Belated Cat Herders Day

Better late than never ...

Alas, I was so busy herding cats that I didn't get a chance to post my usual annual blog post in honor of National Cat Herders Day. But, to make up for not getting a post up on time, here is a video about someone who is probably the world champion cat herder: The Lady with 700 Cats. She makes my cat-herding friends Zorro and Juli look like rank amateurs.

How many cats is a three dog night worth?

Trying to keep warm

It’s a cold night in Albuquerque. It’s also a windy night. The predicted low is 24 degrees (Fahrenheit), and the winds are howling, gusting to 50 mph and sometimes even higher. According to NOAA, the wind chill means it really feels like 12 degrees or colder.

During the day, a wind gust of 78 mph was clocked in the far northeast part of Albuquerque, and the Sunport reported a gust of 53. Our storm door was flung off its hinges, and in the process, the hydraulic closing cylinder punched a hole in the front door. The result is that the door is letting cold air in, so it’s hard to keep the house warm.

I was listening to my favorite radio station on the way home from work, as my little Vibe was getting knocked all over the road by gusts of wind, and the DJ commented that it was going to be a “three dog night,” as a segue into a song by the band named after that concept.

For those who don’t know, the phrase comes from medieval times, when home heating was, to put it mildly, not exactly efficient. On an especially cold night, the humans in a house would derive extra warmth by having their dogs, often large ones, in their beds to help keep them warm. A “three dog night” was an especially cold one, as it required three dogs to keep the bed warm enough.

Unfortunately, all Pat and I have is a cat. And Dulce is not exactly a large cat – she probably weighs in at about six pounds. So she’s about a tenth of a large dog.

Now, we do have friends who could be described as cat herders. These friends have large numbers of cats on hand. And those cats are probably larger than Dulce – I’m guessing the average cat is 10 pounds or more. Also, cats’ normal body temperature is slightly higher than that of dogs, so maybe it doesn’t take as much mass of cat as of dog to produce the same amount of heat.

So I open this question up to the cat herders I know: If it’s a three dog night, how many cats is it?

One year ago today ...

It was one year ago today, May 1, 2010, that we lost our very good friend Marty. He was the sort of person whom you always expect to be there forever, but that day, he went into the water and never came back up. He is still very much missed.

Vaya con dios, amigo.

Woo-hoo, new shoes!

The time of financial austerity is over ...

For the past few years, Pat and I have been operating on an austerity budget. Part of that program has meant that I haven't had much in the way of new clothes for a very long time -- we've been shopping at thrift stores for most clothes. But now, at long last, I have the first pair of actual new shoes that I have had in about five years. And they're magnificent: delightful little black numbers that fit my feet like gloves, but with just enough extra stretch that in really cold conditions I can wear a pair of wool socks underneath.

Especially over on Facebook, many friends, including old high-school classmates, have reveled in their shoes -- how many they have, the special virtues of each pair, the stylishness, the excitement of finding just the right pair. Now, I can join them.

Meanwhile, it's not just my feet but also my boat, Black Magic, that is enjoying the end of austerity. We came down to Elephant Butte Friday with the hope of sailing with Zorro as well as working on boats. As it turned out, it was too windy to sail. First, I helped Zorro with patching some cracks in Constellation's deck and re-rigging the outhaul, which had been fouling far too often. Then Pat joined Zorro and me at the mast-up storage lot where Black Magic is, and we replaced a lot of the rigging: backstay control, mainsheet, jib sheet, traveler (including some blocks and other hardware), jib tack, mast block shock cords, and tiller tamer. Zorro also mixed up some epoxy filler, which he used to patch up some gouges in the keel as well as some dents in the deck.

Saturday, we had hoped that at least in the morning, we could get in some sailing; the weather forecasts predicted a breezy morning and a windy afternoon. But it was blustery from the get-go, much too windy for sailing. Zorro did some work on Constellation while Pat and I paid a visit to our favorite used-book store in the universe, Black Cat Books in Truth or Consequences. Gerald has a rule of thumb that a used-book store is not a proper used-book store unless there is a cat on the premises. I think I agree. Pat and I ended up getting a wide range of books, including a German grammar book, a collection of essays about what it means to be human in a technological environment, and a James Patterson (plus one of his more trustworthy co-authors, Maxine Paetro) thriller.

After that, Pat and I stopped by the hardware store to look for bolts to use when replacing the old cam cleats on the boat. In stainless steel, the longest bolts the store had were two inches, so we bought only four, two flathead and two pan-head, with the idea that whichever fit best, we could come back and buy more, and if neither fit, we weren't out much money.

Then Pat and I returned to Black Magic, where Pat set about working on replacing the old cam cleats on the console with the new ones that we had ordered. The old cleats were ancient and decaying even when we first got the boat, but we had never had time or money to replace them all -- when one of them failed, we put a new one in, and we kept saying that we needed to get them all replaced. It took Pat 20 minutes to remove just one cleat. We discovered that flathead bolts were the best for the new cam cleats, but two inches was too short -- we needed three-inch bolts.

