I am sipping a cold martini. It is very good.
The condo continues to be stalled. No work has been done now for two weeks and I have no idea when any will be done.
At times I consider starting a new page on the main site listing the evidence that we, homo sapiens, are not an intelligent species.
If I did, the years 1914-1945 would head the list. Many other spans could be included, but those are inconvertible.
Also would be lotteries. Not that they exist, but that people buy tickets.
And third would be this renovation.
I am not going to go into the detestable details and will not respond to emails asking about them. If you have been reading this journal, you are aware of how much I liked Hilton Head Island. The tense of the verb is accurate. At this moment I wish that I had never heard of Hilton Head Island. Perhaps that will change again in time. Perhaps.
In the meanwhile I have moved back into this shell.
Two afternoons ago I heard thunder and glanced up and saw an apocalyptic sky over Pinckney Island. I had no food up here and knew that when the storm hit, it would do so in an instant.
I made it back to GANNET with a minute to spare before the rain and wind came. Even though protected by larger boats on either side, GANNET heeled and was buffeted. I turned on the wind instrument which showed a maximum gust of 35 knots.
Yesterday afternoon I walked back under sunny skies and when I opened the hatch, the Great Cabin was 104.3ºF/40.16C. Not quite the 106º it reached in Marathon, but hot enough.
Only the guest bathroom and the utility room and the screened porch and deck are intact here. Everything else is gutted. The air conditioning works and so does the Internet. Some, not all, electrical outlets are functional.
So we ordered a coffee maker, portable microwave, and a tiny 1.7 cubic foot refrigerator at a total cost of less than $200.
They arrived today. Thus I have a cold martini. And will soon have another. Then, but for the lack of ice, eight or ten more.
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I thank Art for links to some spectacular photographs of waves taken by Rachael Talibart.