May 18, 2012 Stuart, Florida

Thursday May 18, 2012

This morning I heard Fred talking to Stasia asking her if she enjoyed her walk last night.  “What? What walk?”  “She went for a walk and I went up and down the dock looking for her but never did.  She is back now”.  They say a cat always comes back to the place where her food is and she did.  Now I am a bit more at ease about her leaving the boat.  I just hope she doesn’t fall off the dock as there is no way she can get back on alone.  It’s that motherly instinct brewing up again.  I heard a story last evening about a group of people who jumped off a sail boat to swim around in the water, which many do.  It was when they decided to get back on the boat, they discovered there was no was to get back on because no one put down a ladder.  Sail boats are not the easiest things to climb on anyway, even with a ladder.  None of them made it.  One lady had a baby with her and she jumped in too.  I didn’t want to ask about the baby.  It was already too sad for me.

Raining today.  A rainy day calls for two alternatives, find yourself useful on the boat or be creative off the boat.  I hear they have quite a book exchange at the club house so I will take mine that I have finished and hopefully find some more Karen Kingsbury books to read.  I am down to Stuart Woods books, easy, fast reads a bit of mystery and quite descriptive.  “Hot Mahogany”.  I would file it under books I have read list but not my favorite.  I like books that give me something to think about.  Karen Kingsbury does just that for me.  I become part of her books.  I do have some books on CD’s here but the stereo on the boat not playing through all the speakers so those are set aside for home listening. 

I started to clean the boat, and we ran out of water so that was reason enough for me to grab a book and chill until Fred returned from a few errands.  When I said chill, I was serious.  It was so darn cold in here I practically shut down.  AC is not something I had the luxury of for six months in hot climates.  I ended up taking a nap and waking up to a great phone call from my brother Jim.  It was good to hear from him.  Sundowners was happening at the end of our slip so I went out and joined them with my ginger beer.  Everyone decided it was time to eat so we all packed into a VW camper van, that goes a whopping 58 miles per hour at top speed.  What a treat to get to ride in one of those again.  A VW was my first car.  Cute little blue beetle that seemed to take a half hour to heat up in the winter on my 35 minute ride to work.  No coffee to go on those trips, I was shaking from the cold to bad to manage a cup of coffee.  This one was different though.  They bought it today and plan to take it to Canada in a few days, after they take their sailboat further north to put on the hard.  He even has plates that say “Antique”.  That brought to mind how many years it has been since I had a VW.  I hated to admit it but if it were still alive (a semi truck ran over it with my brothers inside and they lived, the VW didn’t) it would have earned a license plate like that also.  May my ole VW rest in peace along with the good ole days!  It feels so good to gently let my memories go back far enough to realize everything I have accomplished, and not, are what got me to exactly where I am today.  Those good ole V-Dubs may have been slow and a whole lot of fun but Casa Mare’ is slower and a whole lot more fun.  Either way, all I can say is what a ride!  What did I get out of that transition?  Pause, reflect and move on.  There will be plenty more opportunities not to be in any hurry to get through my life.  It’s all in God’s hands anyway so I may as well enjoy the ride, the fast way or his way.   I have learned to let him be in total control and I am able to recognize it when he is not.