Mike Jastrzebski's Blog, page 13

Declared Accidental…

C.E. Grundler

I love warning labels.  They advise us that lighter fluid is highly combustible and ‘harmful’ if swallowed. They warn us a nice glass of rum will impair our ability to operate a motor vehicle and shouldn’t be consumed during pregnancy… while they neglect to warn that consumption of said rum may ultimately lead to said pregnancy in the first place. They warn us not to put plastic bags over our heads, that deodorants are only meant for external use, (..uhm?) and Q-Tips should never be used within the ear canal. And in case you weren’t sure, don’t use a hair dryer WHILE bathing, and playing around the transom of a running boat can lead to a whole bunch of bad ‘accidental’ type things.

These informative little messages are intended to steer us clear of hazards that seem ludicrously obvious, yet each time I see one, I consider that it came into being for some reason. Companies and organizations are warning us for our own protection, and theirs as well, because individuals out there have done the ‘don’ts’, and it never ends well.  Those labels are there to keep the general population out of trouble, and to keep the lawyers at bay. And it’s these labels that give me oodles of material for my ‘how to burn/blow up/kill/whatever’ writing file.

But not all potential mayhem comes with a warning, and that’s the stuff I’m ever on the lookout for. The news is a good source, and whenever I hear some fire, explosion, asphyxiation, overdose, etc, declared ‘accidental’, I go into research mode. Trust me, if you’re looking for inspiration, just Google “declared accidental.”  Accidents are recipes for ideas. What went wrong, why, how?  If you’ve read my books, you know why you should NEVER put an nice oversized exhaust hood in your glitzy kitchen. I’ve demonstrated fun ways to use spray foam, and the next book will show why you really don’t want to wear rings. Ever. (Finger Avulsion. Google it. Bonus points if you click ‘images’) This morning’s gem involves ordinary household items commonly found lying around. In fact I had them only drawer apart. I wanted to share it with you all because it’s so simple, common, benign, and holds the potential for so much death and destruction. And yes, I was testing this in the driveway at 6:30 this morning, with a hose at my side. It’s delightfully terrifying just how well it works. Here’s all you need:

The package for the steel wool does warn: “CAUTION: When working with steel wool, stay away from live electrical current,” and most would assume it’s to avoid risk of shock.  But no. It’s so much more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnVDayI-gwI

And thats all it takes.

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Cruising through the holidays

By Mike Jastrzebski

St. Augustine Nights of Lights.

The holidays are a favorite time of mine for cruising. Maybe it’s because eleven years ago on Thanksgiving day when we were new to cruising and making our way down the Tenn-Tom waterway from Minnesota we stopped at Midway Marina in Mississippi and were promptly invited to their pot-luck. Our contribution was a store bought pumpkin pie that we expected to eat by ourselves that evening. Instead we ate a full blown turkey dinner and had a great time.

Since then we’ve enjoyed many such gatherings as we’ve lived and cruised aboard Rough Draft over the years. The latest was the St. Augustine Cruiser’s Net Thanksgiving pot-luck. About fifty cruisers attended. Most of those attending were passing through on their way to the Keys or the Bahamas and we hope to run into them as we head south ourselves in February.

That’s right, barring any unexpected problems we plan to leave St. Augustine in mid-February and head to the Bahamas. St. Augustine is a nice city but definitely colder than we are used to after living in South Florida for nine years.

So why are we waiting until February and not heading out now? Part of the reason is that I am still waiting to complete my dental work. The root canal is done and the new bridge is ordered, but it will be another two weeks before the work is completed. Mary and I decided that we should go ahead and take care of some other doctor’s appointments before we leave the country and Mary did take a part-time job and she feels she should at least work through the holiday season.

So if any of you reading this are down in the Bahamas and you come across  Rough Draft, please dinghy over and say hi.

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Giving thanks

by Christine Kling

Monday morning I awoke early and watched the sky grow light listening to the quiet morning sounds here in our anchorage off the island of Eneko. At 7:30 the cruiser’s net anchor started off with the usual good morning, and she asked if there was any emergency traffic.

