Tomorrow’s a really big day,
My Dad’s coming back home to stay,
And now comes my fun,
Because when it’s all done,
It’s Nurse Meps who’s the one he’ll obey.
~~~
(Don’t tell Dad, but she’s a pushover!)

Mechanics in town all say Stowe,
Is the very best place you can go,
For a quick valve job, cheap,
But he won’t fix your Jeep,
For he just works on hearts, don’t you know.
—
Indian River Medical Center is my Dad’s hospital, just a few miles from his home. We’ve just learned that Consumer Reports has ranked it the best hospital in Florida for open-heart surgery. What an excellent confidence-booster in the face of tomorrow’s heart valve replacement!

This word once described her: Poquito.
But this bug, with her massive libido,
Must have slept with a cow,
For her offspring are now
Too huge to be called mere “mosquito.”

For over two hours, Irene’s eye,
Looked down on our dear Flutterby,
No damage was done,
And after that fun,
Great news: All our bilges are dry!

All’s well that ends well! Thanks to Kevin, Jonathan, Libby, and Nancy & Kenny for taking care of things in North Carolina. And to our parents for letting us know that everything was OK! Thanks to them, we were able to relax and enjoy our time in Black Rock City.

What I wanted was just to relate,
To the mother of my chosen mate,
So we stared at the screen,
Of an Apple machine,
And we chatted of things like baud rate.

Though that’s twenty-three years in the past,
And our new Mac computers are fast,
We still sit back-to-back,
In the family shack,
And we surf and play games — what a blast!

They held extra rain in the sky,
Until I arrived in July,
A serious bummer,
Because in the summer
Seattle should be warm and dry.

Did you guys save this rain just for me? You shouldn’t have!

–

Nick sails Valkyrie, peaceful, serene,
With the engine turned off, no machine,
Breaks the stillness, the quiet,
Til he creates a riot,
With his blender, which burns gasoline.

With a sound like a loud chainsaw roar,
Our Lake Union’s not peaceful, no more,
“Margaritas,” I say,
“Over two miles away,”
It’s Saint Nick, giving alms to the pour.

We went out on Flagrante Delicto to watch Duck Dodge (for you non-Seattlites, it’s a very silly sailing race) last night, and were greeted in limerick form by Blender Boy Nick. Here’s a picture of Valkyrie’s crew (don’t ask me how Nick can steer with this many people in the cockpit!).

The theme for last night’s race was “Bastille Day Night,” which inspired these clever sailors to install a guillotine. Now I know where to put one if I ever need one.

Our captain for the evening, buttoned up against the weather in his MG-B. He says that at 30 mph, the rain just goes over his pith helmet, and he cleverly pulls out an umbrella at stoplights.

As the day breaks, a beautiful hush
Hangs o’er breathtaking fields, oh so lush,
But this deceptive green,
Is the most ever seen,
For the rain’s turned the whole place to mush.

Sometimes it’s the colors that tell the real story, and it’s a tragedy. Driving along, enjoying the lovely green fields in North Dakota and Montana, we suddenly realized: It’s not supposed to be green here! And those blue waters? The ones over the road? They’re not supposed to be here, either.

A rancher in Montana yesterday told us about digging a post hole on top of a rocky hill and coming back, two days later, to find it half-full of water. “It hasn’t rained, has it?” he asked his Dad, incredulous. “Nope.” In all their lives, folks have never seen the ground this saturated. Many folks couldn’t plant their crops. The ones who did say their hay’s not forming heads and ripening.

Our pictures show blue skies, puffy clouds, and vast green fields. The news organizations’ photos show tragic flooding and families fleeing their homes. Both capture the truth of 2011.

Here’s where we crossed the Mississippi.

And here’s some of the flooding along I-94.

The following super-green photos were taken at Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota.

Over 50 years, no one else knew,
That the preacher who married these two,
Did not tie a mere “knot,”
As the poor couple thought,
