Everyone is wrong.

Here's an interesting sentiment; over the last year or so, one thing I learned is that almost everything society tells us is wrong. Anyone who knows me knows what I mean, but if you've never met me in person, let me put that in perspective:

1. I eat primal. No grains, high fats, (animal fats mostly, and also things like olives and avocado) lots of veggies, limited starches. This is the exact opposite as everyone in society tells us to eat. Yet, my dad eats this way, and he was cured of his diabetes. My mom started this way of eating, and amazes her doctor with her blood tests. I don't actually feel any different. But maybe I'd feel worse if I started eating SAD (standard american diet) again.

2. Shoes are bad. This is the best way I can explain without telling you to go read "Born To Run".
(Even though you should read it.)
   When you support an area of the body, it gets weaker. This is why people coming out of casts have trouble walking or using their arms. So why, then, are we marketing running shoes to athletes and casual joggers that are, as the advertisements claim, supportive and padded and cushy? I used to hate running. I would get winded after running ten feet, and I just didn't bother after a while. Of course, maybe that's because I used to wear running shoes everywhere, feeling superior over those idiots who wore deck shoes or high heels because I wore shoes for my health, not for fashion. yeah; that didn't work out. The first time I tried barefoot running, I fell in love with it. That doesn't mean I'm a runner now; honestly, I'm kind of a couch potato. But now I go barefoot whenever I can. And when I have to put on shoes because it gets too cold, or I'm going into a public building, my feet just feel... sadder.

3. Dogs should not be eating dog food. Let's attack this one step at a time.
First of all, let's take a look at your average kibble; it's very dry, isn't it? Do you really think that's a natural thing? After all, all food in the wild has at least some level of moisture. Especially for dogs who, being carnivores, consume living things which have a lot of moisture in them. The day we got Max off kibble, the water bowl went virtually untouched.
   Second of all, have you ever noticed how dog food all seems to be advertised as containing "healthy, nutritous, real vegetables"? well, think on this; DOGS ARE CARNIVORES. Do I really have to explain that one?
   Third of all, multiple dog foods are advertised as having "healthy" whole grains in them. But can you imagine dogs in the wild jumping at the tops of wheat stalks, thinking, "If I can just eat some of this, I'll be healthy!"? I didn't think so! And if an animal doesn't have access to something in the wild, why would it be healthy for them in captivity?
   If you're still not convinced, look at Max; when we started feeding him raw meat and the occasional vegetable scrap, (since small amounts of veggies are found in the stomachs of dog's prey, and affordable meat nowadays is fed with grains) his dandruff went away, he stopped itching, and his gassiness went away. Even when he does fart, it doesn't smell half as bad as it used to.

4. And let's not forget the obvious lack of school. This isn't exactly something I've learned in the last year, though; more like something I've always known, and have been relearning for years. I have never gone to school. The closest I've ever gotten was music reading class, (since I was given homework) and I have to say I didn't get much out of that. But am I an idot? No, no I am not. I like to think my intelligence is at least a little bit above that of the average schoolkid. (As we homeschoolers always refer to them)
Having never taken an IQ test, I can't prove to you that I'm not undereducated. But I will tell you that I have taken a reading test, and at the age of eight I was reading at an eighth grade level. If I've progressed that fast in any of my other subjects, I think intelligence is a given.
   And another thing; homeschoolers are closer to their children, and to other homeschoolers. If you've ever been to, say, the craft fair, you'll notice this sort of tribal community going on, where everyone knows everyone else, everyone shares recipes, and so forth. When our friend S got pregnant, everyone (except me, admittedly.) got together to help make her a patchwork shawl. When our friend (whose name also begins with S) got sick, me and mom made her soup and brought it over. Places like the craft fair are where you see the moms breastfeeding out in the open, the babies being carried around on backs african-style, the whole "tribe" joining in to playfight with their duct-tape swords, (a trend started years ago which, so far is as much a trend as TV or the internet.) and it's amazing. It's like, wherever our little tribe ends up, a community automatically forms.

As you can see, we seem to be slowly weaning ourselves off the societal nonsense we've been eating for years, and switched over to healthier fare; namely, decisions that were made by us, not by "scientists" we've never even met. I'm not done, either. Right now I plan on conquering two more "new" ideas;
Toothpaste isn't beneficial, and shampoo is bad for your hair.
   Wish me luck!

Pictures!!!!!!!

Sooo... due to my newfound ability to upload pictures, today will be picture-sharing day! Since I have so many, I'll be dividing them into helpful little categories.

Profile.
You guys all know my profile pic is totally out of date, right? Well, no more! I just updated it! Check out the new one;

Such a change from the old one, right? I mean, look at my hair! (long!) glasses! (round!) braces! (existent!) shirt! (not old and ratty!)

So now, if there's anyone who reads my blog who I don't know in real life, (which I doubt anyway.) they'll know what I look like! Here are some of my other favorites from the photo session;

The thoughtful pose...

If you look close, you can see John Lennon.

Musclewoman! (Even though a certain photographer
didn't actually get all of me in the shot.)

I was gonna make this one my profile pic, but I'm not really smiling here...

SUMO!!!!!!!!

Crazy kung-fu pose!

Crane pose!

 Imagine me doing this while yelling "ACTION SHOT!!"
And you'll have a pretty good idea of how the day went.

Aaaaaaand... peace out!!!!!!!!!

Christmas Popcorn.

So, the other day we were making christmas popcorn strings,
and I found a piece of popcorn that looked just like Zoidberg from futurama!
So, of course, I colored it in.

Here I am with the finished string. Can you spot Zoidberg?

BEST. PICTURE. EVER.

At the end of popcorn day, (as I'm now calling it.) Both me and Owen were pretty bored. So we resorted to taking pictures like this;

And this.

I love this one. He looks angry, but you can still kind of tell he's smiling.

Owen smile is really cute, unless he's actually trying to smile.

Of course, being myself, I had to pose like this;

The third time I tried that pose, though, I ended up like this:

I also did this:

Owen thinks I look like something out of halflife.
Although, when posing less menacingly, I look more like cousin It.

So marks the end of our photo tour! (That's what I'm calling it.)
Soon I'll have some more pictures ready, and some christmas tales to share!

6:30

Okay. Last night Sophie slept in my bed with me. So can you guess why I woke up at 6:30 in the morning?
   Yeah.
I woke up on my own around 6:15, and saw it was still pretty dark outside. So I tried to get back to sleep, but Sophie kept running around on top of the bed and eating my face and other such things, so I got up, picked her up out of the bed, and went downstairs and out to the backyard so she could pee. While she was going, I looked at the stars to pass the time. Yeah; the stars.
   She had a good piddle, and I took her back through the house and up to my room, where we both got under the covers and I shut my eyes and tried to go to sleep. And then she started whining and running around. After a while of her acting like this, I finally gave up and looked at the clock; it said 7:30, but I still haven't set mine after daylight savings time. (Spring forward, fall back; my clock's an hour fast.) So it was 6:30. Fine; it wasn't that ridiculously early. So I picked up Sophie and went back downstairs, where I put Sophie down and attempted to turn on the TV to pass the time until the others woke up. And as she nipped at my ankles while I groped for the cord, I realized that I couldn't watch TV; I had to watch her, to prevent such things as the peeing on floors and the eating of electrical cords. So basically I spent about two hours (mom & Owen woke up around 8) walking around the house trying to keep a bored puppy out of trouble. I woke up early enough to see the sunrise but I didn't even get to sneak a peek.