A new voice came on. A man’s voice. He said he was from a yacht that had shipwrecked on a reef close to the pass. He sounded surprisingly calm as he gave his position and explained that his boat had grounded around 4:00 a.m.

Wayne and I both were up and heading for the cockpit. He’d said he was east of the lagoon pass. I picked up the binoculars and looked to the west. There through the mist of the breakers, about three miles off, I saw the white hull and mast canted over at an extreme angle. She was high and dry alright.

The man was telling the net anchor that his boat, a 40-foot Beneteau had water in it, but he wasn’t sure if she was holed or if the water had come in via the breakers that had washed over the boat. He said he had taken his kayak to shore with his important papers and money, and he was now on shore.

The mast is just visible through the break in the trees

It only took us a few minutes to get the engine started and to drop our mooring. We motored over and anchored on the lagoon side of the island which our charts showed as Entmagetto but the local newspaper later reported as Enemakij. We saw the sailor sitting on the lagoon-side beach made mostly of coral rubble. Through the trees, we could see the boat’s mast on the other side of the tiny island.

We went ashore in the dinghy, but the approach to the island was surrounded by coral. The fellow waded out across the reef and took hold of our dinghy. He introduced himself as JJ, and the exhaustion and pain in his eyes was apparent. Yet he smiled, shook our hands, and told us he was Canadian. He had bought the boat 14 years before, spent 10 years working on her and sailing in British Columbia, and he had taken off just over 4 years earlier. He’d cruised from Canada down to Mexico, on to the Marquesas, French Polynesia, Tonga, New Zealand, and he had been on his way north from Fiji and Tuvalu. He attributed the grounding to an autopilot failure.

We loaded his valuables that he had there in a couple of Pelican cases and bags into the dinghy. Wayne said he would go out to the boat with him, and I offered to take the dinghy back out to Learnativity since there was no place to land. I put my hand on JJ’s shoulder and said, “You’re alive, and you’re not alone now.” He smiled.

I watched the fellows climb up the beach, and Wayne introduced himself to the Marshallese men on the beach. There was a house at the opposite end of the island, and they lived there. I learned later that the island was privately owned. One man identified himself as the owner of the island, but it turned out later that the island is owned by a large family, not only one individual.

About an hour later, the cruising boat Mahili arrived from town with three dinghies and folks off Navigator and Celsius. And the local Police boat arrived and asked them for help to dinghy some of their crew ashore. An hour after that another cruising boat Pacific Hwy arrived with crew off Good News. More cruisers went ashore to help.

Wayne and JJ had got the boat’s main anchor way out into the surf to prevent her from going any further up the reef, and Wayne was optimistic that she could be dragged off at the next high tide around 6:00 p.m. Cary off Seal was back in town communicating with the local officials and ready to arrange for a tow if it looked possible. The evening tide was going to be a foot higher than the tide the boat went up on. Everyone ashore started unloading the gear off the grounded boat. I was able to stay in touch with Wayne since he had the handheld VHF.  A boat with some North American Mormon missionaries had arrived, and they too pitched in. Everyone was working to unload the boat to lighten it and the mound of gear on the beach grew higher. But as the tide began to rise again, the boat flooded just as quickly as the outside water rose. JJ told Wayne how he much the hull had flexed as she’d pounded her way up with the tide, and it was clear she was significantly holed.

The gear piles up on the beach and Learnativity is visible at anchor in the lagoon.

When the tide came in far enough to get the dinghy over the reef, I went ashore and I heard the whole story. Wayne had tried to convince JJ that he was exhausted and maybe it would be better to get some rest and rethink about what to do in the morning. But JJ had made his decision. He signed the boat over to the island’s owners. JJ basically gave everything away choosing to take only a few personal possessions home with him.

We invited him to stay aboard our boat that night. The other cruising boats returned to the town moorings, but JJ wanted to go back to his boat the next morning. He only had a pair of Crocs on his feet, and he needed real shoes to return to Canada. We ate dinner and talked about boats and cruising and what he might do when he returned. Finally it was time to retire and I said, “Get some rest. You need it.” He shook his head. “I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep,” he said.

