In Traffic

New Years Preview

In case you missed monkey boy.

I'm babysitting. It's good for the soul.

Pabst Blue Ribbon Tears

This holiday season has been full of love and laughter, and an aching heart. The grind of holiday revelry and the intensity of the past four days of dealing with the suicide of a friend have caught up to me.

I've gone through the deaths of friends too many times to be considered normal, and my coping mechanism for death is fairly predictable. I tend to be pretty matter of fact about it. I know from experience that the sting, the confusion and the pain will pass. Unfortunately this acute awareness confuses the need for my heart to mourn in the meantime.

I haven't been able to cry about Trevor's death until today at the funeral. But today, before the start of the service the guitar dudes played some wistful beautiful song that triggered my waterworks and they lasted in a silent stream for over an hour.

Crying is exhausting, but necessary, and it feels good to have had that release.

Preview of things to come...

Happy Birthday Virg!

Mashtatic, eh?

In flux

I cried in public on Saturday night. Someone said something cruel to me, and upon hearing, I burst into tears.

The part that really stung is that I like this person. I respect him. We aren't close friends, but are acquaintances with countless mutual friends.

Today the person who caused my tears called and apologized. He took the time to track down my personal cell phone number and call me.

The apology was completely unexpected but welcome and the slate was wiped clean.


Image created with the Scribbler.

Pretty with Picnik

I'm rather impressed with the Picnik editing tools that were just added to flickr. Especially because Photoshop just decided to shit the bed on me... so until I fix the problem at least I can beautify slash gaudify photos through flickr, yeah!

The picture above is a picture taken with my phone, the original was sent straight from my phone to the previous post. I then uploaded it to flickr and played. Impressive, huh!

Saturday night

New Member of the Family

For those you that don't know my family personally, we are collectors. If you need something, we probably have three to choose from.

My mom collects every kind of mustard you could imagine, kitchen wares, and handwork materials galore. I have too much jewelry for my own good and a weak spot for vintage dresses. Richard, my stepfather, he collects and rebuilds bikes, skies, antique outboard engines and most notably... boats.

When I was seven or so Richard built me my own little rowboat.



When Saphrona, my sister was little he built her a pooduck sailing pram. Richard spent the past few winters rebuilding another rowboat that we call the black boat. Each of these dinghies has a rig for sailing.

There's the white boat, a sweet old runabout that i covet, but is in pieces and in dyer need of a rebuild. There's the Ra Lo a funky aluminum center console runabout. The Duranautic, our dependable turquoise work boat, is the first and last boat to be launched and hauled every season.

No, I'm not done yet, but close.

This winter, the big project in the life of how these boats turn, involves the removal and rebuilding of the the dual engines in our big power boat, Candace III, a 1942 Elco Cruiser.

I hope you can understand my shock when I was told that my family had purchased yet another boat in partnership with family friends. Peggy Jane, a lobster boat type powerboat is no stranger, my mom and Richard used to maintain her for the owners. But own her? What were they thinking?

Who cares! It's the perfect picnic boat, let's go!

It's my pleasure to introduce Peggy Jane. Welcome to the family.





I should add that owning the kinds of boats that we do (old and wooden) is a labor of love. My family does the majority of the maintenance and restoration on all the boats. I admit, I don't contribute nearly enough. OK, not at all. For as well as my mother and I get along we've never been able to work together on boats. I do however adore using each and every one.

Inevitably, last call

I've been enjoying Gilbert's lately.

This summer I found the bar buzz overwhelming. Maybe it was just my state of mind, but I'm having way more fun hanging out in town now than I was then.

An artist lives here

Gesticulation

Richard explains something while Mom and Anita make wreaths.

Now that i've figured out to make animated gifs (duh me, it 
wasn't THAT hard) you can expect more where this came from.

Love on a Ribbon

Living at home I find all sorts of treasures from my childhood. I'm not sure when I made this, but I have a feeling it was probably part of a scavenger hunt made for my mom.

Weekly Wayne!

Sometimes...

i notice ridiculous things like this: