swimming in the ocean!

Today I swam in the ocean for the first time. My legs are still salty slippery. Wee!

Thanks to all the commenters for boosting me up while I was down, by the way.

The sun came out the next day and I felt much better as I learned about jibs and tacks and mainsails and tillers and all kinds of other crazy sailing terminology that I've since forgot. Sailing = fun + confusion. Aside from the sweetness of the lesson, Tim and I were also able to stop while we were having fun. Ususally we blow right by fun and tire ourselves out and then start fighting. Woo hoo!

And, quickly, to elaborate on Tim's last post so Emmy Lou doesn't get all the credit, let me describe these four dogs because they are hil-ar-i-ous. Emmy is a beagle/rat terrier mix with a head slightly too small for her body. She's shy but extremely sweet once she gets over it. Dotty is a beagle mutt of some sort who I thought was too old to move and got suckered into pampering her until I got a leash out and she saw it and went insane. She also cannot avoid any puddle, no matter how big or how small. Shemya is a dog that looks like a pure black lab until she stands up, and then you can see that she's a mix with a basset hound. Looking at her is like looking at an optical illusion. So is listening to her: she snorts like a pig when she's on a walk. And then there's elegant looking Phoebe, a beautiful but unfortunate golden retriever who her own loving rescuer/owner has admitted "is no genetic prize." She's had 2 hip replacements; her first at 9 months. The dogs are a motley pack who sometimes sit on the couch and for no reason humans can understand, tip their noses to the ceiling and are lead by the beagles in howling at either the joy or the ennui of their lives.

And finally, the last thing I have to say on this super quick little post: no matter how calm the ocean looks, it's really not. All it takes for one to understand this is to get out on a dingy and try to drive in 4 foot waves to an old lobster boat that doesn't look trustworthy and sounds like it is going to fall apart outright when started.

I'm on a guest computer so I can't post the pictures from these extravaganzas, but I shall. We're with Alexa/Skywalker, one of the people that Tim/Sheriff walked the AT with. I've been getting to hear another side of the stories Tim has told. She also makes it sound like a chosen misery endured to figure something out about life, the universe, and everything (but I don't think that she came up with 42 after Katahdin).

It's time for a night with London Porter and Mint Newman-Os. After this weekend, it's to Vermont for a stay with Amy and Pete, and then we make the last leg back to our lake-locked, depression-enduring, four-seasoned, friend-and-family-filled, ham-on-bun-eating, auto-driven, deer-wandered homeland. Ah, Michigan.