Meanwhile, Zorro had done some more work on Constellation but had learned that the Sunday weather forecast was for even more wind, far too much to go sailing, so he decided to put his boat away and head back to El Paso. He stopped by Black Magic before heading south, and he and Pat worked on the shrouds -- we're looking at replacing turnbuckles at the very least and possibly at replacing the shrouds completely. We made plans to do more boat restoration next weekend, including new bottom paint at least on the parts of the keel that got patched. In the meantime, we can get the three-inch bolts and a few other bits of hardware we need. Top of the agenda for next weekend is completely redoing the outhaul on Black Magic so we can depower more effectively in a gust. There have been a lot of those lately.

Zorro is super-eager about all of these repairs and refurbishments, because he really, really wants to see Black Magic racing next weekend. And I do have to admit, I'm excited about seeing my boat finally getting back into a condition where she can sail well. But I'm feeling ambiguous about actually racing. I'm not sure I want to support the RGSC's current leadership -- the current commodore who, when he was vice commodore, tried to call meetings of the board even though the club constitution doesn't give him that power, and on shorter notice than even those who have the power are permitted to do; Zorro's replacement as race committee chairman to whom I gave the blog nickname "Space Invader" because of his creepy behavior toward me even before I learned of the New Mexico court records about him and the many restraining orders women have taken out against him; the club management that failed to notify one of our favorite restaurant owners that the sailing club was planning to hold a skippers' meeting in the restaurant's back room and thereby royally pissed off the restaurant owner ... I don't know that I want to race and thereby seem to support the current club leadership.

I think I'd rather just go sailing. And wear my new shoes.

Saturday sailing at the Butte

It's been a long time ...

At long last, I got in my first sail of the year. Pat had managed to sneak off to the lake a couple of times to go sailing with Zorro, but often it was mid-week, which meant I had to work. The one previous time I had gotten to the lake, the wind was just too fierce -- if the temperature had been warmer, it might have been good exciting sailing, but that day was just too cold.

Saturday, however, was much less windy. In fact, when we got to the lake, there was barely any wind at all. We joined Zorro and set sail on Constellation, hoping that perhaps some wind would fill in.

We had been drifting for about an hour when the wind did, finally, show up. It wasn't much, maxing out at probably 7 or 8 knots, but that's enough to make an Etchells go. Zorro had his handheld GPS, and we got up to 6.2 knots upwind and even faster downwind with the spinnaker up.

Pat was in charge of the spinnaker. He kept the trim up, and he's getting good at gybing the pole smoothly; that's something he and Zorro apparently practiced a lot the last time they were out.

Overall, it was a good couple of hours on the water.

We sailed until near sunset.

There weren't many other boats out. One friend had gone out earlier but gave up on waiting for wind and came in (his wife had chores for him to do anyway). Another came out late in the day. You can tell he's from Michigan; he was sailing in shirt sleeves!

Maybe, in between things like taking care of Pat's dad's estate and working on repairs (both boat and house) and various other tasks, we will have more time to sail this year.

NaNo sailing

This time around, a little different

Continuing the annual tradition, I'm posting excerpts from my NaNo novel as I go. Since the primary audience of this blog is interested in sailing, I generally focus on sailing-related excerpts. This year, it took a while before Hannah got out on a boat, and, well, as you will read, the adventure wasn't exactly perfect.

Her business with the paper was quickly over, and Hannah realized that it was still mid-morning. She and Flash could get out on the water earlier than she had anticipated. When she got out to her car, she pulled out her phone and pressed the speed-dial key that she had programmed for Flash.

He answered immediately. “Hi, Hannah, what’s up?” he asked.

“Well, I got done early at the paper today,” Hannah said. “I’m free now, if you’re ready to go sailing.”

“Super!” Flash said. “I’ll meet you at the boat in, say, ten minutes.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Hannah said, suppressing a fresh wave of jitters. The nervousness was really getting to her. She realized that it was a good thing she was running early; the sooner she got the business of facing her fears done with, the better.

She drove to the marina and parked in the lot nearest to Flash’s slip. As she walked down the pier, she could see that Flash was already at the boat, curly dark hair tousled in the wind, snapping black eyes reflecting the smile of shiny white teeth beneath the pencil thin Errol Flynn moustache. He already had the jib and mainsail rigged and ready to raise, and most of the docklines had been removed from the boat. Clearly, Flash had prepared ahead so he and Hannah could set sail immediately.

She took Flash’s hand to steady her as she stepped onto Avenger, and his expression changed immediately to a slight frown. “Hannah, you’re shaking,” he said.

“I guess I’m, um, nervous,” Hannah said. “I don’t want … history to repeat itself.”

