The Littlest Carver Leaves the Ever-Broken Nest
I just had dinner with my little sister. She's going off to college in 3 days. It's so nuts to watch a child become an adult. To have known her from birth, and all that great stuff. I feel pretty lucky to be close to her, even though I've lived far away for so much of her childhood. I don't know why I can't help but cry at things like her graduation, and today, seeing her before she moves away from Seattle for the first time. I guess there's just very few people whom I have felt so bonded with for as many years. Thank goodness that about 8 years ago I began making friends that I will probably be close with for the rest of my life.
Flush Twice!
Put this on your list of movies to watch: King of Kong - A Fistful of Quarters.
If you read a review and think the content might not really interest you (in other words, you might not be into video games), disregard that and watch it anyway. It's great. I watched it last night at the Varsity in the UDistrict, where the director, Seth Gordon, introduced it and answered questions at the end. Really great footage, editing, story.. and very very low budget. Great characters.
I'm living in Georgetown now - a neighborhood just south of Seattle. I guess you can call it a neighborhood. It's kind of a cool little secret; largely uninhabited, in a wasteland/industrial zone within a major metropolitan city. I found a bumper sticker that really captured the theme of the place. It was made when the city was trying to put a new town dump here. There's all the symbols that make up the soul of Georgetown: an airplane, a semi truck, the mudflap girl, and related stuff. It says "Flush Twice! It's a long way to Georgetown." All i know is that the one tiny grocery store here is all japanese stuff and they sell MOCHI ICE CREAM!!!!
If you read a review and think the content might not really interest you (in other words, you might not be into video games), disregard that and watch it anyway. It's great. I watched it last night at the Varsity in the UDistrict, where the director, Seth Gordon, introduced it and answered questions at the end. Really great footage, editing, story.. and very very low budget. Great characters.
I'm living in Georgetown now - a neighborhood just south of Seattle. I guess you can call it a neighborhood. It's kind of a cool little secret; largely uninhabited, in a wasteland/industrial zone within a major metropolitan city. I found a bumper sticker that really captured the theme of the place. It was made when the city was trying to put a new town dump here. There's all the symbols that make up the soul of Georgetown: an airplane, a semi truck, the mudflap girl, and related stuff. It says "Flush Twice! It's a long way to Georgetown." All i know is that the one tiny grocery store here is all japanese stuff and they sell MOCHI ICE CREAM!!!!
Vikings in the Caribbean!!!
There's a few things I haven't done since returning, that I really want to do, like hang out over at Adrian's, and have some beers with Eric and Cass... but I'm thinking I'll have plenty of time for that over the next 2 weeks. I'm working for the big Seattle music festival, Bumbershoot, this weekend and Labor Day Weekend, and then after that I really need regular work. Money's running out.
It doesn't help that I poured over $70 into Nanette's gas tank this past weekend. And like the terrible granddaughter I am, I didn't even use her car to go see Gram. Instead I drove all over town, helping the Lady Washington provision at Whole Foods, and even going out to Snoqualmie Falls to hike down to the bottom and take a nap there. It was wonderful to get out of town, into REAL mountains, though. I have missed mountains lately. Um let's see I also went out for dinner at Cedar's, where the chai is bottomless and 2nd only in taste to the chai that Alan Kerstetter made from scratch on a camp stove underneath a dock in oldtown Sacramento. I went for a sail aboard Hawaiian Chieftain on friday night, hanging out with the wonderful and talented Rob, Rosie, Preston, Nick and the rest of the crew, including Crystal G., whom before friday I'd only known via the internet. In fact between both boats I met several crew whom I'd only seen online. Most importantly I finally met the man who donates the most to Jack Tar - Mr. Joe Bartlett. Last night I visted the Lady in Shilshole before she took off across the sound so I could meet Joe. He's such a great guy; he even set up a wifi antenna so that the boats could access internet via Clearwire. Half those kids have laptops. Then I heard that Jonathan T. was motoring over to brief the captains on the Brownsville event, so I stuck around in order to give JT a big hug. I haven't even talked with JT on the phone in ages. JT convinced me to sail across today with Lady.