(Okay, to be fair she did nap with me through a whole episode of "Monk", and a good part of "Queen of the Sun". But still.)

So, in other news, (although not so much a non-sequitur) I have some pictures of Sophie!

Here she is with dad, on her first day;

I love this one; not exactly an accurate depiction, but so cute!

Here she is being held by Owen and petted by me. She's so calm when she's being held.

Here she is being held by me. (Notice how almost all these pictures are of her being held;
that's 'cause she has almost no chance of standing still otherwise!)

This is a picture of her lying down being all sweet; you don't see much of this.

Here's a picture of her chewing a stick while sitting on me.
Can you see where she got the nickname "Crocodile"?

Here's her and Max sharing a stick; he's really good with her, so stuff like this happens
more often than you might think. (Like, as I type this, for instance.)

Here she is chewing on my hand just this morning.

And the same.

And here she is napping today. :-)

Sooo... yeah. As you can see, we really love our puppy! :-)

SOPHIE!!!!!!

So, my computer hasn't been working right for a while. No internet, no E-mail. It was just a nuisance for a while until something AWESOME happened and there was no way to write about it on my blog. But I just realized; I can use my mom's computer! So; here we go.

WE GOT A PUPPY!
Yup! Her name is Sophie, and she is sooooo adorable! 
See, about a week ago, mom found this dog she liked on petfinder. His name was Scout, and she thought he was adorable, but I didn't think he was all that cute. So mom insisted we go to the shelter so I could meet him in person.
   See, we had been thinking about getting another dog for a while. A companion for Max, to get him some exercise and maybe calm him down when we left the house. Mom wanted an older dog; she said that she wanted someone easy to manage, who would be calm enough to have a good effect on Max.
   We got there, and Scout was nowhere to be found. Apparently, he hadn't even arrived at the shelter yet. There were, however, two adorable honey-colored puppies in a crate in the side room. We played with them for two seconds before I told mom that, of course, we had to adopt one. No, she said, we were going to get an older dog. That was when one of the volunteers came in and took one of the puppies away. "Is she getting adopted?" Mom asked. Yes, she was. Without her sister.
   I looked at mom with what I hoped were puppy-dog eyes. "Come on," I said, "We have to get her now!"
   Mom sighed and started explaining again why we couldn't get a puppy. And I started listing the reasons we should.
   First of all, I told her, puppies are a lot of work, but the training you do with puppies sticks. It works that way with people, too.
  Second, mom had been worried that we would get a dog who wasn't as cute as Max, and Max would end up being the favorite, with the second dog lonely. "But the reason why we love Max so much," I said, "Is probably because we got him as a puppy. We would bond with her if we got her now!"
   And the final, most important reason; "She's sad! She would be happy if we brought her home!"
Mom sighed. Again. "How about you hold the puppy while I think about it." She said. She walked out of the room, and I eagerly took the puppy (who I was calling "butterball) out of her crate. There was Christmas music playing on the radio, and I found myself rocking her gently back and forth while I sang along. She would occasionally interject to lick my face.
   I don't remember what exactly led up to the decision itself, but mom eventually caved and decided to adopt her! Not foster; adopt! Right then and there! Of course, now there was a ton of paperwork to do.
   As I held Sophie while mom filled out the paperwork, a group of kids who must have been on a school field trip or something filed in. I was told (by someone) that they wanted to see a puppy. But we had just taken the last puppy. No big deal, though; it was show and tell time!
   I walked over to the kids and introduced her to them. Everyone had a blast petting her and holding her and cooing over her while I found myself talking like I worked there;
"We don't know how old she is, but we're thinking ten weeks." "Not sure, but we're thinking Shar-Pei/ Lab." "Yeah, her sister just got adopted about fifteen minutes ago!"
When that was over, two girls who weren't with the group came in and started cooing over her too. They stayed the entire time we were filling out the paperwork, one girl holding her and taking pictures to send to her mom and say, "this is what I want for Christmas!"
In the time we were there, we learned that she had multiple siblings, and loved dogs, but wasn't allowed to have one. She was obviously persistent though; somehow I think she'll keep taking pictures of puppies until her parents relent.
   Eventually, the paperwork was done. We took her home and Owen marveled over the new puppy. She played well with Max, had a good pee outside; but we still had to name her.
I had come up with "Sophie" and "Noel" at the shelter. Mom and Owen liked "Rosie".
   I really loved the name Sophie though, so I asked mom, and she said that if Owen was okay with it, that could be her name. And so, we ended up with a puppy named Sophie.

So it turns out that that calm, sweet puppy we met at the shelter is actually not so much calm. Sweet, yeah, but not calm. I fell in love with her from the moment I met her, so I call her things like "Honeybooboo", "Honeybear", 'Honeybun" and a lot of other pet names with the word "Honey" in them. But the names she earned from the rest of the family?;
"Crocodile"
"Psycho puppy"
"Crazy puppy"
"Nippy puppy"
"Psycho"
Does that paint a clear picture?
She is such a lab. She does the "play snarl" that I've only seen labs do, when she's playing with Max and starts growling and snorting like crazy, and you look over to make sure they're okay, and both their tails are still wagging. She is also very chewy; I think she's in the teething stage, because she will chew on anything; including people.
   Not to say she actually bites, but she's not exactly too gentle, either. For the most part, though, it doesn't hurt, and I let her chew on my hand. It's funny; I was terrified of Max chewing me when he was that age, but now you could call me a human chew toy! Unfortunately, though, her favorite chew toy isn't hands; It's feet. And shoes, especially if someone's wearing them. Mom's moccasins are already slowly but surely being pulled apart.
   For all that she's a little psycho puppy, (even I call her that sometimes!) She's also very sweet. She's already slept in my bed with me twice, and although both times I was woken up around seven or six in the morning, she hasn't woken up once for purposes other than to lick my face, then fall back asleep.
   All and all, she is just a wonderful puppy. I am absolutely in love with her, and can't wait to introduce her to everyone! And sorry to everyone I haven't E-mailed with this big news; once again, my E-mail is down for the count. I'd keep writing, but there's yard work to be done. I wonder how that'll work out with a puppy around...

Ciao!

P.S;
I totally forgot! Yesterday was my blog's fifth birthday! Yaaay!

