Kidz These Days

I'm Having Fun. Really.
uploaded by toastfloats.

It probably comes as no surprise that I am a big fan of Dan Savage, 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.

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.

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 fing time.

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.

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.

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.

They Say Unboxing an Apple is
 a Sexual Experience
uploaded by toastfloats.

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.

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.

Little Obstacles

Chatting with Daddy
uploaded by toastfloats

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

Moon Over Don Quixote
uploaded by toastfloats

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.

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.

How Do You Eat a Boat?

Obviously, one bite at a time... and invite absolutely everyone you know.

Time to Go
toastfloats on Flickr

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.

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.

Don Quixote Girls Marvel at Our Boat Cake
toastfloats on Flickr

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.

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.

Never Sail Without Your Cake Dinghy
toastfloats on Flickr

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.

So to speak.

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.

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!"

"What do you want?" asks Peter.

Peter With His Creation
toastfloats on Flickr

"I don't know... the sea, the Toast Floats logo, our navigation path..." my voice trails off.

Aeron pipes up, "Don Quixote! You should make Don Quixote."

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.

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.

The cake really speaks for itself.

A Gift for You

Our Boat Parrot is a Cat
toastfloats on Flickr

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."

"What?"

"No announcement, no kill."

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The Intrepid Hunter Rests Quietly
toastfloats on Flickr

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?"

Apparently so.

Did I mention that she is loud?

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?"

I groan as I settle back into the sheets, "I am completely pussy whipped."