I've only hung out with these crews a handful of hours over the last week, but I already love them. Today was a longer than necessary transit, but ending with JB docking the brig under sail with confidence and ease. I think what makes a typical Lady crew so endearing to me is that everyone is so ragtag and goofy most of the time, then when sail is being called and work is being done they jump to with enthusiasm. They all straggled into breakfast and lazed around until Elf told them what needed to be done, at which point everyone jumped up to work. And it's not like Elf has this commanding tone or even motivating way of communicating. He just said uh ok this is what needs to happen now... and they were on it. By the end of the day I'd sung a few chanties with the crew, helped drive the boat, had a few heart-to-hearts with crew I had instantly bonded with - listening to some of their personal troubles or how they ended up there, and some funny moments, like anything involving the hilarious new purser, Josh (or is it Andy?), from PT. At breakfast he proposed that if mice ever became a problem on board, they should get mongoose to eat the mice, then to get rid of the mongoose, they'd have to bring in cobras, at which point we could pitch a new movie involving mutherfucking snakes on a mutherfucking tall boat. Later on we were discussing pirates and Josh proposed telling children that actually we were vikings, not pirates, which led to another movie idea - Vikings in the Caribbean. Imagine Leif and Thor wondering why it's so freakin hot, and where the hell are they, and might Michael Bay want to produce this? Ok maybe you had to be there, but Josh is definitely one of the funniest guys on board right now. I met Liz, a 16 year old farmgirl from Westport who was finally allowed to go to sea because she fried the engine on the family tractor. This girl takes care of her brothers and sisters upon waking up and then after sitting on the tractor for 15 hours a day she puts them to bed! The Lady is definitely a vacation for her. Molly is a great steward, Matt Gempler is excellent at calling sail, and I learned that the entire Gempler clan is pulling up their roots in Boise, selling everything, and moving to PT to build a brig! This year, no less. My other favorite crewmembers were Boy Genius, Patricia, Cassie, Tiny, and Esther's little rockstar sailor sister. It was a lot of fun to spend time with all of them.
In Brownsville the Suquamish gave us all beads, I got to see JT's family and new boat, and his mother in law "Honey" gave me a ride to the ferry, where they were picking up Hal Day. At my prompting Honey told me the story of how she and her boyfriend Wayne (also in the car - they're both in their early 60's I think) met and fell in love. They're getting married this fall. Then there was a long peaceful sunset ferry ride back to Seattle. To top it off, a barista gave me an extra piece of cake AND I got to listen to young east Indian girls singing softly during the bus ride from the ferry to home. So yeah, it was a pretty great day.
It doesn't help that I poured over $70 into Nanette's gas tank this past weekend. And like the terrible granddaughter I am, I didn't even use her car to go see Gram. Instead I drove all over town, helping the Lady Washington provision at Whole Foods, and even going out to Snoqualmie Falls to hike down to the bottom and take a nap there. It was wonderful to get out of town, into REAL mountains, though. I have missed mountains lately. Um let's see I also went out for dinner at Cedar's, where the chai is bottomless and 2nd only in taste to the chai that Alan Kerstetter made from scratch on a camp stove underneath a dock in oldtown Sacramento. I went for a sail aboard Hawaiian Chieftain on friday night, hanging out with the wonderful and talented Rob, Rosie, Preston, Nick and the rest of the crew, including Crystal G., whom before friday I'd only known via the internet. In fact between both boats I met several crew whom I'd only seen online. Most importantly I finally met the man who donates the most to Jack Tar - Mr. Joe Bartlett. Last night I visted the Lady in Shilshole before she took off across the sound so I could meet Joe. He's such a great guy; he even set up a wifi antenna so that the boats could access internet via Clearwire. Half those kids have laptops. Then I heard that Jonathan T. was motoring over to brief the captains on the Brownsville event, so I stuck around in order to give JT a big hug. I haven't even talked with JT on the phone in ages. JT convinced me to sail across today with Lady.