Fleas and Nostalgia

Okay, so Max recently got a very mild case of fleas. So we got him a flea collar, and we thought they had gone away, but we were wrong; because the night before the night before last, I found one in my bed. Two, actually. And then I itched the rest of the night. And then I found one on me the next day. So yesterday we vaccuumed everything, washed all my blankets, and flea-combed the rats (no fleas; thank goodness!) while Owen worried about whether the rats would give us the plague. That's my bro. :-P
There are no more fleas now. (thank goodness!)
   In other news, I was trying to get onto my blog earlier through my dad's computer, and I logged on with her username, so when I tried to log onto blogger it brought me her old blog instead. HUGE, CONCENTRATED BURST OF NOSTALGIA!!!!
   You see, mom started that blog in 2006 and stopped writing on it in 2010, so everything on there is from at least 2 years ago. It's fun to see our different perspectives on certain events. For instance, she wrote about the day we made duct taped swords 5 or 6 years ago, and I wrapped red duct tape down mine "Like a candy cane". Um... no. That was supposed to be blood dripping down the sword. Did you really think I was that cute and innocent?
   And some things happened a lot longer ago than I think they did. For instance, when mom opened up her old camera and said, "Hey, there's film in here!" And dad said, "You say that every time you open it."?
That feels like yesterday, it really does.
   Also, random bit of trivia: It's been six years (as of november 29th) since mom gave in and let me draw on the walls of my room. Since then, (sometime early this year) I actually washed all the graffiti off. After five years. End of an era, huh?
   Also, people who know me will know that I like to quote things out of the blue. Well this is my first (recorded) quote:

"The Philippines are a group of islands off the coast of south east Asia."

Betcha didn't see that one coming, did you?
   Anyway, if you know us and want to take a trip down memory lane, (or if you just want something to read) Read this; http://randomhomeschooler.blogspot.com
It's fun!

Sims 3 (Seasons!)

Okay! Time to rant about The Sims 3 some more.
  First of all, My sims finally moved into that new house! I settled on a place called "Sunny acres". I totally remodeled the bedroom- it's awesome now. But, of course, not as awesome as the basement! In the backyard there is a little building which looks almost like a shed from the outside. On the inside of that buildingyou would observe stone walls and floors, and two stone statues standing over a spiral staircase leading down. One statue is of a man holding a wine glass. One is of a woman holding a bowl of grapes. (Do you see where I'm going here?) And if you were to travel down that staircase, you would come to the nectar cellar! (Nectar is like sim-wine.) The nectar cellar is where I keep the nectar-maker, and all the nectar. But that's not all. if you were to see this nectar cellar, you would notice something odd; there is a bookshelf on one wall. Just one bookshelf. In a nectar cellar. And if one were to click on this bookshelf, one would not get the option to "read something", but instead the option to "go through door", for this bookshelf is actually a secret door which leads to the RELIC GALLERY! Pretty cool, huh?

Another thing: Yesterday, after months of waiting for it to be released, I finally bought the Sims 3 Seasons expansion pack! Dad is actually the one who bought it, (he gets a discount at best buy) but he used my money. The sims 3 Seasons expansion pack features seasons, weather, festivals, holidays, and all those fun things. I had been waiting for months, so when I finally started playing, I was ecstatic! I was having an infinite amount of time until it shut down. Sims just shut itself off. For no apparent reason. I mentioned this to mom and she saqid since it was almost bedtime anyway, I should wait until tomorrow; maybe it would work after it rebooted. So today I got on the computer and started playing again. It worked pretty well until I tried to save; then error code 12 popped up. This had happened before. It basically meant I couldn't save. By then I had had enough. I thought to myself, you know what? I'm just going to play anyway. So i played for a few minutes. And guess what happened? Sims shut down. AGAIN.
  Mom got home (she was at the doctor's office) and I told her what had happened, and she's still trying to fix it. She says that Dad (the computer expert) won't have time to look at it until this weekend. -_-
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
  So, while I'm waiting to play sims, I hope to post a visual tour of my sim's new house. Soon. Maybe.

RECAP!!!!

Once again, I have neglected my blog for months only to start up again in a completly different season than when I left it. Sorry about that. So, it's time for another recap! Lets start, shall we?

Sandy:
WE LOST POWER DURING SANDY! Yeah, for like, four whole days. It might have had something to do with the fact that me and Owen had been wishing for the power to go out the whole day of the hurricane. Probably not, but, you know. Whatever. At some point, I actually got out paper and pencil and started writing a story about the first day of the hurricane. By candlelight. Most of it, anyway. I'll probably type it up at some point and share it with you, but not now. Right now, my hand is actually a little stiff because it's cold in here. Brr.

Singing/Music Reading Class:
I started taking singing class! And reading music class. Singing class is really fun, and when I first got there I was expecting the teacher to be all, "You think you have a good voice? Your voice is no different than anyone elses." And then she'd whip me into shape and it would all be some sort of dramatic yet inspriational movie. No dice. In a good way, though; because the first time I sang in the class, everyone clapped and the teacher said my voice was "Beautiful, clear, and crystalline". Apparently I'm a high soprano. : O
Reading music class, however, was a different story. The first time i got homework, (the dreaded word) I pored over it for what seemed like hours and got through two pages. In the next class, the teacher said, "Okay, you all did your homework? Good, now over the week read to page 38."
I was seriously behind, seriously stressed out, and seriously not learning anything. So I decided I just didn't want to take the class anymore. Mom said it was okay, but there was one more problem left; what to tell the teacher. To be honest, I spent the entire time between classes thinking up excuses that would get me out of the class without any hard feelings. on either of our parts. But, in the next singing class, when the teacher asked why I hadn't shown up for reading music class, I just stood up and told the truth. And nobody bit my head off, and nobody made fun of me. She said it was perfectly okay, and I didn't have to apologize for anything, because reading music is a really hard subject. So now I'm just taking singing class.

4H:
I am also now in two 4H clubs; sewing, and horticulture.
They actually start the horticulture club right in the middle of a fundraiser, which is kind of stupid in my opinion, but there's probably some weird reason for it that I don't know. So now I'm selling bulbs.

Sailing:
Not much to say about sailing, except this: SAILING SEASON IS OVER! It ends in October. It is so tragical. *sniff*

Sims 3:
Remember that game I keep ranting about? Well, a lot new has happened with it. I'm not sure what to tell you about first, so I'll just go with chronological order.

First of all; Hope is gone. You know Hope, that wonderful tortured-artisty sim I kept raving about? She grew up, got married, moved out, had kids, and was claimed by a COMPUTER ERROR. It wouldn't let me save the game. As it turns out, there wasn't enough memory. We got more, but now I'm kind of afraid to play her, like playing any more will trigger some new glitch and my heart will be broken all over again. I don't have the heart to delete her though, so she just sort of sits in the dashboard, Proudly holding her newest baby, her two toddlers on the floor in front of her and her husband's hand on her shoulder. No longer a functioning sim; just a portrait of nostalgia. Forgive me if I seem a little dramatic, but Hope was a REALLY AWESOME SIM.

Second of all; I got the new expansion pack; Sims 3 SUPERNATURAL. In it are werewolves, witches, fairies, zombies, fortune-tellers, mushrooms, alchemy, and all these other wonderful things! That's really what got me playing again. But my sim right now has little to do with the supernatural. In fact, she has more to do with the physical realm than any of my other sims ever have. That's because;

Last of all: She's Me. My new sim is as close an approximation of me as I could muster. (Okay. my hand is no longer stiff, but now my wrist is sore. Ow.) She looks almost exactly like me, she wears things that i would wear in real life, (Her pajamas? Dead ringers.) and she doesn't wear shoes. I know, right?
Her stats:

Name: Bridget Coulter
Age: Young Adult
Traits: Couch potato, Excitable, Eco-friendly, Bookworm, Absent minded.
Favorite food: Grilled salmon.
Favorite music: Classical.
Favorite color: Red.
Lifetime wish: Seasoned traveler (Have max visa for all three travel destinations.)
Astrological sign: Libra. (I don't know what this one is about, but I filled it in anyway.)

