Astoria

This is my new neighborhood for a while. It is a big change from the boat in the Bahamas and certainly from midtown Manhattan and Chelsea, where I lived before moving onto the boat. Astoria, or at least my part of it, is full of small front yards with low fences, long alleys between and behind buildings that can conveniently cut short your walk around the block, the high rumble of the Amtrak passing overhead nearby, and the wind that rushes in off the East River around the Triborough Bridge. And of course, there are occasional Greek key symbols and sunburst motifs on window grills and front doors, not to mention a big, multiple blue-domed Greek Orthodox church.

It's been amusing photographing what people here do with a small front yard. There are religious icons...

 

...and animals.

Some are wild with growing things...

 ...while others are manicured or cemented.

Speaking of religious icons, Sunday afternoon, a police car and a snare drum came down my street and under my window, leading a procession of 25 black-clad people around a priest in white robes and a religious statue/shrine/altar. An eight-piece mini-marching band brought up the rear with a rendition of "Amazing Grace." I don't know what the occasion was. The banner, which read "I-Devoti di St. Giuseppe, Congregazione 1990," explained little.

 
Susie likes the neighborhood well enough: Astoria Park is pretty big and there is plenty of room to run during off-leash hours.  

Astoria Park is right by Hell's Gate, which is a notorious strip of the East River for its evil current. It's funny: I always used to like being by some body of water, but never felt any particular pull to *set out* on that water. That has completely changed now, and so when I walk by Hell's Gate and watch the current swooshing past, I feel a pang and take pictures of the sea where I see it now. I am blessed and I am cursed!

Inversion

I have neglected the blog lately, not undeliberately. (Not undeliberately...A former English professor absolutely hated the use of double negatives; if he saw this, he would cross out "not undeliberately" in adamant red ink and write, above the slash, "deliberately." And for the rest of college, I dutifully became more assertive in my essays, cutting out any hint of equivocation or hedging.) But here, I use the double negative quite deliberately (take that, professor!), because it is the only appropriate way to convey the ambivalence I have been feeling about updating the blog. You see, things have been happening very quickly since the last time I wrote, so while there's a lot to update everyone on, it is also a lot to process.

A bare-bones account of what's been happening: Evan, Susie and I motored a few hours south of Vero Beach (finally left!) to Fort Pierce. Then we drove Susie back up from Florida to New York where my friend Tommy will be taking care of her for the month that I am in Wyoming for my writing residency at Jentel. I leave for that in a few days.

What's really been happening: It has been a difficult period of taking stock. My last post, it was taking stock of the pluses and negatives of expired food cast-offs. Since then, funny enough, it's been me trying to figure out whether and for how long certain things in my life are tenable, sustaining, or desirable. Will Susie be further traumatized by my absence? Can I afford to continue sailing with Evan? What exactly is my career at this point, what do I want it to be, and am I cultivating it as much as I should be? Those kinds of questions...(i.e. kind of big personal ones).

The word "inversion" has several definitions, of which these are resonating with me right now for some reason:

• anastrophe: the reversal of the normal order of words
• (counterpoint) a variation of a melody or part in which ascending intervals are replaced by descending intervals and vice versa

Cryptic, I know, but voila.

Quiet Weekend

I just finished watching the Alfred Hitchcock movie "North by Northwest." The first thing that struck me in the opening scenes (besides the supernaturally glossy, perfectly coiffed and curled hairdos) was that back in the 50s (and most of history, I guess), if you saw a woman in the street, you probably knew exactly what she did. She was a typist, secretary, receptionist, switchboard operator, mother, wife. Wow am I glad things have changed since then. It's pretty amazing, actually.

Before that, I ran into Mike, the Palin-loving, Obama-hating, the US-is-going-socialist guy I've become unlikely friends with here in the marina. He'd just brought his new kitten home from the ASPCA, so Susie and I went over to his dock to meet her. She was scrappy and hissed at me in my hands when Susie so much as looked at her. I gave her claws back to Mike, and we had a nice morning chat about sanding and oiling, the weather, cats and dogs, Christmas, Chinese buffet, and political asylum. It never ceases to amaze me how little politics matter sometimes, and how people you might otherwise call idiots are perfectly nice and funny and intelligent. I like to think that his political views aren't as fixed as he thinks they are (and I'm sure he's thinking the same about me--or that I'm a nice idiot), and that one day he'll realize that his views contradict truer parts of his character and could better reflect his way of interacting with the world. After all, with me, he's been nothing but easygoing and open. I don't mind that he's misguided, and he doesn't mind that I am either. Why should we when we both love thrift stores?

