuna Grammar. I would be hard pressed to find a lesson in either the science or math books that Aeron has not already mastered long ago, let alone Mera.<br />
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Yet, Mera insists that the best thing is to remain at the school in the mainstream classes. Tests for accelerate courses are given later this year, and she has already spoken with the dean to ensure her opportunity to take the placement exams. During the short time before school adjourns for summer, Mera intends to concentrate on learning about the school and making friends. She believes that were she to transfer classes, her efforts to fit in would be seriously hampered. <br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1903741244"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6151/6268392315_dfc0c3227d.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/6268392315/" target="_blank">Rescuing Discovery -- Again<br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: xx-small;">Uploaded by toastfloats</span></a></td></tr>
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Fair enough. Mera’s probably correct. We don’t really care if she learns much academically during this next month or two anyway. While she may be light years ahead in history, social science and English, she still hasn’t grasped even the basics of being a teenager. Example? Jaime nearly despaired of Mera ever passing Cell Phone 101 after we discovered that my middle daughter had left the thing in the car on a trip to the mall. So it is a very constructive use of her time just meeting people and figuring out how such strange and perverse creatures as high school teens function. For Mera it is an immersive, foreign language experience.<br />
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After all these years of worrying if we were “keeping up with the Jones,” it is clear that we drastically overshot the mark. Yet, it doesn’t feel that way. The girls don’t seem abnormally smart or clever. They are bright, healthy kids with reasonably good study habits. It makes sticking to our “close homeschool” plan extremely difficult. It is hard to know if we are doing them any favours enroling them in schools which hardly appear capable of understanding my girls, let alone educating them. Can any amount of socialization balance the fact that they will effectively be treading water intellectually for years until their peer group catches up? There really is no way of knowing.<br />
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I do know that I never thought when we started homeschooling that one of the hardest bits would be stopping.<br />
<br />
<small>*Update: Another article written during the November push for NaNoWriMo (which again I completely failed to get anywhere near 50K). Mera is out for the summer, accepted into the Y10 accelerate classes for next year. We'll see.</small><div class="blogger-post-footer"><!--Creative Commons License--><a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/"><img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width: 0" src="http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc-sa/2.5/88x31.png"/></a><br/>This work is licensed under a <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/">Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 License</a>.<!--/Creative Commons License--><!-- <rdf:RDF xmlns="http://web.resource.org/cc/" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#" xmlns:rdfs="http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#">
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<License rdf:about="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/"><permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Reproduction"/><permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Distribution"/><requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Notice"/><requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Attribution"/><prohibits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/CommercialUse"/><permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/DerivativeWorks"/><requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/ShareAlike"/></License></rdf:RDF> --></div>Toasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01502441539444340761noreply@blogger.com2Takapuna Grammar, Auckland 0622, New Zealand-36.801872 174.78719-36.803461500000004 174.78472250000002 -36.8002825 174.7896575tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38495401.post-6648705061681020272011-12-12T09:26:00.000-08:002011-12-12T09:26:00.449-08:00French Class<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1903741210"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5156/5910318965_5a3b678252.jpg" width="320" border="1" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/5910318965/" target="_blank">Our Little Girls<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: xx-small;">Uploaded by toastfloats</span></a></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Aeron and I walk hand and hand down the street past a bake house, dollar stores, and hair cutteries. We have many errands to run. The priority is to get new printer cartridges so that we can print our passport photos, but it would also be nice if we could swing by the hardware store for a bunch DrC requests, the little art shop for felt, and into a dollar store for fold up umbrellas.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">However, we are both brought to a halt by a glorious odor wafting across the street. Noses go up, eyes brighten, tails wag. The Conger girls have the scent.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Aeron is the first on point, “Over there!” Arm up, finger out, the baying begins.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">“Bread!” </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">“Cake!”</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">“Cookies!”</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Getting closer, the tone of the call changes, “Pastry!!!” </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">“Ooo…. French pastry. It’s FRENCH!”</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Now we are both on point, every fibre of our bodies vibrating in tune to the scent. This isn’t just any bread shop. This is advertising itself as an Authentic French Patisserie. Aeron and I stand quivering on the threshold. We are not allowed in. The rules are that we are not allowed in. The Rules say that we can find places like this but to both reduce expenditure and the probability that we both balloon into fin whales, we are to refrain from patronizing stores of this sort unless the entire family is out on parade together. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">So now the rationalization begins. It is an authentic French pastry shop. I spot the signs in front of the pastries. “Aeron, c’est une patisserie.” </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Aeron is wise to my ways. She looks up and nods thoughtfully. “Wee, mam on. Ill yah dez bag its.” </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I repeat correctly, “Oui, il ya des baguettes.”