She has a career in journalism, and right now she has a level 2 visa for two out of three of the travel destinations. Right now she pretty much lives in a hovel, but she's saving up for her dream house, because (surprise, surprise!) she's planning for a family. I already know my daughter's name and traits. I'm not revealing them though. Okay, I am: (SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!!)

Name: Terra Coulter.
Traits: Good, Loves the outdoors, Adventurous, Eco friendly, and one last undetermined trait.

Her father will be Yves Bernard, (soon to be Yves Coulter!) Bridget's boyfriend in France. (I know, right? What is up with my sims and French dudes? At least this one is actually single.)
Though he's from France, I actually met Yves in Egypt, where he was going as an explorer, pith helmet and everything. Since then they talked on the phone every day until she finally visited France, and they became boyfriend and girlfriend right then and there. I'm planning on moving into a nicer house, then inviting him over for a while. I'll ask him to move in with me, (Her. Her, not me.) And then they'll get engaged, and have their wedding in France! Only this time I'll actually have a wedding party, since by then I'll have a vacation home, and I (She. SHE!) already has plenty of friends in France.
I'm having trouble finding a house, though. Same problem with Clarissa: It has to be big enough to raise a family, but not so big that maneuvering gets confusing. I also want to have enough room to build a nectar-cellar/gallery, where I'll store my nectar, and a gallery of my relics. And a big yard, to fit a clothesline.
I might build my own house, but with me that's akin to rolling dice and hoping for the best. I'm good at interior design, but architecture? Not so much.
  Another problem is that I really want a home that makes me feel the same way I did in Hope's house. It's hard to explain, but whether I was watching Clarissa cook breakfast, or having Hope take pictures of Gerard and Tad on the seesaw, the whole house just felt... right. I'm being vague, I know.

Soooo.... there you go. That's as much as I care to write about at the moment, soo...
Ciao!
    Signed, Someone who is Totally NOT a Unicorn. (Maybe.)

Weather

(2nd Consecutive Post!)
Today I decided to keep a weather log. I looked at the clouds and the temperature, and felt the wind and humidity, and wrote them down in a book. These are the entrys;

8/21/12

Weather: Sunny, sunny sunny!

Clouds: Cirrostratus; possible moist weather ahead.

Wind: almost nonexistent.

Temp: 76 farenheight

Humidity: leaning towards dry.

Time recorded: 12:47 PM.
_____________________________________________

2:49 PM
Temp: 79 farenheight.

Clouds: Cirrus; Cumulus; Nimbostratus?

Wind: barely there.

Humidity: Same.
______________________________________________

5:45 PM
Clouds: Cumulus and Cirrus to the north; Nimbostratus to the south. Storm soon?

Temp: 76.5 farenheight. Went down a bit.

Humidity: Risen a bit. Not much.
________________________________________________

6:52 PM: wind picked up a bit.
________________________________________________

7:32 PM
Humidity rose; less clouds.

At that point there was less Nimbostratus and more Cirrus and Cirrostratus so I could safely assume we weren't getting the storm I predicted. Tomorrow I'll check the weather reports of surrounding areas and see if I was at least a little right.

(2nd Consecutive Post!)

Nature Documentaries

Okay; so I missed a few days. So sue me. But I didn't really feel like writing.
Anyway, I'm writing today, right? so;
     Lately we were discussing how Owen used to like studying things like cephlapods and snakes. He used to latch on to a subject, then go out to the library and check out all the books he could find on it. So, in an attempt to rekindle this love of the natural world, i found a documentary on netflix.
"Blue Planet" was one I had watched before, and had not been disappointed. It's a documentary in chunks, about the ocean, it's inhabitants, and it's effect on the rest of the world.
I was worried, though, about showing it to Owen. At first glance, he doesn't seem like the type who would sit through a nature documentary. But he watched the whole thing. Even as we were learning about the breeding rituals of squids, even as we were watching a baby gray whale being killed by orcas, he didn't take his eyes of the screen.
     When prompted, he said about the movie; "I liked it, except for the part where they killed that baby whale." I can only imagine that he either liked watching the ocean scenes, or he could actually understand what the narrator was saying. Don't get me wrong; I do speak english. But most of what he was saying just couldn't seem to penetrate my brain. I suppose we have a young marine biologist in our midst.
     Come to think of it, the last time we took him to the boathouse he seemed engrossed in watching the baitfish jumping out of the water. He seemed to enjoy learning that the reason they jumped was that they were being chased by bass. And the last time he went on a learning spree, wasn't it cephlapods that so caught his attention? Does he not still pride himself on knowing the facts about blue-ringed octupi and flambouyant cuttlefish? I had thought, originally, that his young mind was geared toward engineering and architecture, being the fan of legos and minecraft he is. But he may be a naturalist yet.
    

My Awesome Day at the Lagoon/Beach.

Remember yesterday, when I went to the beach but didn't have time to tell you about it? Well, as soon as I wrote that last entry, I sat down in front of microsoft word and started typing, and I kept writing until bedtime. I just finished my tale a few minutes ago. So here it is. The story of my beach day.

(11^th Consecutive Post!)

(Disclaimer: I am probably not quoting anyone here. These are the events of the day as my brain tells me they happened. So if I mess anything up, please don’t take it personally.)

Today, Owen, mom and I went to the beach with K and A.

                When we got there, they weren’t there yet, so me and Owen played in the waves for a while until Owen said, “Hey, there’s K and A.” (He used their actual names)

I said hi to K, and A and I immediately began the whole “purple cabbage”, “marshmallow socks” exchange. We played in the waves for a while; I discovered that I could throw my legs back and wait for the next wave to throw me in a backwards somersault. I spent a lot of time hugging my knees to my chest and being tossed around by the waves, and K and A did a lot of wrestling; they like to wrestle in the water and see who can push whose head under.

                Eventually, we got out of the search of a drink (all of us) and some food (me).

I desperately needed some water, seeing as the last wave had forced the ocean down my throat. I gulped the ice-cold water from our canteen down, but everything would taste like salt for a while afterward. I think I was still eating some of my salmon salad when A asked me, “Hey, do you want to take a walk?”

                “In which direction?” I asked.

                “Down that way.” She pointed to the stretch of shore to the left of our little camp.

She and K told me about a “lagoon” they had found years ago that was really fun. I had never seen an actual lagoon before, so I was all for it. They said it was a long way away, but I really wanted to see the lagoon. So we set off.

                As we were walking, we came upon a giant heap of mussels; and I mean really, it was huge! Bigger than I’ve seen, anyway. We poked around in it and found some nice shells, and a ladybug. It stuck to A’s finger. “Aww, it loves you!” I said.

                “Get it off.” A said. I scraped it off with a shell. “pooping on me is not a sign of love.”

