Peel me a grape...



Last week Alan ran a hot bath for me, brought me a book of poems by my favorite poet (Jorie Graham), uncorked a bottle of champagne, and fed me good chocolate, the kind that doesn't come in its own wrapper but in a little white box with a gold ribbon. I was in there for more than an hour. I heard Magnus cry once but didn't even lift my eye from the page once. Papa had it all under control.

And last weekend we went for an overnight sail. I knew it would be a bit more difficult than it was before we had the baby but I had no idea. Since it was a beautiful weekend and we were sailing to Poulsbo, we had to take the dinghy. We always have to anchor at Poulsbo whenever we have a nice weekend so a dinghy is necessary if only to take the dog to shore for a pee. Since the dinghy is too small for a trailer, we load it on top of the car and take it to the boat launch at Shilshole, then row it to T dock. And although the boat is only eight feet long, it is too heavy for one person to lift it off the car and walk it down the dock. This meant I had to leave the baby in the car for about fifteen minutes in a town that is very nervous about babies being left in cars. So I ignore the evil eye glares and we get the boat launched then I run back to the car where the baby is happily chewing on a teething toy. Park the car at T dock, put the baby in the back pack. take the dog out on a leash to pee, walk down T dock to retrieve a wheel barrow, load the barrow and Alan shows up just in time to walk the barrow down the dock while I carry the baby and take the dog.

So sailing is light but we get a little done anyway. Magnus is happy in his sack/hammock where he is trying to crawl through the netting, getting caught, falling back and squealing with laughter. Ceili found a shady spot and stayed there, barking at the occasional seal or buoy (I don't know why she barks at buoys but they make her really mad). Then the baby gets fussy so we take him out of the sack, the dog is displaced because she likes to stay out of the Magnus' reach and there is no place to do that in the cock pit, and we're all hungry. So put the boat on auto pilot, tell Ceili to get out of the way, stumble over Magnus who is teething on the main sheet, and go below deck to get lunch, which is cold salami, crackers, smoked oysters, olives and cheese. A fabulous way to eat lunch especially if there is too much going on to warm something up.

So really, that's not so bad until we get to Poulsbo and realize that we really might have to anchor but we squeeze (and squeeze is the word) next to a boat that is as big as a small tug (indeed, the woman said her ideal boat would come with the name "Foss ") and never mind that everyone around us has their televisions going at full volume, at least they are not running their generators to do it. We're on a dock and both Alan and I are relieved because we don't have to anchor with the baby.

So the weekend went well. I found two yarn shops not more than a few blocks from the marina and since I know about resort prices, I was a good girl and only bought two skeins that were legitimately on sale. (You can do a lot with two skeins, especially when every couple you know seems to be having or have a baby...) We took the dog for leisurely walks and slept with the baby in the back berth. Well, two of us slept. I had to fully wake in order to contort my body to sit upright when Magnus needed to nurse at 4 am, and then I never got back to sleep until Magnus woke up and Alan took him for a very long walk. And I have to say, a dog, two adults and a baby make the boat much more crowded than when Alan and I were finding places to hang foul weather gear to dry. But the cool thing is that watching Magnus is so much easier on the boat as there are lots of new things, hinges, clasps, hooks for Magnus to look at and figure out. We tried to sail the dinghy but there was not enough wind so Alan rowed past the mud flats (see chart at Poulsbo link) during high tide, and up a creek a for couple of hundred feet. I haven't seen such a boyish delight on his face in while.

Then it was time to head back. We had to motor most of the way and the engine noise put Magnus to sleep. I knitted, we did a small amount of sailing, Ceili barked at the seals and the buoys and one motor boat. Back at home port, Magnus got hungry, Ceili needed to pee and of course there was all that stuff that still needed to be packed up (three times as much as when it was just Alan and I). And when we finally get done with that, we load the wheelbarrow and find we have not two (one recycling, one garbage) bags of trash, but five plus (plus because we ran out of bags to put the trash in). Because I have to carry the baby so that Alan doesn't have to row with him, he's on my back, I sling the diaper bag around my neck, loop the dog's leash around my wrist, and pick up the handle of the wheelbarrow. Lucky for me the tide is in and the ramp from the dock isn't steep. We walk up and run smack into an elderly couple with matching yellow sweaters walking one of those little furry dogs that need a pink plastic barrette to keep the hair out of its eyes. Ceili wants to play. I'm shouting "No! NO! No! DAMMIT, NO! LEAVE IT!" and of course these people are looking at me like they need to call the humane society as Ceili has finally cowered (and peed) at my feet. But the load is saved and we march on to the car.

What is really odd, though, is this morning, while fixing Magnus his breakfast, I longed for the simplicity of the boat.


P.S., Magnus pulled himself up on the binnacle and took great delight in feeding me his baby food.

Posted: Mon - October 4, 2004 at 10:18 AM        

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