The Wedding Story.

Nearly five years ago the Harbor Master, whom I will call Christina for the purposes of this story, walked into a restaurant called Waffles & Cream.

Her car had broken down in the middle of the city near our base camp. She had called in the Admiral, who had come accompanied by the Commodore. He determined that the problem was not one that could be swiftly or easily fixed and in an attempt to console Christina, he and the Commodore took her out to lunch.

It happened that working away at Waffles & Cream was a young man who went by the name of RC. It also happened that upon seeing the beautiful Christina he was completely awestruck.

He began speaking to her, and soon discovered that her birthday was not very far off. He promised to have a birthday card ready if only the fair Christina would return then.
Christina, being in an amiable mood and being encouraged by the Commodore, agreed to come again on her birthday. She did, and much to her embarrassment, RC was nowhere to be found. Feeling very foolish, Christina had no choice. She knew that she could never again set foot in Waffles & Cream, no matter how good their milkshakes were.
A few days later, with her decision to steer clear of Waffles & Cream still fresh on her mind, Christina walked into a restaurant called Larry's for a bite to eat. As it happened, working away waiting tables at Larry's was a young man who went by the name of RC. It seemed that he had abandoned Waffles & Cream and with little hope of encountering Christina again, he had taken the birthday card out of his car. Once again, he begged her to return, and once again, Christina agreed.
When she came back the next day, Christina received the birthday card she had been waiting for. Here, RC made his first near fatal blunder. He spelled her name Christy. How could he!? She didn't even look like a Christy!
After apologizing, RC invited Christina back any time she wanted lunch. To this Christina replied "Why do I have to do all the work?" and RC cleverly asked for her phone number. Nonetheless, Christina insisted on driving herself to her first date.
A week or so later, RC made his second near fatal slip. Christina had been unable to find a mechanic to fix her car. Being an independent sort of person, she had decided to take automotive mechanic classes and fix it herself. When she mentioned this to RC over lunch, he answered, "But you're so delicate."
Christina did not believe herself to be delicate, but she did like RC and after he wrote her a poem about being a frog prince, she got over it, and let him drive her home from their next date. When he came to the house, one of Christina's sisters was so nervous that she tripped over a large glass jar and broke it, but he brought pizza and instantly won over Christina's brothers.

A year passed and Christina left for school. When she returned at Christmas break, RC was waiting still.

When RC proposed, he truly took Christina by surprise, so much so that her first thought was "Well he won't surprise me next time." Fortunately, there was no need for a next time. RC had become such a normal fixture in Christina's life that he was even permitted to come along when Christina and her sisters declared a girls' night out. By doing this, he earned himself the title of sister-like-figure. Though he objected to the title, he never offered to relinquish the privileges that it provided him. 

Years passed by, and as the day of Christina's graduation drew closer, she and RC finally chose a date and the day drew nearer for the happy couple.

Finally, all was ready. Four and a half years, a four foot tall frog, and a cake topper that had come all the way from Manitou Springs, CO and there we were, at the day of the wedding.

Getting ready.

There he is.

And there she is.

Altogether now.

 

  

First Dance.

Another Dance.

The cake.

The cake topper.

 

Cutting the cake.

Eating the cake.

 

Aim carefully.

 

Or ask for assistance.

 

When all else fails, call in the Marines.

 

 All's well that ends well. 

A Trip to PA

Our plan was to journey to the southern tip of Florida to accompany the Stowaway and the Harbor Master on their trip back up to base camp. These plans, like nearly all of our plans, were interrupted. The interruption came in the form of a catastrophe in the Commodore’s homeland, the tragic death of her nephew, our cousin Joey. We were forced to almost exactly reverse our course, and point our bows North to the State of Pennsylvania.

Our northward voyage was relatively uneventful. We stopped in Staunton, (Stan-ton) VA, where we stayed in a camp that charged nearly three times the promised rate. As we were already in Pennsylvania when we discovered this, there was very little that we could do besides solemnly vow never to set foot on the grounds again.

In Pennsylvania, the Commodore’s first act was to acquire an object oft scorned by her. She is in the habit of rudely referring to them as “the princess” and “mind melting machines.” The Global Pinpointing system, however, served its purpose well in the crowded streets of the Pennsylvanian countryside.

We reached our destination on a cold winter’s day, and found our camp to be a most hospitable place, with only a few faults and some very pleasant people. Our aunt, the Commodore’s sister Jennifer met us at the campsite. Although the meeting was tempered somewhat by the sad reason for our voyage, it was only a little less than a joyous reunion. Still, it may be noted that the first member of our crew greeted by Aunt Jen was none other than Robynne, the ship’s dog.