But instead joined the Stellrechts with glue.

Though he poured it on gooey and thick,
He still wasn’t sure that did the trick,
So what keeps them together,
In both good and bad weather?
It’s the DUCT TAPE, that’s what makes them stick!

I’ve never been to a golden anniversary party, and so I wasn’t sure what my official duties should be when celebrating my in-laws’ 50th. I decided to make myself useful by writing this limerick and reading it at the party last weekend.

I also took a few photos at the event; a few of them follow. There’s a photo of Sharon and Dave with their original 50-year-old champagne glasses, one with Barry’s sister (who put the party together), one of the happy couple cutting the cake (with the original 50-year-old cake topper!), and one of Barry’s parents with us, his sister’s family, and most importantly, Grandma. How many people get to celebrate their children’s golden wedding anniversary?

There once was a man with a frown,
And he glared at our boat, bearing down,
We escaped in disgrace,
From that look on his face,
But our new spot’s the best one in town.

In Wrightsville Beach, for the first time, we dragged anchor amongst other boats. Most of our neighbors were kind, except for one who sat on his deck and stared. We had a lovely night by ourselves in another basin, free from fetch and wakes, with an excellent internet connection.

My thesaurus tells me that a synonym for “disgrace” is “dragged through the mud.”

The tourists in Southport today,
Signed up for a tour of the bay,
The first stop on their trip,
Was this Flutterby ship,
Which they circled, then puttered away.

Anchoring in the middle of Southport’s boat basin, home to fishing and charter boats, has made us a temporary tourist attraction. The skipper of the sunset cruise boat circled us, asking us questions and then explaining our answers to his landlubber tourists. Barry and I cracked up this morning, when one of the little charter boats slipped his lines and the voice of woman rang across the water, saying, “I hope this is not going to be like Gilligan’s…”
–

Though we stayed from December til May,
It was time to get back under way,
We had put our hook down,
In a posh Florida town,
And they just kicked us out yesterday.

Just kidding! The truth is complex –
No one in this fine town objects,
To our presence, in fact,
They speak to us with tact,
For my Dad’s the Crown Prince: “Vero Rex.”

He must be: He treats us like royalty!

On my birthday, I’d like to believe,
That my brother, the one known as Steve,
Will call from Above,
And say, “Hey, I love
you, and I’m coming back there, on leave!”

I am sorry to hear, Smiling Jill,
That your birthday’s no longer a thrill,
All your friends think you’re great,
And should still celebrate –
You’re not old, you’re just over the hill.

Happy Birthday, Jill! These two friends are looking forward to celebrating with you!

If your five hundred friends each could count,
As one-tenth of your life, the amount,
Is your age: FIFTY years!
Dump some friends now, poor dears,
Do the math — it’s an old-age “discount.”

In other words, if you only had 490 friends, you’d be 49 again.
(I know, I know, I’d be the first one off the list!)

Dad’s garage is our workshop, therein
Is the stuff that we’ll need to begin,
We will lay plywood flat,
And we’ll draw lines on that,
While his car is out, to his chagrin.

But what’s this? While her spouse was obsessed,
Margaret boarded a plane for the West,
She’s gone off to give care,
To a friend they both share,
Leaving Barry to sew all the rest.

So he lofted the panels and cut,
Out the sail fabric, cheerfully, but,
Figuratively, a wall,
Stopped the man. Then a call,
To his wife, got him out of that rut.

I’ll be helping with the sewing when I return later this week. And I’ve provided emotional support by phone every day. But please, feel free to leave your encouraging comments for Barry on the blog!

Oops… I just figured out that comments are disabled for the limericks section. That’s goofy! We’ll have to fix it one of these days, when we’re not making sails in Dad’s garage. Well, send him an encouraging email instead. But don’t tell him I said so.