“Don’t worry, it won’t,” Flash said. “We’ve promised each other, and we’re going to keep that promise.” He squeezed her hand.

She squeezed back. “We will,” she said. “I’m sure of it.” She wished she really were sure, though.

Flash untied all of the dock lines, holding on to the bow line to walk the boat out of the slip; he then cleated the line at the end of the pier so the boat could point into the wind, which, as predicted, was brisk without being too stiff. He got onto the boat and hauled on the halyard to raise the mainsail, leaving it slack and flapping in the wind. He then returned to the pier, untied the line, gave the bow of the boat a shove out into the channel, and then lightly hopped aboard, quickly settling himself at the helm. Hannah sat forward of him, next to the jib sheets.

As Flash pulled in the mainsheet to tighten the sail, Hannah was once again treated to the magic feeling of being on Avenger, under sail, energy flowing through her as the boat heeled slightly and surged forward. She began to feel herself relaxing, the negative energy of dread being replaced by the positive energy of the boat. She realized that she had been holding her breath in anticipation of the moment, and she let it out with a deep sigh.

“You’re feeling better now, hon?” Flash said. “I knew that getting out on the water would be good for you.”

“It is good,” Hannah said. “You want the jib up?”

“Go for it,” Flash said.

Hannah grabbed the jib halyard and pulled, smoothly, arm over arm, to raise the sail quickly, and then she grabbed the jib sheet and sheeted in, all in one smooth movement. She was rewarded with another surge of power as the wind filled the sail.

“That’s my baby,” Flash said, smiling.

Hannah smiled back. “It’s such a relief getting out here,” she said.

“You know, it’s good you got here early today,” Flash said. “The front’s moving in faster than predicted. If you couldn’t get here until noon, it might have been too late. This way, though, we can have a couple of hours out before things get rough.”

“Excellent,” Hannah said. She was focusing on the moment, letting the motion of the boat and the water dispel the last cobwebs of worry. She was here, now, sailing, in the mystical zone that Avenger always put her in.

They sailed out of the harbor and into the open ocean. Here, the upcoming front was making its presence known. The swells were steep, kicked up by winds farther out at sea that would be arriving at the coast later today. She imagined the avid surfers of Siete Mares were enjoying some really knarly waves. If the high they got from surfing was even half as great as the high she got from sailing, they were probably absolutely euphoric.

Flash and Hannah sailed back and forth, Flash steering the boat masterfully through the waves, its knife-like hull punching through the walls of water. Hannah was glad she had remembered to bring along her heavy-duty foul-weather gear; Avenger was a wet ride even in gentler conditions, and the jib trimmer got hit with every wave. Flash stayed much drier at the helm, as Hannah was blocking most of the spray.

The wind and waves were increasing, and Hannah was beginning to feel a twinge of … something … in the pit of her stomach. Seasickness? The return of the nervousness?

“Let’s go in,” Flash said. “I think it’s time to call it a day.”

“Yes,” Hannah said, noting that the little twinge in her stomach eased up. “We can get the boat put away before the really nasty stuff hits.”

Flash steered the boat downwind back to the harbor, surfing on the waves. At first, the feeling of flying was blissful, but then that little fluttering in Hannah’s stomach returned. No problem, she thought. Just a little reaction to the conditions, nothing to get worried about. She concentrated on trimming her sail, making sure to keep the telltales flying.

Then Hannah started feeling a little more queasy. No, she told herself, she couldn’t be seasick on Avenger. She and the boat were soul-mates. She swallowed, hard, three or four times, and that seemed to settle her stomach a little bit.

The wind got harder and the waves got bigger. Flash was steering the boat fiercely, keeping it as level as he could in the gusts. Now Hannah felt cold sweat coming out on the back of her neck, and her stomach was refusing to settle itself. She was losing the ability to concentrate on the sail, instead working on making sure her stomach held onto its contents, alternating swallowing with shallow breathing, gulp, pant, gulp, pant, gulp, pant.

Flash glanced over at her, and his expression became grim. “You’re not looking so good,” he said. “Maybe we should lower the jib and let you rest.”

Hannah agreed with that, although she couldn’t say anything while she was working on keeping her stomach under control, so she nodded emphatically. She ran the jib halyard through her hands to make sure it would run free without tangling, cleated the jib sheet down tight, and uncleated the jib halyard, then got up on the foredeck to pull the jib down, all the while gulping and panting to settle the stomach. The activity seemed to help curb the stomach’s urge to hurl up its contents, and when she came back to the cockpit, the boat seemed a bit steadier, so she was able to breathe evenly again.

She sat down next to Flash, and he placed his arm around her waist. “You were looking really bad there for a moment,” he said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anybody get quite that green before. You sure you’re all right?”

“I am now,” she said in a voice that sounded very thin and weak, enjoying the feeling of solidness and reassurance that Flash’s arm provided. “I don’t know what happened.”