The next morning

The next morning, the boat had been pushed much farther up the reef by the higher tide and we could now see her framed in the break in the trees. The guys went back to the boat and got a few more of JJ’s personal belongings and they showed the island’s owners how to get off the solar panels and the batteries and other valuable gear. When they returned to our boat, we got underway and motored back to town. En route we checked flights and airfares and discussed what his options were as Majuro only has three flights a week from here to Hawaii.

Once we got on the mooring, Cary from Seal came by and offered to take JJ to see the officials to clear in. When he returned a little over an hour later, he had already bought a plane ticket home for Wednesday’s evening flight. He asked if he could stay one more night on the boat. I considered whether or not it would be a kindness to treat him to a night at a hotel, but I decided JJ needed company more than physical comfort.

We were headed to go grocery shopping and to drop off laundry, so we had a chance to show him around a little. He grinned when he saw the produce section in the grocery store, and he said he would have been very happy spending a season here in Majuro. Hi spirits were good and whether it was carrying groceries or holding the dinghy painter, he always wanted to help. We so wanted to help him out, but he was unfailingly generous to us.

That night Wayne and I mostly just listened. JJ told us stories about his adventures cruising as a singlehander.  He explained how he had become an amateur meteorologist and began sharing weather forecasts over the SSB nets with other cruisers. We learned about how he had defected from Czechoslovakia and had started a new life in Canada. Wayne and I sipped our red wine and JJ his cranberry juice, and when I served dinner he smiled, thanked me and said he finally really felt hungry. That night he explained how much he liked Majuro. “I’ve had to start over before, and I can do it again,” he said. “In two years, I will have another boat. I’ll be back.”

Wednesday, JJ spent the day showing me websites for weather planning and going through the bags of gear he had brought out to our boat. Almost everything was wet. One small net book still worked. He had bags of documents and personal papers that were soggy. Two computers leaked water. A pelican case full of hard drives and tech gear had flooded. Most of his clothing was salt water damp, and he had more than he could fit in his small bags. He salvaged a Pactor modem and packed it. Wayne smiled at him. “For your next boat.” JJ nodded.

At 5:00 p.m., we stood outside the Tide Table Restaurant and several other cruisers had come by to see him off as well. As Wayne and I hugged JJ and said good-bye he kept thanking us, but I know we both felt that it had been our privilege to do what we could for him. As we loaded him and his bags into the airport van, we all three had tears in our eyes.

The next day was Thanksgiving, and we motored back out to our home at Eneko. I cooked up the turkey we’d bought on that shopping trip with JJ. Wayne and I talked about where he might be on his 24-hour trip back to Vancouver via Honolulu and San Fran.

Sailors are known to watch other boats coming into an anchorage and to critique their technique over a cold one. Sometimes dockside Monday morning quarterbacking is all too common. But when sailors have sailed all the miles to get as far as this distant place called Majuro, they are generally more humbled by the many times they knew that but for a little bit of luck, their trip might have ended in disaster. Wayne and I know we have so much to be thankful for.

This Thanksgiving I will always remember as the time I felt such gratitude for the opportunity to live this amazing life and to be a part of the cruising community of Majuro who came together to do what they could for this stranger. He left a stranger no more. Safe journey, JJ, and I hope to meet you out on the water again someday.

 

Fair winds!

Christine

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Winding Down on Thanksgiving…

C.E. Grundler

I’m getting a late start this morning, and a rather sore one, but an extraordinarily content one. It’s snowing right now, which, in my eyes, means it’s officially winter, and it won’t be spring until the first crocuses break the ground. But I’m okay with that.

To say the weather has been throwing a whole lot more variety into the mix would be an understatement. Buffalo will be digging out for some time to come, while here on my corner of the Hudson it hit 71 degrees on Monday.