I've only hung out with these crews a handful of hours over the last week, but I already love them. Today was a longer than necessary transit, but ending with JB docking the brig under sail with confidence and ease. I think what makes a typical Lady crew so endearing to me is that everyone is so ragtag and goofy most of the time, then when sail is being called and work is being done they jump to with enthusiasm. They all straggled into breakfast and lazed around until Elf told them what needed to be done, at which point everyone jumped up to work. And it's not like Elf has this commanding tone or even motivating way of communicating. He just said uh ok this is what needs to happen now... and they were on it. By the end of the day I'd sung a few chanties with the crew, helped drive the boat, had a few heart-to-hearts with crew I had instantly bonded with - listening to some of their personal troubles or how they ended up there, and some funny moments, like anything involving the hilarious new purser, Josh (or is it Andy?), from PT. At breakfast he proposed that if mice ever became a problem on board, they should get mongoose to eat the mice, then to get rid of the mongoose, they'd have to bring in cobras, at which point we could pitch a new movie involving mutherfucking snakes on a mutherfucking tall boat. Later on we were discussing pirates and Josh proposed telling children that actually we were vikings, not pirates, which led to another movie idea - Vikings in the Caribbean. Imagine Leif and Thor wondering why it's so freakin hot, and where the hell are they, and might Michael Bay want to produce this? Ok maybe you had to be there, but Josh is definitely one of the funniest guys on board right now. I met Liz, a 16 year old farmgirl from Westport who was finally allowed to go to sea because she fried the engine on the family tractor. This girl takes care of her brothers and sisters upon waking up and then after sitting on the tractor for 15 hours a day she puts them to bed! The Lady is definitely a vacation for her. Molly is a great steward, Matt Gempler is excellent at calling sail, and I learned that the entire Gempler clan is pulling up their roots in Boise, selling everything, and moving to PT to build a brig! This year, no less. My other favorite crewmembers were Boy Genius, Patricia, Cassie, Tiny, and Esther's little rockstar sailor sister. It was a lot of fun to spend time with all of them.
In Brownsville the Suquamish gave us all beads, I got to see JT's family and new boat, and his mother in law "Honey" gave me a ride to the ferry, where they were picking up Hal Day. At my prompting Honey told me the story of how she and her boyfriend Wayne (also in the car - they're both in their early 60's I think) met and fell in love. They're getting married this fall. Then there was a long peaceful sunset ferry ride back to Seattle. To top it off, a barista gave me an extra piece of cake AND I got to listen to young east Indian girls singing softly during the bus ride from the ferry to home. So yeah, it was a pretty great day.
Say Goodbye to Michigan
Goodbye Detroit! Goodbye Grand Rapids! Goodbye Lake Michigan! Goodbye Traverse City! Goodbye Chicago! ok that's not part of michigan but it's damn close geographically.