“Maybe Harry’s right,” Flash said. “Maybe you’re not really ready for intensive sailing yet. Maybe you do still need more recovery time from your injury.”

Tears came to Hannah’s eyes. “I can’t give up Avenger,” she said. “Since I’ve started sailing on this boat, I’ve become so much better. I’ve gained strength, equilibrium, confidence. Giving up sailing her would be like dying.”

“I know,” Flash said. “I could never ask you to do that. But I think maybe, at least for now, we keep it to gentler conditions.”

Hannah wrapped her arms around Flash, while being careful not to interfere with the arm that was controlling the tiller. “Thank you,” she whispered in his ear.

“Hannah, I know how important sailing is to you,” Flash said. “I could never imagine making you quit.”

A big wave hit the back of the boat, and it careened forward. Hannah felt her stomach lurching up again. “Oooooh,” she moaned.

“Oh, God,” Flash said. “Try to hold on!”

Hannah resumed the alternating gulp, pant, gulp, pant routine. It wasn’t working so well. She felt sour liquid rising in the back of her throat.

After what seemed an eternity, Flash brought the boat into the mouth of the harbor. It seemed to Hannah that all three – she, Flash, and Avenger – breathed a massive sigh of relief upon getting past the breakwater and into calmer waters. The boat settled down, and so did Hannah’s stomach, and Flash calmed down as well. Hannah hadn’t realized it, but he had become very tense during the last part of the journey back to harbor; she could feel his back muscles relax through her arm that was still hanging on to him.

A brief update

A few more questions answered

Heard today that the Office of the Medical Investigator has released findings. Apparently Marty had a massive heart attack -- although it's not clear whether it was before or after he hit the water.

So a life jacket might not have saved his life. It would, however, have saved his family and friends 20 days of searching and anguish, and the State of New Mexico tens of thousands of dollars in search expenses, and a couple of other guys the trauma of finding his body on the beach.

Serendipity shopping

Luck + creativity = success

For the most part, I hate shopping, especially for things like clothes. I don't like malls or department stores; I don't like big crowds of people; I find it excruciating to pull money out of my wallet and hand it over to someone else, even in exchange for something nice.

On the other hand, when I take measures to minimize the amount of money I have to fork over, I get into adventurous country. One such realm is the dollar stores, which get leftovers from other retailers and mark them down to a fraction of the original cost. The trade-off is that what's in the dollar stores is somewhat random. For example, not too long ago, one store had some super-premium brand shampoo and conditioner in the color-preserving formula – but only for red hair. Sorry, blondes and brunettes … but I'm set for a couple of months.

Another great place to save money is thrift stores. I've discussed them before, here, and here, and here, and I've given them passing mention a few other times. Even more so than the dollar stores, what is found at thrift stores can be seriously random. I have discovered that when I have a need, the thrift stores will provide, although not necessarily in the way I had envisioned at the start. Call it fate, or God, or whatever you happen to believe in, but the randomness of thrift stores has often led me to come away with something far better than I would have ended up with by going to a department store or mall boutique with something specific in mind.

Sunday, we had a shopping trip of that sort. First, I was looking for a dress to wear for the formal dinner-dance at my high-school class reunion, which is fast approaching. The Methodist thrift shop in Pagosa Springs is usually best for clothes, but that shop was closed – funny thing, they all seem to go to church on Sundays. The Humane Society's shop has a much smaller clothing section, but that was what was available. But in that small clothing section was the perfect dress – floaty, flowing chiffon in a swirling Victorian rose print, with empire waist, cap sleeves, and a solid enough lining to hide various figure flaws. That was eight dollars.

On the way to the cash register, I paused to look at the rack of CDs. There, I spotted a two-disc set of great artists from the mid-20^th century – Doris Day, Petula Clark, Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, and more – Zorro's favorites. I figured he could use a little cheering up, so I nabbed the CD set for two bucks.

Then we went down to the bargain basement, where we stumbled on our greatest find. There were two brand-new, never-been-used, still-in-original-packaging inflatable life preservers for $16 each, a fraction of their original price. We pounced on them. Since May 1, Zorro has been wearing a life jacket every time he goes out on the water, but he's been complaining about how bulky and uncomfortable it is, and he's been saying he wants to get an inflatable. Well, now he'll have one.

Seek and ye shall find. For that matter, ye shall find even if ye don't seek.

Trying to return to normal

Whatever normal is …

It's been more than three weeks since Marty disappeared beneath the waves, and three days ago, his body was recovered. Eventually, the medical examiner should be able to answer at least some of the questions about his death.

As time goes by, I'm getting better. The summer term at the community college is about to begin, and getting immersed in work should help. Also, as the events surrounding Marty's death fade into the past, they're not so painful any more.

