San Diego: no and dry
San Diego: no and dry
The ‘no’ is to the oar socket stand in the above photo.
I tried to convince myself it would work, but, fortunately, I failed.
Here at the dock, it is impossible to place the oars anywhere near the positions in which they will be used; but, in addition to being too big, probable line catchers, potential toe snubbers, and ugly, I can see that the stands will also keep the oars so high they would probably catch on the upper lifeline.
So, having wasted too much time on this already, I’m taking a two-pronged approach.
I just came back from bicycling over to Shelter Island, which is the main area of marine businesses in San Diego, where I arranged for a welder to fabricate stainless steel deck mounted sockets; and I am buying cast side mount sockets from DoryMan, both as an alternative if the deck mounts prove unsatisfactory and as back-up. The side mounts are very robust and very well priced. They are also so small that I can find room for them even on GANNET.
‘Dry’ as in no alcohol.
Remain calm. Don’t panic. I am not giving up Laphroaig, but part of this does have to do with a missing bottle of Laphroaig.
Not long before I flew here from Evanston, several medical studies and reviews of books about big food companies caught my attention.
Most of this was not new. Sugar is toxic. Variations on the Mediterranean diet are good. People eat more and are less active. House wives (and presumably house husbands) spend 5 hours less a week doing house work than they did fifty years ago. Women gain 3 ½ pounds every five years from potato chips alone. (Well, that one was new to me.) Big food companies use very sophisticated science to addict consumers and may do as much harm as big tobacco companies.
In general I eat well and have never had to lose weight, but all this did result in some changes in my behavior. I’m avoiding what are called ‘industrial desserts’--manufactured cookies, etc. This is pretty easy. I like fruit, and dark chocolate with more than 70% cacao actually is a health food, as I first read in one of Carol’s tennis magazines.
Along the way I came across the 5:2 diet, popular in the U.K., in which one eats normally five days a week and semi-fasts the other two.
A missing bottle of Laphroaig made this relevant to me.
Because the closest store where I can obtain my favorite liquid at a competitive price is several miles away, I bought four bottles when I was there in mid-January.
The night before I left Evanston on March 6, I finished a bottle, which I thought was the third. But when I knelt down in a position of appropriate worship to pull the remaining bottle from the back of the shelf, it wasn’t there. Not even when I used a flashlight.
Three bottles in less than two months might be too much. Four certainly is. So I have instituted my own 5:2 plan. After several decades in which I seldom had a drink before 5 p.m. and seldom did not have one afterwards, now, with rare exceptions, Carol’s arrival last week being one, I do not drink alcohol on two days a week, usually Monday and Thursday. Tonic and lime and/or a cup of Lapsang Souchong suffice.
Other than a few episodes of uncontrollable sobbing and scratches that some might think look like teeth marks on GANNET’s bulkheads, this has been quite easy. On the other hand, I can’t say that I feel any better or any worse.
It does make the Laphroaig last longer.
Enough breeze to rattle halyards. Rare here. I might need to put on a long sleeved shirt to go on deck for my tonic and lime.
Cheers.
Thursday, April 11, 2013