After a long battle with an overly cheerful car rental man, the Commodore accepted the fact that there were no small vessels to be had in our area. There were no larger ones either. We intended to attend the wake of our cousin, and then I would return to camp with the crew, and the Commodore and her sister would go into the great city of Philadelphia to find and retrieve the Commodore’s youngest brother, our infirm Uncle Jerrold who had gone and landed himself there. Instead, the Commodore and Aunt Jen went alone, both to the wake and the city.

The day of the funeral dawned, and we all faced the most difficult part of our voyage. Despite the obvious unpleasant purpose for the gathering, we were happy to see our relatives. Some of them we (the crew) met for the first time, for instance, some of the Commodore’s cousins, a very pleasant trio.



The Commodore, the Infirm Uncle, their Uncle, and their cousins.

Saturday we abandoned ship. There was a winter storm warning, and our Aunt Jennifer and the Commodore did not want to spend the day in driving back and forth through the snowy city. We fled to Aunt Jen’s house, where the crew spent the day in a new and wonderful task- snow shoveling.

On Sunday, after digging out our vehicles and climbing through mountains of snow to get to Mass on time, we stopped to check on Tallulah and found that our campground hosts had shoveled a path to her for us. Relieved of that worry, we returned to Aunt Jen’s, where we threw a brunch party that lasted well into the supper hour. The day was very pleasant and went well, including a very long game of Change-the-rules-in-the-middle Uno.

Monday came with fond farewells, and we headed for home with our infirm Uncle Jerrold aboard. We stopped briefly in Virginia so that the dog could stretch her legs. While the rest of the crew walked the freshly cleared paths the rest area, Robynne and I waded through the two feet deep snow to the doggie rest area located at the top of a steep hill.

We thought that we would stop overnight, but we did not find a satisfactory location. When we stopped for fuel in Tennessee around 2 in the morning, our infirm uncle requested a “breffixed” stop. The only thing open at the time was a McDonald’s, and that only had the drive through open. We all know that it would have been perfectly impossible to take Tallulah through the drive through. So, the bravest members of the crew along with the ship’s dog and the infirm uncle were chosen to go where few pedestrians have gone before.

We stepped into the empty drive through. Unfortunately, you have to have a car to set off the sensor, and the infirm Uncle was determined to order through the microphone. After only a few minutes, a car full of Tennessee Hooligans pulled up behind us. We could see them laughing a bit through the window, and after only a few more moments, the infirm uncle called to them bid them pull up and set off the sensor so that we could order. Like the Tennessee Hooligans they were, they obliged at once. After the lady inside the building had asked us to wait a moment, the Hooligans backed up and returned to their place. After another few minutes, the driver asked our infirm uncle to come over and see his hair. When our uncle approached him, the Hooligan explained that he had just had some blue dye put in it. The infirm uncle replied that there were only two streaks of blue. “That’s just what I wanted,” replied the Hooligan. “Then I guess it looks fine,” answered the uncle. Clearly overcome with gratitude, the Hooligan pulled up again, as it was apparent that the lady in the building believed we had gone away. This time the driver, with admiration in his voice said, “I went through backwards once, but never on foot.” Our conversation was cut short by the lady inside the building, who was finally ready to take our order. We did so and then left the Hooligans to their own ordering and went around to meet the lady inside the building. After giving us a few baffled questions to determine which order was ours and with a smile the likes of which can only be found in the south, the lady inside the building explained that waiting at the microphone had not been necessary, we could have just come around to the window.

We arrived home with no further incident.

Invisible (12/14/09)

The Andalusia Ballet has just finished with this season's edition of The Nutcracker. For the past five years I have been working on ballet performances I began playing music during the last week of rehearsals and  working backstage during the performance, but with the coming of the new sound and light boards to the control booth, I was shifted to the control booth even during performances. Although I like backstage work better, the humorous, "do your best and leave the rest:" atmosphere of the control booth is much more pleasant than the scuffling backstage intensity. Example:

Stage Manager: Wait! Marzipan is BEFORE Gingersnaps?!!
Ballet Mistress: Yes.
Lights and Sound Guy: It's been like that since the 1800's. Except for that year she [the Ballet Mistress] swapped it because of a quick-change.

My role in either position, however has really not been very different. A stage hand should not be seen or heard, in fact, it should be perfectly invisible. If a stage hand is noticed at all, either by presence or absence, then that person has failed. The epitome of perfection is to be absolutely undetectable, except, perhaps, by directors or other stagehands.

