Bright moon, blue sky

I didn't see a lot of sky today, but when I did, it was mostly pretty. Unfortunately, the camera in my phone didn't do the full moon this morning any justice... it can't handle low light. And I just had Mandy take the camera off the boat and up to Hadlock because I was tired of trying to make do with just the phone there. Sigh.

It was supposed to rain today but it didn't. I am in town for jury duty, which necessitates a lot of walking and busing (they reimburse you $10 a day, which doesn't begin to cover parking downtown; it's barely enough for lunch), neither pleasant with much rain. I could have made my commute much easier today if I had thought to get my bike down and tuned up yesterday when I got here. I had to leave before the first bus runs out to the marina this morning, hoofing it up to the locks where I can catch the 44 into Ballard. It would have been a lot faster on two wheels, rain or no rain. And here at the end of the day, knowing it was no rain, I regret it all the more, since it would have been the first bike ride of the spring, on a lovely spring day.

In between not getting much sleep last night, waking up uber-early, and having to walk all over town getting to and from things, I am a little tired. But I wasn't the only one nodding off in the jury holding room today... absolutely nothing happened. They let 3/4 of the pool go, in fact, so little was happening. Unfortunately I was in the 1/4 that remained. But you could tell they felt sorry for us, because they gave us an extra hour for lunch.

I appreciated that, because it gave me a chance to go hang out for the last hour ever in Elliot Bay Books in Pioneer Square, the venerable Seattle landmark that is closing its doors today, forced to move to a new location on Capitol Hill by various economic pressures. The Pioneer Square store has been a refuge for me ever since I moved to Seattle. It's not Powell's, but it's as close as we had, and the creaky wooden floors, eclectic selection (always the first place in town to have a new Terry Pratchett book in stock), and random layout are the prototype for the literary mecca an English major such as myself prays toward. When I was working in Pioneer Square, it was a place I could find refuge from the stress during lunch, or decompress after work listening to a reading. Even when I worked at the Market, it was always on the way home, and many were the days I hopped off the bus there instead of continuing to West Seattle, to look wistfully at all the things I would like to buy but couldn't.

That's pretty much the same thing I did today, although now it is as much a lack of storage space as finances that keeps me from adding to the till.

Nostalgia reminded me on the way back that I should have grabbed lunch at Dome Burger instead of the trendy upscale lunch joint on 3rd that I actually went to; fortunately, I have to go back tomorrow, so I am looking forward to a heaping pile of teriyaki.

Despite being tired, and a little bored, this all seems a bit like a vacation. I have to sit around and read all day... oh, the hardship! And I get to go to my favorite places downtown that I have been missing all winter. Really, what's not to like? If I economize, I might even be able to turn a profit on that $10 a day. I wonder... can you volunteer for jury duty? This might be my next career!

These trips to town

Okay, so this is a long, and rather whiny post. My apologies up front.

For most of fall and winter, I had my students to confined to Mondays. I only rented my office in Seattle for that day, and everything was working out okay. It wasn't ideal, because getting to Seattle for a day every week gets rather old. It isn't a short trip, and since it involves a ferry, it can end up taking a really long time.

Then, somehow I ended up with an Internet student, via Skype, on Tuesdays. It would be impossible to do a Skype lesson from Hadlock with our sketchy (at best) Internet connection. So I began staying in Seattle until Tuesday late afternoon.

This week I was going to be heading south to Tacoma on Sunday to have dinner with two of my friends from my former AmeriCorps team. I don't mind to drive around Puget Sound from time to time, just to change the routine of the ferry.

After dinner I headed up to Seattle to spend the night on the boat. A storm had moved in and it was windy and raining hard ALL night. I did not sleep very well, and woke up still tired.

Luckily, Monday was an unusually light teaching day with only one student in the afternoon. After that a former student was coming to the office to be a guest on an upcoming podcast about Russian speakers. To thank her for her help, I was going to take her out to dinner.

