Kaimusailing

I don’t know why applying epoxy should make me feel so sore, achy, and exhausted. Maybe it’s standing while working or the hot sun. I was drinking a lot of water. It was now time to do more painting in the heat, this time with white enamel on the undersides of the beam covers, deck box cover, and deflatable dinghy floor slats. I did the floor slats sitting in a chair in the shade. The whole job was done in less than 2 hours. I like to take a bike ride around the yard to loosen up, it’s relaxing to me.
.
As I passed Doc’s Chop Shop I notice Eloisa and Blue in the area. My momentum carried me over the temporary bridge over the drainage ditch and I did a u-turn in the dry sand and came back to chat. I felt exhausted and strangely kept myself distant while we chatted. I went into the forbidden Breezeway to sit and relax. Blue came and wagged his tail. I think he comes to get me to return to Eloisa. I next went to the communal porch. I texted Eloisa, maybe we could get pizza ingredients and get lunch somewhere. I was thinking of sitting on such a nice day and contemplating a view of the water. Maybe downtown St. Marys. She texted back she was up for it. Time passed. She was out and about and returned to the boatyard, pulled up to the communal porch with her window rolled down, are you ready, she asked, I jumped in and we went riding. It made sense to do our zen and lunch, then get pizza ingredients, in this heat.
.
I was feeling exhausted and we were approaching the Bakery, which is more a coffee shop with succulent baked goods. Caffeine. That will do much good. I got a glaring red cherry danish and a cup of black coffee. Eloisa got a BLT sandwich, probably fried in Irish butter, and a small potato salad that was huge. She let me taste the toast and have a spoon of the salad. The toast was great, the salad had a strange sweet taste. We discussed how this could be. I was tearing my cherry danish apart piece by piece, fingers gooey, sticky. Mmm Good. I was licking my fingers, then getting more cherry on them. I said I was like an infant in a high chair making a mess of the food.
.
Next door to the bakery are some huge live oaks that soar up with large branches and tons of Spanish moss streaming from them. Maybe this was our zen moment. The sky was dense deep blue and Eloisa pointed out two kinds of shore birds wheeling about. She gave the potato salad to Blue. You know potatoes are high on the glycemic index and that means they can cause arterial lesions which is where plaque can form. I noticed she ate a lot of potatoes, fries, this salad, chips, but she was very thin.
.
We had to continue to the St. Marys waterfront and we went onto the dock, “Boat Owners and Guests Only,” well I own a boat and she can be my guest. We went out and it was breezy, she was cold, She wanted to get a sarong so we returned to shore and continued our tour of the waterfront. What a beautiful day. We climbed up the stairs at the Cumberland Sea Shore park office and could see the whole harbor, white caps, strong tidal current. We stayed a bit, not long enough for zen.
.
Down and along the main drag to look at the gaggle of cars at Pauly’s, I thought they were closed, the cars were workers who were converting Pauly’s space to more space for the next door gift shop. We continued to the place where we always seemed to end up, French Quarter, or Southern River Walk, which have outdoor dining suitable for Blue to accompany us. It was crowded and loud, but there was a table available. Our table! She said. We were next to a family with a small brown dog, can’t remember the breed, labradoodle? Pinots, noir for me, grigio for her. I got the clam chowder again. It is excellent. She said we should make some some day. I thought I already had. She said no. Well, my memory might not be so good, but the blog doesn’t lie, well, not too much. There it is: Venus de Milo Chowder. Yeah, it’s better than the stuff I was eating. Gonna make pizza next. Soups might be out in the hot weather.
.
I know she didn’t want to immediately return to the boatyard. It might represent an area of conflict for her. I thought I could get another coat of white on the underside of the beam covers, et al. We returned.
.
Robert was at his boat with a crowd of people. I strode up, he had missed another dining or drinking opportunity, but he doesn’t drink. He seemed OK, not angry. This is good. I had to get back to do the second coat of white. The no-see-ums were really swarming. Robert said he had to get on board and maybe down below. I cycled to Kaimu and changed into my painting shirt and hat.
.
As I tried to apply the 2nd coat of white the no-see-ums attacked. I sprayed Deep Woods Off all over. They kept coming, stupid bugs. I painted and killed. They bit and died. I finished and fled to the galley, leaving the painted gloves, the can of paint covered, and the bugs.
.
The next day I ate a normal breakfast, ham and cheese omelet on English toast. I had slept intermittently well. The air mattress was deflating at about the same time I had to get up and pee. I had an electric pump that did the job well. I hope there are no videos of the entire process.
.
I got up about 8 AM, and started the tea kettle of water for the coffee, went to the little fridge in the pilothouse for ham, cheese, and an egg, came back, worked the omelet and the pour on coffee filter, and got the Washington Post (LA Times) crossword puzzles for the Sunday morning. I did them and ate breakfast. I noticed the no-see-um bugs were stuck outside to everything, like a seed coating on a roll. Poor buggers.
.
I had to go to the communal rest room for some paper work. I looked around to see if Blue, the black dog, or Eloisa were anywhere to be found. Looked like a nice day, with a rain forecast later.
