Day 115, Year 11: Happy Valentine’s Day
Date: Sunday, February 14, 2016
Weather: Overcast/Periods of Sun & Clouds, Wind E 20, High 70’s, Low 60’s
Location: At Anchor in West Palm Beach City Anchorage, FL
“Trust the current, trust the wind.
Trust yourself to find the way.
Reach for mountains, reach for stars.
Reach a little farther every day.”
from the song “Katie Raise Your Sails” on the “I Read Your Book” CD by friction farm
These words were written by Aidan Quinn and Cristine Stay, a modern day duet in the folk tradition of Peter, Paul, and Mary. In today’s concert at the library here in West Palm Beach, they sang songs inspired from reading books and this particular song was written after reading a used copy of Darwin’s Voyage of the Beagle. In the front of the book a grandfather wrote a note to his granddaughter when he gave her the book in 1961. Obviously the granddaughter’s name was Katie and when Cristine saw that dedication she was inspired to write the song. I loved that all of the songs were written by the performers. Great choice of an activity for the afternoon–much better than what everyone else in West Palm was doing this afternoon which was sitting in the outdoor bars drinking in excess to celebrate Valentine’s Day. Or at least I guess that is what they were celebrating. But the funny thing was that they all seemed to have dogs with them. I have said that there is always something going on in the waterfront park and today it was Paws in the Park with dog shows and jumping competitions. Everyone there had a least one dog, but most had two, three, or four! There were more dogs in downtown West Palm Beach today than I have ever seen in one place before. Ollie would have loved it.
I took Mark, Alan, and Helaine to shore this morning and walked with them to the parking garage. I then returned to a very lonely Windbird. Somehow today I never got that prioritized list of things to do while Mark is gone, but I did accomplish some of the things that I would have put on the list. In the morning I did a laundry, washing the guest bed sheets. I did it with very little water and the addition of ammonia. You don’t add soap, so you don’t need rinse water. The sheets and pillow cases soaked in the water and ammonia and then got hung out to dry. The smell of ammonia goes away completely leaving the linens smelling fresh and clean. I also wrote a couple of long overdue emails written to friends, Then I went to the concert. When I got home, I had a late afternoon and evening of communicating with family and friends. I talked on the phone for a long time to friend Detta Porat in New Hampshire. Her husband Tom called early this morning to say he will be in Miami all week. I’m hoping to get together with him on Tuesday afternoon when he arrives as he will be busy the rest of the week. His company, GP2 Technologies, is a book binding business and they have an exhibit at the Graphics of the Americas buyer’s show at the Miami Convention Center. I had planned to spend Tuesday in Boynton Beach with my sister-in-law, but will have to do that another day. So the calendar for the week is filling up.
I also had Skype video calls with Justin and kids and Heather and kids, plus Mark. It was great to see and talk to them all. Justin and Jo were driving home from a beach on the southwestern corner of Puerto Rico. They were stuck in traffic, so it was a perfect time to talk to Ziggy and Coco. Ziggy saw the photos we took of the launch pad at Cape Canaveral when we sailed by there three weeks ago. That got him started on a space kick and his newest dream is that he will get the Lego City Spaceport kit for his birthday in April. Coco didn’t have much to say as she was eating the pistachios we sent in a Valentine’s package, but she did mention that she is still in love with Peppa Pig. Peppa is a lovable little pig who lives with a brother named George and her Mummy and Daddy Pig. Each of her friends is a different animal and Coco absolutely adores watching the Peppa Pig videos. Justin is gearing up for a big conference the first of March in Phoenix and Jo’s parents are currently visiting from England. So they have all been very busy. Mark arrived in Boston this afternoon. Heather, Jed, and boys picked him up and took him back to the Cape with them. It was cold this afternoon and colder tonight, but he seems to be coping just fine. I Skyped with him and the Goldstones after dinner. The boys had the Valentine’s chocolate granddad delivered to them as desert and they were flying high. Their Grammy Goldstone is visiting in Boston this week and they spent the day with her in the Harvard Museum of Natural History. Their big discovery of the day was that dinosaur poop that turned to stone is now known as coprolite and that T-Rex might have had feathers on his body. I got to see Max and Mortimer, the guinea pigs, and hear all about the day’s adventures at the museum. After another very cold night tonight, the temperature is going to rise just a bit. It is going from 5 degrees F tonight to 50 degrees F on Tuesday. What a range!
Maybe I’ll get that prioritized To Do list done tomorrow if I don’t blow away tonight. The wind is raging outside. It is only 20 knots, but it sounds fierce. The wind will continue on into tomorrow, so I might just sit tight on the boat until things settle a bit.
