Our friend Leilani has been in the hospital so long, with such a cheerful attitude, she inspired the doctors on the staff to write her a haiku:

Germy Pacemaker
Last few days of ABX*
Feels okay today

*Their abbreviation for antibiotics

After seeing the attention lavished on her, I was inspired to write a limerick:

All the nurses and docs in the ward
Had ennui — they were terribly bored.
But then much to their joy,
Came Leilani McCoy,
Leaving all other patients ignored.

When we first walked in, I thought we’d mistaken her room number for the gift shop. There were that many cards, plants, flowers, and gifts!

Now there once was a pirate of yore,
Who I met as I strolled on the shore.
“You’re a rake, sir!” I cried,
I was held at his side,
And he tickled me ’til I was sore.

I don’t make this stuff up! At the Seafair Pirate Landing on Saturday, I met a good-looking pirate (at least he had no blood on his teeth) who was smooching passing wenches. When I queued up for my fair share, I was captured and tickled, as you can see from the following photos.

Two kittens have lived worry-free,
In our boat at the edge of the sea,
But they snoozed and they dozed,
With their four eyes all closed,
So they never knew Grandma was me.

We found a foster home for our rescue cat and kittens through PAWS, two days before we left for Seattle. The kittens took so long to open their eyes, though, I thought they never would! We finally saw their eyes on July 4th, two and a half weeks after they were born.

Charlie’s sleeping alone in his bed,
When a cat climbs up onto his head,
Charlie says, “That’s not neat,”
“Please move down to my feet,”
And so that’s where she gave birth, instead.

You can see pictures of Charlie, the cat, and the newborn kittens over at “A Buckeye with a cat on his head.”

The portlights are in, this is true,
Installed with some goop and a screw.
But now Barry’s addiction,
Is causing some friction.
He cannot stop thinking of “Goo.”

Barry rewarded himself for getting the last two portlights installed by buying a new computer game, World of Goo. Myself, I think he should focus on World of Boat, or at least, World of Goop.

Here’s a big, buzzy carpenter bee,
And a husband with sting-allergy.
Now each trip on the ladder,
To relieve his bladder,
Is a peril, so it’s up to me.

Right here is a new, bee-free ladder,
90 pounds, though, and that is the matter,
For the lift goes awry,
It just falls from the sky,
And it makes Larry’s barbecue flatter.

Now I wish that my friend, Mrs. Bee,
Had drilled out her nest in a tree,
Then she’d still be alive,
And her children would thrive,
And my ladder would be bee-hole free.

In a funny coincidence, we bought a CD on Friday called “A Buzz, A Buzz.” We had discovered a great new alternative band out of Durham called Bombadil. Seattle friends, go see Bombadil at the Tractor Tavern on July 26th!

I had an amazing birthday this year, and two very special homemade presents. One was a birthday card hand-painted by my Dad (I had thought Dad was the writer and Mom was the artist!), and the other was this limerick by my sister, Julie.

Meps travels both hinder and yon
Now that beautiful hair’s almost GONE!*
Still, she’s awesome and nifty,
Though half way to fifty
Her new moniker? Captain Ron!

Julie also provided the perfect ending to my birthday. She was doing a radio show on KLCC, in Eugene, Oregon, and I managed to pull it in over the Internet. Then I called the request line and asked for a song from 1964. She asked, “Which song?” “Any song will do!” I sang out, and only then did she recognize her little sister’s voice, all the way from North Carolina.

She played Sam Cooke’s “That’s Where It’s At” for me. Beaufort, North Carolina: That’s where it’s at!

*Explanatory photos to come…

There’s a man in a white bunny suit,
Motivating by crawl and by scoot,
“Is that Randy, or Larry?”
I inquire of dear Barry,
“It’s not me, so the question is moot!”

I feel guilty, as they do the work,
On my keel, where the barnacles lurk,
Now I know that I must,
As amends for my dust,
Bake them brownies, from scratch, as a perk.

Export department brownies, from the Foodie Gazette.