We had a couple of Gerald's buddies visiting up at the cabin this past weekend, and they're both just fantastic guys who really made the weekend a success, helpful, courteous – their parents should be proud of them. We even had a bit of comic relief when the State Parks people put the ranger boat into the water and forgot to put in the drain plug; Gerald's buddies helped to save the day, along with the current NMSC dockmasters.

But I do still get spells. I have thoughts and memories, and sometimes I find tears leaking from my eyes even without a triggering event. I took a nap, and I had a dream that I was riding in Marty's truck with him. There was no conversation; he was just driving and smiling that smile.

A word from Zorro

Larry sent out this email and asked me to post it here as well.

Subject: RE: Our loss
Date: Mon, 17 May 2010 04:12:08 +0000

To all of you who either called, emailed or in person expressed their condolences and offer support on the tragic loss of Marty, thank you very much.

I would especially like to thank Bob Miller and his wife Christy, Carol Anne and Pat Byrnes, Rick Keffer, Dave Ampleford, Ron Crom, Rich Strasia, Dan Holden and Barb and Trent for the support and love they showed on that Saturday night and days that followed.

I would also like to thank and commend Jon Pillars' son, Jarred, for his heroic attempt to save Marty.

Marty had sailed with me for 9 years and was the core and strength of Team Constellation. Since that time we met 9 years ago, Marty has been club champion in either the Performance Fleet or the Etchells class for all of those 9 years; he has also won numerous regattas aboard his beloved "Windependent." Marty had not only won international regattas in the Caribbean, but also competed, with success, at the highest level of competition in the Etchells class on Constellation. Much more important than all of this, he was a loving and devoted husband and father, a PhD. Marty had a very successful professional life.

I always thought of my time with Marty as "the pleasure of his company," for it was truly a pleasure to be with him. In a time when the world can be not a very nice place, Marty was a rare gem.....a truly nice man, loyal, genuine and sincere. I loved him like a brother and will always treasure the time we had together. I will miss him dearly.

A few words about Marty

The memorial service for our friend was this afternoon.

Marty was a sailor. He died sailing. For those of his family and friends who don't know sailing, I'd like to try to explain what sailing meant to him, and what he meant to those of us who sailed with him.

For me, the universe changed that day. We knew something was wrong, but not what. Larry was sitting on his boat, hunched up, looking like ice. He said, "Marty's at the bottom of the lake. He went under; he didn't come up."

That did not compute. Not Marty. Not the ever-so-reliable Marty that we could always count on to be there when he was needed. Not the quiet, supportive Marty. Not the gentle, understanding Marty. No. It couldn't be. He couldn't possibly be gone.

But he was.

Marty was the most loyal sailor ever to sail with Larry on Constellation. He was devoted to the team. He showed up for every regatta, unless he was traveling somewhere with Paulette. We could count on him. And he always brought sandwiches; one of the bonuses when I sailed on Constellation was that I knew I would always have lunch – even if Marty forgot to leave the mayonnaise off mine.

As crew, Marty was the most devoted. He never gave up, never slacked off. He gave everything to running the boat, whether it was getting drenched on the foredeck or hauling lines in the cockpit. He may not always have been graceful – I gave him the blog nickname "Twinkle Toes" as an ironic comment, and at the end of one rough day I came off the boat with a bruise on my calf with the exact tread pattern of his boot – but he always put his whole self into what he was doing.

Off the water, Marty was also the best crew a skipper could ever have. He gave generous gifts to Larry for the boat, and he once traveled to El Paso to attend an awards ceremony in Larry's honor.

Marty also had his own sailboat, Windependent. He spent hundreds, possibly thousands, of hours working on that boat. It was something of a running joke among Larry's crew – this isn't exactly a high-performance boat, and there's always something breaking. But a couple of years ago, Marty had done a major overhaul, including replacing the mast. Some of the very best sailing experiences I've ever had have been on board Windependent – most especially the 2008 Anniversary Cup. That was a peak experience, a crew and boat tuned to each other, like a symphony orchestra – and on that day, the only thing that broke on the boat was one of my fingernails. We won the regatta. The euphoria from that day lasted for months.

Marty was quiet, easy to overlook. He tended to fade into the background, especially when louder people were around. But he was always there, a quiet presence, observing, with a knowing smile and a twinkle in his blue eyes. I loved seeing that smile. I don't know that he ever knew that I saw it.

Everybody loved Marty. In a sailing club, as in any organization, there will be people who don't get along with each other, who have personality clashes. But as far as I know, nobody ever had any beef with Marty. I've never heard anybody say anything negative about him – ever. He just didn't have conflicts.

Losing Marty has left me with a hole in my heart. Yeah, we can come out with the cliché that he died doing what he loved. And there's some truth in that, and some comfort. But it's not enough.