I’d been watching weather patterns for the last few weeks, preparing every possible stage of finally hopefully just maybe glassing Annabel Lee’s decks. Truth be told, I was starting to get a bit unhinged. This is a job that blindsided us, and between a series of alternating health issues, the entire spring, summer, and 99.9% of fall had slipped through our fingers. Yes, I’ve thrown all the time I couldn’t work on the boat into the pages of my writing, but that didn’t put the boat any closer to ever escaping that shed that was starting to feel like a prison. Did I say I was getting a bit unhinged? The colder it got, the worse it was on my husband’s hands, and as for me, I’m learning I can’t work the way I used to. One day I bribed my daughter’s boyfriend Alex to lend me a hand at the boat — I had to do some work — ANY work — or I think I was going to snap. Truth be told, my daughter doesn’t understand my obsession (let’s call it for what it is,) though she does understand dreams. I wasn’t sure what Alex would think of this madness, but when he came aboard he was fascinated with every aspect of the boat. But he didn’t mind when the train came by and the boat shook, in fact he found it entertaining, and was more than happy to pick up power tools and jump right in. I couldn’t believe how quickly or smoothly things began coming together. But the best surprise came the next day, when my daughter dropped by to tell me Alex had as good a day as me. He had a great time working with his hands and loved being around the boatyard. He wanted to work with me to finish the boat.

Things were moving along again, and it felt great. But seriously, it was nearly the end of November…Thanksgiving was right around the corner, and the odds of any workable days once we hit December… I didn’t even want to consider going yet another winter with decks apart. It was cold over the weekend, but temperatures were set to hit 71 on Monday, and we were all set. But Monday came in the form of a fog bank that didn’t burn off until after two, and the boat, cold from the weekend, was sweating condensation like a cold beer in July. We heated the cabin, wiped her down, but it was a losing battle, and we threw in the now soggy towels. We still had Tuesday; it wouldn’t be as warm but 57 was still warm enough. Wednesday it was going to snow. Seriously. And then it was Thanksgiving, and then it was December. So it was Tuesday or it was April, and it was going to be a long winter.

You’ll forgive the lack of photos, but I’ll just say it was as sticky, unpleasant, hellish, awful and a whole lot of other words job, but it is DONE. I repeat, DONE. The decks are sealed. Yes, there will be a whole lot of finish work, but at this moment it is in fact Thanksgiving, it is snowing, and I’m aching all over in a satisfied way. The decks are sealed. Everything else from this point forward is small stuff in comparison.

My daughter and Alex will be dropping by later. The turkey is about to go in the oven. I’m looking forward to a relaxing day of good food, good company, and a nice optimistic feeling that this is going to be a good winter. Time to get cooking  — Everyone have a wonderful, safe and happy Thanksgiving!

 

 

 

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Boating, Golf, & Ethanol

By John Urban

As a general rule, boating and golf do not mix. This is not a absolute and I have known a few brave souls who participate in both activities. There are, however, several factors that work against taking-up both pastimes, namely: limited available leisure time, financial restrictions, and a desire for retaining one’s sanity.

Golf’s test of sanity is well known as most everyone has taken to swinging a golf club at one time or another, even if it was at a putt-putt course on a childhood summer vacation. And most of us have seen a snippet of an elite professional golfer stepping up to the tee only to shank one into the woods.

Only the strongest of souls would be able to tolerate the mental abuse inflicted by golf and the stressors of boating.

Stressors of boating, you may ask? No, I am not talking the challenges of docking against a cross current at a well populated outdoor restaurant, or the trials of remembering “the rabbit goes around the tree and through the hole” mnemonic when tying a bowline. No, I am keying-in on a much more sinister boating stressor – keeping the engine running.

Somehow, Detroit has figured out how to improve our automobiles so that they start and run properly for well over a hundred thousand miles, and airline mechanics have developed maintenance schedules that keep aircraft aloft with the highest levels of reliability. Boat engines? Not so much. Is this a failure of engineering or the dereliction of marine mechanics? No, it is not. The culprit lies in….Washington, DC. That’s right, the transgressor is none other than Congress.

In 2005, Congress saw the opportunity to blend a mix of 10 to 15 percent ethanol into gasoline as a way to reduce our dependence of foreign oil. Corn farmers and others who produce ethanol liked the outcome. At the time, I did, too. However, boat owners soon learned that ethanol is nothing but trouble in a marine environment. Engines that were designed to run on straight petroleum run poorly and fiberglass tanks can be degraded when encountering the ethanol mix.