Roses are red...

And very hard to grow. The Glory of the Garden, and the triumph of successful gardeners.
In the front garden of our "base camp" we have two kinds of roses. One is a hearty, indigenous variety. It makes cute fluffy little pink roses in the spring and all through the summer. Nothing really hurts it and it is capable of growing about twenty feet in a year. Literally. We know because we tried really hard to get rid of it. We dug it up and dumped it on the dirt bank across the road three years in a row. There are now cute little fluffy roses the entire length of our road, and we still have the mother plant in our front garden.

The other rose plant is much more delicate. We planted it, pruned it, fed it banana peels, carried water to it, coated it with organic bug repellent and generally gave it everything that it might need. We've had a few pretty flowers from it, but more often than not the buds come to grief somehow or other.

Until now. We came home after three months to find a little bud, which has bloomed into a most magnificent rose. I wonder if that indicates anything about our gardening skills?

A Fowl Post

Yesterday, after wandering forlornly about the house for a while, walking two miles in the rain to make the dog happy and wishing that town was a nine mile round trip instead of eighteen, I decided to do something about the box of hollow eggshells that has been sitting on a shelf for about two years. The eggshells were waiting to be stuffed full of confetti and painted, so that they could fulfill their mission in life: being busted over some unsuspecting person's head.
I shredded some brightly colored newspaper pages into confetti and picked up an eggshell and laughed a little as I thought, Oh, this one was Andy's. Why did I ever know which of my ducks laid which egg, and why do I remember now, when that duck mysteriously vanished two years ago? I have no idea. 

Andy belonged with a group of fifteen ducklings that my dad bought as an experiment. They were all supposed to be eaten. The eight that lived to adulthood all ended up with names, trained to come when I whistled.
So the Admiral tried again. He brought home two geese. He wisely gave them to my brothers, not me. Haha! they were instantly named: Jack and Fiona. Fiona died of unknown causes. Jack was given to me. I also had, at that time, a chicken and a duckling named Fred and Charlie. Charlie had been the sole duckling to emerge from an incubator full of eggs. I stole Fred from a batch of chicks that were passing through on their way to the livestock sale in town because baby birds can die of loneliness. They also make a lot more noise when they're alone. Though an odd looking trio, Charlie, Fred and Jack all got along tremendously until the tragic deaths of both Charlie and Fred.

 

 Left to right: Jack, Fred, Charlie.

Alone once again, Jack was moved in with the regular chickens, where he made himself at home. And a nest. And laid some eggs. We took pity on him, and replaced his eggs with good ones. Jack Frost only had kittens,  Jack the goose had ducklings! 

 

Jack and Flit

And that's where leaving the shells on the shelf for two years gets me.

Can't Trees revised and revisited for English class.

I have, quite often lately, neglected blogging for my more strict-about-time Studies. So as proof that I have not been off gallivanting (a pass time I have been accused of indulging in) and as a celebration of my passing the course, I offer a sample of the writing that I have done for my English class.

The only real trail through our forest was made years ago by someone with a bush hog. It is a very crude trail that takes one to the heart of the forest and then dead ends atop a culvert over the largest creek in our forest, abandoning walkers exactly at the miniature clearing that is the home of the Can't Trees. It is a tiny place, just large enough for a ten year old to consider it a clearing. It begins on top of the culvert and land bridge over the creek, and slides down to the creek bank. It smells of rotting wood and leaves, moss, mud and water all woven with the very faint smell of wild animal. In summer, the trees meet overhead in a light filtering canopy that turns the clearing pale green. During the Winter, the trees become skeletons, draped with robes of half inch thick thorn vines that rip at clothes and skin in a vain attempt to dissuade the intruder.
I can remember the first time that I saw the Can't Trees, hidden by wild tree-bushes and blackberry thickets. I stood on top of the grassy culvert bridge and tried to see what my mother was pointing at. It was two trees, water oaks, growing side by side on the creek bank. Once upon a time they were straight, as trees ought to be. The collapse of the creek bank, who knows how long ago, ruined that for them. The trees grow almost horizontally over the creek for about three feet, then turn sharply and continue to grow upward, tall and skinny to the top of the forest roof. The third Can't Tree was added a few days later when I visited the place again. It is a pine, perfectly normal for the bottom two thirds and then bowed and twisted into a large and magnificent loop the loop.