Poetry Corner: Anonymous

Boy, does Anonymous put out a lot of good stuff …

It was a week ago today that a dear friend and sailor was lost at Elephant Butte Lake. For his fellow sailors and also for his family, this has been a very rough time. I generally hate the word "closure," as it gets so over-used, but in this case, that's the word that best describes what we're all waiting for. As the search continues, we're all in a sort of agonizing limbo.

A relative of mine posted a verse of poetry by Author Unknown on my Facebook wall that really captured what I felt. When I went on the Internet to find more about it, I found that the verse came from a longer poem, and there are dozens of variations on it out there. This is one that I like.

If Tears Could Build A Stairway

If tears could build a stairway
And memories were a lane
We would walk right up to heaven
And bring you back again

No farewell words were spoken
No time to say goodbye
You were gone before we knew it
And only God knows why

Our hearts still ache in sadness
And secret tears still flow
What it meant to lose you
No one can ever know

But now we know you want us
To mourn for you no more
To remember all the happy times
Life still has much in store

Since you'll never be forgotten
We pledge to you today
A hallowed place within our hearts
Is where you'll always stay

Fair winds, Marty.

White Russian recipe

We'll all be drinking these in memory of our friend

The White Russian is a cocktail made with vodka, coffee liqueur, and milk, cream, or half and half. It was the favorite of our friend whom we lost last week. It was featured in the film The Big Lebowski and, according to Wikipedia, is the official cocktail of the IBA.

While looking up information about this drink, I found out that white Russian is also a type of hamster, horse, or marijuana. Interesting what one finds on the Web.

White Russian Ingredients

3/4 ounce each vodka and Kahlua liqueur

1 1/2 ounces cream or milk

ice cubes, optional

White Russian Recipe

A White Russian recipe is simple and making a White Russian drink is very easy. Just mix together the vodka and Kahlua in an old-fashioned glass. Then float the cream or milk on top last.

Ice cubes aren't necessary, but can be used. White Russian drinks are best served in chilled glasses, though.

Makes 1 White Russian cocktail drink

For variation on your White Russian recipe, try using vanilla vodka instead of plain vodka in your White Russian ingredients.

Thanks to Angela Harris for the recipe.

RGSC official announcement

This is the official email sent by the RGSC regarding this weekend's incident. To protect the family's privacy, names have been removed, and I can not at this time give more information than is provided in public records.

It is the Rio Grande Sailing Club's deepest regret to report a tragic accident and our apparent loss of a dear friend, kind man, and generous sailor.

We will all very much miss him.

Much is still unknown and up in the air. Trail Boss has undertaken the job of coordinating news and will provide information as it becomes available. We don't know yet when that might be. The accident has come as a terrible shock to the family, and they need private time during the difficult wait for news.

The next planned regatta weekend, the Joshua Slocum single-hand race and Jack and Jill his and hers race, has been indefinitely postponed.

Please be patient and keep the family and friends in your prayers and best wishes.

Pat

Rio Grande Sailing Club

Quickie weekend update

It was a good one ...

Not much time to say much, but this has been a good weekend, even if I'm now looking at piles of papers that I have to grade and not much time to grade them in.

Saturday's racing was under blustery conditions. Lots of things broke on many boats, including Black Magic, which experienced a spectacular spinnaker blowout along with some smaller things breaking. Lots of people suffered many minor injuries, primarily bruises. We had Penzance on board as guest helmsman. There were two races; we took two firsts. Yes, that's right, we beat Zorro. Twice.

Sunday morning, wind was nearly non-existent. We had Boothbay and his younger son (we'll call him Boothbay Junior for now) on board. Unfortunately, the wind didn't come up enough to hold a race.

Later in the day, we got more wind, enough that Pat and Cornhusker could sail Black Magic to the marina where the mast-up lot is, while I brought the truck down and set up the trailer. After we put our boat away, Pat and I joined Zorro on Constellation for a fantastic end-of-day sail. The wind was perfect, enough to make the boat go fast, but not so much that we were getting beat up. It had been a long time since I'd spent any quality time with Zorro, and that was good, too.

Getting banged up at the lake

A weekend of bruises

The second spring series regatta wasn't too different from most of the others I have reported on, so I'm not going to go into details. The most noteworthy aspect was having a new crewmember on board. He's just bought himself an Etchells back home in Maine, although he hasn't sailed it yet. He's in El Paso for the winter, and he happened to visit Elephant Butte a few weeks ago, when he saw Black Magic and Constellation in the marina. Zorro happened to be around, so this guy (we'll call him Boothbay, since that's where he's from) came down to visit.

The upshot is that for the past two regattas, we've had Boothbay as crew. He's a very experienced sailor, so he's mainly on board to learn the specific ways an Etchells operates.

