A quiet day reading a good book, THE BYZANTINE WORLD WAR by Nick Holmes, about the end of the Byzantine Empire and the First Crusade. I only went ashore in late afternoon to shower.
Dinner of freeze dry Chicken Fried Rice which does not at all taste like fried rice, but is good enough, accompanied by Plymouth gin and Pablo Casals playing Bach Cello Suites. Also arkking sea lions which I doubt Bach wrote into the score.
I listen to other music, but I do follow my own advice and listen to some Bach and read some poetry every day.
The iPhone panorama above was taken a few minutes ago. The basin doesn’t really bulge like that, but you understand.
I am nearing the end of some provisions.
A few days ago I inventoried my freeze dry meals and found 34, two of which date from New Zealand more than four years ago. I ate and enjoyed the fish pie, which does not taste like fish pie, but discarded the tandoori chicken, which does not taste like tandoori chicken. Although the packet seemed intact the contents were an unsightly grey. Nothing, including freeze dry food is forever.
I will have been back on GANNET two weeks tomorrow. It does not seem that long. I have not settled into a routine. I have not done my workout once since my return, although I can on the foredeck. I don’t have an explaination.
My life here is constrained by the pandemic. I am careful when I leave GANNET. I wear a face mask and have contempt for those in this marina and elsewhere who don’t when in public. I consider them stupid or selfish or both. I would like to walk over to Mission Beach but I expect it would be intolerable. Presciently, though I can’t really claim I saw this coming, I made a video saying good-bye to the location of my grandparent’s home and Mission Beach earlier this year. I doubt I will ever go back.
I do things sequentially. I am waiting for Kasey, the rigger, to come and do his work on GANNET, which he tells me he will start on Thursday. Then I will decide what to do next. I would like to go sailing.
Google Alerts has sent me several notices lately about people on forums trying to find a link to download my books for free. One of them is odd in that it seems that somewhere in the world STORM PASSAGE is assigned reading to students who are required to answer questions about it. Oh, my. If I understand correctly what is happening this is in a country where English is a second language, in which case it is understandable that a good teacher would want to expose his or her students to a master of the language. Or it might be because the download is free.
They did have the grace and good sense to refer to me as ‘legendary’. I want you to know that when we meet in person you do not have to call me ‘Your Legendaryness’, except of course on formal occasions.
Of free, I rewatched the film THERE WILL BE BLOOD last evening. I had downloaded it from Netflix to my iPad before I left Evanston. It is a very good film about a very dislikable man. After watching I googled and learned that Daniel Day Lewis has won the Best Actor Oscar three times, once for BLOOD.
I did know that the film is loosely based on Upton Sinclair’s novel, OIL, and thought I might read it. I expected that a novel published before I was born would be in the Public Domain. Somehow it is not, and before the film came out Penguin Books bought the rights and I paid $9.99 for the Kindle Edition. Some are too greedy. Write what you are going to write. Do what you are going to do. Get enough to live a decent life if you can. And then give it away.
I find myself considering again words from Jim that I have published here before:
Another way to view this is, at our age, the addition of Covid may not change the overall calculation very much. Other things may be creeping up on us. As someone said, “Something is going to kill you.” Just not today…
I walked three miles yesterday to BevMor to obtain Laphroaig and Plymouth Gin and a bottle of Coppola Claret. I also went to a near by supermarket and obtained berries, juice, and trail mix. All the necessities of life. Well, perhaps not quite all.
Bill, a racer of dinghies and a cruiser with his father, Roger, in their Westerly, CALSTAR, keeps that boat in Plymouth, England, near the Black Friar’s Distillery, the source of Plymouth gin since1763.
I happened to look at the bottle carefully today.
On the front label is a drawing of the MAYFLOWER and the words, In 1620 the MAYFLOWER set sail from Plymouth on a journey of hope and discovery. And: Batch distilled in the original Victorian copper still.
L’Chaim.
No comments:
Post a Comment