Sailing The Caribbean, Pt. 1

For some reason I can not quite understand, several people, both friends and friends whom I have not yet met in person, have asked me to continue posting.  I'm both honored and puzzled.  What ever have I done or had happen to me that had not occurred in the life of at least one million other folks who daily walk this planet?  Although I do not understand your interest, thank you for it.  I'll try.

Sailing The Caribbean 

One of the oldest dreams I have been hostage to for my very short life is the one of sailing single handed around this big planet.  In my mind I often leave this world and find myself lashed into and cringing in a quarter berth as the ocean around me rages, daring me to leave the comfort of my cot and slings and to come on deck where it can toss me far from my cork of a boat.  Of course both The Dream and I know that I have already talked to the Good Lord and He has directed me to stay safe and secure in my bunk.  The ocean will always lose in this dream, and I will always survive, just as I once did in real life.  The Dream persists and I still have the desire to make the voyage.  I needed to find a starting place, one where I could find answers.  

My body is now many decades older than it was when The Dream first appeared.  Can I still handle a sailboat?  Do I still want to make this circumnavigation?  How can I find out if I want to do this?  The answer, of course, was to go sailing.  So, for the first time in almost thirty years, I planned an open ocean voyage.  I enrolled in a sailing school who promised:

"Guests with little or no prior sailing experience should be able to complete Course 101. Those with a reasonable amount of sailing experience may be able to complete courses 101 and 103. To complete all 3 levels, resulting in bareboat certification, guests will need to have a considerable amount of prior sailing experience and knowledge of coastal navigation - and therefore guests should not expect to be able to complete all 3 levels in one week unless they do have such experience."

"I'll not be able to fool these guys," I muttered to myself, "These are the only people I've seen that do not promise the moon."    So, I called them and signed up for a one week course that, if I were successful, would result in certification allowing me to charter a yacht on my own, without the need of hiring a Captain to oversee the way I managed it.   

I paid the tuition, bought the plane tickets and set off for St. Vincent and the Grenadines, a bunch of islands located in the Windward part of the Caribbean Sea.  In short, Paradise. 

Thank you, Carolyn

A year ago today I took Carolyn's temperature and found it was elevated.  No biggie, both of us expected it to happen one day.  PSP does not kill, it maims, and one of the areas it affects is the throat and it's muscles; it becomes hard to swallow.  Often this difficulty results in pneumonia and is easily combated.  We expected the infection.  We did not expect the difficulty in swallowing to be fatal.  It was. 

No matter how long death announces his presence in a life and no matter how long he sits patiently on the living room couch waiting for a loved one's soul, the death comes unexpectedly and too quickly.  No amount of reasoning or rationalizing will prepare you for that last breath.

The chest just stops rising and the world changes. 

It's been a year since I told Carolyn it was time for me to dress her so we could go to the hospital.  A week later she was gone.

I've done well this last year, better than one would have thought.  I thank Carolyn for this; she told me all was well when I scattered her ashes in the same place her mothers had been strewn several months before.

You see, Carolyn loved dogs.  She chose to show me all was well and that she and her mom had been reunited not more than two minutes after her ashes had been spread on the waters of the Canadian Atlantic coast where she and her mother had spent many summer vacations while her father worked in the city of Montreal.  He joined them on weekends, but the shoreline belonged to them for most of the time.
 

Only the people in our very small party were in view for as far as we could see during the ceremony celebrating her life and there were no animals at all.  Yet, within minutes of that celebration, before we could regain the grasses beyond the sand, two dogs appeared.  They were jumping on each others back as they ran, seemingly happy to be with each other as only young dogs can show that feeling.  You've seen it - playfully caressing each other while flying low to the ground. 

The two dogs ran straight to me and one, the younger white one, tried to climb my body to be nearer my face.  I lowered to a knee and the younger put her head on my thigh for several seconds.  The older of the two then circled while the younger and I exchanged caresses.  After a short while, they left and disappeared just as they had arrived, dancing and playing as they departed.