For the first regatta, we had light air on Saturday, and then on Sunday, Pat and I got shanghaied to be on committee boat, so we didn't get in much good sailing. This past weekend, we had really fierce winds to start with on Saturday. We went out and got banged about, and absolutely cold and miserable, waiting for the committee boat to show up. When, a half hour after races were to start, the committee boat still hadn't showed up, we went back to the marina to warm up and straighten some things out on the boat. About as we were tying up at the marina, the committee boat finally showed up, but at that point I was shivering uncontrollably and had no feeling in my hands, so we didn't go back out.

It took the committee boat a time to get around to running a race, and by the time the first race was finishing, we were warmed up and the wind was abating. We headed out to the course in time to make the second and third races of the day. Boothbay had loads of fun.

Sunday, winds were light – very light. We drifted out to the race course while the committee boat motored out and got there on time. Eventually, a trace of wind showed up. I turned the helm over to Boothbay, and we had a good race – at last, conditions under which we could show how the spinnaker works. Shortly after we finished, the wind went away nearly completely, and it took the rest of the fleet nearly an hour to finish. We drifted back to the boat ramp near the marina, where we were to meet Carguy, take his boat off our trailer, put our boat on, and generally pack things up.

Boothbay was interested in the procedure for getting deep-keel sailboats onto a trailer on a boat ramp; he'd never seen the process before. He got quite a lesson. As we waited our turn on the ramp, he got to watch as a J/22, a J/24, a Freedom 21, and an S2 34 were all loaded onto trailers. He probably now has things down cold, so he can show all those people up in Maine how things are done in New Mexico.

Meanwhile, I have developed a craving for wild blueberries. Come summer, we're going to have to take a trip up to Maine to sail with Boothbay.

Great sports trophies

Some are more venerable than others

As most sailors know, but much of the rest of the world doesn't, the America's Cup is the oldest perpetual trophy in all of sports. It was made in 1848 and was first contested in 1851. It spent much of its life in the United States, until 1983, when boats from other countries began to win it, and it has since traveled around the world.

Another trophy that has been around for a while is the FA Cup, awarded to the champion of English football (what Americans call soccer), and first contested in 1871. While it is a perpetual trophy that goes home with the winning team each year, it has actually been replaced a few times over the years. It also is not an international trophy the way the America's Cup is.

For an international trophy, we can look at The Ashes, commemorating a long series of cricket matches between England and Australia. This trophy originated in 1882 following a match in which the Australians gave the English team its first defeat on home soil. The name originated from a satirical piece in which the death of English cricket was announced, with the notice that it would be cremated and its ashes sent to Australia. The Ashes is a terra cotta urn that supposedly contains the ashes of a burnt cricket bail (or possibly some other piece of cricket equipment). However, The Ashes isn't a true perpetual trophy and was never intended to be one; it is fragile and remains in a museum in England. Instead, a much newer trophy is currently used as the official award for winning the test match series.

In North America, the Stanley Cup is often erroneously supposed to be the oldest perpetual trophy in sport. It has certainly been around for a long time, since 1893. It is also international, as the National Hockey League has teams in both the United States and Canada. While it doesn't even come close to the America's Cup in age, it can be recognized as the oldest trophy in professional sports in North America.

Some newer trophies can also be recognized as great. The Borg-Warner Trophy, for example, has been awarded to the winner of the Indianapolis 500 automobile race since 1936. Part of what makes this trophy special is that it bears a sculptured likeness of all of the winners of the race since its inception in 1911, rather than a mere inscription of the winner and the date.

And then we come to the Rio Grande Sailing Club's own Jack and Jill Bucket. The annual Jack and Jill Regatta is held in mid-May and is a his-and-hers race. To commemorate the name of the regatta, the trophy is a galvanized pail; each year, the previous year's winner is to place a bottle of champagne into the bucket before turning it over to the new trophy holder. For several years, Zorro and I had been the holders of the bucket; however, last year, he failed to show up, and we ended up forfeiting the pail to Yoda and Esther (one more thing that went wrong in 2009). This year, Zorro promises he will show up, and so we plan to take it back.

(Note: I hope to add a photo to this post soon, so you can see the Jack and Jill Bucket in all its glory.)

Happy New Year

Too cold for moonlight sailing, though

We ended up with a very low-key New Year's celebration at the lake. New Year's Eve, Pat, Gerald, and I headed south, to find that Zorro was already out on the water in very light air; we rigged Black Magic up and set sail. He had sailed up to the northern part of the lake, and then had been becalmed, so it took him a while to get back to the area near the marina where we were sailing. We returned to the marina together about sunset. As we were finishing putting the boats away in the increasing dark, the moon rose big and yellow over the far side of the lake. It would certainly have been pretty to sail under that moon, but the temperature was near freezing and falling; early October is definitely a better time than late December for moonlight sailing.

