A gazillion things to tell

And not much time to tell them

This was yet another busy weekend. Friday, we headed down to T or C with a whole lot of furniture and stuff to set up housekeeping down there in the downstairs half of a duplex, the upstairs portion of which Dino uses as his local base when he’s at the lake. Since we’re friends, he’s giving us a hefty discount on the rent, with the caveat that, when he finds a tenant willing to pay full market value, we will have 30 days to move out.

We did find one problem – the night was cold, and we couldn’t get the furnace to light. We called Dino, who advised us that during the summer, birds build nests in the vent pipe. We did clear out a nest, but the furnace still wouldn’t light. It turns out the thermocouple had gone bad. So for the night, we had to bundle up.

Since Black Magic is still in the shop for repairs to the console, Zorro arranged for us to do committee boat duty for the racing this weekend, so we won’t be penalized for not racing. Friday, we launched the MacGregor, Syzygy, and put it into Black Magic’s slip at Rock Canyon Marina. Saturday, Pat, Tadpole, and I were joined by Kiteflyer, a longtime friend who has helped out the sailing club in the past, on board Syzygy to run the committee boat. There was almost no wind, and after the racing fleet drifted around for more than an hour waiting for wind, there was a bit, and so we had one race. Even though it was the very short course F, a “half-sausage” (one mile to the upwind mark and then back), it took the fastest boats more than an hour and the slowest boat two and a half. That was the only race we had that day.

Saturday night was a sailing club board meeting, followed by a club dinner. Unfortunately, the other places in the area were booked, so the sailing club had to have the dinner at the place where we have had so many bad experiences before. Fortunately, the place had arranged to serve a buffet, solving a whole lot of the previous problems. Unfortunately, a large number of the sailing club members have been so turned off by the many previous inept efforts by this restaurant that they didn’t even bother to stay for dinner. And the restaurant didn’t even get the buffet right – the sailing club, when planning the dinner a month ahead, had ordered barbecue beef brisket but got chicken instead, and had chosen salad rather than soup, but soup was what the restaurant prepared – although at least the restaurant was able to bring out salad to sit alongside the soup at no extra charge.

After dinner, we paid a visit to Cornhusker, who sailed with Mother’s crew this weekend. Cornhusker is a fantastically tenacious foredeck crew, and once we get Black Magic back in commission, I definitely want her back on my boat.

Then we tracked down Zorro and Dino, who, along with Dino’s family, had been treating Firecracker to dinner. Firecracker and her husband had been longtime members of the sailing club, and he died a few months back following a lengthy battle with cancer. Firecracker is doing all right – she has a lot of friends, and she goes to the gym with some, and she goes bowling with some, and she plays cards with some. Saturday, after Rosebia took Tadpole and Skater back to the house, we adults all went out carousing with Firecracker. She knows how to have a good time. It was a great evening.

Sunday, the weather prediction was for winds 5-15, gusts to 20, from the west, trending toward south. When Pat, Tadpole, Kiteflyer and I got out to the race course, there was almost no wind, mostly west-ish. We waited around a while, and then the wind switched to north, and it remained steady enough that we called a north-bound half-sausage. About when the boats were halfway to the upwind mark, the wind died. Then the wind switched to south and got stronger. The race finished with a whole lot of boats all bunched together, so corrected time may really shake up the actual results.

The second race Sunday, the third race of the regatta weekend, we had good, steady, wind from the south. We ran a G course, the “full sausage” upwind a mile, downwind two miles to the mark opposite, than upwind a mile to the finish. In spite of the increased distance, all but one of the boats finished in less than an hour.

After the races, we got together with Dino and Zorro again. Dino had gotten a new thermocouple for the furnace and was planning to install it, but Tadpole beat him to it. It’s great to have a kid who is really good at problem-solving and fixing things. (He’s looking at potential college majors now; he’s always been interested in engineering, and this term he’s taking an architecture course in high school that has him really fired up, so if anybody out there wants to suggest a school with a good engineering/architecture program, we’re willing to listen!) Once Tadpole had the furnace running, we joined Zorro, Dino, Rosebia and Skater at a relatively new restaurant in town (let’s just say we’re auditioning potential future sailing club dinner venues), and then we headed north.

We got home to discover that Tres had suffered from missing a couple of doses of his medication. At least while we have Dino’s downstairs place, we can take cats with us when we go to the lake, so we can make sure Tres gets his medication – as long as he gets it, he’s fine, but missing a couple of doses does cause problems.