Since my office is shared with others, I usually have a very specific routine when I lock up. I pay extra attention to having everything in its place. This time, since I was only going to be leaving for a while, then coming back, I just locked the door and left - with the keys still in the office. It was one of those things you remember just as the door clicks shut behind you. Normally there are people an the adjoining area of the suite who I'm pretty sure have access to my part of the office, but this week, for the first time in months, the rest of the place was empty. Since it was after business hours, the building maintenance guy was already gone for the day. Luckily I had my phone with me and was able to contact someone with a key to open it up. However, aligning all of that distracted significantly from my thank-you dinner with my nice student. Three hours after locking myself out, I was back in again and able to retrieve my computer and the rest of my things. I felt like a big dork who was doing a good job of inconveniencing others. And my mood was shot for getting much of anything else done. And I was dead-tired.

Monday night the boat was much calmer and quieter, but I kept having a dream such as I've never had before. I kept dreaming that I was at a family get-together, but I was so tired I kept falling asleep in my chair. I've never dreamed about sleeping before; it's kind of weird.

Tuesday morning I headed over to West Seattle. I have a corporate class next week and the guy who prints my books had them finished and ready for me to pick up. I had until 3:00pm before my student, so I decided to stop in at the Alki Starbucks and get some more Internet-necessary work done. (I never get tired of the view from that Starbucks.)

At about 2:00, I got in my car to head up the hill for the books. Nothing. Dead battery. Lights on. Damn. After yesterday's keys drama, I'm pretty sure I'm a complete idiot.

Oddly, Scott is in town at this point. He's got jury duty at the downtown courthouse on Wednesday, and a client of his needed him to stop in for something on Tuesday. But he was not in town with a vehicle, since he had bussed it from Hadlock and had just arrived. So he could not be of much immediate help.

Anything but help within a few hours would be bad because we've been dog-sitting for a friend for the month of March, and poor Daffy had been home, alone, since before noon. She's not really the kind of dog that sits home alone for very long all that well. With my and Scott's original plan, she had about 6 hours, which is already quite a long time. Much more would not be good.

I turned around and went back into the Starbucks to check out what options I could find online. The place that I usually conduct online classes from is very near my office across town because that is where I get the best Internet connection from. I checked to see if any of my friends in town were available, but I was out of luck. I called the nearby Alki Auto to see if they offered jumps. They said they could lend me their portable charger, if I wanted. Perfect. I can do that. But by this time I didn't have time for that before my 3:00 student. So, at 3:00, I Skype my student and explain that I can do her lesson, but I am stranded in a rather loud place. If she had trouble hearing me, I could reschedule her class. But she is fine with the background commotion of a coffee shop at the time of day when everyone gets off school and work and is rather rambunctious.

At 5:00 I hoof it the five or so blocks to the auto place and gratefully accept their portable charger. Simple right, connect red to red.

Back at the car with the hood open, I take a look at my battery. There is nothing red. There is nothing with a plus sign. There is no indication whatsoever of which side is positive. I looked at the manual. It did a nice job of pointing out how to secure the battery and such, but was not giving me any clues about which side was positive.

I looked around for a man. Except for those out running along the beach, there wasn't really anyone around. I figured if I stood there long enough looking at the engine of the car, someone would notice me. Who notices me is a woman, about my age, out walking her two fluffy white poodles. She assures me that hooking it up backwards is not going to cause my face to burn off in battery acid. Seeing my trepidation, she offers to hook it up for me. Now, I hate being a wimp, especially a stupid wimp. I figured if she was willing to do it, I could to.

I hook up one side.

I barely touch the other side, and a small spark sparks. "Nope, flip 'em around," she says. She still seems quite confident in herself. She assures me she's done it many times herself.

So I do.

"Okay, you can start the car now." So I do. And then she's off, returning to her poodles' daily walk. I like smart women.

I unhooked the charger and drove it back to Alki Auto. It was still early enough to go pick up the books, but that would have meant turning the car back off almost immediately, and I'd rather not do that, so I headed straight back to the ferry terminal, still nervous of turning it off. Since I hadn't eaten since breakfast, hunger won, and the I turned it off to grab some food from the McDonalds that adjoins the Seattle Ferry Terminal.

In all, I was only one ferry later than I would have been with no dead battery, so I was hoping Daffy would be okay still.

