Kaimusailing

The severe flooding at high tide that I thought was so bad was yet to prove even worse. The next day a storm came raging through with wind up to 40 mph and rain. Everyone had been complaining that their gardens were dry all summer, well now they got their rain and then some. At low tide midday the water was only about 4 inches below the planks of the finger pier. About a half hour later the pier was flooded and it was coming up fast to inundate the main dock. I was lucky to make a trip to the wine store before the pier went under water, I was unlucky to get a blast of wind and rain while out on the bike. A trip to the grocers was cancelled.
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Eve the artist contacted me and invited me for cream of crab soup. No way. The trip up Cove Street is one of the worst flooding areas in town. Cornelia Marie reported her fire pit was flooded and the waters had pushed her fire block around. Cuddily said she was stranded in her home, but she could get to the Legion, that path was not flooded.
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Karen called and reported that her computer, phone, and TV all didn't connect to wifi and because I was there working on her computer the day before, did I know anything about it. It sounded peculiar that all three were having problems. She called Netgear, the router maker, and they said she had a virus and needed to spend $179 to fix it. She had her ISP come to the house and diagnose her internet, they said she needed to buy a new router. While I was talking to her I confirmed she had disconnected her computer from the ethernet cable, fearing a virus attack. She said the router was still powered up. I said her TV and phone must still be able to connect to the wifi and she said yes, miraculously they were now working. I suspected the Netgear tech support had reset her router and that was the original problem.
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The used galaxy phone I had bought on eBay came in with severe burns on the screen. It seemed like it wouldn't set up without reflashing the firmware. Also it would need wifi to do Samsung Smart Switch, which would transfer all the old data to the new phone. There is also backup and restore from the internal SD card. I backed up the old phone onto the card. At some point I was able to login to my google account on the new phone and it came out of setup with the ability to restore from the old SD card. Soon the phone was going along just as well as the old phone. The old phone had a burned charge port and I kept it going with a wireless charger.
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About 2 hours after low tide the water was flush with the planks of the main dock. Later it rose up. My propane tank floated away. I watched it head North to one of the docks near the Red Shell Shanty. I could retrieve it with a boathook if I could jump into the water. The main dock was like 6 inches under water, not too bad, but the finger pier was lower, plus the boat was floating higher. I can't really get off the boat and then if I did, I would have to wade through water all the way to the shore, then travel around the marina and wade back to get my propane tank. Low tide will be like 2AM. I hope the docks will be dry by then.
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I was stuck on board. Cuddily called and wondered if I was OK on my boat. We talked for a long time, as is usual, I imagine I am good at talking, but she is the one I want to talk to, no one calls up me to talk to. It is Crisfield talk, flooding, a community event, who, what, where, why, and how, I thought I was out of wine, the talk ended. I sent her the zen book that nobody wanted.
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Wait a minute, didn't I ride in between some of the raindrops to the wine store? Yes, there is a box of wine on board. Even if I can't leave the boat, I have an egg, some ham, two end slices of bread, I can make an omelet in the morning. But I have to get to the store for sure.
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I called Eve, she was watching a movie, go ahead, business as usual. Hang up. Think about her, how I was so rude to her and how she got me that way. Just got to love her and hope the feelings can be somewhat mutual. I wanted to talk to her, but I didn't want to keep her from her movie.
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The storm outside continued with wind howling, halyards clanking, and I sent the zen book to Cuddily, maybe she will discard it. It's very zen to be sitting on a boat for a couple of days with nature hitting it with everything. Hard to meditate when this happens, but the core of meditation is to get to a point where nothing will distract you, but a sudden event will alert you, like a cat that is napping, but a mouse will arouse the cat, suddenly, and the cat will react.
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At 5 AM I was awake and went around to the Red Shell Shanty looking at the shoreline, the bulkhead, for my propane tank that had floated away. It had to be here somewhere. I couldn't find it, it was still dark, I had a small flashlight, it was of no use.
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I thought it was Sunday morning but it was Saturday. I did the Wahsington Post crossword puzzle and an online jigsaw puzzle. I went to sleep about 7:30 and then woke up at about 9:30. I made breakfast omelet as usual but the ham tasted like it might be going off. I used the last of the cheese on the omelet and the last of the bread, the two end pieces. The last of the water was in the kettle to make the coffee.
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I made a shopping list including vitamin D, took a shower, headed off and found the marina was effectively cut off by flooding. The marina front door at the main building said closed due to weather and flooding. I had my Aqua Sox on and could pull my seatpants up. I rode the bike with a mind to avoid this flooding. I went through the public housing across the street from the marina. On my way through I saw cars abandoned in flooded intersections. I ended up in deeper water than if I just made my way on the regular road but stay in the center, the edges of the road are much lower and flooded deeper.
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I made it to the store and got my needed supplies. My Aqua Sox were squeeking like frogs as I trodged through the store. On the way back I ignored the traffic lanes, there was no traffic, the fast lane, the dangerous lane for a bicycle, was the highest lane out of the water and I expected to be smashed flat by a redneck pickup truck. Some of them had Biden Sucks flags streaming from them.