When they started, their Tyvek was white,
Now they’re muddy and gray, quite a sight.
And the ground is aglitter
With sandpaper litter,
But the hull is now smooth, fair, and right.

We went sailing with our good friend, Dick,
Though his boat isn’t nimble or quick,
She is classy as heck,
Lovely lines, great big deck,
And a schooner! (Yep, more than one stick.)

What a perfect day! A shame we forgot the camera, though.

The story behind this limerick is explained in the essay, “Schooner or Later.”

He could navigate, stand watch, and steer,
And he learned to drink warm rum and beer,
He’s a proper sea cat,
Never seasick! But that
Wasn’t true on the highways, I hear.

Ernie the Cat returned to the boatyard yesterday, after a 2-month cruise to Florida. He did great on the boat, but not so well in the car.

I’m complaining: “This weather is dumb!
“It is March, and now springtime should come!”
When a knock and a shout,
Makes me stick my head out,
“Well, hooray! Here comes Dick! Where’s the rum?”

After a teaser week of spring, we are now freezing! Outdoor temperatures were in the 20’s (Fahrenheit) when Dick arrived today, giving us a welcome respite from work. We enjoyed a warm and toasty gab-fest with tea and bakery-fresh bread, followed by pizza and rum.

There once was a fellow named Ted,
Who had lost all the boats in his shed,
With the Sharpies all gone,
It was time to move on,
Now he’s living in Freedom, instead.

A little context for this one is in order. We were working away on deck last week when I noticed a couple wandering around the boatyard. Then I realized they weren’t ambling aimlessly, they were heading right for us.

That’s how we met Ted and Malla. After a fire destroyed his boat shed in Vermont, Ted bought a Freedom 33 and named her Ocean Gypsy (after one of my favorite songs by Renaissance). He’s been moored in Beaufort for the winter. When he came down the ICW, he noticed us on shore and made a mental note to check out our boat.

We hit it off with these great folks, and a few days later, they invited us aboard Ocean Gypsy for an evening of pizza and stories. I feel better about my boat project now. I don’t just have a boat in the middle of a refit. I have a ticket to the fun, freedom-loving crowd.

My broken toe limerick got some funny responses. One friend, who will remain nameless, said he once dropped his underwear, tried to kick them to the laundry hamper, hit the wall, and broke a toe. He had a hard time explaining why he was wearing steel-toed boots to his office job.

Here’s another funny response, in verse, from Elinor Narcross:

I was going to lunch
And was driving a bunch.
My foot went kerplunk
Caught myself on the trunk.
Got a break in my foot
Requiring a boot.
In the arm, bicep tear
All in all, worse for wear.

In November it occurred
Pre-holidays; my word!
Healing has taken place
And snow has covered space.
Been inside looking out
Sunshine now makes me shout.
If Spring does really arrive,
I’ll want to drive and drive and drive.

(given the line about the trunk, maybe she should switch to a hatchback?)

Hubby needs something, quick, from below.
So I dash down the ladder, not slow,
Then I trip on a door
That he left on the floor,
“Here’s your tool, but I’ve broken my toe!”

This is weird, but it’s happened twice! Out of the blue, someone sends me a limerick about a Julie when I need one for my sister of the same name. This one comes from reader IronMan Mike Curtis, and although it’s not a perfect fit (my sister is NOT middle-aged), it is perfectly timed for my sister’s birthday.

Thanks, Mike! But next time, maybe we could call her “a lovely young woman,” instead? Then, as you can see from the photo, it would fit my Julie, too.

Julie, Schmulie

A middle aged woman named Julie
Feared her next birthday unduly
As the clock struck midnight,
She blanched with sheer fright
As if she’d been possessed by a ghoulie

(Limerick (c) 2009 M. Curtis)

If you think that equality’s great,
And you wish for a world free from hate,
And you have curly hair,
And your first name is Claire,
Here’s your present! It’s just one day late.

Claire’s birthday was the day before the inauguration of Barack Obama. The photo above is Obama’s official presidential portrait, which we’ll be seeing in federal buildings while he is in office. It’s the first presidential portrait taken with a digital camera.