Apparently, the ladybug had pooped on her. A little further down, we found a dead ladybug. A dug a hole, and we buried it. We said a few words, (a bit jokingly, I’ll admit) and put a little gravestone (a mussel) and an epithet (a piece of seaweed) over the grave. Then we sang Amazing Grace.

This actually happened a lot throughout our trip.

                Somewhere near the lagoon was a long jetty of rocks and concrete, and we walked along it looking at tidal pools. Hiding in one of the rocks next to the ocean I saw a little tidal pool. I tried to climb down to it, but A warned me not to. It was dangerous, she said. I sighed and got back to my feet. There would be more tidal pools, anyway.

                There were, actually. There was one so full of algae it was like a carpet. There was an American flag on the end of the jetty, and we turned back a few feet from that.

                Soon we got to a point where we could see the lagoon. It was a big puddle, (more that than a small lagoon) pouring in from between the rocks, just on the other side of which was the ocean. It was situated in sort of an inside-out cove. Farther up the shore and away from the lagoon was a pile of planks and driftwood laying against the cliff. While we were walking to it, K and A told me about an injured seagull they had rescued called “Sandy’. Apparently they had managed to touch her.

                We stepped through the lagoon. K told me that the lagoon used to be a lot bigger, and sometimes it would even stretch toward the pile of wood, but they hadn’t seen it that big in years.

We found ourselves sitting in a little pool between four or five rocks. K found a dead crab there.

                I looked under one of the rocks and saw that it formed a little sea cave. “Hey!” I said. “A sea cave.”

                K looked in my direction. “yeah.” She said. “A little too small for us though.”

                “Wouldn’t it be cool if we were really small?” I said. “And we could hide under there?”

And so a story was born. Me and A and K kept going back and forth, adding to the story, until we came up with an entire trilogy. “Wow!” I said when we were done. “We should totally write that!”

                “Yeah!” K and A agreed.

After that, we went up to the pile of wood and poked around a bit. There was this piece of concrete covered in colored, rubber mock-asphalt. You know, the stuff they pave some playgrounds with  so kids don’t get hurt too much when they fall. They called it the “rainbow road”.

                We started on our way home, and at the mouth of the sand-cove A found a dead rat/mouse. It was small for a rat but big for a mouse. “We have to bury it.” I said. A poked it with a stick, and it accidently brushed her hand, so she washed her hand off in the lagoon while we dug a hole for her. The rat/mouse, not A. we named her Mrs. Thisby. When A came back, we had buried Mrs. Thisby and put a grave marker (a stick) at her head. I said a few words, and we all sang Amazing Grace. Or, the first verse, anyway. I put some stalks of dried kelp at her head, and we walked back to where we were set up. A few times K and A thought they saw Sandy, but each candidate flew away when chased.

                When we got back, A and K’s moms had arrived. They were sitting in the two green chairs A and K had brought. I had a long drink of water, and we told everyone about the lagoon, and the rat, and how we thought we saw Sandy a few times. A and K’s mom told me that she had told the girls that if they could catch or touch a seagull, she would give them a hundred dollars. She now owes them a hundred dollars.

                We made plans to take Owen back to the lagoon with us, and mom said alright, but she didn’t want us gone for more than an hour.

                “An hour?’ I said. “We won’t be gone that long.” That’s when she told me that, the last time we went to the lagoon, we had been gone for two hours.

                “That’s why you were so thirsty!” mom said.

A and K’s mom told us that we had about forty-five minutes until the lifeguards left, so if we wanted to swim, we should do it now and then go to the lagoon. And then Owen told us about the fish.

                Apparently, Owen had discovered little, striped fish swimming around near the shore. And apparently, they were everywhere. We waded out with him to see. They were so ubiquitous, you could even see them from the surface. They were everywhere! “I wish I had brought my mask.” I remarked to K.

                “Go get it!” she said. “They’re everywhere, it’s really cool!”

So I trudged back to where we had set up and got my mask. As soon as I put it on, I saw what they meant. Little, flat-ish silver fish, with vertical black stripes and black spots on their heads, swimming around everywhere, just out of reach of curious fingers. We spent a long time trying to catch them or touch them, coming up only for air. I discovered that I could stay upside-down longer by windmilling my arms. I almost touched them a few times; almost. K brought out her snorkel and swam around like that for a while. Soon, though, the lifeguards left, and it was time to come out of the water.

                Now we could go to the lagoon.

                K had to make a sandball first, though. She packed wet sand into a little ball, then added dry sand around the edges to make it bigger and bigger. We named it “Harvey-Joe”.  I think she was almost done when a chunk of sand fell out of its side. “Noooo!” K said dramatically. “Harvey-Joe!”

                “Well,” I said. “He has a mouth now.”

                “Yeah.” Said K. “Now he needs two little eyes…” she tried to poke eyes above the mouth, but only succeeded in prodding more sand off the overall ball. “Nooo!” she said again. She packed wet sand into the mouth.

                At this point, A came over. “Where’s the other ball?” she asked.

                “This is the same one.” K said.

                “Good.”

K was, once again, nearly finished when a chunk of sand fell out of its side.

“Nooo!” she screamed again. “Oh, whatever.” She said, and threw Harvey-Joe into the ocean.

                “NOOOO!” we screamed together, and we ran to the spot where he had landed.

                “I killed Harvey-Joe!’ K said. It was all very dramatic.

                Now that Harvey-Joe was out of the way, we started on our way toward the lagoon. We ran, so that we would have as much time as we could to play there. Mom had said that if we weren’t back in forty-five minutes she’d come to check on us.

K was running really fast, so the rest of us were, inevitably, left behind a few times. When we made it there, we were in for a surprise: the lagoon had grown.

                The lagoon was now only about ten or fifteen feet from the pile of wood, and was more of a very small lagoon than a big puddle. “OMIGOSH!” everyone (except Owen) shouted, and we all ran to the lagoon. “This is amazing!” I said. “It must be the tide!”

                There were big logs floating around in the lagoon, and near the shore, and in the lagoon was something of a raft; a small deck of sorts that must have been used atop a ship or in a warehouse, to place boxes or crates on top of. A and Owen tried to float on it like a raft, to no avail.

                Why not do our yoga in the lagoon, I suggested to K, and she agreed.

We did our routine about half a foot into the water. Owen and A had discovered how to float on the “raft” and they were harassing us with its pointy edges, but nonetheless we managed to get through the routine. We added goddess pose to the mix as well.

                At the end of our routine, we lay down at the shore and breathed deeply for a while, and then the routine was over. We spent the rest of our time swimming around in the lagoon.

                K found a place where you could wedge yourself in between the rocks, and it functioned as sort of a crude, natural ergonomic bench. It was very comfortable, except for the onslaught of waves from the other side of the rocks which forced us to hang on for dear life each time we heard the roar of the ocean. A and Owen wedged the “raft” in between a few rocks in the deep end of the lagoon and used it as a diving board. Or I guess “jumping board” would be more accurate, as the deepest the lagoon got was only about two and a half or three feet. I jumped off once and discovered it wasn’t for me, but A had great fun with it.

                We were all sad when it was time to go. Our moms arrived forty-five or fifty minutes later, stayed for a bit, and then brought us back. On the way back we showed everyone Mrs. Thisby’s  grave, and I found a plastic gorilla figurine on the shore. I offered it to A, and she took it, but gave it back to me on the grounds that “Its mouth is creepy.” I couldn’t argue with that.