I'm sure it was what a minister I later consulted called a "God moment" and that Carolyn and her mom had greeted me and told me they were together again and all was well. 

I've waited awhile to post this and during that time I've learned to dance with new partners.  I've learned to dine and travel in the company of other souls.  I have not yet learned to share my life.  But I will. 

If ever there were a person who could talk God into letting her tell her mate she was alright, Carolyn would be the person to do so.  She could charm God himself and would risk damnation to ease my suffering.  I thank her so much for letting me know, and I thank God for letting her show me. 

Tuesday next will have been 52 weeks, and the 4th of Sept will be a year since her passing.  I'm going to move on.  But, Carolyn, when it comes time for me to rest, be sure my ashes will join yours.  I'll keep that promise as I kept all the others.

Carolyn's Gone.

She left the planet two weeks ago on the 4th day of September, 2012.  She did not have the strenght to last the entire summer of her last year.  My pain is only eased by the forth bottle of Jack Daniels in the six pack I bought during my last trip to California.  Funny that I should think of the money I saved buying a case of JD while in California at a time like this.

But that is what Caroyn and I did during our time together.  We saved for our future.  People, if there is anything I can offer to you in the form of advice, it is to spend your dollars now.  Spend them now while you can enjoy the company of your mate.  Do not take the advise of all the sages who insist that you save them by putting them 401K's and the hands of thieves.

Spend your dollars while you can; enjoy the company of your most beloved.  I sit here alone with a pile of dollars.  And, I sit here alone,  with no one with whom I wish to share them.  How much better it could have been to watch Carolyn twirl in Ireland just one more time.  How much better to have watched as she danced to the Irish piper of her heritage.   I would rather have eaten from dumpsters in my old age than to have wound up in my present state.  Awash in dollar bills and knowing that Carolyn would have loved to have seen County Cork just one more time.

I live in grief.

Signing Off

We have come to realize Carolyn's condition does not gradually deteriorate.  Instead she experiences a plateau and then a sudden decrease in her abilities as the condition spreads and attacks a new area of her brain.  That relatively fast drop in ability is then followed by a new, lower level of functionality which remains fairly stable until the disease again spreads.

Several weeks ago she experienced such a drop in her abilities, and we thought it had stabilized.  But that was not the case.  This time, the drop of several weeks ago has not yet stabilized, and after another series of falls which resulted in another trip to the emergency room for x-rays and medications, I know that I now must be at her side every time she moves around.

This means the only time I have to complete the mundane chores required to keep our home running is during the time she is resting.  I used to do these things while she moved around on her own. 

The time our Good Lord gives me each day has remained exactly the same, and the change in Carolyn's needs requires a change in my activities.  Something must be given up, and as much as I hate to do it, one of the things I've chosen to cede to her disease is this small space of ours. 

Maybe in another five years or so, after Carolyn has been released from this burden she must deal with, I will continue the blog.  But for now, I must leave it.

Thank you for sharing your time and comments with me.  And, thanks for putting up with my petty rants.  I've enjoyed your company.

While I'm on the Subject

The subject, of course, is disgust.  And the lack of morality in general and the lack of it in banking in particularly.  As in MF Global.

Most of us have heard something about MF Global in the last few days as we were eating our toast or changing the channel hoping to find reruns of "Survivor"  But I imagine it has mostly been ignored by nearly everyone who has to go to work to put food on the table.

A couple of years ago it was Bernie Madoff and his active ponzi scheme.  Now it revolves around a guy, John Corzine, who just happened to have run a banking company, Goldman Sachs,  earlier in his career.  He then left employment in the private sector to become a Senator and then a Governor of New Jersey.

I'd say he  is pretty well connected to both the New York bankers and the highest ranking Washington politicians.   Sort of like Hank Paulson, also a former head of Goldman, who managed to find a way to keep from paying any income tax on five hundred million dollars worth of proceeds from the sale of stock.  