the seattle summer already feels 50% less humid than the midwest. i wore pants and shoes! with socks! today and felt fine. detroit was ho-hum, but my time with polly was great. she was disappointed that i wasn't having more fun. she always wants the best for me. i think what we do best is talk about stuff, and watch movies. we kill time together well. last friday night in detroit included AMAZING food at a restaurant in greektown (downtown detroit) called Pegasus. amazing, amazing greek food. i could have died from overeating if i'd had more money, time and appetite. it was that good. and the waiter kept looking down my shirt which for once i actually thought was flattering (?). after Pegasus we wanted to go into a hip hop club where everyone was looking like they were having a blast, but we would have been the only white people in the entire place, and the guys standing outside looked pretty hardcore in their scene. so we settled for the shittiest of all irish pubs i've been to so far (about 2 dozen i'd guess), called Shilleghlaghs where the band was OK but the drinks were way overpriced and the crowd was beyond irritating. polly kept asking me to taste her vodka tonic to see if i could taste any alcohol. frat daddies and their girls sang along to what seemed to be their favorite song: drunken sailor. with every "hey hey and up she rises" they would all slowly rise from their seats and raise their hands in the air. i asked the band to play wild rover but the guy next to me gave them a wad of cash to play his request, so my request was quickly forgotten. It seems that the favorite tradition in this bar is to bang things on the table. Here's a review I found:
"So the band plays another song, and you find it's time to buy another pitcher. People around you begin to chant with the band, and they start to stomp their feet. And they start to bang their hands on the table...and you watch your beer slosh dangerously. And they start to bang the ash trays on the table. And they start to bang their empty beer bottles on the table (not you, you're drinking a from a pitcher, remember). Not wanting to commit the ultimate sin of alcohol abuse in an Irish bar, you pick up your drink so it won't spill and wave it around in the air. By now, your second pitcher is obviously empty...so you bang THAT on the table. The next thing you know, you find yourself being coerced by those same dang Irishmen singing a song that goes something like this:
Dos, a beer, a Mexican beer
Ray, a guy who buys me beer
Me, the guy, Ray buys beer for
Far, a long way to the bar
So, I need another beer
La, la la la lots of beer
Tea, hell no I want a beer
and that will bring us back to Dos!"
That song was fun to watch, but then came an intermission. The crowd provides it's own entertainment during the band's break. Each long table has a number, and with the help of one especially drunk ringleader at each table, they scream out a little rhyme about how Table Number 4 is the Best, or some shit like that. Then the table next to us, slamming empty pitchers and pint glasses, yells out "TABLE 4 SUCKS! TABLE 4 SUCKS!" followed by some crap like "TABLE 2 IS BETTER THAN YOU" over and over and over again, back and forth between the tables. The band had a 25 minute break. 15 minutes into it we took off. I think i was one of 3 people in the bar over the age of 29.
I didn't see the post-apocalyptic landscape that I'd heard existed in Detroit, but I did see a higher percentage of perfectly restored classic cars. 68 mustangs in cherry condition with those special rims that keep turning, pearlescent paint jobs on 67 chevys, restored cadillacs... i don't think it was one of those drivers that pulled a hit and run on polly's parked subaru, but someone did, and that kinda sucked.
The next night there was a big bbq at the home of a couple whom Polly and her boyfriend Pat went to Michigan State with. there must have been at least 25 people there. some of them i met and they were very nice, but i was tired and missing my TC friends and simply not wanting to talk anymore about my travels and what i do. when you tell someone you work on tall ships, they ask you a million questions. i've been answering the same line of questioning an average of 10 times per day for months. Sonja, being in maritime and dealing with the same reactions, wanted to come up with answers that would in no way invite further questioning. we got a slightly different reaction when we tried it out on a drunk guy in bar in TC last week. Sonja's sister Kirsten was with us, along with Jen. the guy asks what we do. I say "she cuts hair at jcpenney, she sells shoes at sears... she doesn't work, and i'm a night shift supervisor at mcdonalds." but our facial expressions betrayed us. What do you really do? he asks. "ok ok. Sonja's a diesel engineer, Kirsten's a cop in south chicago, i'm a sailor, and jen is an anticapitalist."
he didn't believe that either.
anyway... besides one last sail in TC and a visit to the awesomely famous (and expensive) deli in Ann Arbor, MI, known as Zingermans, and trying on a million shoes at the mall without buying any (polly bought 3 pairs!), that was my last week in michigan. yesterday i took the train to chicago and lugged 3 bags across town to the blue line, which took me all the way to o'hare. i spent 4 hours on a flight between an alcholic with tremors (i thought he had parkinsons until he ordered a few double bourbons) and a lady who lovingly savored 10 chicken mcnuggets in bbq sauce over the span of the first hour. i think she licked her fingers clean after every 2 mcnuggets. waste not! upon arriving in seattle i hopped a bus to my new place but managed to disembark 2 miles short of my destination. yay me! i may have lost a pound yesterday but i felt sure i was 2 inches shorter.