So imagine my glee when I pulled our little Boston Whaler up to the gas dock and found that ethanol-free fuel was available. Oh, the chance to rid myself of that unwelcome additive, the opportunity to return our 75 HP Yamaha to the fuel it was designed to consume. It was a glorious moment. Yet, it was only a moment. I was recently told one more factoid about ethanol – you shouldn’t mix non-ethanol with ethanol fuel. Important news. Too bad it was received after the fact.

If you are a boater, you know the conundrum – regardless of whether or not this fuel mixture is a significant problem, you will spend every moment at the wheel anticipating an engine failure. And the reason you anticipate this outcome is the knowledge that it will occur.

So there I go back to the mechanic. And as I drive by a golf course I think of those who are capable of chasing that ball down the fairway and those select few who do that and boat. Damn fools, I say. The whole lot of us. Damn fools.

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Thank you Barney

by Christine Kling

Majuro, November 23, 2014 – which means it is November 22 in Florida right now.

Exactly one year ago today I was sitting in the main salon of my boat Talespinner at Harbortown Marina in Merritt Island, Florida. I was working on the edits for Dragon’s Triangle. I knew I had to write a blog, and I didn’t want to spend any time away from my manuscript. Generally, I write all my blogs, but that night I decided to change my modus operandi. And I learned once more that being open to change can help one reap vast rewards.

See, I remembered this app I’d recently downloaded called My Talking Pet. So, I grabbed my iPad, took several photos of Barney, recorded a silly message off the top of my head, and I posted the video to the blog entitled, This message is brought to you by the Yorkshire Terror.

This week C.E. blogged about what to do when the characters in your story suddenly veer off in an unexpected direction. I enjoyed her line, “outline be damned,” and it made me think about how her philosophy applies to writing, sailing and life. There are many sailors who claim the most dangerous thing on a sailboat is a schedule.

When I woke up the next morning aboard Talespinner, I had something of an outline for my life. I was going to continue sailing singlehanded and writing my books. That was me — it was who I was: a loner – just me and my dog. I hoped to move up to a slightly larger boat that would have a real office for me to work in, and I wanted to spend several years cruising the Eastern Caribbean before heading across the Atlantic to the Med. That was the plan.

But that morning, there was a comment on my blog. It looked like this:

 

 

 

 

Hmmmm, I thought, i-n-t-e-r-e-s-t-i-n-g. Then I noticed that he had posted the same comment as a Facebook message. That was an easier way to reply, so I wrote back and told him how I’d made the video with the app. He wrote back, and thanked me, so I wrote back. During the next weeks, instead of deciding that I had to fit my story into that outline I’d so carefully prepared, I let my story go waaaaay off track.

Wayne refers to living like this as living by the “No-plan-plan.” I like that, but I also think planning is okay — I still outline my books, and I like to dream about what new adventures might happen tomorrow. Sometimes, life has a way of taking you to the place you wanted to be in the first place. You see, Talespinner has been sold, and now I live out here in Majuro aboard the much bigger boat Learnativity. Wayne and I have also set the date. We’ll be getting married next March 21 on a boat in San Diego harbor. And this is a photo of my on board office. Yeah, outline be damned.

Thank you Barney!

Fair winds!

Christine

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Finding Meyer…

 

C.E. Grundler

Although Travis McGee will always be my hero and mentor, in John D. MacDonald’s T.McGee series, Meyer is my favorite character, hands down. His gentle wisdom offered a break from the harder aspects of the events playing out, and his insights often explored the perplexing moral and ethical issues Travis tackled.  Though Meyer saw the world for what it was and his outlook could turn sour at times, he wasn’t as grim as Travis and managed to keep things in perspective. I’d always wondered why he hadn’t been introduced sooner, and it wasn’t until I began writing myself that I realized one possible answer. I don’t think John D. MacDonald created Meyer. When the time was right, Meyer created Meyer.

