Chance became certainty, and I spent Monday afternoon in front of the fireplace listening to music and watching snow blow horizontally past the windows.
I had planned to listen to my requiem playlist, seemingly apposite for a birthday, but listened instead to another man’s idea of what music he would want to hear at the end, a link for which I thank Bobby.
Mr. Innaurato’s choices are, if not spiritual, at least celestial. I was familiar with the composers, but not the individual pieces. I am going to have to buy more Bartok, though as you know, I consider being ‘saved from Bach’ a tragedy rather than a grace.
Although the snow had mostly melted, when I walked to the lake yesterday, I changed my boat shoes for snow boots.
———
Gannets are the largest sea bird in the British Isles, and some one there put a camera on one of them. You can find less than a minute of a gannet’s point of view here.
I thank Martin for the link.
———
Strange and wondrous are the ways of merchandizing.
I lived more than seven decades before discovering that being born on 11-11, my becoming a solo sailor was inevitable. The repeated ‘1s’ cause the Chinese to designate it Singles Day, formerly an occasion when unmarried men mourned with a drink their lack of a mate. That I am much married and that few others born on 11-11 seem to have voyaged oceans alone is beside the point.
Five years ago China’s largest online shopping service decided the unmarried, and everyone else, could more effectively mourn by buying online than imbibing and began promoting a day of shopping frenzy. Last Monday they processed orders for more than $5.75 billion, a single day record, and by comparison two and a half times the amount spent on Cyber Monday last year.
If you want more interesting details, such as that the purchases included 1.2 million bras, which if folded and stacked would be three times taller than Mount Everest—but more fun to climb—the full NY TIMES article is here.
Clearly, the ideogram is on the wall.
———
Having turned 72--these numbers are becoming astounding--I now have to do one more push-up and crunch when I workout.
I in fact jumped the gun and started doing 72 the last two times I worked out on GANNET’s foredeck.
However, I don’t know how much longer this can go on. I’m not sure I can do 80 push-ups, though this may be a self-solving problem.
———
My writing about season’s end sailing was inaccurate. Steve, courteously but firmly, advises me that SPARTINA is not stored for the winter and that he expects to sail at least twice more, with a usual last sail in early December. That speaks very well for Norfolk, Virginia.
In Oregon, Kim will be sailing his 18’ Oughtred Arctic Tern year round.
In England, Tom and his crew were not the only hearty sailors out last weekend, Adrian had the same rainy Saturday and sunny, but cool Sunday, sailing to Cowes on the South Coast.
And Mark in Bateman’s Bay, Australia, knows why they call it the “Lucky Country.”
It is, Mark. It is.