</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Aeron tugs my hands. She doesn’t like to speak French in front of people. It’s obvious, however, that she wants to practice her French in the shop.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I ask, “Aeron, parlez-vous francaise?”</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">She frowns, “Oui. Je parle francaise.”</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Heh, now we have a path to yes. I allow her to drag me into the shop. Pointing to the placard in front of one of the glorious pastries I tell her the New Rules, “Translate the names of these pastries, and we can have one. Translate at least three.”</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">She starts with the obvious, “Éclair is an éclair.” Of course, it is.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">“Bien!” I’ll take it. At this point, I will take anything. The aroma in the shop is an intoxicating blend of fresh bread, sweet French pastry, and newly ground coffee.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Aeron peers at another – the pasty in question looks like a double-decker cream puff drizzled in fudge – and sounds it out, “Rel-ig-eh-ah-sit-ee choclat.” She ponders this for a moment before the light dawns, “Religious chocolate!” </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">We both laugh in delight. She has not only translated a second placard taking us that much closer to heaven, but we might also have found our treat. What could possibly taste better than religious chocolate? </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Now comes the moment of truth, the challenge which actually makes this lesson a true educational experience. “Mille feuilles,” I say. It’s hard. It’s really hard. On the up side, she studied numbers last week and today we had read a short story about Clouchette (Tinkerbell) making a net out of feuilles cerne (oak leaves) and tigues bamboo (bamboo twigs). It’s possible she’ll get it.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1903741220"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6145/5972315713_96b273d0c2.jpg" width="240" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/5972315713/" target="_blank">Drinking Junk<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: xx-small;">Uploaded by toastfloats</span></a></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Frowns, sighs, and frustrated little looks, however, throw doubt on the question. Aeron doesn’t look like she remembers any of the morning’s story. In the meantime, I am salivating, eyes glazing over as a Napoleon and mocha head off towards the back table. I can’t stand it and a hint pops out, “Mille is a number, remember?”</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Aeron rapidly runs through all the easy number, “Un deux trois” then forges into the more challenging ones “vinght, trente…” before stumbling desperately. I intervene before disaster can strike, “Math… remember your math!!!” Please remember… And “Cent mille” trips off her tongue. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">We are both hopping a little in place now. We can both feel it, victory just out of reach. The tension is high, the stakes higher. One word. One word! “I don’t know this one do I?” she asks me.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">“You do,” I assure her. “You learned it this morning!”</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">A light dawns, her clever little wheels spin greased by the hint, “Not a twig. Not a net. Not a fish. Not a rock. It’s a leaf!... Leaves! Thousand leaves!”</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Even, the ladies behind the counter cheer as I order our café au lait and religeuse chocolat. They speak French themselves and were delightfully aware of our bumbling attempts to justify our presence. The marchande leans across the counter as I pay and suggests, “Maybe she could write us a letter next time…”</div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><!--Creative Commons License--><a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/"><img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width: 0" src="http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc-sa/2.5/88x31.png"/></a><br/>This work is licensed under a <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/">Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 License</a>.<!--/Creative Commons License--><!-- <rdf:RDF xmlns="http://web.resource.org/cc/" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#" xmlns:rdfs="http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#">
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<License rdf:about="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/"><permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Reproduction"/><permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Distribution"/><requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Notice"/><requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Attribution"/><prohibits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/CommercialUse"/><permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/DerivativeWorks"/><requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/ShareAlike"/></License></rdf:RDF> --></div>Toasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01502441539444340761noreply@blogger.com4Takapuna, Auckland, New Zealand-36.7879229 174.7688207-36.8006394 174.74907969999998 -36.775206399999995 174.7885617tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38495401.post-49336084321767145422011-12-09T12:09:00.000-08:002011-12-09T12:09:00.470-08:00Introducing Rugby to the Congers<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastfloats/6396169117/" target="_blank">Time to Become Kiwis<br />Uploaded by Toastfloats</a></td></tr>
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Rugby is the national sport of New Zealand. Sure, they play many sports here. In fact, New Zealand as a country produces world class athletes in any number of sports, not to mention the fact that if a sport is bat shit crazy, it was probably invented here (e.g. bungee jumping, zorbing, jet boating, and jogging). But if you ask the average Kiwi, “What is the national sport?” I suspect most would say rugby.<br />
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Prior to coming here, my impression of rugby was a rough and tumble sport played by strapping young men in Ivy League prep schools on green fields in the Northeast. Like polo or lacrosse, it felt distant, not a sport for real people but rather something celebrated amongst old money families in tony locations not accessible to the rest of us. Of the rules or method of play, I knew next to nothing. If I thought about it, I might have speculated that the sport was something like a cross between soccer and smear the queer – a game whose offensively politically incorrect name provides the all the insight necessary into the basic rules. I liked the shirts, though. I remember my favourite purchase from the college clothing shop at Berkeley was a blue and gold rugby shirt emblazoned with a Cal Bear. That thing wore like iron and lasted forever.<br />
