An underreported benefit of temporary homeschooling: combining art and gym class.

Many years ago I bumped into a manatee with a sailboat keel (no propeller). I thought I had hit bottom. I don’t believe I injured the manatee, but I’ll never forget the look on its face.

I’ve always felt bad about it, so today I came to apologize. There were over 350 manatees here, but I’m pretty certain it was the one near the center of the photo (that haunting face).

Afterward, it was off to lunch in the old southern town of Deland, FL. What kind of sandwich does one have on Manatee Day? I dare not say.

Since I have recently reclassified myself as semi-retired (from my painting day-job anyway), I have devoted most of the newly “freed up” time to writing. This helps keep me out of the poolhalls and saloons and, frankly, I do not see true retirement in the cards anyway. As Warren Zevon stated in song, “I’ll sleep when I’m dead.” But in truth, I have been fortunate to have had my hobbies and vocations as one-in-the-same, so I really have nothing to retire from anyway.

Besides, my momma didn’t raise no slacker. My first book, Searching for Alpha Centauri in a ’64 Chevy, has already been published. The second, Sometimes It Feels Like Far, is well underway with its rough draft recently completed. I hope to have it available by December 2019. And I have just created the outline for my third book, The Improbable Sea Dogs of St. Croix North. I consider this a personal milestone of sorts since this is akin to having poured the concrete footings from which I will build. So I have “broke ground” on book #3, so to speak.

 

For me, this is what going all out for Christmas looks like. I may be raising the bar too high for the neighbors, though.

Actually, we have no snow. This is last year’s photo. I guess that you could say I am using “fake snow” to fit the seasonal narrative I am trying to peddle.

Crisp, cool, damp mornings on the water are making us think that summer is not for long.

The mountains are starting to get that cloud-clad “northwesty” look again. Most of the tourists are long gone. And the osprey left town a few days ago.

For all of us dwellers of the higher latitudes, summer blows through all too fast.