As an author, it’s fascinating when a character takes over; one minute you’re writing away, with a general or even very specific, neatly outlined plan for where the scene is going, and suddenly some minor character says or does something you didn’t see coming. You can either stall, back up, and spend the rest of the day herding characters back on course. Or you can keep rolling. Go with it until you run out of fuel. What’s the worst that’ll happen? You delete it? Or a thousand words later you’ stop, read back, and realize this is exactly what should have happened. Your character knew it, outline be damned.

The thing is, you can never predict which characters will create themselves or what roll they’ll play. I had a secondary character with one minor part, but once the scene began, things did a one-eighty. A simple conversation became something far more relevant, and Hazel found herself faced with a character she hadn’t bargained for. And I’ve found a character who won’t be going away any time soon.

The challenge is to be open to these happy accidents. They appear without warning, and unchecked inner editors can stop them in their tracks. Our brains love to pick things apart and decide why they won’t work before they’re ever given a chance. The trick, I’m finding, it to tell that voice of doubt to just STFU, and to just keep typing.

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Almost lost our mooring ball!

By Mike Jastrzebski

Not as in the dangerous, we could have lost our boat way, but more like a I should have thought things out and planned accordingly way.

As of today we have been in St. Augustine for a full month. I have been working on the rewrite of Stranded Naked Blues, and Mary is working part time in town. We’ve been paying for our mooring ball monthly and I planned to go down to the office when I took Mary to work. As an afterthought, I called the marina to let them know that we were going to stay another month. That’s when they informed me that I had to be off our ball by eleven since I was set up to leave today and they had reservations for all of the mooring balls. They would have one available tomorrow but we would have to move to an anchorage or a slip for the night.

The biggest problem with this scenario was that Mary had to go to work and I would have to move the boat myself. Not a real big problem except that when I went to start the engine a few days ago it wouldn’t start.

I did’t see this as a big problem, the engine turned over fine, it just didn’t seem to be getting fuel. I figure I probaly need to change the fuel filter and I planned on doing that this week when Mary was home. I didn’t want to give up my writing time to work on the boat.

Fortunately, as I dug out my work light and prepared to change the fuel filter, the phone rang. It was the marina informing me that one of the boats that had a reservation for a mooring ball had just called and changed their reservation to a slip.

I breathed a hugh sigh of relief, closed the engine compartment, and took Mary in to the dock so she could shower before work. At that time I went to the office to pay our mooring fee and while I was in there another boat called looking for a mooring ball. No doubt about it, I lucked out and I sure as hell am glad I thought to call the office this morning.

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Doggie doors

Barney and Ruby are now best buds

by Christine Kling

I’ve come to the conclusion that one of the best reasons for having a dog is that they open doors. I don’t mean REAL doggy doors. No, our dogs open the door for us to interact with local people everywhere we go. It matters little whether you’re in the Bahamas, Fort Lauderdale or the Marshall Islands, when we bring the puppies ashore we meet lots of new people.

This happened this past week out at Eneko Island. It was a Monday, so we were surprised when around noon the first boatload of kids showed up and dumped about 25 people on the beach. It was mostly kids with a few adults. Two more boatloads later and our quiet little beach had become quite busy. The little rustic resort has two kayaks for people’s use and soon groups of kids and adults were paddling out to check out the boat and setting off the Canine Alarm System. Any savvy burglar would surely notice that a prominent component of our Canine Alarm system is wagging tails and doggy smiles. Smiling Marshalese people were paddling out all through the early afternoon to see the boats up close. We’d hear “Cute dogs!” or “Nice boat!”

What we tend to forget living here is that most of the people who live here in Majuro don’t have access to boats. They don’t come out into the lagoon to see the boats — not because they aren’t interested, but because they don’t have a means.

After some work on the book (of course, I feel it’s never enough, but I did do some!) we took our dogs in the inflatable kayak and headed for shore to find out what the story was behind the beach day. It turned out that an American man was visiting in advance of a visit by a group of Muslim doctors. There is a small mosque in Majuro with a Muslim community of about 300 people. The visitor was the brother of one of the doctors and he is a member of Muslims for Peace. He had, out of his own pocket, hired the boat to ferry the kids out to the beach since that Monday was a half day for students. Wayne stopped to talk to a group of men and several of them wanted to have their picture taken with Ruby. As usual, the dogs were the doorway to getting to know these kind people. They had a picnic spread on the tables and they offered us their food with big smiles.

