Captain D's Birthday

It was Captain D's birthday last week, and to celebrate we had a canoe expedition up the Annapolis River.


After getting slightly swamped and almost tipping in some minor rapids, we were on our way.


I rode with Laurie and Ernest, and Mark was in with hot ladies Shannon and Mickie.


Nay, Jay, and Chani piled into the last canoe.


Captain D, the man of the day, was the lone wolf in his kayak.


It seemed that my boat was both the coolest and the fastest by far, so after about an hour we decided we'd pull up on a rocky little beach to celebrate happy hour and give the slowpokes a chance to catch up. We drank our beers and watched the other canoes float by across the river.


After happy hour, we launched again. As we rounded a bend in the river, I saw the property Mark and I had bought this past spring! Sadly, we still haven't named it. Here it is, as seen from the river.


As the coolest and fastest canoe, we managed to overtake the other slow boats and land first at our ultimate destination, even though we had stopped for drinks and the others hadn't.

There was just one problem, though. We'd originally launched from a pre-arranged dock, but we hadn't really thought about where we would land. We pulled up onto a random little beach in the correct general area only to discover that the ground was not solid, but squelching, sucking, sinking mud. Ernest hopped over a little brook and landed in even squelchier mud. Then he discovered that he couldn't get back. He was stranded!


Jay bravely decided he would rescue Ernest in his canoe.


Then Jay got stuck in the shallows.


Chani waded out to rescue Jay. Meanwhile, Ernest got away. We never did rescue him.


After some minor chaos wherein many canoes went in different directions and people hauled themselves up the river bank at various different points, we all reconvened at Chani and Captain D's place for a birthday supper of tacos and pie!




Good times. Happy birthday, Captain D. You are older than I am, and that's the important part.

Hurricane Mark

So we're trying to figure out what to have for lunch when I notice that Buddy, the latest foster dog, is chewing on something under the kitchen table. Because I am an EXPERT at this, I immediately know that he is not chewing on a dog toy.

I shoo him away and find the cut-off end of one of those infuriating molded plastic packages that make new purchases so very difficult to access. The rest of the package, empty of its treasure, is on the kitchen table and has been since yesterday.

I leave the end of the package on the floor. Am I being passive-aggressive? I don't know. When Mark re-enters the kitchen, I ask him to put his trash from the previous day in the recycling. I ask nicely, but even by voicing the request, the overtones of an oft-repeated-in-many-different-moods conversation are present. This is one of our 'things' that we have fightscussions about. We don't have many of these 'things', and the ones we do have are not bad, and this is one of them.

By this point in time, the kitten has found the plastic end of the package and scooted off into the living room with it. Mark follows her out to get it, returns, and makes funny faces at me until he feels that I am happy again.

I contemplate my role in this household, and wonder whether it would be better to be a silent maid or a nagging equal. I work less hours than him; should I just clean this crap up? On the other hand, I'm neater than him; why should his messes be my responsibility?

I ask him if there's any way I can get him to stop dropping things all over the house mid-stride. He ponders this for a moment but has no solution.

We make our lunches - a bagel for me and a sandwich for him. He takes the last sub bun from the bag and fills it with all sorts of fun vegetables. The empty bag remains on the counter.

We eat lunch, and because there is a client emergency this weekend, Mark goes upstairs to work for a while. The empty bag remains on the counter.

I rip up our bathroom floor for a while. I go back into the kitchen. The empty bag is staring at me.

I put it in the recycling.