That's what well connected guys - about four or five hundred of them, do in this country.  They get away with fraud and income tax evasion.  Every day of the week.  Of course, it is not fraud or evasion, they've written the laws just so they can do it.  But don't you try to get away with the evil they do - you'll go to jail.  Anyway, back to John Corzine. 

It seems he managed to take 633 million dollars from the accounts of customers of his company and spend it on worthless European bonds.  He did this without their knowledge or consent, and now it's gone.  Lost in a margin call to an as yet unnamed bank.  I'm not gonna try to name the bank, but I bet there's a G and an S somewhere in it.

Just sayin'.  But, I refuse to get sued on a hunch so I'll add "Gimme an F" as did Country Joe. Yeah - there's an "F" in there too.  Somewhere.

It turns out what he did just may be completely legal - using and losing all the money in his clients accounts to make money for himself and his firm, without sharing any of those potential profits with the clients.  Somewhere in all the paperwork people sign to open an account with MF Global was some small print that said it's OK for him to lose everything people like you and I worked for and saved every year of our lives. 

But still all those years of working and saving have been lost.  The difference between Bernie Madoff and John Corzine is that he legally stole all the money. And now he'll retire to his mansion, tour Europe or the Islands, and party with the movers and shakers.  I can hear them laughing at all the "little people" whom he caused to become paupers in their old age. 

Stealing money has become an art form, and most of the artists work on Wall Street or have close ties to it.  They steal with the active aid of politicians who have taken millions from them in the form of campaign contributions. What has happened to the customers of MF Global can happen to everyone else who either invests there or has a pension or 401K with investments in that den of vipers.  I am fortunate, I have not one shiney penny in the hands of those thieves.

But still it disgusts me that so few are allowed to steal from so many without consequence - except to the victims.

When I notice anything at all resembling mold anywhere in my life I grab a bottle of bleach and start pouring liberal amounts all around the suspect area.  I'm starting to think it's high time we, the American public, started pouring bleach on Wall Street and in Washington.  Get rid of the slime.

Update:  My reading tonight included this by Jim Quinn http://www.theburningplatform.com/?p=24763
He is so much more able than I on this subject - and the subject I wrote of yesterday.  If you have some time to spend please read what he wrote.  Funny, but he said exactly what I wanted to.

Winning

Tonight I watched something that disgusted me to my core.  The cameras were rolling as several hundred, maybe several thousand, Penn State students were marching in support of a man who was mostly guilty of looking the other way as a former colleague sexually abused several young boys.

Their coach, a man who until this week seemed to be a pillar of decency, did little to stop the abuse of which he was aware.  I believe him when he says he is ashamed of his inaction because I myself believe him to be an honest man. 

But it takes more than mere honesty to lead and teach our children.  It takes guts and a sense of values that puts the welfare of those students, and any other child,  ahead of everything else, including winning on an athletic field.

The students I watched tonight have been let down by their coach, their teachers, their parents and our American society at large.  They have been instilled with false values, and can not see the failure of University Officials to protect young children for the outrage it is.  Our failure to teach them is complete, they do not even recognize their error.  All they know is they love their winning coach.

From an early age they have been taught instead that life is about winning - not about caring for and protecting others.  We reward greed and avarice.  Not so much do we reward honesty and caring for others welfare.  Our values and, therefore, their values are false.

It's why our country is coming apart.  Values and morals have fallen away from our society and have been replaced with greed and meaningless toys.  A new car is more important than a charitable donation.  A winning coach is more important than several preteen aged boys.  I'm just as guilty, I love a winning team. 

But, my God, winning is not everything.

Daylight Savings Time.

Thursday morning I woke up and discovered someone had painted my lawn white.  It happened while I slept and not only that, the vandals had painted the sidewalks the same color.  No way could a guy tell where one ended and the other started.  Shameful at best, but at least they didn't bother with the street.  It was still in place and maintained it's wonderful standard black color.  At least that part of my morning world made some sense.

Good thing it did make sense 'cause all that black reminded me I really needed that first cup of coffee in the morning before my sleep dulled brain is capable of producing a complete, rational thought.  Drug addict?  You bet - I need that caffeine every day.  So I flipped the "ON" switch so the red part of it showed and waited till the pot quit making gurgling noises. 