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Real rugby, the rugby played by everyone outside the United States, is nothing like what I thought. It’s something like proto-football crossed with soccer and spiced with a bit of WWF. The players are HUGE, incredibly fast, strong, and indestructible. The play is rapid and exciting. The rules are utterly baffling when they are not simply amusing: “Penalty: Not removing hand during maul.” Perhaps most importantly, many of the guys are drop-dead gorgeous and without all the padding of American football, you can actually see them.<br />
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Watching rugby requires first that you learn an entirely new vocabulary. Scrum, maul, lineout, knock on, ruck, sevens, try, set piece.,, There are so many terms that English as a Second Language sites often include a separate <a href="http://www.blogger.com/%E2%80%9Dhttp://www.englishclub.com/vocabulary/sports-rugby.htm%E2%80%9D">rugby word list</a>. For Americans, it also requires a willing suspension of disbelief. In this case, you must accept that no lawyers are ever going to have an opportunity to bring a suit in any court regarding any aspect of the game. Ever. <br />
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Because if the lawyers got involved, the game would cease to exist. Basically, you take a lot of very large, very muscular, very fast men, hand them an oblong ball, and say, “Go. Just… GO.” You can throw the ball (which is done a lot in underhanded tosses which look very odd to devotees of basketball or American football), run with the ball, or kick the ball (a risky manoeuvre due to its peculiar shape). You can jump on an opposing team member trip him, slam into him, and even grab him by the balls and twist hard (as long as no one is looking). Basically, the only thing you can’t do to the other guy is throw him in the air. The rules book is long, complicated, and even the most experienced commentators and players frequently look at the referees in blank incomprehension when a call is made. <br />
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For those just getting started, the two basic plays are “lateral the ball until you can find a break in the opposing line” followed by “slam into the other guy and then all pile on top of one another.” There is something like a drop kick which is used frequently to move the ball down to the other end of the field and something like a punt which somehow sometimes inexplicably results in a score. They also have this bizarre bit where the “don’t throw the other guy in the air” rule is suspended while players throw their own team members into the air to catch the ball coming into the field in what looks like a variation on a basketball jump ball.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://tokisioamerica.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Kau Laka! [Let's Parade!]<br />Uploaded by tokisioamerica</a></td></tr>
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Never mind the rules, rugby is seriously fun to watch. We are completely hooked. DrC and I watched a few games during our first year in New Zealand, but we became real fans during the 2011 Rugby World Cup. On our arrival to Tonga, we were greeted by a sea of red and white clad cheering Tongan fans. Tonga played New Zealand for the opening game… in Auckland. With New Zealand hosting the World Cup this year, we were torn: root for our future home or for our present anchorage. This decision was made quickly when we discovered that the entire country essentially shut down for the day to decorate the streets, parade around, and hold massive, noisy parties absolutely everywhere. Prudence dictated that we wear the red and white of Tonga for the night. We watched the game with a bursting crowd of screaming Tongas, ex-pat Kiwis, and bewildered American cruisers at a bar on the water front where we drank beer and took in the Opening Ceremony. Tongans were so proud of their team yet so gracious as the All Blacks inevitably beat the crap out of the Tongan team. <br />
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After that, it was all rugby all the time. We caught the USA vs. Russia game during which we handed the Ruski’s their heads. Oh, yes… we too were surprised that the U.S. even fields a rugby team, let alone one capable of qualifying for the World Cup. We watched Tonga beat Canada and then were absolutely delighted to watch Tonga go on to beat France. Everyone should have a chance to beat the French at something. It’s good for morale. Not so good for our spirits was the depressing Australia vs. USA game during which we were reminded that all the big guys in the States gravitate to football leaving the rugby team about half the size of their Oz opponents. <br />
<br />
We arrived in Auckland the day before the final game: New Zealand vs France. You have no idea how horrible it would have been for New Zealand to lose that game. The entire country has been in a fever of All Blacks All the Time for over a year, the tension building to an intensity that bordered on a psychosis. The game was a nail-biter, and in all honesty; The French won. They played better. The score, however, was in the All Blacks favour so the entire country stopped biting our nails, sat back, drank another Tui, and started arguing over whether or not Richie McCaw deserves a knighthood.<br />
<br />
Now we have to pick a home team. Like everything else with rugby, we’re completely bewildered. There are rugby teams and leagues all over everywhere. Hard to know where to start, but I suspect we’ll try to find the AA version of rugby where we can afford the tickets and don’t have to go to far to watch a game. My Kiwi friends tell me it’s a better game when you can see what’s going on away from the cameras. And you can smell the blood…<div class="blogger-post-footer"><!--Creative Commons License--><a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/"><img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width: 0" src="http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc-sa/2.5/88x31.png"/></a><br/>This work is licensed under a <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/">Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 License</a>.<!--/Creative Commons License--><!-- <rdf:RDF xmlns="http://web.resource.org/cc/" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#" xmlns:rdfs="http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#">
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<License rdf:about="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/"><permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Reproduction"/><permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Distribution"/><requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Notice"/><requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Attribution"/><prohibits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/CommercialUse"/><permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/DerivativeWorks"/><requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/ShareAlike"/></License></rdf:RDF> --></div>Toasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01502441539444340761noreply@blogger.com5Neiafu, Tonga-18.649509 -173.984604-18.664554 -174.004345 -18.634463999999998 -173.96486299999998