                Owen stopped at their house to go to the bathroom, and then we began the hour-long trip back to our house. Mom groaned as she looked at the radio clock.

                “We won’t even have time to take showers by the time we get home.” She said.

When we got back, it was around 9:30 at night. We each took quick showers and went to bed.  As I lay in my bed, I could still feel the sensation of ghost waves rocking me back and forth. Swaying in an imaginary ocean. If I pictured a big wave in my head, I would feel it too. My inner ear thought I was still in the ocean. I fell asleep being rocked by the waves.

Deleted Scene:

We were taking a break from the ocean, and I was eating some of my salmon salad, when A pulled from her bag a ziplock baggie of purple cabbage.

“Is that purple cabbage?” I asked.

                “Yeah!” she said. “It’s really good.

                “Can I try some?” I asked.

                “Sure.” She handed me a piece. I took a bite and chewed, and there was no taste.

                “ There’s no taste!” I exclaimed. I tried piling some of my salmon salad on top. I still couldn’t taste it.

                “Maybe my mouth just tastes too much like salt water.”

          

 

(11^th Consecutive Post!)

Beach

(10th Consecutive Post!)
Today I went to the beach with A and K, and we had a blast.
     So much fun, in fact, that we just got home and it's 9:40 PM.
So I'm going to tell you that I went to the beach right now, and you'll hear all about it as soon as I can get it written down.

Peace.

(10th Consecutive Post!)

The Nest.

(9th Consecutive Post!)

Today me and Owen, (in refuge from our grumpy father) spent an hour or so holed up upstairs. Mom was at her "Senior olympics" volunteer meeting. When we got upstairs, the first thing that caught my eye was Owen's radio.
     Owen's radio is shaped like a large, single Lego brick, and it's very much fun to mess around with. As I was exploring the channels, Owen came up with a game. He touched the antenna to a body part, and I would tune the radio into a random station to see what his body part was "thinking". The first thing we did was touch the antenna to his chin. I randomly sped through channels until landing in one spot. We immediatley heard the classic "I'm Sexy and I Know it" emanating from the speakers. We both cracked up. Owen touched the antenna to my glasses, and the radio came on to a politics talk show. I suppose my glasses are very serious; ironic, considering they look like harry-potter's pair.
We touched the antenna to the head of my stuffed Piglet toy, which I still have from my early days, to find out what was going on inside his head. I never knew piglet spoke Spanish.
     Bored of the radio, we went to my room and began constructing a "nest" of various sheets and pillows. We first lay down a comforter, folded in two; then a few pillows, and then began constructing the walls. I dug through the closet for all the sheets I could find, whether forgotten or well-used. (I found the sheets that go with mom's bedspread.) while Owen "shaped" the walls. Finally, we had a nice, soft, comfy nest. in which I could read Yotsuba&! to Owen in peace. We got through a few chapters before mom came back.

(9th Consecutive Post!)

Nestor

(8th Consecutive Post!)

Today Nestor, Owen's friend, came over and they made a blanket-fort together in Owen's room. And i ambushed them with a nerf gun. So Owen hit me with a back-massager. Yeah. Not much else happened.

(8th Consecutive Post!)

On my Own

(7^th Consecutive Post!)

Today mom learned that you don’t have to take the course to go sailing; you just have to take the course to be the one actively sailing. So she was all, “Really? Then I can go sailing with you!”

And that’s how Owen, mom and I ended up going sailing together. Or so we thought. (DUM dum DUUUM!)

                We got there, and there were two women inside in front of the sign-in sheet. As I was signing in, one of the women said that we could use the boat they had just taken out, since it was still put up.

                I said, no, I’d like to take boat six, since I wanted to teach Owen how to put a boat up.

I started walking down the ramp into the water to get the hull, and Mom and Owen stayed up on the dock. Because they didn’t want to get wet. Sh’yeah. I explained that if they were going to be putting the boat together, they were going to get wet. So Owen came with me to get the hull while mom waited in the shallow water. We tied it up to one of the colored pegs on the grass, and started bringing everything out from the boathouse. (Rudder, Daggerboard, Sheetline, Mast, Sail.)

                I told Owen to get the sheetline. “Know what that’s called?” I asked him.

He didn’t know. “It’s the sheetline.” I told him. I did that a few times.

                There’s a bunch of little laminated sheets in the boathouse with instructions on how to put a boat up. Mom held it and read aloud while I showed Owen which parts were which and went where.

We were still putting the boat up when Ralph showed up. He asked how old Owen is, and mom said, “He’s ten.”

                “You’ve gotta be eleven to go out in a sailboat.” He said. “No younger, no exceptions.”

To be fair, I had told this to mom. But she has certain problems with interpretations that make it hard to communicate.

                Owen, disappointed, leaned his head into mom’s side for most of the rest of the time I was putting the boat up. He watched me attach the rudder, but that’s pretty much it. Now I would have to go out on my own, since Owen couldn’t come, and mom couldn’t leave him alone.

                Finally, it was time to take the boat out. “I guess I’m going out on my own for the first time.” I grumbled, facing the boat into the wind. I was, honestly, a little pissed at mom. I still didn’t know if I was comfortable sailing on my own, but that was outweighed by the part of me that didn’t want to have driven here for nothing. Still, it would have been nice to go out with mom.

                Mom helped me raise the sail, and steadied the boat while I hopped in. I sat on the left side of the boat, held the tiller in my right hand, and the sheetline in my left, and headed for the beach on the other side of the lake. This was it! I was sailing on my own!

                On my way to the beach, I talked to the sail to comfort myself. Some superstitious part of my brain had convinced the rest of me that, by acknowledging that the sail was self-aware, (which it isn’t) it would feel more secure, and therefore like me better. I do that sometimes. Mom had said she and Owen would go to the beach, so I tried to sail around as close as I could to the beach and see if I could see them. I thought I saw them a few times, but I never really did.

                After I gave up scanning the beach, I decided to try heading to the end of the lake. One small problem; I had wandered into the calm belt. Sorry; One-Piece reference. What I mean is there was almost no wind. I turned around from one side to the other, sometimes catching a bit of wind and going relatively fast, sometimes not moving at all. Most of the time I was going so slow that It seemed like I was stationary, but just fast enough that if I stuck my hand in the water, I could tell I was moving forward. Finally I decided I would just head back to the boathouse, since I wasn’t having much fun out on the lake. But one thing; heading back to the boathouse would require moving.

                So I angled my sail around where I thought it would get some wind, and waited. And waited. There were some points where I didn’t even have to hold on to the tiller; it wouldn’t have mattered, I was going so slowly. I made up two songs about sailors wishing for the wind to blow them where they wanted to go. Guess where I got that idea?

                After an eternity of waiting, I came up near the green and red barrels on front of the boathouse. These are the barrels you’re supposed to sail through when you go out, and when you come back in. I could see mom and Owen waiting for me on the grass. So close, yet so far. Getting a bit impatient, I started moving the tiller back and forth, using the rudder to sort of “paddle” my way there. It got a little faster, but not by much. At one point I saw a canoe go by with two people in it. They didn’t have to rely on the wind to go anywhere. “What I wouldn’t give for a paddle right now!” I shouted to them humorously. One laughed. The other kept paddling.

