The Primrose Path part 1

The primrose path refers to a life of ease and pleasure, or to a course of action that seems easy and appropriate but can actually end in calamity.

While our baby was getting her bottom wet for the first time my Better Half’s Dad and I were driving like maniacs to reach the boat launch so we could be part of the celebration.

The plan was for the 4 of us (BH, dad, CoastieGuy, me) to hop on board, cast off the lines and sail from North Carolina to New York.  Easy, right?

We got there (after only a couple of wrong turns) to find two very sweaty, grimy boys buried up to their elbows in engine oil and engine parts.  An oil change was in order, which made sense since the engine hadn’t been run in two years.

The boat was clean (as in: free of dirt) thanks to my Better Half and his Herculean efforts in getting it ready for my arrival.  He knows me well and knows that if I found dead bug bodies or excessive grime it might go badly.  (I know… I’m going to have to get used to a certain amount of this in our new life.  It was just sooooooo sweaty and sticky…)  And, as much as it was clean, it was in complete disarray since it had been taken apart, put back together; things in cupboards looked for and found; drawers rifled through to find the thing that wasn’t there…  I dove in and started putting things in other places away.

One of the things that bothers me the most in life is clutter.  Our boat is cluttered.  And hot.  And sticky.  And full of sweaty people.  It’s ok, I’ll just put These Things over here and get them out of the way.

Oh, that’s a tool you need right now?  Sorry.

Oh, you were using that container to hold the important things you need to put back onto the engine?  Sorry.

Oh, there seems to be a problem with EVERYTHING WE TOUCH?  Oh.

I stood on the dock and the dock master came by and showed me how to pump the diesel we would need to fuel up.  He is former NYPD and Good People.  He said he would give us a good rate if we were off the dock by 7am the next morning.  I said we would be.

I left to go Provision.  We were going to be sailing/motoring for 4 days straight so we were going to need a lot of food. Food that could be cooked in an electric skillet (yay, Target!) since we have no stove. Also, I need to buy food that is not-so-perishible since we have Ice and a Cooler instead of a refrigerator (the refrigerator was garbage, remember?).

I didn’t get far.

I looked at the clock and called the boat in a panic because it was approaching the time when my Better Half had to turn in his rental car. I couldn’t get ahold of any of the three of them.  Our lovely steel boat acts like a bomb shelter from cellphone signals (plus is located in the boonies).  I somehow got through and my Better Half drove to drop his car off, 45 minutes away.  I picked him up and we drove to the hardware store to pick up some sort of part to fix something that was wrong.  We also picked up a half-rack of beer.  I drove him back to the boat.  It was nice to be in the air conditioning.  I dropped him and the beer off  then drove the 20 minutes back to try to Provision again. I found the Piggly Wiggly and also found it highly entertaining.  It was considerably cheaper than our local grocery store in Manhattan (granted that we now live in the The Commune and not in Manhattan, but still…).

I provisioned and got back to the boat.  The half-rack of beer was more than half-gone.

I looked at the boys.  They were still covered in dirt and engine oil and were beginning to smell like Hopelessness.  They needed the car for parts and booze.

I stayed behind and sipped beer while I watched the stars come out.  I saw Orion, my favorite constellation.  It was so muggy that my bottle was dripping condensation like a tiny waterfall.  And that’s when the no-see-ums had a New York feast on my ankles.

The boys returned with a bottle of scotch, more beer and some boat parts.  We were all tired and hot and sticky and irritated.

I made some sort of dinner.

We went to bed.

That was day 1.