I took off down to the water with Barney and he was a real hit with the little kids. Let’s face it — he looks like a toy and when the kids discovered he wouldn’t bite, they started lifting him up and hauling him around by his midsection. He looked pretty miserable, but he was patient with them.Everyone wanted to hold him. I finally put him on a plastic kayak with a group of boys and they had a grand time — as did Barney since the seat on the kayak was filled with water and there’s nothing he likes more than having his own little pool.

When it became clear that the dogs were tiring of the attention of a crowd of kids, we got our inflatable kayak and carried it down to the water. Immediately, a half dozen kids piled on. There was no room for us or the dogs. Then one boy stood up, gave a little shriek and leaped into the water. Well, that started what seemed to be the most fun game on the beach. With the kayak filled with sandy kids and dogs, they’d stand up and jump into the waist deep water.

Wayne finally said, “Okay, one more time.” Of course, each kid took up that refrain and as they climbed back into the kayak for the fifth and sixth time, they kept pleading, “One more time!” We finally got ourselves and the dogs into the boat, and as we paddled away from the beach, we could still hear little pleading voices calling out, “One more time!” Wayne and I looked at each other smiling, both knowing what the other was thinking. Kids all over the world aren’t all that different.

Yes, our dogs can be noisy and messy, and yes, sometimes they drive us crazy, but they certainly earn their keep with all they bring through being our doggie doors to new friends.

Fair winds!

Christine

 

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You don’t say…

C.E. Grundler

Okay, we’ll start this thing off by saying ‘Writer’ is my immediate response when asked what I do, and yes, I am quite proud of that fact. Most people who meet me, however, have no idea. I don’t tell them, and most time they never get around to asking. And that’s the way I like it.

I know, we’re supposed to go around announcing to the world that YES! we are indeed writers. We should wear shirts emblazoned with ‘Writer’ or maybe even get a tattoo.  Early in the game that didn’t exactly come natural for me, and as I came to see that is, indeed, who I am, I still kept that ace up my sleeve.

That might seem counterproductive, as writers we’re supposed to stand proud and own the fact that we spend our days weaving words into (with any luck and a whole lot of editing) amazing, terrifying, wonderful worlds. Writers are magical, mystical beings, and the general non-writer population holds us and the ‘author’ dream in awe. I’ll admit that part is cool, it’s a great ego boost to watch how people react even if those awestruck individuals can’t imagine the reality of how really hard writing truly is. But its still something I rarely reveal. Why?

Simple. The moment the “I’m a writer,” cat is out of the bag, people stop talking about themselves and start asking about me. What do I write, how many books, what kind…and so on.  Neato for the ego, but I’ve gone from potentially learning who-knows-what about this individual to talking about me — and that’s stuff I already know. When I meet someone new, I’d like to learn about them. People naturally love to talk about themselves and share their expertise but so rarely encounter people who take the time to really listen. I’d much rather learn about them than talk about me, and I’m ever amazed just how much people will open up to a sympathetic ear. Bartenders and cabbies, hairdresses and stripppers, I’m sure they’ll agree, and I’m sure that’s reflected in their tips. As writers, we don’t get tips, but these conversations are tips in themselves. I’ve crossed paths with retired cops, (“What was the worst case you can recall?” = some truly horrifying tales,) arson investigators, (“What was the most difficult case you ever handled?” = learning clever ways one might try to stump the arson squad,) insurance and fraud investigators, (“What’s the most audacious scam you encountered after Sandy” = oodles for the next book.) The more you pay attention, the more some people will unload, and most people are brimming with fascinating information if you just give them the green light to talk. Bottom line: just LISTEN. You never know what you might learn, what ideas it might launch or what connections you could ultimately make.

Oh, and when they run out of things to tell me or ask why I’m so curious, that’s when I mention that I’m a writer.

But really, that’s not all that interesting compared to…

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