Still Lovin’ The Burg

I spent most of the week trying to resolve my upcoming business dilemma of needing a landline and hardwired internet connection for an upcoming conference call. Hampton Inn is just blocks away and is letting me use a meeting room on a short-term basis. This week, I have the conference call on Tuesday and then a overnight business trip to St. Louis. I hope I can still speak in coherent sentences. Spending all this time just among family and fellow sailors allows one to get away with a lot of gesturing and “ya know what I means.” Plus, I have been much in the head of the authors I have read this past month so I want to answer questions with a drawled “Why yass” (Kerouac’s Dean Moriarity) or to give precise, authoritative comments on what should be eaten and how (Murdoch’s Charles Arrowby). I get back late Friday and then we will be free to head further south.

Everyone is ready to get down to the Keys but the St. Petersburg layover has been so very nice. Lily has had lots of time with Emily including a weekend sleepover. Jake has the downtown street scene and has been doing some writing while out and about. We have met several other sailors heading to the keys so it will be fun to reconnect. We got a second family trip in to the Dali. The Dali is hosting an Andy Warhol exhibit so we stumbled somewhat bewildered through that. We have, really, the most minimal interest in pop culture so how the heck can we appreciate Warhol? All I can really say is that he followed his passion which, of course, is more than most of us manage.

I have drawn a couple of quick sketches – a copy of a Dali headshot and a roughly done Vinoy Bell tower. Both subjects fascinate me. Dali is handsome, brilliant, intriguing and somewhat scary. I want to know much more about his muse, Gala. The Vinoy is gorgeous and I get to look at it from the cockpit at all hours and in all different lights and I frequently say softly “Oh My” when I look its way.

We hit all our favorite food vendors at Saturday’s farmers market. We had a pork taco with cole slaw AND cilanto sour cream AND deep fried breaded onions. It was muy deliciouso. We had an Ethopian stewed chicken, tomato and celery dish which inspired Randall to come home and stew pork, onions, potatoes and mushrooms in a spicy tomato sauce. Both were so freaking tasty. Also at the Farmers Market, Lily and I both contributed to a public art work which was a bedsheet mounted on a frame and colored on with oil-based crayons.

Lily and I got in the water both Saturday and Sunday – me for some hull scrubbing and Lily for some surfing practice. We can’t wait to get somewhere with some surfable waves!! I regard this upcoming opportunity with mixed emotion/elation. I so want to be able to surf and would love to see both my kids riding the waves. I read and read those surfer comments about the Surfing High, the Tao of Surfing, the inexplicable joy and on and on. I know it is going to be HARD. I will fall repeatedly and water is going to shoot up my nose. But I want, for a moment at least, to surf.

Here are some pics of Lily on the surfboard in the protected cove of the mooring field. Yes, I would do this too but the board can’t hold my body weight without the help of some underlying waves. I have tested this extensively in Toni and Danny’s pool much to the amusement of the family. Anyway, I have done some paddling on the board to build up some arm strength but, mostly, I have spent my time scrubbing green gunk off Foxtrot’s waterline.

Just posting one pic but tomorrow should be able to post a bunch. Plus we bought something really cool for our travels. They arrive on Wednesday! Hopefully will have some pics up that day too.