Then I got to the Hood Canal Bridge. As I approached the bridge, the lights began flashing, noting a bridge opening. I could see the waiting vessel that we'd be opening for. I've had to wait for this bridge to open before, and it is not a quick process. I didn't time it, but it is easily a 20-30 minute wait from closed to open to closed again...

I finally got back to Hadlock a bit after 8:00. Daffy's little bladder could not wait so long, and she had other signs of distress at thinking the rest of the world had abandoned her. Her dog parents will come and pick her up later today, and I'm sure she's happy about it.

Today I just feel like taking it easy and watching Samantha Brown and Anthony Bordain on the Travel Channel. I don't feel like diving into my work, even though I feel like I've wasted so much time earlier in the week cleaning up messes I managed to create for myself.

I'm ready to sell my car. I've been ready to do that for months, yet I haven't done it.

Mostly, I hoping that if Scott and I find ourselves here again next winter, I do NOT need to make these weekly trips to town.

Spring = Swimmin' Weather

At least, that's what the kid down the beach seems to think. He and some friends were out sailing this afternoon, a beautiful day for it, maybe 15 knots NW dying to 5-10 as the sun started to go down, nice blue skies and sunshine. They just came back in to pick up the mooring, putting along slowly under mainsail alone and making what looked like a fine, seamanlike approach to the ball.

When they got to within about five feet, suddenly he launches himself off the bow toward the dinghy that is tied up there... and splashes down right on top of the pendant.

Unless global warming kicked in suddenly, that water is still down at its typical winter-time temperature of around fifty degrees. Maybe I'm just getting old, but that seems COLD. But the thing is, I'm not sure that he didn't mean to hit the water. It wasn't like they were going to miss the mooring, and I don't think anyone could have mis-judged and missed the dink at that range, even if they were really thinking that a leap into an inflatable dinghy was going to end well in the first place. I kind of think he was jumping for the pendant, but hey, maybe it was just for fun. It is spring, after all. Must be swimmin' weather.

The rest of the crew hauled up the pendant, made the mooring, and hauled him back aboard without missing a beat.

I'm moving overseas!

No, I'm not moving overseas. Though Scott knows I dream of it daily. Well, not moving overseas, but sailing overseas for an extended amount of time. The current, biggest obstacle is that our boat is not exactly the one we'd like to take over the sea in order to be overseas.

I mentioned before that I follow the blog Unclutterer. Earlier this week I found a fun, past post titled, Reader suggested clutter-busting game: I’m moving overseas!

I found much of what this person was doing as a game is what Scott and I are actually doing in order to get down to as few of possessions as possible. I could relate, however, to the fantasy aspect of it. It is easier for me to organize my stuff and ditch a fair amount of it when I picture us, not on Insegrevious in the Salish Sea, but on some future boat in the Adriatic. Yes, that is much more fun to prepare for.

My paring down of possessions and simplifying of systems is coming along nicely. My email inbox now sits at an all-time low of 290 (getting closer to the goal of 50). Four boxes of kitchen items got sent to Tennessee to their new home last Tuesday. New digital files get organized into proper folders as they are created. It even spills over to who I follow on Twitter and the RSS feeds in Google Reader. Only feeds that truly add to my life get to have a spot in it. "Unfollow" is my friend!

Thanks to Leo on ZenHabits and his ideas of Big Rocks first, I now have what I call "creativity hour" first thing in the morning. (I know, Creativity Hour is a cheesy name, but I didn't need a cool name, I just needed the concept.) I usually decide the night before what I will work on during Creativity Hour. It has to be something that is new. I may create a new lesson or write a podcast or do some creative planning for the new grammar website Scott and I are working on. I can't do maintenance-type activities during Creativity Hour, and I can't just edit something that was already written. Creativity Hour is only for things that require my freshest, most creative brain. Often, Creativity Hour spills over into two or more hours, but that's okay with me. My key to making Creativity Hour work is not checking email, Twitter, Wave, or Google Reader during it. No distractions.

Even Creativity Hour is based in the notion of preparing for the sailing lifestyle. Based on my and Scott's extended sails the past two summers, I know that it can be difficult to get the work done that needs to when the opportunity arises to be able to do it. This is meant to get me in the habit of getting through the most important work as quickly as possible so I can be ready to take watch, or just go and have a look around, when I want to or need to.

