New words wash ashore with my boat

If it wasn’t for lists I would never get anything done around here, although I freely admit that sometimes just having a list makes me feel I’ve accomplished something, and sometimes that means nothing the list really gets done at all. I just look it over and cross stuff off and add other things to it.

In fact on the desk beside me right now is a list I wrote in the spring of 2014. It reads, “outside tarp (not sure what that means), new patio flooring, black earth, lawn seed, rocks, cinder blocks (not sure what I was thinking about here either.)

I don’t think any of those “to-dos” were accomplished, but the list still looks good just sitting there beside my coffee cup.

I have lists on the go for spring projects inside the house and out, including a separate one for basement, one for the barn, one for interior painting projects, and one for my garden and flowerbeds.

Of course I now have project lists on the go for my sailboat including a list of questions about what exactly it is that I’m looking for, how to spell it, and what the heck it means. 

Now if I could just learn how to carry on a proper sailboat conversation about it all!

“There are no such things as ropes on a sailboat,” a fellow sailor recently said to me, chuckling over something I’d said. Indeed. They are “sheets,” and no, they won’t double as bed cover for my tired aching skeleton at the end of day on the lake.

A “hatch” is not what comes after the chicken egg, and there is no “front” and “back” of a sailboat nor is there a “right or left” and “port” sadly not a reference to a fortified wine.

“Starboard” is not a term used by Captain James Kirk. “Winch” is not slang for wince and “Aft” is not slang for after. “22” is not a rifle, it is the length in feet of my sailboat. 

“Main” is not a street and the good ol’ “red, white and blue” is not a reference to the U.S. flag. It is the electrical schematics on my boat that I am determined to learn how to read and how to fix.

The “head” is not what is on my shoulders. It’s is the “go-to” for bathroom relief. Curtain please.

“Whisker pole” is not some guy’s beard hair glued to a cedar post and “tiller” is not a garden tool. “Tang” is not a drink; “pulpit” is not from whence the church minister gives his sermon. 

“Gooseneck” is not that which I would love to throttle for pooping in my farmyard and a “traveler” is not the guy on the highway looking to hitchhike. 

“Tell tales” are not the little children in your life who like to out their siblings for misbehaving. “Tang” is not a drink and “block” is not something even remotely related to me during those times when I can’t think of something to write about.

I wonder if chocolate is in the sailing supply manual?  It will be when I’m done.