the couple i'm living with are very sweet, cool artistic types and i have a big room. today i took the bus to lake union to hang out with JB, elf, rob, nick, rosemary, matt gempler, and a bunch of more unfamiliar faces, before meeting up with my sister for a meal at lockspot and cupcakes at cupcake royale while looking at her europe pictures.
i dropped off some mags at Captain's, and rec'd an overwhelming response of support from one of their employees. she gave me a lot of advice regarding getting my zine out there, offered to give me some space at pacific marine expo, and showed me a thick zine being published out of portland, free for women in commercial fishing, called Xtra Tuf but a few bucks for everyone else. Microcosm Publishing. Maybe i should contact them...
the seattle summer already feels 50% less humid than the midwest. i wore pants and shoes! with socks! today and felt fine. detroit was ho-hum, but my time with polly was great. she was disappointed that i wasn't having more fun. she always wants the best for me. i think what we do best is talk about stuff, and watch movies. we kill time together well. last friday night in detroit included AMAZING food at a restaurant in greektown (downtown detroit) called Pegasus. amazing, amazing greek food. i could have died from overeating if i'd had more money, time and appetite. it was that good. and the waiter kept looking down my shirt which for once i actually thought was flattering (?). after Pegasus we wanted to go into a hip hop club where everyone was looking like they were having a blast, but we would have been the only white people in the entire place, and the guys standing outside looked pretty hardcore in their scene. so we settled for the shittiest of all irish pubs i've been to so far (about 2 dozen i'd guess), called Shilleghlaghs where the band was OK but the drinks were way overpriced and the crowd was beyond irritating. polly kept asking me to taste her vodka tonic to see if i could taste any alcohol. frat daddies and their girls sang along to what seemed to be their favorite song: drunken sailor. with every "hey hey and up she rises" they would all slowly rise from their seats and raise their hands in the air. i asked the band to play wild rover but the guy next to me gave them a wad of cash to play his request, so my request was quickly forgotten. It seems that the favorite tradition in this bar is to bang things on the table. Here's a review I found:
"So the band plays another song, and you find it's time to buy another pitcher. People around you begin to chant with the band, and they start to stomp their feet. And they start to bang their hands on the table...and you watch your beer slosh dangerously. And they start to bang the ash trays on the table. And they start to bang their empty beer bottles on the table (not you, you're drinking a from a pitcher, remember). Not wanting to commit the ultimate sin of alcohol abuse in an Irish bar, you pick up your drink so it won't spill and wave it around in the air. By now, your second pitcher is obviously empty...so you bang THAT on the table. The next thing you know, you find yourself being coerced by those same dang Irishmen singing a song that goes something like this:
Dos, a beer, a Mexican beer
Ray, a guy who buys me beer
Me, the guy, Ray buys beer for
Far, a long way to the bar
So, I need another beer
La, la la la lots of beer
Tea, hell no I want a beer
and that will bring us back to Dos!"
That song was fun to watch, but then came an intermission. The crowd provides it's own entertainment during the band's break. Each long table has a number, and with the help of one especially drunk ringleader at each table, they scream out a little rhyme about how Table Number 4 is the Best, or some shit like that. Then the table next to us, slamming empty pitchers and pint glasses, yells out "TABLE 4 SUCKS! TABLE 4 SUCKS!" followed by some crap like "TABLE 2 IS BETTER THAN YOU" over and over and over again, back and forth between the tables. The band had a 25 minute break. 15 minutes into it we took off. I think i was one of 3 people in the bar over the age of 29.