My mother found the Can't Trees. She showed them to any of us who would make the trek down the creek to see. She dragged my dad down there. "If those trees can grow like that," she said, "there isn't anything you can't do." At the time, my dad was working all night, going to school during the day, and paying what attention he could to his six going on seven kids in his spare time. It was a hard time for all of us. The trees provided a bit of encouraging comedic relief. "Just think about the Can't Trees" became a common saying whenever anyone said they could not do something.
My dad and I made the clearing. For him, it was just a necessary step to taming the forest. For me, it was the creation of a special hideaway too far from the house to hear my name being called. It was the place I could go when I needed to pull myself together, or let myself fall apart. Whether I was happy or frightened or furious, the clearing, though it went through phases of growing over and dying back, was always the same. It was simply imperturbably calmed.
I could always find courage in the clearing. I was a dreadfully introverted child, and was always in need of courage. One year I was forced to enter a 4-H public speaking contest and wrote much of my speech sitting in the bend of one of the water oaks. I spent days pacing around the clearing at the base of the pine tree trying to memorize that speech. Before the contest, I went down for a last rehearsal. I was ready to vomit, but there stood the trees, as serene as ever. I came in second place in the contest. My faith in the clearing intensified tenfold.
It was not that I attributed magical or supernatural powers to the Can't Trees or the clearing. I always knew that I had the strength somewhere inside me. The wonder of the clearing was that it helped me find and bring out the courage that I could not find on my own.
I went down to the creek a few months ago, after more than a year of absence. The trail was so over grown that I had to give up my first attempt and return to the barn for a pair of loppers. Deer had crossed the trail in muddy places, leaving tracks that never appeared there when I haunted the place. A bushy tree blown over by some big storm or other lay like a final  wall across the clearing entrance. I cleared it away to enter, and found that my clearing was mine no longer.
One of the Water Oak Can't Trees is rotting. The section over the bend will break off sooner or later. The pine has sprawled out, and is growing into a new loop the loop. It is covered in passion flower vines. The blackberry bushes and the thorn vines are creeping back into and constricting the clearing. Once, I could cartwheel across my clearing. The surrounding trees and I have grown too much for that. I can only just stand without my hair tangling in a branch. The calmness that I associated with the clearing has passed away. It takes effort to recall it. The clearing is still a beautiful place, but it is not the place I knew before.
At first, I did not know whether to blame myself or the clearing. If I had continued my regular visits, would the clearing have retained its allure? I think not. I will always wonder at the trees, and they will continue to inspire me. The tranquility of the clearing is something that I hold dear. The clearing lost nothing. I lost my need for it. It served its purpose.
As children, persons attach special qualities to places and things. Maybe it is a book or a blanket or a special pillowcase, a quiet dreamy window seat or clearing in the forest. A child needs such anchors in a wild and tumultuous world. Such anchors require utter trust in an object or place though, and one ought to move on from that phase of life. A person cannot go through life holding onto a stuffed dog or hiding away in a tiny clearing in the forest. There comes a time when one must stop admiring, leave the clearing and strive to be as remarkable as a Can't Tree.

Homecoming

We have survived the trip home, and the first couple of days back.
The drive was uneventful enough. We drove until 3:30 AM on Saturday, then navigated some very very tiny roads to the park where we planned to spend the night. At $5.00 a night, the park was a bargain. It also closed at 11:00, so I don't know anything else about it.  We re-navigated the very very tiny streets and slept in the Wal-Mart parking lot.
Sunday we visited with our former pastor, who left us (his parish) for the Benedictines. We also had a tour of the church there, and heard Brother Joseph's tales of the the less somber side of a monk's life. We drove until a little past one in the morning.
The Admiral's phone unexpectedly went off at five.
We reached home Tuesday at 1:00 AM. Because the idea of spending what was left of the night unpacking and sleeping in a house that had been empty for three months was not very appealing, we ended up camping in our own yard.

Once we got home, of course, we had to go to town. Although we had just survived for almost three months without an errand vehicle, we needed the Y.S. immediately.
The Y.S. was not happy that we had left her, however, and threw a temper tantrum. She was trembling with rage as we left the yard. snorting and sputtering we drove on down the road. We had finished at one grocery store and were on our way to the post office, were almost there, when the Y.S. bailed completely. She died in the middle of the road. The Admiral wrangled her into the post office parking lot, where  he gave her a once over while the Commodore and I went in. We returned to a very aggravated Admiral. The engine wasn't getting any gas, and he couldn't figure out why. Perhaps the fuel pump had gone out. It had been sitting for three months after all.
The Commodore made a suggestion.
The Admiral made a phone call.
A friend made the drive over with a gas can.
Turns out the problem has a lot to do with the gas gauge.