Way Too Much Drama For This Boy

             All in all it has been a fairly cool summer for Alabama. At 7:00 a.m. today the temperature was 75°.  I honestly don’t think I have had the central air turned on at all this July. The doors and windows are all open with the fans all going circulating that nice cool morning air. This is about my favourite time of day. It is just spitting a bit of rain. That pretty much rules out doing any painting. It is going to take forever for the wood to dry out.

We rowed the 4+ Saturday morning. It was a fairly frustrating row. Laurie and I were in stern, with two newbies in the bow. The rower in the bow seat (starboard side) was pretty good. However, the rower in 2 seat on the port side was almost non existent. We were forced to row pairs. Whenever 2 seat was paired up the boat wanted to go in circles. She had no strength. We were lucky in there was no barge traffic as it was impossible to keep a point. We were all over the river. When Laurie and I were paired up we gave it Hell to be able to feel the boat run as it should.

After the row I did a quick clean up and met Graham, his partner, and a friend at Another Broken Egg for breakfast. I have not been here since that one other time we treated Jason back in the spring. The food here is very rich. I ended up getting regular hotcakes. I almost got the sweet potato pancake, thinking it would be like German potato ones. I was warned by our waiter they are VERY sweet. I passed.

I had the guys laughing telling stories about my crazy life. The nicest waitress approached me and asked if I was wearing a Utilikilt! The guys at the table dropped their jaws and some heads turned as I stood up and showed off all the features of my Utilikilt. This waitress was saying how she and her boyfriend who is now out of town were discussing him getting one. I explained how they can be hard to fit. She said her boyfriend is just a bit smaller then me. I gave her my name and number and told her they could stop over to my house anytime and he can try on one of my Utilikilts to get a feel on what the experience is like. She was thrilled. I explained to her how I get to meet the nicest people wearing my Utilikilt. I think she understood.

Gary was in town to get his house ready to rent out. Larry flew in for the weekend. Larry drives me crazy, but he and Gary have been a team for a long time. Paul, Em, Mike and I were all over for supper at Gary’s Saturday night. I abhor drama and conflict, especially when it is caused by negligence and stupidity.

For this to make any kind of sense I’ll just use bullets.

·         The NYC Condo is in Larry’s name. He wants to get Gary’s name on the deed.

·         According to the condo association the only way that can occur is if Larry and Gary are either married or have a civil union.

·         They go to city hall to file for a domestic partnership. That should be simple enough….. HA!!!

·         The red flags pop up in that Larry was never legally divorced from his wife some 45 years ago. There was legal separation. Larry was under the impression that after two years that matured into a legal divorce.

·         This ex-wife of Larrys has had multiple marriages since that separation.

<!–[if

!supportLists]–>·         According to Larry he is now afraid this ex-wife will swoop in and destroy his life and demand 45 years of child support, etc, etc, etc….

·         The entire affair is a mess and everyone (except me) was saying what should be done. It got louder and louder and louder.

·         I dropped to the floor, curled up in the fetal position, and covered my ears, and lowly moaned, “Please stop, I can’t take anymore!!!” This is a classic “Catch 22” situation that needs a good expensive lawyer to figure out. Larry is cheap on the important stuff like this.

·         Mercifully Em changed the subject and it got to be time to eat.

I have been plagued with ants. They are called “sugar ants” who forage into the house looking for food. There was a trail of them coming in from the front porch into the kitchen to the cats food bowls. Em told me there is a product that you leave out which the ants eat, take back to the nest and then die which will eventually wipe out the colony.

Sunday morning I researched on line and discovered this stuff is called “Terro”. What happens next is just one example of why I so like the internets. I pulled up the Homo Depot site for this product. It showed there were 12 bottles of Terro at the Tuscaloosa location.

I drove over to the store early and there was a clerk in the garden aisle. He asked what I needed and I said to him I was looking for Terro to kill ants. “It comes in a little bottle” I explained. Once again I get the bewildered look like I’m from Mars. This man had no earthly conception what I was talking about. I also explained it was in stock according to the web site.