I didn't see the post-apocalyptic landscape that I'd heard existed in Detroit, but I did see a higher percentage of perfectly restored classic cars. 68 mustangs in cherry condition with those special rims that keep turning, pearlescent paint jobs on 67 chevys, restored cadillacs... i don't think it was one of those drivers that pulled a hit and run on polly's parked subaru, but someone did, and that kinda sucked.
The next night there was a big bbq at the home of a couple whom Polly and her boyfriend Pat went to Michigan State with. there must have been at least 25 people there. some of them i met and they were very nice, but i was tired and missing my TC friends and simply not wanting to talk anymore about my travels and what i do. when you tell someone you work on tall ships, they ask you a million questions. i've been answering the same line of questioning an average of 10 times per day for months. Sonja, being in maritime and dealing with the same reactions, wanted to come up with answers that would in no way invite further questioning. we got a slightly different reaction when we tried it out on a drunk guy in bar in TC last week. Sonja's sister Kirsten was with us, along with Jen. the guy asks what we do. I say "she cuts hair at jcpenney, she sells shoes at sears... she doesn't work, and i'm a night shift supervisor at mcdonalds." but our facial expressions betrayed us. What do you really do? he asks. "ok ok. Sonja's a diesel engineer, Kirsten's a cop in south chicago, i'm a sailor, and jen is an anticapitalist."
he didn't believe that either.
anyway... besides one last sail in TC and a visit to the awesomely famous (and expensive) deli in Ann Arbor, MI, known as Zingermans, and trying on a million shoes at the mall without buying any (polly bought 3 pairs!), that was my last week in michigan. yesterday i took the train to chicago and lugged 3 bags across town to the blue line, which took me all the way to o'hare. i spent 4 hours on a flight between an alcholic with tremors (i thought he had parkinsons until he ordered a few double bourbons) and a lady who lovingly savored 10 chicken mcnuggets in bbq sauce over the span of the first hour. i think she licked her fingers clean after every 2 mcnuggets. waste not! upon arriving in seattle i hopped a bus to my new place but managed to disembark 2 miles short of my destination. yay me! i may have lost a pound yesterday but i felt sure i was 2 inches shorter.
the couple i'm living with are very sweet, cool artistic types and i have a big room. today i took the bus to lake union to hang out with JB, elf, rob, nick, rosemary, matt gempler, and a bunch of more unfamiliar faces, before meeting up with my sister for a meal at lockspot and cupcakes at cupcake royale while looking at her europe pictures.
i dropped off some mags at Captain's, and rec'd an overwhelming response of support from one of their employees. she gave me a lot of advice regarding getting my zine out there, offered to give me some space at pacific marine expo, and showed me a thick zine being published out of portland, free for women in commercial fishing, called Xtra Tuf but a few bucks for everyone else. Microcosm Publishing. Maybe i should contact them...
My Last Weekend in TC
My time in michigan is almost up and i'm making the most of what little is left. Last weekend was a lot of fun. Friday morning I had breakfast with Sonja's aunt Mavis and uncle Ron, 
before heading over to the Opera House to meet Polly for a panel discussion on documentaries. 
The picture shows, from left to right, Dan Gould and Judith Halvern (Blue Vinyl), Chris Henegis and DA Pennebaker (Don't Look Back, Gimme Shelter and many many more), Brett-something (The Kid Stays in the Picture), Jack Lawrence (An American Soldier), and of course Michael Moore. My friends from S/V INLAND SEAS saved us some spots and we listened to the panelists talk about how they got into documentaries and how to better get them accepted into film festivals.
Shortly after that we headed over to the State Theater; the only theater downtown and is hasn't been used to show movies for a long time, because it's old fashioned and not up to code. Firemen were hired to stand by during the film fest, but Michael Moore is remodeling and reopening the State in November to bring indie flicks to the people of Traverse City. He introduced the movie Slaughterhouse Five, explaining how much Vonnegut changed his life and inspired him, and that he was able to spend several days at his house during the last year of his life. The movie, from the 70's I think, is awesome. It gets a little loopy in the end, but all in all it's great. All I can say is Billy Pilgrim reminds me SO MUCH of the Manitou's current first mate!!!! Holy cow.