Here are some more pics of Susie enjoying the boat. Did I mention that I've trained her to go potty on the astroturf mat on deck?! YES!!!!! Cold windy nights just got a whole lot better. (Though, out of respect for her canine dignity, I have not taken any photos to prove the feat.)

Susie in the big park

Huh, I'm a hot happy dog...

I'm coming!

Mid-head shake...

I like having a deck.

Dog Days in Vero Beach, FL

It's been several days back in Vero Beach, FL, which has become our home base for the month of December. Boat life has developed a new routine with a dog on board. There is the early morning dinghy ride to land for Susie's morning relief and exercise in the big off-leash park nearby. There is the late afternoon dinghy ride to land for Susie's afternoon relief and walk. And there is the pre-bedtime dinghy ride to land for Susie's evening relief and walk.

But we are not alone. There are, I am just noticing, plenty of other dog-owning sailors following the same routine. In fact, I've started mistaking dinghy passengers leaning forward, from a distance, for eager-to-pee dogs. After all, the dogs on boats here aren't just little westies and mini collies; there are big chocolate labs, Irish setters, and golden retrievers, too.

While it might seem out of place for a pit bull to be living on a sailboat, Susie has taken to her new home. She gets to bask in the sun when she wants, cool off in the cabin when the sun's too hot, run around the park to stretch her legs, and snuggle under the table when it's bedtime. All in all, she likes her new environment.

Susie looking at me like *I'* look strange...

Camera angle stretching Susie out

Footwarmer

The same cannot be said for the Enterprise drop-off lady. A few days ago, I was getting a ride back to the marina after dropping off the rental car. The van pulled up, and I got in with another, elderly passenger. The driver, another senior lady, ordered us to put on our seatbelts, and away we went. The elderly passenger, undeterred by the driver's dour demeanor, began to chat with her. She was visiting Vero Beach for the holidays and wasn't it just lovely here!

Passenger: "I just love it here! There are all sorts of things to do, and everything is so convenient!"

Enterprise woman: "Really?"

Passenger: "Oh yes!"

Enterprise woman: "I'm from Palm Beach, so this seems boring to me."

Passenger: "Oh. Well, I'm rural, so everything seems exciting to me. But I guess if I were from Palm Beach..."

Enterprise woman: "And there are no men here..."

Passenger: "There *are* lots of women. (Pause) I have a family, though, so I guess I'm lucky..."

After we dropped off the elderly woman at a condo complex, I asked the Enterprise woman how long she'd been in Vero Beach. Ten years, but "I have a feeling something is going to change." She wasn't terribly unhappy here, though she knew she might sound it, but she complained that people in this area don't really like "different thinking people, forward-thinking people," like herself, a former macrobiotic chef.

I didn't ask her why she's stayed in Vero Beach for 10 years then, because that can be a very difficult question for anyone to answer. I just hope that her feeling about imminent change turns out to be right.

Susie in the Dinghy

Susie points the way back home. Relaxed ears!

Home Sweet Home

About a week ago, I flew up to New York to go pick up my dog Susie from the doggie camp where she was staying. I was planning to stay with her while she transitioned to living with my friend Tommy, whom she loves after spending most of my vacations with him. Sadly, as it turns out, personal circumstances in Tommy's life are such that it isn't ideal for Susie to stay with him just yet. So I canceled my return flight to Florida and rented a car for Susie and me. Three-day roadtrip!

I got online, plotted my nightly stops, reserved rooms at pet-friendly motels, and got ready to listen to lots of NPR. (Turns out that even NPR gets boring real fast. A small observation: the morning lady with the slow, twangy, wobbly voice is *obsessed* with Julian Assange and, I suspect, loves saying his last name.)

The first day was not so bad. The highlight was driving over the Verrazzano Bridge, seeing the great mouth of NY harbor and the ocean beyond and remembering Evan, Vanessa, and myself on the first day of our voyage! It was almost three months ago that we left Liberty Landing Marina and sailed under the bridge for the Jersey Shore. It felt like ages ago. I ended the night at the Sleep Inn at Stoney Creek, VA, which was a great place to stay with Susie. The check-in clerk was very friendly to both Susie and me, with treats for both human and canine. The hotel had a big grassy yard in the back where Susie ran out the kinks of lying still for 7 hours, on and off. The room was big and tidy, and the bathtub was clean. Free breakfast the next morning, too!