There once was a fellow named Jason,
Who learned that it’s bad luck to hasten,
Just a trip and a splash,
Can relieve you of cash,
When your eyeglasses now need replacin’.

Jason’s really a quite graceful lad,
Just a chip off the block, like his Dad,
Who has pitched a few phones,
Down to old Davy Jones,
But poor Jason’s Blackberry — so sad!

All joking aside, send your kind thoughts to Jason, who banged up his knee in the incident. Given the dunking his Blackberry got, I wonder if texting had something to do with his distraction?

There once was a lady named Jacqui,
And her taste in small boats was not wacky.
She knows quick as a jig,
With her fine Freedom rig,
She can rotate the wheel and yell “Tackie!”

It’s her birthday today, and I wish,
That the day brings some cake in a dish,
And a stroll down the dock,
Where she hears, to her shock:
“Happy Birthday To You!” sung by fish.

There is a fish I call Harvey who hangs out under our boat and makes funny “groink” noises. We suspect he is a “croaker” or a “grunt,” as his ability to hold a tune is limited.

In other news, we heard some strange noises in our dinghy this morning, and I thought it was just the wave pattern. A few hours later, as we went to row ashore, Barry discovered a beautiful 12-inch fish in the bottom of the dinghy! If we’d realized that was the source of the earlier noise, we could have had fresh fish for breakfast.

There once was a lady named Ann,
She’s an awesome friend with a big van,
For our carless existence
Required help and assistance,
To begin on our junk sail-rig plan.

Said our friend, as to Lowe’s we propel.
“Please beware of the dog-mothball smell,”
With that big engine purring,
We hauled plywood and furring,
Don’t apologize, Ann: Your van’s SWELL!

The term “elderly” isn’t the word,
For Da’oud, no, that’s much too absurd.
Though his birthday’s today,
If you asked, he would say,
The word “youngster” is greatly preferred.

This one is for my jeweler-artist friend, currently hanging his shingle at the Arizona Renaissance Festival. The twinkle in his eyes makes him look like a little kid with prematurely gray hair.

His name was so much fun to play with, I wrote a second limerick the next day:

A fellow I knew named Da’oud
Refused to eat all birthday food
He said, “I’ve been told,
…Eating cake makes you old.
And I’m an extremely young dude!”

We bought bottom paint, gooey and thick,
And we hoped that it would do the trick,
It was sold as “deluxe” –
It cost TWO hundred bucks,
‘Cause we didn’t want sea life to stick.

And that should be the end of the story,
But the grasses adhered in all glory,
Yes, it’s worse than I feared,
For her fuzzy green beard,
Means she now needs a depilatory.

When our gigantic sails are all done,
Then you won’t sit around poking fun,
You’ll be wishing your rig
Was as tall and as big,
As we zoom past the race starting gun.

Barry’s just posted his initial drawings of the new rig for Flutterby. On the Junk Rig Association forum, a couple of folks remarked on the outrageous amount of sail area (50%) added to the boat. That inspired my response, above.
~~~

There once was a lady named Donna
Who said to her friends, “I’m not gonna
Eat your candy and cake,
I refuse to partake.
Blow those candles yourself — I don’t wanna!”

Happy Birthday, Donna! If they put one candle on your cake for each year, you could heat the whole house!

Dis’ order’s called O.C.R.D.:
The patient can never be free
From rhymes in her noggin.
Her best bet’s to login,
And share them for all folks to see.

I can’t stop writing limericks…and this hilarious article explains why: OCRD.

My poor brain’s going nuts, it’s frenetic
As I run though the words, alphabetic.
But this thing that I do,
Well, my Dad does it, too,
So my gift — or my curse — is genetic.

Sometimes limericks run around in my head until I write them down. This email from my Dad, which I received first thing this morning, reminds me that I am not alone in my affliction:

Marg’s homonyms are soulfully smooth,
Of this I fully approve;
But her limericks are sweet,
Filled with Her Dancing Feet,
They’re keeping us all in the groove!”