Life After Windbird, Day 15: Happy 50th Anniversary to Terry and Olivia
Date: Saturday, August 27, 2016
Weather: Sunny, High Temp 84 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Studio #8, Falmouth, MA
The activity level stepped up a bit today. We didn’t do much, but it was not a do-nothing day. While Mark slept in, I went over to Heather and Jed’s to water the garden. While the sprinkler was doing its job, I worked on my computer. Since we were not able to fly to Myrtle Beach this week to meet with Windbird’s new owners, I offered to write down directions for the boat systems. Easier said than done. But I got a good start this morning and will continue tomorrow morning. Windbird’s new owners had a bit of a rough week on Windbird with a lightning strike that took out most of the electronics and then a failed attempt at a first sail because the engine was acting up. These are not things that you want to happen when you arrive at your boat for the first time as the new owners. But Sam and Dawn are young and enthusiastic, so hopefully they are not too disappointed. I got a huge laugh out of Sam’s description of being at Windbird’s wheel this week. He said she turns like a Mack truck. And indeed she does. He has always chartered Beneteaus, and a thankfully a Tayana (Windbird) is no Beneteau. But to their credit, Beneteaus do turn on a dime. But after chartering a Beneteau in the Whitsunday Islands in Australia in the mid-1990’s, I promised to never step foot on one again. Unlike the low Great Barrier Reef islands, the Whitsundays are volcanic islands and some have quite steep cliffs. The down draft from those cliffs actually put us on our side in the Beneteau and that was the end of my love of Beneteaus. But back to the activities of the day, after I had let the sprinkler water the garden for an hour, I headed back home.
Mark is continuing to struggle with nausea and energy level. The very worst thing is that he is unsteady on his feet which makes walking difficult. When I got home from Heather and Jed’s, we did walk out to the mailbox and back, but that was as far as he could go today. We were invited to the 50th anniversary party for our friends Terry and Olivia White, but Mark was just too weak to go. I made sure he was comfortable and then I left for a couple of hours to attend the party. It was a wonderful celebration and the food was fantastic. They had Indian food in honor of Olivia’s homeland and Texas fare in honor of Terry’s homeland and the place where they met and lived a great deal of lives. Olivia was wearing the beautiful sari she wore on her wedding day and Terry was in the black jacket he wore.
And their best man and maid of honor were there and the maid of honor was in the same thing she wore on their wedding day. Unbelievable. The place was filled with friends that they have had for over 50 years and the stories they told were quite entertaining. Happy Anniversary to Olivia and Terry!
As has been the case over the past few days, Mark felt better during the evening hours than he had all day. Tomorrow we are going to go back to the pain medication regimen we were on before the unsteadiness on his feet started and see if that helps. If the pain in his abdomen is too severe, we’ll have to come back to the present plan, but we think the change backwards is worth a shot. If the unsteadiness goes away, at least we will know that is caused by the increase in pain meds. Then we’ll just need to figure out if there is another way to deal with the pain.
