All Good Things

It's been a quiet week in Belmont Harbor.

The end of the season is near. Sailors sadly come to the docks now, hauling their last crates for the last trip of the season - bound for dry-dock.


Mark and I are contemplating the end, too.

Last week, Mark accepted a faculty position at the University of Minnesota Duluth. He is set to start in January. And while Duluth sits right on lovely Lake Superior, it's impossible for us to live on Mazurka in a city that spends eight months of the year in winter's ice cold grip.

The honeymoon is over; we are moving to land.

This is pretty exciting news for us for lots of reasons - northern Minnesota is gorgeous, we love winter sports, this position is Mark's dream job, and there's an almost-endless frontier to explore.

For months we have been contemplating what to do with Mazurka if we moved to Duluth. It's still not entirely clear. But while we had been thinking for sure that we would have to sell her, now we are considering taking her with us - making the great trip from Chicago up the western shore of Lake Michigan, through the Straits of Mackinac, skipping through the top of Lake Huron, and coasting along the southern shore of Lake Superior. This will be a hell of a trip.

And it will have to wait until next summer.

Our plan for now is to stay in Belmont Harbor until November 15, spend a month on the wall at River City, and then haul Mazurka out during the uncertain cold of mid-December. Our much-loved home will spend the winter in dry-dock while we head north to a home on Garrison Keillor's land. And next summer? We'll see what happens....

Wabbit Hunting?

Or gearing up for the Flatwater Classic?

Early Sunday morning, we took Mazurka and the Lil Choppin for our annual volunteer work as safety boats in the canoe race down the Chicago River, run by Friends of The River.

It's a fun event - if you think fun is getting up at 6 AM on a Sunday morning, heading to the heavy traffic areas of the Chicago River, and staying steady for nearly five hours while trying to keep canoers and kayakers to the west wall so they don't get run over by tour boats; if you think fun is being ignored by these canoers and kayakers who sometimes yell at you for getting in their way; if you think fun is getting stuck in the pouring rain. (Here are Mark, Tony, and Rick yelling through a megaphone: "Stay to the West Wall!")


It's really super fun if you like small spaces. Then the Lil Choppin is for you, where you can motor up and down the river in a cramped Zodiac raft for five hours, eating Doritos and peanuts and little gem donuts and telling off-color jokes. After about four hours the rain starts and you get slap happy and start rowing forward while trying to remember all the words to the Muppet Show theme song. Nothing like a litany of Helen Keller jokes to make an hour of cold rain fly by. Thanks, Carl.

Actually, it was a lot of fun. Especially if you have a great crew, which we did.


Best costume in this year's event: the viking in the bow asked, "Which way to the Ikea?"

It Was Bound to Happen

This evening, about twenty minutes before Mark and I are set to leave for opening night of the Chicago Art Open, I go on deck to look for Leo. He's only been out a few minutes. Leo is agile, strong, a good jumper, and can maneuver his way pretty well around the dock. And he always returns to the boat when I call him.

When I go outside and call his name, he yowls in return. I call again; he yowls again. Something is wrong. Inside, his brother Hunter starts crying and howling. I go searching down one of the docks and it sounds like Leo is howling from right under me. I lay down flat on the dock and peer underneath; I see his wet tail. I stretch my neck a little further and see him: he's standing, soaking wet, on one of the floats under the dock. He has somehow fallen in, swam under the dock, and climbed to a perch beneath the dock.

Now comes the impossible task of getting him out of there. He's right under the dock, and the only way back to land is through the water. He's not coming willingly. So I jump in, reach under the dock, and pull him out by the scruff of the neck. He claws his way up my shoulders and Mark pulls him out.


He then proceeds to run to the boat and hide where he feels safe: the litter box. We now have a soaking wet long-haired cat with clay clumped in his paws and hair, tracking wet litter all over the boat. A quick shower, and his brother Hunter to help clean him up, and he's good as new.

I'm not really buying this whole Turkish-Vans-love-water stereotype. They've both fallen in; neither of them is eager to go back anytime soon.