Looking for a miracle

Well, I had a line on a good cheap engine on Craig's List, but someone else snaked it. The capable mechanic next door backpedaled sheepishly at the thought of actually touching my engine, rather than just offering advice.

The urge to scream and throw things has mostly passed, but I'm still grinding my teeth.

The stock I inherited is in the toilet and last year's chaos wiped out my savings, so at this point my hope of having a couple thou to drop on motive power is pretty remote. (My nod to financial planning has been to start rolling my 401ks into an IRA.)

Russell thinks I should be able to get an outboard for free. It hasn't happened yet, but now that he's thinking about it maybe someone he knows will have one to spare. He certainly has a wide network.

Does it sound like I'm grasping at straws?

I'm putting the engine back on the back burner (grinding my teeth a little more) and refocusing on the living quarters. Or trying to. Thoughts of a usable galley and a room of my own are pretty appealing. And maybe, in the fullness of time, a properly-cared-for hull?

I was rinsing the boat off yesterday, making the paint (or what's left of it) look as red as possible, when Russell came by and said, "It just won't grow."

I looked at him in surprise.

"No matter how much you water it, it just won't grow. Not even if you sprinkle that Miracle shit on it."

I said I'd keep that in mind and turned the water off. It seemed the perfect coda to my thoughts.