A Busy Day
No sailing, but a lot of other accomplishments
The morning was very still, so there was no point in trying to go sailing. I knew Zorro was planning to work on the boat formerly known as Intrepid to get it ready to go into the lake so he would have a boat to sail on in place of the dismasted Constellation. But I discovered it wasn’t readily possible to get there, ’cause it was Fiesta, and roads were blocked off for a parade. So I decided to watch the parade – and to get exercise, I parked a half-mile away and walked to the parade route. It was a fairly typical small-town parade, with all of the fire trucks from all of the fire departments in the county leading the way – T or C, Williamsburg, Las Palomas, U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, and a hotshot crew. I wondered what would happen if a fire were to break out during the parade. I suppose, since all of the fire trucks were at the beginning of the parade, they could peel off and leave the parade behind.
The theme of the parade, in honor of the new spaceport being built just outside of town, was Space Odyssey 2006, and so most of the floats featured aliens and rockets. The local supermarkets must have really sold a lot of aluminum foil in the past couple of weeks. Of course, there were also the usual Shriners in their go-carts, and mounted sheriff’s posses, and politicians out for votes. I was right across the street from the judges’ stand, so I got to see the best displays.
After the parade, I drove over to Cornhusker’s house, and I found her sitting with a neighbor on the neighbor’s front porch. There was still no wind, so we sat and talked for a while, and then we all went to lunch together at a vegetarian place that doesn’t appeal to carnivores such as Pat or Cornhusker’s husband. Then Cornhusker had to go to help her husband with a fishing tournament that he was participating in, and I headed out to Williamsburg to see whether Zorro needed help.
He had only arrived there a short time before, and he was working on sanding the bottom of the boat, in preparation for putting on new bottom paint. The sanding and painting didn’t take too long, but there were a bunch of little things that also needed doing, such as fixing the cunningham and setting the spreaders forward with epoxy. Those little things took a lot of time, and so it was late in the day by the time we were finished. Toward the end of the day, we phoned Mother in Austin to find out how her team had fared in the Adams Cup; due to the weather, there was only one race today, and she took first in it. We went to the Fleet 141 compound, where Zorro took a shower and then looked among Dumbledore’s stock of spare parts to see whether he might have some bits and pieces we needed (he didn’t). While we were there, Pat phoned to say he’d be down here about 10 o’clock.
Next, Zorro took me out to dinner at the Big Food Express. It was Saturday night, and there was an extremely loud live band that made conversation nearly impossible and that has my ears still ringing nearly an hour later. (Anonymous may find this hard to believe, but I left the laptop behind in my car at the Fleet 141 compound.) My fortune cookie had a pretty good saying: “When you gather all your resources together, goals are accomplished.” By the time we got back to the compound, it was nearly 10, so I headed to the house in T or C, in order to get there before Pat.
The morning was very still, so there was no point in trying to go sailing. I knew Zorro was planning to work on the boat formerly known as Intrepid to get it ready to go into the lake so he would have a boat to sail on in place of the dismasted Constellation. But I discovered it wasn’t readily possible to get there, ’cause it was Fiesta, and roads were blocked off for a parade. So I decided to watch the parade – and to get exercise, I parked a half-mile away and walked to the parade route. It was a fairly typical small-town parade, with all of the fire trucks from all of the fire departments in the county leading the way – T or C, Williamsburg, Las Palomas, U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, and a hotshot crew. I wondered what would happen if a fire were to break out during the parade. I suppose, since all of the fire trucks were at the beginning of the parade, they could peel off and leave the parade behind.
The theme of the parade, in honor of the new spaceport being built just outside of town, was Space Odyssey 2006, and so most of the floats featured aliens and rockets. The local supermarkets must have really sold a lot of aluminum foil in the past couple of weeks. Of course, there were also the usual Shriners in their go-carts, and mounted sheriff’s posses, and politicians out for votes. I was right across the street from the judges’ stand, so I got to see the best displays.
After the parade, I drove over to Cornhusker’s house, and I found her sitting with a neighbor on the neighbor’s front porch. There was still no wind, so we sat and talked for a while, and then we all went to lunch together at a vegetarian place that doesn’t appeal to carnivores such as Pat or Cornhusker’s husband. Then Cornhusker had to go to help her husband with a fishing tournament that he was participating in, and I headed out to Williamsburg to see whether Zorro needed help.
He had only arrived there a short time before, and he was working on sanding the bottom of the boat, in preparation for putting on new bottom paint. The sanding and painting didn’t take too long, but there were a bunch of little things that also needed doing, such as fixing the cunningham and setting the spreaders forward with epoxy. Those little things took a lot of time, and so it was late in the day by the time we were finished. Toward the end of the day, we phoned Mother in Austin to find out how her team had fared in the Adams Cup; due to the weather, there was only one race today, and she took first in it. We went to the Fleet 141 compound, where Zorro took a shower and then looked among Dumbledore’s stock of spare parts to see whether he might have some bits and pieces we needed (he didn’t). While we were there, Pat phoned to say he’d be down here about 10 o’clock.
Next, Zorro took me out to dinner at the Big Food Express. It was Saturday night, and there was an extremely loud live band that made conversation nearly impossible and that has my ears still ringing nearly an hour later. (Anonymous may find this hard to believe, but I left the laptop behind in my car at the Fleet 141 compound.) My fortune cookie had a pretty good saying: “When you gather all your resources together, goals are accomplished.” By the time we got back to the compound, it was nearly 10, so I headed to the house in T or C, in order to get there before Pat.
posted by Carol Anne | 10:54 PM
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