The second day was the pits. Covering the remainder of Virginia, all of North Carolina and South Carolina, and part of Georgia was exhausting. The drive was noteworthy only in that I got to reminisce a little every time I saw a name of a place we had sailed through: Chesapeake, Rappahannock, Cape Fear, Wilmington, Charleston, Beaufort. It was funny watching them zoom by, relatively speaking, after Evan and I had spent months passing through the very same places. They had seemed like such important and momentous arrivals, nothing like the whizz of a name on a green sign. On the ICW, we were also spared gun shop advertisements on the radio (not on NPR, obviously) and ubiquitous religious billboards. 

I slept my second night at the Travelodge in Richmond Hill, just outside Savannah, GA. This was a real motel...not a cheap or economical hotel. A motel. I loved it anyway, once I had the manager fix the curtain, the very end of which wouldn't latch onto the runner, exposing a sliver of my room to the general parking and highway public.

I watched part of Roadhouse, the hilarious part where Patrick Swayze does some sweaty tai chi in some redneck town. Shirtless, of course. And the part where Kelly Lynch, peroxide-blond hair starched out from her temples in true eighties style, watches him kick some goon ass before their first date.

I woke up in the morning to a bright sunny day behind my red curtain. I couldn't resist taking some pictures.

After taking pictures of the curtain and wall, I drove through the rest of Georgia and half of Florida. I was excited to get to Vero Beach. I realized that while the road trip had been fun in a retro kind of way--and convenient quick travel (three days to cover what Evan and I took months to do on the boat)--I had also had my fill of fast food and asshole drivers. When I arrived, I jumped out of the car, kissed Evan, and promptly introduced Susie to the dog community half a block away from the marina where we are moored. She was elated and made new friends in no time. The yellow life jacket I ordered for her had arrived. See?

Before today, Susie had only set foot on a boat once before, and that was a docked boat. But she has adjusted marvelously! I cut up a rubber mat into several pieces to put over the companionway stairs--she skitters down otherwise, banging head or hip first into the table--and, using dried chicken breast as incentive/reward, got her going up and down in perfect safety and style. I'm sure that the calm of boatlife, punctuated by regular visits to the dog field (and maybe swimming lessons in the creek?), will suit her.

I'm happy to be home, which feels that much more like home now that Susie is here.

I'm Back! (Kinda)

The short Thanksgiving reunion with family in Paris was fun, hectic, magical, nostalgic, and *very* cold. It was below freezing most of the time, and it snowed! Not much stuck for longer than an afternoon, but, still, it was the first time I saw snow in Paris.

Paris was a little grimier than I'd left it in 2007, and there were more crazy vagabonds sleeping on the streets and scratching themselves in the subways, but some things were unchanged: every neighborhood had its optique (eyeglass boutique), soins esthetique (mini-spa), pharmacies, and agence immobilier (real estate agency). I was sad, however, to discover that the Vietnamese take-out near my old apartment was gone. The owner was one of my first neighborhood friends, keeping me company and talking my ear off while I blew on my pho.

Strangely, I didn't feel any sense of homesickness for my former life in Paris until I went to the grocery store. It was the rows of yogurts and Le Petit Marseillais soaps. And later, passing over the Gare du Nord late at night on the number 2 line of the metro: the sight of the trains resting on the rails like great silver serpents has always been one of my favorite things in Paris.

Now I'm back in Florida, and when in Florida, why not go to Disneyworld?

 

Disney charges $18.95 for a 5x7 print, so the above is my pic of the screen showing our shot. Keh keh keh. 

Soon I'm off to NY for a few days to take care of my dog until my friend Tommy can take over. I can't wait to see my Susie!!!

Dockside amusement

The marina has two stray cats who like to hang out on this one grassy patch near the parking lot. Since Susie is at doggie camp and isn't home to greet me these days, I have latched onto these cats ever since they came out of hiding yesterday to watch Evan and me playing petanque. They go everywhere together, and they even move the same. We'll find out if that becomes the case with Evan and me after a few months...

Susie's first and last day on the boat