I hadn’t gotten any guest submissions in a while, when this appeared in my in-box and gave me a chuckle. It comes from R. Dennis Green, “a limerick-starved fan from Bethesda, MD who shares a birth year (1951) with the comic strip, Dennis the Menace.”

I looked for a birthday limerick
Your web site proved to be perferick
My friend needed laughter
To fight the disaster…
Of aging. Your verse did the trick!

(photos are at the bottom…)

There once was a doggie named Missy,
She wears glasses, which make her look prissy.
She has more clothes than me,
Over seventy-three
Different outfits! A clothes-horse — or is she?

At a street fair in Fort Pierce, Florida, I photographed a man in a motorized wheelchair with a frilly little dog wearing a dress and sunglasses. Two months later, I ran into them again. “Hi!” I said. “I took your picture last month.” The man in the wheelchair smiled, then, trying to recall the event, asked me, “What was she wearing?”

Missy is a therapy dog, trained by Frank. She has almost 80 different outfits with matching glasses, and she spends her time visiting nursing homes and hospitals. A friend tells me the two are local celebrities. “They’re in all the parades,” she said.

All the houses are decked out in light,
Spreading warm, festive cheer through the night,
But our Flutterby strand,
Is strung up just as planned,
On the inside — so selfish, but bright!

Yesterday, we installed 32 feet of 12V “warm white” LED rope light in Flutterby as our primary cabin lighting. It’s beautiful, efficient, and feels like Christmas! (photos to come when the boat is a little less messy…)

It was crowded, and parking was tight,
When we drove into Beaufort last night,
There were Santas and sleighs,
And a lighthouse with rays,
And the Gilligan crew was a sight.

But our friends from Quebec on the pier,
Say they’re lacking in holiday cheer.
“The parade is quite nice,
“But we’ve seen it now, thrice,
“And we’d like to be elsewhere, not here.”

When I wrote this, I thought it was cute, the fact that our friends from Giva will be out cruising this time next year. However, Val didn’t think the joke was funny, and he asked me to include his comments:

I don’t think it’s funny
Val

I have set my fine shop-vac to “suck,”
But the dust flies around me, amok!
Now I’ve figured it out,
The solution, no doubt,
Is a “blow job” to get it unstuck.

I hate these steep learning curves! I cleaned the boat for four days, but the dust just reappeared. Finally, I attacked the crevices with the vacuum cleaner hose set to “blow” instead of “suck.” What a mess — this got the fiberglass dust out into the air (I was wearing a respirator), but after it settled, I vacuumed it up.

Hey, the deck is done, let’s celebrate!
So we went and ate plate after plate,
At the Golden Corral,
But it sapped my morale,
‘Cause this stomachache will not abate.

Friday seemed like a good time to try the G.C., which our boatyard friends are always talking about. We celebrated with Clark, of Undaunted, who had launched his boat that afternoon. But the acres of food were overwhelming. It reminded me of Two Scoops Moore, who sang: “I can’t stop goin’ back to the big buffet…probably have a heart attack, down at the big buffet.”

Cogito, ergonomic sum: I sit up, therefore I am…not going to a back doctor. (Before and after photos for this one can be found below, on the website.)

My Dad had a terrible slouch,
As he sat at his desk or the couch,
But we found a new chair,
And he sits upright there,
So he no longer whines and says, “Ouch.”

I was down by the water last week,
When I heard a marine mammal speak,
Yes, a dolphin came near,
And he spoke really clear,
But I just cannot translate his squeak.

This really happened to me! I think he was saying something about “Launch that boat and come play with us.” Or maybe, “Where’s the dog food?”

Now there once was a feller, McCain,
And he took matching funds to campaign.
Now Barack has the dough
For his own TV show,
Which makes baseball fans loudly complain.

Speaking of complaining, Barry rolled his eyes and said no more political entries in our Adventures blog. But he just can’t stop me from limerickin’!