He walks me out to the where the plants all are and shows me bags of fire ant killer. No… I went back to the shelves and found the stuff right away. Oh… my nerves.

I wanted to also get a Sunday paper. Target is right nearby so I stopped in there. Splurged and got box of four assorted muffins. No, they do not carry the Tuscaloosa News. On the way home I got the last paper from the newsbox in front of 15th Street Diner.

Back home I got to work on the brickwork. I want to get this wrapped up at the ½ way point as I’m on the road Thursday to the next brick swap in Athens, Ohio.

Work in progress:

At 3:00 I checked the rowing schedule and saw we had an 8+ going out and I’ll be the cox. I went to make sure the cox box was charged and could not find it. There are some three spots it would normally be:

1.      On the kitchen counter

2.      Hanging off the “master dini

ng room chair” (That is the chair with arms)

3.      On the seat of the opposing dining room chair

It was nowhere to be found. I ran out to the truck and searched it. Nada. I reached back into my mind to reconstruct leaving the row Saturday morning. I flew over to the boathouse to see if it was left behind. We had our other cox box stolen: if this one is also gone we are up s—t creek. It was not at the boathouse.

I borrowed a cox box from the boys team so we would have one for the row. Back home my stomach was churning as I futilely searched for the now official “missing in action” cox box. These things run some $650.00 complete.

We took out the 8+ at 5:30. It gets me so frustrated in how to most of these people rowing is a social thing. They take forever to get the foot stretchers adjusted and set. Finally we shove off from the dock and I ask for strokes from 2 seat to get us turned. I heard a yelp from the bow four. I quick gave the order to “weigh off” which means to put blade flat on the water. One of the rowers did not have her oar locked into the oarlock properly. The oar collar was on the wrong side.

I’m not a good instructor. At the factory I was always able to get out of this chore saying I was left handed and it was pretty much impossible for me to show a right handed person how to do the job properly! When I’m coaching, I try to remember back to how confused I was at the beginning. I try to to spell out exactly what and how we will be performing our drills. I know there is a lot being thrown at the new rowers and my expectations are not high, but after countless explanations of being “at the catch” or “at the release” to have these people still not have a clue for these simple basics is maddening.

It always seems the most inexperienced rowers are in the bow. I tell them to observe the stern rowers when we do drills and it will make things so much easier for them. We always drill the stern rowers first.

I did see a little bit of improvement, but not much. I get so frustrated. The bulk of these people just want to go out and paddle around and sightsee on the river. I feel like it is such a waste of time and effort to coach them. The wind picked up and started to blow us all over the river. When the new rowers were at the oars we didn’t have any power to push the boat through the water on any kind of a course.

I did my best to keep the panic out of my voice, but it was hairy when on the way back we were being blown into shore and my starboard rowers instead of giving me the full pressure I needed and called for just missed strokes and caught crabs. I had to call on my stern four to save the day.

For the entire row, in the background of my mind was the lost/stolen cox box. Now I was thinking it was stolen from my truck when I stopped at Food World on the way Gary’s to get him mustard.

We safely docked and got the boat put away. I try to interact with the new people as much as possible to encourage them. I returned the borrowed cox box to the locked A&C building and drove home.

I was so mentally worn out from the frustrating row and knowing somehow I’m responsible for a lost cox box.

I set out more ant bait outside on my porch steps and put some left over Progresso Clam Chowder on a low flame to heat up.

The outside ant baits had pretty much stopped the traffic of the pests to the inside of the house. Picking up one of the baits in the dining room I looked over into the corner and saw the black carrier for the cox box on its side, wedged into the corner behind the swinging door.

The cox box hanging off one of the dining room chairs:

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A wave of relief flooded over me. Once I saw it in that position, I remembered that damn thing falling off the dining room chair and I was in too much of a hurry to pick it up. It was like a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders. I went to sleep relaxed and in a good frame of mind….

The day looks like it will be cloudy with bits of rain. I’m feeling so at peace with the “found” cox box and the brick project progressing. Dagney is in her favourite spot in the back hallway catching the breeze. All is well with my world. Time to post this and get to work…..

Little Daggy has the right idea!