Kaimusailing

The weekend had started with perfect weather and we were in for another day of it. I continued scrubbing Sunsplash’s cabin overhead, completing the starboard side of it. A bike ride down at the City Dock showed some activity for the weekend, there were lots of exotic cars parked along the wide street going to the dock. It is an annual event. Mostly I noticed Corvettes, Miatas, older muscle cars, most of them highly polished and some with the engine bay open to show off the powerplants.
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I was invited to install another ceiling fan in Cornelia Marie’s living room. She had purchased the exact same fan as we installed in her dining room. I remember that installation went very smoothly and I expected us to do even better this time.
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I carefully removed the old ceiling light fixture, all that was left was two wires sticking out of an electric box in the ceiling. CM had shut off the light switch and taped it over so it couldn’t be turned on by accident. The assembly of the fan components had many steps and I goofed at one point by not running the fan motor switch pull cord through a grommet in the light assembly. After assembling the unit we found the fan pull cord wouldn’t move. I gave a yank on it and it broke. We had to disassemble the lamp globe and add an extension to the pull cord, feed it through the grommet and then out the bottom of the globe. It worked after reassembly, but it seemed the lamp globe was not as stable as it should be. I looked inside the ceiling fan from a stepladder and it looked like a flimsy metal bracket was the only thing holding it together. Looking in the previously installed fan in the dining room showed it to have the same flimsy arrangement. We wrapped thing up, the fan worked, maybe we needed to replace the fan switch pull cord.
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We stopped at the Red Shell Shanty, I was starving, for Orange Crushes and some food. CM had soft pretzel with crab dip filling and I had buffalo chicken wings which were excellent this time. The pretzel went half uneaten. I tried some. We were off anyway to explore the busy downtown activity. There was a bandstand with someone announcing winning numbers. We passed by more of the exotic cars, had ice cream at the dock, urged CM’s mom to join us. We went up the other side of the street to the Gift Vault, set in the old Crisfield Bank building. We spent time in the shop, then were directed to get some soft crab sandwiches up the street and bring some back for the store clerk. We did so, but went off ourselves to benches on the shore of the marina and watched crab boats, fishing boats, and the Steven Thomas, a charter tour boat, maneuvering at the dock, spinning around, and heading out for a sunset dinner cruise.
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We ended up at CM’s mom’s house on the water and attempted to deplete her supply of Margarita ingredients. The weather had cooled down a bit and we were on the screened porch overlooking her personal dock and the Brick Kiln Channel into the Small Boat Harbor. It was a very pleasant evening. Crab boats were returning from somewhere, fishing boats returning, as it grew darker. We were all ready to hit the hay.
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The next day Eve, the artist, invited me to have salmon dinner at her house. She is a very good artist and a very good cook. More like a chef. I liken her to Martha Stewart, the table is set, the food is gourmet. It was a treat for me that she had said she would do and she did it. I understand you can do something pretty good once in a while, but maybe not too often. I brought my own wine, decanted from a 5 liter box into a Polar Springs water bottle. A lot of jokes about that. The image is a photo of grilled salmon with bruschetta, greens with homemade dressing, and an ear of corn. Enjoy.