                I finally got close enough to the boathouse that mom and Owen waded out and pulled me in the rest of the way. At one point the daggerboard ground against the lake bottom, but we got the boat safely in.

                When we had gotten the boat apart, I waded out to the buoys with Owen to put the hull back. When we had locked it safely in place, I told Owen to get in the cockpit. He climbed in, with some difficulty, and I rocked the boat back and forth. I tipped it to port; “You’re turning!” I shouted. I tipped It to starboard. “You’re turning again!” Ralph was watching from the grass, smiling.

                 Mom started a conversation with Ralph. He told us about the day he had been sailing with his friend on separate boats, and they had gotten caught in a storm.  If you can’t be a good example, be a horrible warning, right? While he and mom were talking, Owen and I watched the water for baitfish, jumping out to escape the bass chasing them. Some of them would jump really high, too. Ralph told us that sometimes, if you waited, you would see the bass jump out of the water after the baitfish.

                Soon the sun was setting, and it was time to head home. As we were walking back to the car, I told Owen; “I’ll take you sailing on your birthday.”

                I meant it.

(7^th Consecutive Post!)

Sailing with Rebekah!

(6^th Consecutive Post!)

(DISCLAIMER: I am probably not actually quoting anyone here. These are the events of the day as my brain tells me they happened.)

Today I went sailing with my Aunt Rebekah.

                We were actually supposed to go sailing yesterday, but the weather report said there was supposed to be rain all afternoon. And then it didn’t rain. Anyway;

                Rebekah is almost as unlearned as I am. She took a course, but it was about fifteen years ago.

So we got there, and there’s a bunch of teen/ young-adult peoples there squirting each other with water guns. Ooookaay. There was also this woman (A mom?) and a kid setting up this weird-looking white boat that looked like if a kayak and a catamaran had a baby.

                We had to wait a bit for them to finish setting up so there would be room for us, but finally we were just like, you know what? Let’s go to the other side of the dock. Yeah. That’ll work.

                So we both started walking off in different directions, she’s going to the boathouse and I’m going to the concrete ramp that leads into the water where the boats are. “Where are you going?” I said to her.

                “I don’t know.” She said. “Where am I going?”

                I pointed in the direction of the boats and said, “The boats are that way.”

She stood at the edge of the dock (because she didn’t want the get too wet. Right.) While I waded into the water up to about my hips to get to the boats tied to the buoys about three-feet deep.

The boats tied to the buoys aren’t entire boats; no sails, ropes or rudders, just the boat-y part.

                Once we had the boat tied up to the dock, we started bringing the parts out from the boathouse one by one. There are a bunch of little yellow sheets in the boathouse that tell you how to put a boat up and tear it down, for people like me with no capacity for remembering processes.

We both needed it.

                We put everything together and waded out, with the boat, into two feet of water.

Then we raised the sail and got on. I got on first, then Rebekah. But she ended up kind of flopping her whole body onto the deck and having to roll around on her side to get to a sitting position. I thought she looked like a seal. She used the words “Beached Whale.”

                So we were all on the boat, and I noticed the boom was a little close to our heads. I said so.

And Rebekah said, “Yeah, we couldn’t raise the sail all the way because the halyard is tangled around the mast.”

                WHY DID SHE NOT MENTION THIS? (I said that, too.)

So we got out and unwound the halyard from around the metal thingy that sticks up from the boat, and lowered the sail. But to untangle the halyard line, we would have to actually take the mast back out and put it back up again properly. Or so we thought.

                “Let me try something.” I said, and I balled up the end of the line, and threw it over the mast, and it was untangled.

                So now we raised the sail again, (which was a lot easier this time.) and got back up onto the boat. This time Rebekah did it with less of a “beached whale” look.

I had the tiller in one hand, and the sheetline in the other, and I was ready to set sail. One small problem; we weren't moving forward.  Rebekah was trying to paddle with her flip-flops, and I was pulling the sheetline in real hard and waving the tiller back and forth, trying to turn in any direction to catch the wind. It’s then that Rebekah notices the rudder isn’t in the water. We forgot to put it down.

So I leaned over really far and stretched my arm, and managed to push it down into the water.

And we finally started moving forward.

                We sailed in between the red and green barrels, and now we were out on the lake. We just sailed around aimlessly for a while, and  Rebekah and I talked. But at some point the wind died down, or we turned into the wind, and we just stopped moving forward. We were caught in this little cove next to the beach, and we were lufting. Rebekah tried to paddle with her flip-flops, and I turned the rudder as hard as I could in one direction and pulled in hard on the sheetline, but we just weren’t moving.

                So we passed the time by singing sea shanties. Of course, I only know the two songs; Blow the Man Down and What do You do with a Drunken Sailor. A while after we were done with the latter, we saw a butterfly fly past us. It was really cool to see a butterfly so far out on the lake like that, and we waved hi to it. And I, who am usually not a very superstitious person, decided it must be good luck.

So I turned the rudder as hard as I could to the other side and pulled in the sheetline, and I thought we were going to get out of irons for a minute there, but then we got caught again.

The butterfly flew past us again, as if to say, “No! No, you didn’t get the message! I’m only good luck if you go that way.” And then we got out of irons.

                Now we were kind of stuck, though, at the end of the lake. The wind was blowing straight across from the other end, so we weren’t going to get anywhere by heading straight. So I decided to try tacking.

                Tacking is when you essentially attempt to head “into” the wind by moving in zigzags up the wind. I told Rebekah I was going to try tacking, picked up some speed, and turned really-really fast and hard to the right. I kept doing this up and down the lake, making steady progress.

On our way there, we stopped by the beach; we sailed as close as we could without breaking any rules, and waved to everyone on the beach. I’m not sure if anyone saw us, but it was fun.

                Somwhere along the way, we saw setting out from this little cove near the beach, two boats; one with a sail that looked like the Italian flag with one extra color, and one whose sail was a jolly roger. Awesome. We kept seeing them all throughout our trip.

                Somewhere in the middle of the lake, we saw Ralph, (Forgive me if I get anyone’s name wrong.) setting out on his big white sailboat. It’s not a sunfish, like ours. It’s a nice fancy one, with a little cabin and everything. Or I’m guessing so, by the appearance of portholes on the sides.

                Ralph is the guy who organizes everything in the boathouse. He’s the one who puts the letters on the buoys for everyone to find, and makes shirts for all the people who work there.

                We waved and shouted “Hey!” (In a friendly, “hey, how you doing?” kind of way.)

He waved back and greeted us. “This is my new teacher!” I said, pointing to Rebekah. “She knows almost as much as I do!”

                Rebekah, who knows how to take a joke, laughed and said, “The last time I sailed was fifteen years ago!”

                We had a short conversation, (which, on the lake, means it lasted about fifteen seconds.) and I told him I had tacked the entire way there, which I am still very proud of.

                Sailing further toward the end of the lake, we noticed a catamaran with huge sails that looked like a sunset sailing around on the lake. I sailed up close and shouted, “Hey! Nice boat!”

