Some days you know things are going to be just a little different.
Most of the time you end wishing you'd been smart enough to see it all coming and managed to stay in bed.
And isn't it funny, almost odd, how some days seem to get better as the wind pipes up.
+++++
So, let me begin at the end. Well, anyway, at an ending.
So. Once upon a time there was an old goat...
Well, that would be me, really.
Anyway. I'd retired the year before and moved aboard my boat; no one who knew me well was in the least bit surprised. Selling or simply getting rid of all the stuff I'd accumulated over twenty some-odd years was the hardest part of the exercise; as my son was graduating from college and had promised to move out as soon as the ink on his diploma was dry that part of the equation had been balanced out, too. Putting the house on the market kinda lit a fire under his ass, if you know what I mean. My Dad would have called it putting 'the fear of God' in him, but let's be clear about something right here and now -- God and I hadn't been getting along real well for quite some time. A couple of years, anyway.
Sorry. Didn't mean to get ahead of myself.
Well, really, there was one other major stumbling block. Her name was Scooter, 'though for most of her life I called her Fudge-butt, and she was the second love of my life. A Golden retriever, Scooter was one of those beings that confronted life simply and directly, with unconditional love. You could see it in her eyes, even when she was a pup. Her smile could light up the darkest heart, and often did. When we moved aboard she was ten, and when I took her with me I was motivated by the oldest emotion in the world: complete and total selfishness.
Arthritis hadn't yet settled in her hips, and her eyes were still warm and clear. She'd lived the good life, too: lots of humans to break-in and train, a wide range of slippers and shoes to chew on, and a pretty decent yard to chase cats in. What more could a dog want?
"The boat?" I could hear her say when I told her of my plans. "You mean that thing, uh, on the water? Who are you kidding?" But we'd been through quite a lot over the years; the outcome was never really in question. Not like life those last few years had been.
+++++
We left the Bay Area through the Golden Gate on a rainy day in May and turned south toward the sun, toward Mexico and the first leg of the so-called coconut run, the well-traveled passage from California to New Zealand via the Marquesas and Tahiti. The boat wasn't particularly big; at 38 feet she was roomy enough for two and positively huge for one, but she was beamy -- wide -- where it counted and heavier than hell -- which kept her motion in a seaway relatively comfortable. Comfortable, I should say, for me; I doubt Fudge-butt would have ever considered anything about the boat comfortable -- except perhaps getting off the thing and finding a nice patch of grass.
Our first stop was Santa Barbara, not a planned stop either but one of sheer physical necessity. Scooter had, after three days at sea, managed to poop just once and her spuds looked like a couple of raisins. There was no doubt in my mind: what she needed was grass, about ten acres of cool, green grass to roll around in. The fact of the matter was plain. As the municipal marina hove into view it was like Jesus had laid hands on the old girl; while I tied off the boat she flopped around like Regan in the Exorcist. I took along a 12 gallon trash bag and needed every cubic inch of the damn thing. I took pity on her and took a slip in the marina and we walked all over hell and gone -- up hills and through parks and down to rocky beaches -- and Fudge-butt crapped on each and every one of them. I had no idea any living thing could be so full of poop. After each and every dump she looked up at me like we'd just been through ten hours of labor pains together: there was relief in her eyes but I knew damn well she blamed me for her misery.
We left after a couple of days of serious walking and I have to tell you when I was casting off the lines I could see it in her eyes: she was measuring the distance between the deck and the dock and wondering if I'd give chase. She looked at me, then at a hillside of greenest grass not yet far away, then back at me again.
Like I said -- unconditional love. Comes up a winner every time.
The next day and a half was typical southern California weather: 68 degrees, clear skies, not a breath of wind to ruffle the sea. The surface looked a little like a pewter-colored mirror striated with loopy green strands of kelp. Every now and then a fin drifted by and Scoot stood and barked at each one; then a nice big one turned our way she promptly sat down and minded her business for a while. About four hours into our morning she ambled up on the foredeck and circled the astro-turf matt I had up there for just the occasion and she scrunched up and did her business. Maybe the shark scared her that bad. Anyway, I don't know who was happiest; I clapped and yoo-hooed and generally carried-on like a lunatic and Fudge-butt ran back to the cockpit and stood up on her hind-legs and licked my face for about an hour. Well, she got in a couple of really good lip-smackers, anyway.
When at sea I usually wear a hideous contraption called The Tilley Hat, a round, wide-brimmed affair made of white canvas and adorned with salty brass grommets; if you're a sailor you wear one -- no one else anywhere in the world (in their right mind) would dare put one on their head. Once so adorned one instantly looks like a seafaring version of your basic nerd, no pocket protector or slide rule needed. I mention my hat now with a smile: after Scooters first movement she settled down in the shade of the cockpit awning and took a nap. I settled in and adjusted the autopilot, took out a book and stretched my legs out in the sunlight. A few minutes later Fudge-butt sits up, she looks at my hat with her head cocked over to the side -- a look I well know is an expression of total confusion on her part. I feel a little pressure up there, too, and cast my eyes to my shadow.
And there it is.
A seagull, perhaps tired of the day's hunt, had spotted a nice round, white dry spot and taken right to it; it had either not seen the human attached to the hat, and the inattentive doormat curled up by its side, or the damn thing was suicidal. Whichever, now that Fudge-butt was giving the gull her fullest attention the thing was making like Carmen Miranda up there; I could see the bird's shadow bob and gyrate and I could feel her movement through the hat on this very bald spot I have on the top of my head -- and it was then that my dearest Fudge-butt decided to let one rip. It was one of those classic retriever barks, one loud enough to hear over twelve gauge fusillades on an autumn lake or a rather subdued fraternity party (!) at UCLA. The seagull, perhaps in jest, perhaps not, decided to let one rip as well. The sound it made before departing was, as I recall, something rather like a small, wet fart -- there followed an equally damp little plopping sound -- on the aforesaid mentioned bald spot. I seem to recall a feather floating down in front of my face before I reached up and lifted my fouled hat from my head.
Scooter looked away. There are some indignities in life that, when you think about it, brook no further comment.
+++++
We closed on the Malibu hills late the next morning and, still under power, slid between the breakwaters that funnel into Marina del Rey in time to secure a transient slip under the Helmsman statue at the tip of Chase Park. This was a good thing. The grass was, you see, quite green and inviting and, of more immediate consequence, close enough for one of us to smell.
I remembered that part of LA fondly; well, fondly enough to stay tied-up there a couple of days and walk down memory lane a few times. My wife and I met and dated not ten miles away and spent the first few years of our married life together in a little house off Venice Beach. The cool air and the warm light felt immediately familiar and intimate, like the way her hand used to feel in mine, they way I felt when I held her in my arms.
Scoot and I made off on our appointed rounds, we scooped the poop fantastic, then off we walked for a few hours of marketing and canine socializing. It became all too apparent right off that things had changed in LA-LA land over the intervening years: we moved away before "drive-bys" meant something other than being gunned down on your front porch and tabloid journalism turned rat-haired teen 'celebrities' into drug-crazed freaks crashing their latest autobahn cruiser into another parked car. The marina still felt like the marina, however; halyards clanging on masts and squawking seagulls providing the symphonic backdrop to an impressionist's canvas of rolling fog followed within minutes by shimmering, sun-dappled water. Scooter's grin was a mile wide even as she hopped back up onto her floating prison. I poached a couple of small salmon filets and even made a quiet hollandaise for the asparagus I steamed for dinner that night; we sat up in the cockpit after dinner and watched the setting sun.
That's when the real fun started.
When our lives were changed forever.