Lately, the afternoon has been for the less creative aspects of work. That is when I edit past stuff, create the visuals for the videos on the website, do paperwork, create quizzes. It works out well, because my brain can handle these rote-type activities even when I don't have a fresh attention span. I'm trying to work out ways to have less of those kinds of activities at all. That way, when Scott and I find ourselves in the Adriatic, it won't be for a vacation; it'll just be the sailing life we have!

The cost of clutter

This year when (as every year) Mr. Frye drills us for New Year's Resolutions, I was ready. I was actually so excited about my New Year's Resolution that I had started it before the new year actually began. Scott said that was cheating, but I am not aware of any such New Year's rule. My resolution was to organize my life. My plan was to tackle little things, bit by bit, and create a lifestyle of organization.

Anyone who knows me knows that I innately possess few organizational skills. Very few. It is quite unbecoming of a sailor, actually. My first task was to tackle my email inbox. At the time I had over 3,500 emails sitting in my inbox. The goal was to delete 20 per day until I got to 50. Then, I would keep it under 50. Always. I am currently at 350 emails in my inbox. I am still deleting daily. I feel good.

Beyond tackling email, I found I needed help. I needed guidance and I needed inspiration. My past quests to organize myself were hit with an immediate roadblock. I don't know HOW. Truly. I did not know the steps. I didn't know that I didn't know the steps until the process of moving from the house to the boat this past summer. Lucky for me, I have a retired mother-in-law who DOES know how to organize. Linda came and spent a few days with us and I immediately knew I was in the presence of an organizational expert. I watched and learned. I could see that I did not possess the skills to make sense of piles of stuff. Not yet.

To learn how to organize myself, I went online and I found wonderful, insightful answers. I found bloggers who DO know how to organize and simplify life. To begin with, I found Unclutterer. From Unclutterer, I learned small steps and tricks. I learned WHY we hold on to things we no longer need.

Then I began to learn the benefits of simplifying. Leo at ZenHabits has become a good digital mentor for that. Ever so slowly, I am learning how to let go of my stuff: physical, digital, emotional.

In many ways, right now is the perfect time for this. My physical stuff is packed up into boxes that I can readily access, but don't need. A few weeks ago, during a drive to Seattle, I started thinking about my boxes of dishes. I love these dishes. They were a slow accumulation of Christmas and birthday gifts from my former mother-in-law. They have beautiful colors and textures. They are heavy, thick, and solid. They are bad for a boat, but they are beautiful. They are beautiful plates, bowls, and mugs, all packed away into boxes. Scott and I really have no intention of re-entering a life on land (other than winter house-sitting, if it comes up). During my drive I pictured reopening these boxes, years and years from now. Would I still find them beautiful, or will my tastes have changed? What if the Graebels move? I'll need to move these boxes to a new storage home. I started to think that it was not actually worth having boxes of beautiful dishes packed into the Graebel's shop attic. Having a potential use for them 10 years from now does not make them worth holding on to now. Plus, though they are beautiful, they are still from a life very, very, different than the one I am living now. The more I thought about it, the more silly it all seemed to be. I began to see that I did not benefit in any way from these boxes of dishes. These boxes have a current emotional cost. When I need to move them next, they will have MORE actual cost than the first cost of getting them across the US to begin with.

Somewhere, in one of the blogs I was reading, it said that finding an appreciating home for your stuff made it easier to give away. I started to wonder who would like my dishes. Then, inspiration hit. Who else liked these dishes given to me by me ex-mother-in-law? My ex-husband did. I had one of those wonderful 21st century divorces where the couple truly departs as friends, and can call each other up, out of the blue, and ask: Do you want those dishes your mom gave us 10 years ago?

It is perfect. My ex has just completed his doctorate in some weird nuclear physics field and is moving to Tennessee to start a new career at Oak Ridge. He will, for the first time since we split, be not living with house-mates, and will appreciate a nice set of dishes. So I called him, and yes, he'd like them, and we'd split the cost of shipping them. The project had begun.