.
I had put 2 coats of white enamel on everything but the floor slats for the dinghy. I did them after donning some recycled plastic gloves, and that job was over in a jiff. Eloisa replied to my text, she was completing a laundry mission and agreed to going shopping for, not pizza ingredients, but chili ingredients.
.
I had to get my wallet. I had to let her know she had to take me to Lowe’s to get white marine enamel, I was almost out, and maybe some paint rollers. We were off and running in her vamper. Blue is an American Cocker, who is pretending to be a Portuguese Water Dog for a couple of days. He’s not big enough in size, but he is big enough in exposition.
.
We went on the back roads to the Lowe’s store. We took Blue in with us, with a vest that maybe suggested he was a service dog, but he is just an adorable dog, not much service, unless you need someone to lick you on the face. I found out that when I came into the store not too long ago, I had bypassed the display of Rustoleum nautical paint. I quickly found what I wanted, almost twice the price of the industrial paint, but if that paint was good, this must be twice as better. I was strolling around with a can of paint, some paint rollers, and something else stuck under my arms. I went down around where Eloisa would be, getting action sport equipment like elbow pads, knee pads, helmets, and she knew what she wanted. It took a long while to get action sports equipment at a home improvement store. We next went to grocery to get ingredients for chili, Ole Mole Chile, the Cap’ns own recipe, we went to Publix. An upscale grocers. I had on my usual open tow flip flops, a nice white pair of tennis shorts, not yet stained with epoxy, and I was wearing my painting tee shirt, shame what I done to it, the Hawaiian Planing Mill tee shirt of so long ago, and that poor ball cap, the one from Somers Cove Marina that had somehow gotten stained, with either paint or some other thing on my head. I was dressed properly. Like a painting by an obscure artist. No one could judge me, I was all of, something the French say, a set.
.
We had to go to an auto store to get the one item I couldn’t get yet, silicone grease or dialectric grease. There was a redneck who seemed to be concerned at me, with my ripped tee shirt, dirty flip flops, aged hair, and wandering in his store, he asked what was I looking for? Dialectric grease, I said. Well, just go back where you are and to the left. I had already looked there and decided to get some synthetic grease.
.
I came up to the counter and now a younger guy was there, young and black, and I said when he asked if I found what I wanted, no, I was looking for dialectric grease, and he said, oh, and ran back and got me the correct product. Wow, and he said you have to ask customers if they got what they want before you ring them up, some guy gave him some lip about shopping bags.
.
OK, I said, I was once upon a time getting my oil changed and my car was a mess, they clean the interior as part of the oil change, but the guy said, you ought to have a bag on your gear shift where you can put all this stuff, then there would be no mess. Yeah, I said, I’ve got a bag, but she’s back at the house.
.
We continued back to the boatyard with Blue acting like I would be his next lover, climbing into my lap, trying to kiss me. Lovable dog. Eloisa dropped me off with my paint and goods and she went on up to the Breezeway.
.
I got the chopped meat in the fridge along with a colorful bag of small sweet peppers. I opened the can of marine enamel and got a small paint roller like the kind they use on cabinets. I rolled the paint on the beam covers and deck box cover. The basket weave of the fiberglass soaked up a lot of paint.
.
I wanted to make a grilled ham and cheese sandwich and wanted tomato on it. Eloisa had the tomatoes. Blue appeared at my boat and she is usually nearby, but he was alone. I sat in a chair on the communal porch and Blue jumped into my lap. PDA. I said, let’s go, and we continued across the boatyard to Eloisa. You must have sent him to get me again, I said. She gave me a tomato and I make a motion like I was throwing it across the drainage ditch. Blue took off to get the tomato that was still in my hand. He thought it was a ball to play with. No, Blue, come here. He didn’t. He went down the embankment into the muddy ditch, then into the water looking for the red tomato ball. She had just given him a complete bath just yesterday. Now he was wet and came up to us and rolled around on his back in the dusty driveway. He was now muddy, matted, and dusty.
.
She said now I’ll have that glass of wine. I biked over to Kaimu and brought back an open box of cabernet. I put it in the Breezeway and got a glass (plastic) of wine. Back at the ditch Eloisa got Blue to go back in the water and when he came out we went to the forbidden Breezeway to talk and drink wine. The Breezeway was clean and Blue would not get himself all dirty there.
.
We had plenty to talk about. She was at a point in her life that was a pause before continuing. She reflected on all the ups and downs and now was a going up after a big down. She began crying. When she cried I gave her an awkward hug, she was still sitting. We went out the back of the Breezeway as the sun set and I began to take photos. Eloisa left and came back with cream cheese and canned mackerel in tomato sauce. She mixed the two together in a bowl, added a spice and we began munching salsa chips with the fish dip.
.
Something she had said or a few things she had said reminded me of a Joni Mitchell song, A Song for Sharon. I got it on YouTube on my phone and it certainly applied to our conversation. Love is a persistent danger.
.
The sunset was fantastic with jet contrails etching color across a nearly cloudless sky.