                “It looks like a sunset!” Rebekah added. The man in the boat waved cheerfully.

                We soon tacked our way to the end of the lake, where we waved to a man relaxing on his back porch, which was built right on the shore. “It would be nice,” I remarked to Rebekah, “to live so close to the lake. Cool breezes, sparkling water, and you could just look out whenever and see all the sails.”

She agreed.

                There was a fallen tree somewhere along the shoreline. We tried to get closer and see why it had fallen, but we couldn’t see the stump. Soon it was time to tack around for the last time.

                I got the boat in just the right position and built up a little speed, then I turned sharply to the left, and we were sailing up the lake! For a while we were going really fast, and soon we were right in front of the boathouse. I asked Rebekah if we should head back in to the dock.

                “We’ve still got a lot of time left before we have to go in to the dock.” She said. “You can if you want to, but if you’re still having fun we can stay out here for a while.”

                I steered us away from the dock.

We had a blast for a while, going wherever the wind took us and singing songs, and soon I figured it was time to head back in. One problem though; the wind was blowing in entirely the wrong direction. Again.

                We sailed around hopelessly for a while, trying to tack around to the boathouse, but the wind was now blowing from that direction. For a while we thought we were going to make it neatly through the red and green barrels, but we had to turn back away because we were lufting again.

                That’s when we saw Ralph coming up in a sunfish with a bright orange-and-red sail, a woman in the boat with him. (I’ve met her, I just don’t know her name.”

                We explained that we were trying to head back into the dock, and he shouted over the lake, “Just head for barrel three and you’ll be fine!”

                We headed for barrel three and after a lot of tweaking and poking and prodding, we made it in to the dock.

                We took everything apart, and Rebekah insisted we lift the boat up onto the concrete ramp and pull the plug to let the water out. Later, we were told only to do this if the boat was on a trailer, because otherwise it could damage the bottom of the boat.

                We went into the boathouse, put our PFDs back, and grabbed my sunblock.

                “That’s it?” Rebekah said. “We put everything back, and we have your sunblock, right?”

                “Yup.” I said. “We did it!”

                “We did it!” she said. We cheered. Partly because we were proud of ourselves for navigating the treacherous waters of lake Parsippany, and part because we both were (I assume) still a little disoriented from the near death experience. And to top off our day, we headed to McDonalds.

               

                So that’s the story about how I learned how to tack, and to do a lot of other things on my own, mainly because Rebekah’s skills were still to rusty to teach anyone much of anything. We worked together, I helping her to remember, and she helping me to learn. It was great.

                And now, please enjoy some “Deleted Scenes”; Of course, the actual sailing trip lasted for hours, so to make the story “flow” a little nicer, I had to omit a few things. And here they are.

Deleted Scene #1: I held tight to the sheetline and tried my hardest to push the tiller all the way to the right, but it just wouldn’t budge.

                “Come on, Come on!” Rebekah was urging me on, as if that would help to make the turn faster. Though she might have been talking to the boat. I was giving my all with the tiller, even leaning my body against it, but it just wouldn’t budge any farther than I was already pushing it. I looked back to see if there was anything wrong with it, and the tiller was tangled in the sheetline.

I grumbled, and let go of the sheetline so I could turn around and untangle it.
               “The tiller is tangled in the sheetline!” I said to Rebekah, to explain my reason for suddenly ‘taking my foot off the gas pedal’.

I was still grumbling a bit when I got them unhooked from each other. As we sailed away, I remarked to Rebekah; “The tiller and the sheetline are either fighting or making out.” She laughed.

Deleted Scene #2:

We were getting closer to the end of the lake, when I noticed a bug on Rebekah’s  PFD. “Rebekah,” I said. “There’s a bug on your-“

                She didn’t let me finish. “Where? Where?” she said, turning her head from side to side and seemingly trying to wipe the bug off with her ponytail. “Can you reach it?”

                “Not without letting go of the tiller.” I said. “But I can try to hit it with the sheetline.”

                I successfully knocked it off, sending the little bug flying onto the deck. Rebekah turned around to examine what had been crawling around on her back. “Huh.” She remarked. “it looks a little like a grasshopper.”

                “Yeah. “ I said. “only with a rounder butt.”

Deleted Scene #3:

We were sailing along somewhere in the middle of the lake, when we saw the sunset-catamaran doing a turn. “Wow!” Rebekah said, looking at the catamaran. “He’s really leaning into that turn.”

He was. If he was turning any harder, he would have actually been on his side.

Deleted Scene #4:

We were sailing somewhere in the middle of the lake, when the wind picked up really hard for just a second. It was enough to scare me into letting go of the tiller, knock the sheetline out of my hand, and, with a loud “AAAGH!” send me ducking for cover in the cockpit. My knees were resting in something really slimy. Rebekah turned around to check on me.

                “Are you okay?” she said, sort of worried, sort of laughing.

                “Yeah.” I said. “I just have really slimy knees now.”

Seconds later, Ralph sailed around starboard of us and said something like, “Are you alright?” sorry, I don’t remember the exact wording.

                “Yeah,” Rebekah and I both shouted to him.

                “We’re just sailing along,” Rebekah said, laughing, “And suddenly I hear , AAAGH!”

I laughed too. It’s a good thing I know how to laugh at myself, or I would have been extremely pissed about the entire day.

Deleted Scene #4:

We were near the end of the lake, close to the cove where we got stuck, and I was trying my hardest to tack around up to the other end, when we found ourselves sailing straight into the ideal spot for “windage”. I pulled the sheetline in tight, and we were running with the wind!
“Running with the wind” is when your sail is catching as much wind as possible, and you’re going really fast. In our case, the water was coming up over the front of the boat, and we were bumping up and down a bit, too. I leaned my whole body over to the left, to counterbalance it, and we had a blast.

                See, when I first started sailing, it was my goal to go as slowly as possible so that I wouldn’t tip the boat. But now, a few lessons later, I was having a blast going as fast as I could. As my first instructor would say, I had “Less of that scared rabbit look”. He actually said that.

Deleted Scene #5

We were sailing along peacefully, making good progress, when I remarked, “That bug is kind of cute.”

The bug from earlier that we had found on Rebekah’s PFD was still on the boat, hiding out underneath the splash guard.

                “yeah.” Rebekah said. “He is kind of cute.”

                “I wonder how he got on the boat?” I said. “I mean, the boat was all the way out on the water, not connected to land at all.”

                “He could have been on the sail in the boathouse.” Rebekah said.

                “Or maybe he can fly.” I said.

                “Maybe.”

                “When we get back to the dock, we should help him back onto land.” I said.

                “Yeah, let’s.” Rebekah said.

Deleted Scene #6:

We were driving home from the lake, when I remembered something.

                “Oh no!” I said out loud. “We forgot to help the bug onto dry land!”

                “You’re right!”  Rebekah said. “We did forget!”

                “Nooo!”  I lamented. “Our mascot! Well, I just hope he can fly.”

                Rebekah nodded. “Or at least swim short distances.”

And that, my friends, is the end of my sailing day. Do you know this is probably my longest post ever? (not counting fictional stories) 2833 words, people! That’s long.

(6^th Consecutive Post!)