After the movie, Justin called and said that he and Rob wanted to go sailing, but it'd be a lot more fun if there were some girls on the boat, so I convinced Polly to take a ride on Salome. We sailed around Power Island and got pretty trashed - by the end of the sail Polly was dancing a little on the stern, holding onto the backstay. We eventually ended up at Justin's and Pat met us there. I passed out before the burgers were done.
Pat and Polly went to "DuneGrass" festival the next day and I went sailing again with Rob, Justin and Sonja. This time we anchored off of Power Island and went for a swim. Plenty more happened that night but it was all a bit on the "R" rated side as far as public nudity goes... let's just say that a dinghy ride through the center of town, climbing trees in our underwear and falling into the Boardman river... yeah...we're lucky we didn't get arrested.
The next day I woke up and met up with Justin and Sonja for breakfast at Mabel's... and we didn't have energy for much else. For days now I've been wondering why I feel so bloated and fat, then I realized that I probably haven't drank beer on a regular basis like this since I lived in Germany back in '91. I gained 20 pounds that summer. I think I'm going to lay off for a while. I feel gross.
There's going to be a huge party Wednesday night because Justin and Sonja are finally done with chemistry class, and it's my last night here. Next weekend I'm going to Detroit with Polly, and I'm really looking forward to that.
ps check the last post too cos i added pics!
before heading over to the Opera House to meet Polly for a panel discussion on documentaries. The picture shows, from left to right, Dan Gould and Judith Halvern (Blue Vinyl), Chris Henegis and DA Pennebaker (Don't Look Back, Gimme Shelter and many many more), Brett-something (The Kid Stays in the Picture), Jack Lawrence (An American Soldier), and of course Michael Moore. My friends from S/V INLAND SEAS saved us some spots and we listened to the panelists talk about how they got into documentaries and how to better get them accepted into film festivals. Shortly after that we headed over to the State Theater; the only theater downtown and is hasn't been used to show movies for a long time, because it's old fashioned and not up to code. Firemen were hired to stand by during the film fest, but Michael Moore is remodeling and reopening the State in November to bring indie flicks to the people of Traverse City. He introduced the movie Slaughterhouse Five, explaining how much Vonnegut changed his life and inspired him, and that he was able to spend several days at his house during the last year of his life. The movie, from the 70's I think, is awesome. It gets a little loopy in the end, but all in all it's great. All I can say is Billy Pilgrim reminds me SO MUCH of the Manitou's current first mate!!!! Holy cow.
After the movie, Justin called and said that he and Rob wanted to go sailing, but it'd be a lot more fun if there were some girls on the boat, so I convinced Polly to take a ride on Salome. We sailed around Power Island and got pretty trashed - by the end of the sail Polly was dancing a little on the stern, holding onto the backstay. We eventually ended up at Justin's and Pat met us there. I passed out before the burgers were done.
Pat and Polly went to "DuneGrass" festival the next day and I went sailing again with Rob, Justin and Sonja. This time we anchored off of Power Island and went for a swim. Plenty more happened that night but it was all a bit on the "R" rated side as far as public nudity goes... let's just say that a dinghy ride through the center of town, climbing trees in our underwear and falling into the Boardman river... yeah...we're lucky we didn't get arrested.
The next day I woke up and met up with Justin and Sonja for breakfast at Mabel's... and we didn't have energy for much else. For days now I've been wondering why I feel so bloated and fat, then I realized that I probably haven't drank beer on a regular basis like this since I lived in Germany back in '91. I gained 20 pounds that summer. I think I'm going to lay off for a while. I feel gross.
There's going to be a huge party Wednesday night because Justin and Sonja are finally done with chemistry class, and it's my last night here. Next weekend I'm going to Detroit with Polly, and I'm really looking forward to that.
ps check the last post too cos i added pics!
