Galley storage/work space

I'm nearly done with the galley counter & shelf space. I put in a wire shelf below, with arrangements to make stowing and securing pots & pans easier:

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Notice there's no bracket underneath the right side. I drilled holes in the bulkhead (wall) and inserted the ends of the horizontal wires of the shelf. It was fiddly: the shelf wouldn't fit in at the length it was, so I had to measure & remeasure then triple measure (measure twice, cut once, fine; I find that, if I'm going to drill, I'm better off measuring 3 times.) I was off by 1/8 of an inch in one hole; another 1/8 would have made it impossible to bully the thing in there. But it worked out.

I'm delighted to have, not only somewhere to put my cookware, but to have it easy to get to! Really, those of you with roomier kitchens have no idea. And there is exactly enough space; no more, no less.

I still wouldn't trade all your space for this self-satisfaction & self-sufficiency. I love making do with little. There was a time it terrified me, and then I had lots, and now I'm really happy about just this.

My point of reference when deciding what to get: everything I need, nothing I don't.

I still need to work on the latter. The main cabin is a mess.

Just going to put in one more bit of counter to complete the galley area. I've cut down the wood; should be straightforward.

Computer: it lives!

I'm sitting back comfortably, with the cat sitting up on my lap and purring, dictating this note into my fully reborn little laptop.

For those of you who were not glued to the unfolding of this drama, here's the short version.

I got a TravelMate 3000, and Acer computer that has a processing speed of over 1.8 GHz and whose memory goes up to 2 gigs. And it weighs less than 3 pounds.

In short, it's perfect for me. It's light enough to haul around, and powerful enough to run my dictation software and anything else side-by-side -- and that takes doing.

It went with me to Spain and back -- twice -- without a murmur. It put up with me dragging it all over the central coast of California. It took a licking and kept on ticking.

Last fall, I made the mistake of sticking it in a backpack, and wearing the backpack to climb aboard the boat. The laptop slid out and leaped over my head into the cockpit, cracking the case and killing the hard drive.

I got referred to DriveSavers, but I couldn't possibly afford their prices -- even though, after I told them a little about myself, they cut me an incredible deal.

One friend of mine decided that she had the money and the motivation to take care of that. It took some persuading, but she talked me into accepting her help.

After a couple of tries, they succeeded in saving all my data! That was a huge relief.

Next, I had to figure out if the laptop was savable, or if I was going to have to replace it. That would mean doing without for the best part of a year, assuming there were no other major expenses.

I booted up from every possible source. I tried hacking in at the command line. I tried everything. No joy. I took my courage in both hands, got plenty of masking tape handy to trap screws with, and took the whole thing apart to check the motherboard, connections, and cards for visible damage. everything looked fine.

I finally found Serengeti Systems, a cute little hole in the wall. I sat down with the very nice owner, explained what I was doing, and asked if he had a bootable hard drive lying around. He plugged one in for me and let me at it. after the computer booted up painlessly and then went looking for all the right hardware, I bounced around like a superball. All I needed was a hard drive. Which was going to cost around a hundred bucks.

Remember, I'm on disability. It's barely enough to keep you alive. That's a lot of money to me.

I helped out another friend of mine, who decided that he had some money lying around that he could spare. It took some convincing, but he talked me into taking it.

So I got a new hard drive, twice the size of the old one, and it's the best model that supports my old technology.

Those of you who have rebuilt customized machines won't be surprised to hear that it took about two days to get everything installed and working. It was more than worth it. I am so widely and deeply content to be sitting here, working comfortably, that I'm surprised the force of my inward purring doesn't shake the boat.

The computer is network ready, of course, so it requires a name, in order to be distinguished from other computers on the network. In its previous incarnation, it was Joya, the Spanish word for gem. It still is a gem, but, after its recent adventures and with this new hard drive, it needed a new name... something bigger, something muscular... something that travels widely and can adapt to anything... something tough, but attractive...

Friends, meet Coyote. Coyote, meet my friends.

Birthday bitch

Today was my birthday, and it was looking like a rough one. I did my 2nd 5- or 6-mile walk in 2 days, trying to get my overloaded sense of failure under control. Wasn't I supposed to have someone to come home to? Weren't there supposed to be kids involved -- or at least lots of pets? A profession, full of activity and development? And so on and so forth. Fun stuff.

This evening, after all my plans fell through (and i usually work it out to at least Plan C; had it out to Plan E today) I wandered down the dock to find Regis the only person home whom I knew well enough to intrude upon.

Regis is a pleasant Frenchman (turns out that's not a complete oxymoron) who looks rather like a laid-back Jeremy Irons. There has been some twitchiness between us because, I gather, we're not sure who has a crush on whom. But he's good company when he forgets about that, full of good stories and wry humor.

I went over with his favorite tipple, which is also one of mine. He's both a cheap date and a gentleman, so we wound up drinking mostly his. After at least an hour I said, "Come have dinner with me. It's my birthday, it's been a hell of a 42 years, and I need the company. All I want from you is a couple more stories."

"What do you mean, a hell of a 42 years?" he asked.

That was a question I couldn't answer honestly when sober. I said, after gaping briefly, "Where do I start? Abuse, molestation, attempted murder --"

"Okay, let's go have dinner."

I hadn't even gotten to the second half of my life!

So we had a stellar dinner and, despite some proper Corsican reservations on his part, I snaked the bill. It was a smashing success because here it is, after 10:30, and I'm feeling better than I have in days: not exhausted, not wrung out, smiling easily and full of good humor after chatting with someone who remembers the world 30 years ago from a standpoint not far from where I was at the time. And who has seen some of the best movies made in the interim, and made a point of finding those locations and forming impressions about the nature of moviemaking therefrom.

Good fun.

Not sure what this has to do with boating, but as a liveaboard (or even a sneakaboard), the distinction between the work of boating and the work of getting through life can get very thin. As Regis remarked this evening.

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.