We headed to Cornhusker's house to warm up and have a light supper; we then ran by Wal-Mart for some miscellaneous supplies and went to join Zorro for an extremely quiet New Year's celebration. He had brought a video of a documentary about Erroll Flynn that we watched, and then we watched the television countdown to the New Year. Before we headed back to Cornhusker's house, Zorro played the Bette Midler version of "Slow Boat To China" for us.

New Year's Day, the weather was nice, sunny with a high temperature predicted in the high 40s; there was, however, very little wind. Zorro went out earlier in the day, and then he said he thought the wind was coming up some, so Pat, Gerald, and I set sail on Black Magic to join Zorro on Constellation. The first 20 minutes or so, winds were light; we got about halfway across the lake. Then the wind became close to non-existent; it took us three hours to get back to the marina. Once again, we put away boats in gathering darkness and plummeting temperatures. (Pictures of the "sailing" are available on Desert Sea.)

So we returned to Albuquerque, and the weather reports from the lake have been of very light wind, so we haven't bothered to try to go back and sail more. Perhaps mid-week there will be more wind, although there also might be lower temperatures and some chance of precipitation. And then, we have some business matters to take care of both here in Albuquerque and up at Five O'Clock Somewhere. Plus, the new term begins next week, and there's a new textbook and a new master syllabus for the classes I will be teaching, so I have a lot of work to do on revising my syllabus and assignment calendar.

FOCS best of 2009

Nothing stands out, but there were a few posts that were okay

Captain JP has issued, not a challenge, but at least a suggestion to his fellow bloggers. While he's digesting the surfeit of holiday foods (especially the mince pies), he'd like to read the best of what we have written over the past year.

I will have to admit, 2009 didn't have the same sorts of high points that 2008 did. Instead, the year started on a low note, with somebody deciding to celebrate the New Year by vandalizing our truck, and it got lower from there. The first post of the year, I started with a tagline "I sure hope 2009 is better than 2008 was," but that didn't happen. Instead, it was worse.

There was my major computer crash in January that caused me to lose just about everything, since the backup files had somehow become corrupted and wouldn't load. There were Internet access problems caused by a squabble between my ISP and the bigger telecom company from which it bought services. There was the flu that I caught in March, which left me with a lingering cough that just wouldn't go away – I'm pretty sure I was one of the first people in the country to get H1N1, which hadn't even been identified yet but which is characterized by a horrible cough. Pat's dad in South Texas has been in deteriorating health, and so Pat has been dealing with a lot of headaches trying to take care of him from a distance. My work obligations kept us from being able to go on the solar eclipse cruise that most of the rest of the family took to celebrate my parents' 50^th wedding anniversary. We've had issues with vehicles needing repairs that we can't afford. And our home in Albuquerque got burglarized again, a near repeat of the 2007 incident, except that these burglars didn't take anything of great sentimental value – the previous burglars took care of that. Finally, there are some other issues that we don't want to go into detail on in the blog, but that have made life miserable.

Still, there were some blog posts that seem worth noting, so here I offer my top 10 blog posts for the year, in the order they appeared on the blog:

1. We started the year with two great days on the water.
   
2. I had fun with a little bit of fiction titled "This is Awkward," which became the inspiration for a writing project.
   
3. Tillerman issued a writing challenge to write a list, and I came up with ten lame or not-so-lame excuses not to get to the lake, triggered by a fit of pique at Zorro for letting me down the previous weekend.
   
4. I converted one of my better classroom lectures, on logical fallacies, into a blog post.
   
5. I issued a writing challenge to readers to come up with light bulb jokes about sailors, and the results were great.
   
6. In response to another Tillerman writing challenge, I wrote a review of the short film Pirates of the White Sand, a fun romp from the Duke City Shootout film festival.
   
7. I had another sailing experience with Zorro, involving moonlight under spinnaker and other such excitement.
   
8. Then, during National Novel Writing Month, I got to write a scene that recreated my first experience of an Etchells racing sailboat.
   
9. I noted a bit of irony over Thanksgiving weekend in Arizona.
   
10. I let my scholarly side out for a discussion of Plato's "Phaedrus."
    

So there you have it: the best of Five O'Clock Somewhere for 2009. Maybe next year there will be more fun things to choose from, and less gloom and doom.

Cat Herders Day once again

No takers on the contest, though …

Yes, it's now December 15, and we can celebrate National Cat Herders Day. To all of you who literally herd cats, and to all of you whose feline-herding efforts are merely figurative, we salute you.

As you scramble through your days, doing all of the stuff you usually do to take care of your family, your job, and whatever other duties you have, and then on top of all that, cope with all of the holiday preparations and shopping and cooking and planning parties and whatever else you do, remember that there is a holiday in your honor.

The closest thing I had to an entry in my writing project about the true meaning of Cat Herders Day was a somewhat cynical comment about how those who think they can herd cats are delusional. I offer this photo as evidence that Tillerman's suspicions may be correct; we have a creature whose natural instinct is to be the herder, but he's joined the herd instead.