I found myself up in the attic, digging out heavy, but appropriately labeled boxes. I brought them down to the house, and re-packed them for shipping. I also brought another sizeable box that I thought contained a bit of art he was interested in. The boxes of dishes were easy. The box of miscellaneous other house stuff was a different story. The first time I opened it, I quickly re-closed it and put it in the hallway to be dealt with later. I started to regret that I ever started the project to begin with. Why hadn't I just let the boxes where they were? I had no idea what to do with all that stuff. A few weeks passed. Finally it caught up with me. My ex is moving next week, and my "later" had come to deal with this box.

Today I emptied it out on the floor and Scott and I decided what to keep, what to give to Linda (yes, you've acquired another box of stuff), and what will go to Goodwill. In the end, we'll keep about 3 things, we put about 15 in a box for Linda, and I'll give about anther 15 things in the Goodwill box.

Tomorrow I will ship the dishes, and hopefully make a stop at Goodwill as well. Linda's box will live in the hallway until she returns to decide what she wants to keep and what she wants me to send to Goodwill as well. In all, I got about 6 boxes emptied from the shop attic. It is actually probably about 10% of what was up there. I feel good.

Another blog I just recently found had a post title Purge Just 7 Things – A Weekend Challenge. I took her up on that challenge, and I am glad I did. I will continue to do so.

All of this is really about boat-dwelling, and the type of lifestyle Scott and I are working toward. We both realize that life is too complicated and needs to be continually simplified in order to gain the freedom we are striving for.

I have a lot more to organize and simplify. I have a lot to let go of. Luckily, I'm not in a rush. My goal isn't to get organized, it is to be organized. And my goal is to enjoy the journey. Hopefully much of that journey is spent just floating along, at our own pace of life.

Cheers,
Mandy

Those chickens are up to summat, Mrs. Tweedy

I used to watch our neighbor's chickens when I was a kid, so I don't come to chicken-sitting this winter as a complete novice. The old biddies my folks keep are past their prime, outside their laying years, and pretty low maintenance as birds go. But lately, strange things have been afoot in the chicken coop.

It started a month ago, when I noticed that a trench of sorts had been dug in along the fence perimeter near the door. I thought that perhaps Mandy had been up there doing some gardening, but she denied all responsibility, and on reflection, it was a bit closer to the fence than she would have chosen to plant anything, anyway; the chicken-wire is buried down several inches on all sides to prevent predators from digging in under it and getting a free chicken dinner.

So I assumed that was what it had been, some hungry coyote (they've been coming down close to the houses this year) or raccoon which had smelled chicken, decided to try their luck, and been frustrated by the wire. It puzzled me that it wasn't so much a hole as a trench, and a pretty neatly dug trench at that, but I filled it back in again and gave it no more thought.

Until last week. After we got back from the Olympics, I went up to check in on the birds and tell them about the trip while dishing out their feed. Once there, though, I noticed a new trench... this one dug inside the coop. Something trying to get out after a chicken feast? Could it still be in there? The hole didn't go all the way out, or even close... what would get in, forget how to get back out, then try to dig out and give up before escaping?

I did a quick head count and all chickens were present and accounted for. I checked the rest of the perimeter and found no holes, nothing that could have admitted any predator to the coop, and no signs of attack. The chickens are pretty elderly, anyway, and it strained credulity to imagine that some hungry animal might have worked hard enough to enter the henhouse and been repelled by the girls before having its lunch. So, I reasoned, it must have been an inside job. It's become apparent that "Chicken Run" was actually a documentary.

Like Mr. Tweedy in that worthy tale, though, I felt certain that no one would believe me if I made outlandish claims about chickens trying for a jail break, so I kept the whole thing under my hat. Today, though, I am proud to say that I have obtained photographic evidence catching the culprit red-handed:

That's right... the chicken ringleader is trying to dig her way out under the wire. Looks like it's time to throw her in the cooler for a spell of solitary confinement. I'll sweat her for a while to get the co-conspirators. Someone on the outside was clearly in on it, and I doubt it was the cat.

I haven't decided what to do yet with the rest of the culprits, but I will say that it's been a long time since I have had a nice, steaming chicken pot pie.