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Back on board I considered Eve's invite for cream of crab soup at her place, she was going nowhere, flooded. I went out on the bike to see how flooded Crisfield really was. I rode to Cuddily's house, on the water, and near the Small Boat Harbor. The intersection near the library was flooded, but I could do a U-turn there, go 50 feet and turn right into the Dollar General parking lot, bike across, enter onto the road that continues past the Small Boat Harbor, which was not too flooded, and stopped right between the Legion and Cuddily's, no problem getting there, continue on toward the Food Lion on a back road that goes right near Karen's little dollhouse, still no problem, at the Food Lion, go into their parking lot, make a jog, exit, cross the main drag onto Somerset, no traffic to worry about.
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As I went down Somerset all seemed great, dry, normal, but when I got to the Cove St. intersection there was a big Street Closed sign, which I ignored and saw when I went a little further, Cove Street was truly flooded. I went up on the sidewalk and at each driveway where the sidewalk had an indentation, I pedaled through water. At Eve's house I entered and opened the gate, the noise must have alerted her, she opened the back door and let her young black lab bitch Kahlua out to play in the yard.
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Eve and I had a spat at Cuddily's just a few days ago and I was in agony about what a jerk I was. We were both tired and spent and short of temper, but I think we both appreciate each other and here I was on my bicycle in her flooded yard and she greeted me warmly. How nice. She wanted to show me some of the flooding effects. I like to push, but she likes to push more, I have to be passive, which I can be. I was astounded that her boardwalk along part of her garden was washed up onto some blocks, how could the water get so high. There was a waterline around her foundation, flood. She said with her two sump pumps running in the basement full time, she was still up to her ankles in water down there.
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She had fallen a couple nights ago and unfortunately grazed the corner of furniture on the way down. Her left arm was badly bruised and she couldn't raise it up to counter level. We drank some wine and I said she didn't have to cook dinner, she could tell me what to do and I would do it. Very unusual for me. She did so and I prepped some onion, jalapenos, a hot red pepper, some sweet red pepper, three large garlic cloves, minced, and two nice tomatoes, halved on the equator, rinsed while I plunged the seeds out with my little finger, sliced laterally, then chunked with her grandfather's old high carbon steel knife, leaving a mound of clean tomato chunks with no seeds.
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We drank more wine and I opened the front door to her studio, the door that opens onto her front yard. It was flooded. High mounted trucks came up the street making a wake to either side like a crab boat in the harbor. She took a call, her cousin up in Annapolis, which also had its flooding. I remarked we have to install some navigational aids along the driveway. Nautical talk.
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She had some day old cream of crab soup that she had made from scratch with only one good arm. It was simmering on the stove but needed some time to come up to temperature while I was doing the prep on the veggies. We had the soup and I would say it was very good. Lots of crab shell pieces here and there, but who cares, when the soup is that good. I had seconds and she had forgotten to turn it off, so the pot was sizzling with overcooked soup, and I scraped it out into my bowl and soaked the pot to soften up the sizzled dry remains.
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The sizzled soup might be even better than the first batch, and anyway, it was the last of the soup, there would be no more, how good. She had a slow sautee of some of the ingredients and then threw the tomato chunks in. We had more wine. We ended up in the kitchen where she said if I throw these mussels into the sauce they will cook in like two minutes and then we have to eat them. You make the salad.
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I sensed the timing had to be right. I had already prepped the sweet red peppers in a short julienne, mushroom thin slices, torn romaine leaves, and I had set up a bottle of olive oil, a bottle of balsamic vinegar, and a selected spice mixture. I poured the olive oil and then the vinegar, and dusted the salad with the spice mixture, mixed it all up. She was tossing the mussels with the sauce. I tasted the salad and added more balsamic vinegar. Seems OK.
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Serve yourself up, with a ladle, mussels and succulent broth. The salad was at the table. A crusty baguette came out of the oven, just tear it, she said, don't cut it. This might be the crust of our argument the other day, if I may say so.
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I would call the sauce Province, could have used olives, but I didn't want any, I didn't want anything else. Just eat it and enjoy it. Soak the sauce up with broken pieces of bread. Drink more wine, hey we got enough. She said the salad was excellent. It was OK.
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We had been drinking and eating and I went back for seconds, it was so good, she wanted to dance and I reluctantly left my dinner to embrace her and dance. My mind stopped being on my dinner so much.
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Well, I finished and she said there's apple pie. Pie she made with only one arm available. I was with her when she bough the apples at a local farm. As usual I was oblivious to the choices she made then. Now I was cutting into an apple pie made from our apples. I remember offering to make an apple pie with her and relating stories of making apple pies with my mother and father in Hawaii, using liliquoi in the pie, etc. Now here was the pie, cut and eat.
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I savored the apple pie. It was as good as you can make it. What a wonderful dinner, but time was getting late. Yes, I could sleep in the guest room if I must, no, I couldn't sleep with Eve, but I knew I had to return to Sunsplash, as always.
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I couldn't ride the usual streets, they were still flooded. I rode down Main Street on one of the sidewalks. Cars, not many of them, were slowly trying their way up the wet road into water of who knows what depth. On the sidewalk I could escape some of the flooding. I had to ride through some water and get my feet wet.
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At the dock the finger pier was flooded and I had to climb onto a piling to get onboard, the boat was so high on the high water.