The Fixer

by Christine Kling

My friend Bruce has told me for many years about the glorious Indian summer days on the Chesapeake during the month of September, and a week ago, I was about ready to call him a liar. In fact, when another friend posted on Facebook, "Do they sell arks in Home Depot?" I didn't even have to check his profile to see what part of the country he lived in.

But this week, I've had to take it all back. The weather turned glorious last Sunday, and we saw the passing of the full moon mid-week. I decided to shed my outboard and row my doggy dinghy runs through the anchorage at dawn and dusk so I could hear the birds and smell the scents of sun-warmed brush and flowers. Yesterday afternoon when I shoved out into the creek from the dinghy landing, the late afternoon light was golden and the peaceful anchorage was still aside from some distant music. I rowed over to the swing bridge and there sat the bridge tender on a metal folding chair out on his deck with his boom box playing Patsy Cline's "I Fall to Pieces."

I thought to myself, "Geez, that could be my theme song these days."

It's not like I'm obsessive/compulsive or anything, but it does bug me when things aren't right. I just want to fix things.

fix: verb

repair, mend, put right, put to rights, get working, restore (to working order); overhaul, service, renovate, recondition.

I received my Dometic 24 qt. cold box this week, so I am back in cold beer. That's important. I know that I haven't really fixed my refrigeration, but somehow I will fix it once I get back to Fort Lauderdale. I can live with this short-term solution. And after combing the aisles at Bacon's used marine hardware store and pricing out the pieces for the proposed jury rig, I just went ahead and ordered the parts for a brand new Harken mainsheet traveler. The jury-rig would have cost me a quarter of the price of a new rig. And it's going to be sweet to have that roller bearing car sliding on that slick new track. Then with Bruce's help, we ran a new wire and solved the alternator and engine hours meter problem. Finally, I took one more run up to the top of my mast and attached a line to my jib halyard and managed to winch the thing down. In other words, I fixed lots of my problems.

There are others that I am going to have to decide what to do about. Take my autopilot, for example. In a perfect world, I'd love to go out and spend $4,000 on a proper linear drive autopilot. But I don't have that kind of money. So, as with many of my projects, I'm having to say, can I live with it the way it is?

However, I received my manuscript back from the professional editor today and I added it to "The List" of things that need fixing around here. That one's going to be a big job! She did a fantastic job of identifying many of the problems that I knew in the back of my mind were there but didn't really know how to solve. The most difficult fixes are those that you don't even want to admit are problems in the first place. A favorite saying among writers is that one must learn to "Kill your little darlings."

I can fix boats (or find someone to help me do it) and I can fix my book. But the one thing I cannot fix is the beautiful smiling face in the photo at the top of this page. My sweet darling puppy is now sixteen years old and he is both deaf and blind (cataracts). The vet will no longer clean his teeth under anesthetic and he has several infected rotting teeth. He has sebaceous cysts that require draining with a hypodermic needle, and more and more he is suffering from doggy dementia — he no longer really knows when and where to go pee and today we hit a record of three times in the boat – once immediately after we returned from shore.

But, tonight, we've had a cold front come through and the forecast is for temperatures down in the high 40's overnight. I have him dressed in his doggy Snuggie to stay warm and he is so sweet and sleepy and lovable. And again I'm asking myself, can I live with it the way it is?