That's all I have to do in the morning to make coffee 'cause I get the pot ready the night before.  I've learned, after 67 years, that I'm completely unreliable in the morning.  If I attempt to make coffee at that time of day I'm asking for trouble.  It usually requires two attempts.  The first try will fail because of some silly thing like forgetting to put the coffee in the place where the water runs through it.  You know, that little basket thingy?

After a few minutes the pot settled down and stopped making more noise than I ever need to hear in the morning and I poured a hot steaming cup of Yuban.  I read the comics section of yesterdays newspaper while I drank the liquid.  By the time it was gone and the comics were finished, I felt pretty good.  Then I took another look out the window.

The hour I had spent in the kitchen trying to wake up was all it took to put everything right.  The lawn was green - had I just been dreaming of vandals when I first stumbled in?  I noticed I still could catch the local morning weather so the TV was turned on and tuned to the local station.  Sure enough, after maybe four minutes of commercials, there was young Ben B. telling me about the day ahead.

But first he eased my mind.  He told me it had snowed overnight.  Just a dusting, but real snow on the 3rd of November, which is about three or four weeks earlier than normal.  Thanks Goodness.  There was an explanation for my earlier hallucinations that made sense.  It's too bad, but I guess I'm not loony and still belong among the other sane folks in this neighborhood. 

I 'spose that's good news - but I had already started to figure out how to spend the money that comes along with being insane.  I'm sure someone will give you a check every month if you can prove that condition to them.  And I bet it's a good sized one at that.  I'm sure it's much larger than the measly Social Security check I now receive.  Crazy people need more money - they can't be expected to manage their money wisely; they're crazy, remember?

After telling me it really did snow last night ol' Ben then told me we had just barely made it five months between snows.  Yep.  The last snow of last winter fell on the First of June.  We made it five months and two days before it fell again.  Boy am I glad I live here.  The thought of shoveling snow seven months of the year thrills me - NOT.  And I'm even happier the Chamber of Commerce advertises the fact we have three hundred days of sunshine every year.  Ha.  Guess they're out to make a buck too. 

The next thing he said also brought cheer to my old, tired and now shivering body.  He mentioned we go off daylight savings time this week end.  Just how much joy is one individual 'sposed to receive in a single weather report?  By now I'm wishing I were forty years younger.  I'd join the French Foreign Legion and spend some time in the middle of the Sahara this winter instead.

I hate it when the clocks are set back.  That's the start of winter.  It's dark by 5:30 or so, curtains are drawn against the chill air on the other side of the windows and ya can't even spy on your neighbors as they drive in from work.  Did they go shopping today?  Are those Wal*Mess bags I see them carrying in? 

All the experts claim winter starts on the 21st of December.  But all of us non-experts pretty much disagree.  When the clocks "Fall Back" is the begining of winter and the good times are over until spring.  In fact, the heater's already started making warm noises on a regular basis.

Anyway, I figured I'd suffer through it for a while til it was time to see what amusement the mail man left for us in our slot of the corner box.  When you're retired, the daily Checking Of The Mail assumes gigantic importance.  While working, I constantly received surprises.  Got them in abundance for eight hours every day.  These days most of the surprises arrive in that slot.

There was a letter in today's mail - the first one of those we've received  in a while.  Usually we get bills, statements and offers to buy all kinds of stuff at tremendous savings.  Seldom do we get actual letters.  I rushed home, opened it, and began to read to Carolyn.  It was from friends who live in Tuscon, Arizona and after several interesting paragraphs, he closed by reminding us to set our clocks back this weekend.

Then he laughed as he bragged "We don't do that here in Arizona, you know.  Our winter doesn't start for another eight weeks!"  My kinda guy.  He doesn't know it yet but I got the last laugh.  I used the letter as kindling to start the first fire of our new winter. 

Hate Daylight Savings time.  Why do we do this sort of thing to ourselves?