Captains Log 12/19/19, Christmas is Coming!
This blog is about living aboard a boat in the Pacific Northwest and snow-birding to Arizona while training an artificial intelligent mental health virtual assistant named Rubi ready to provide support in the traumatic aftermath of COVID-19.
Christmas is coming and there is a mess everywhere! There is a mess everywhere in the streets as people flood the shopping malls and delivery drivers frantically deliver packages from online deliveries to get the packages out. I went to get the mail at my private mailbox and saw that I got a notice from Amazon that my two big bags of dog food were in along with my honey baked ham and carrot cake for Christmas dinner. I went to the office late in the day and if I had come an hour earlier, the clerk said they wouldn’t have had everything sorted yet, so I was lucky to get my packages the same day they were delivered. The little delivery center was overwhelmed by all the online packages being delivered and waiting for pick up for the Christmas holiday. Consumerism was indeed making a mess and there was also a mess everywhere on the boat.
I had taken the chest fridge to the Seattle repair shop two hours away just the other week, so when the built-in upright fridge failed, we were left without refrigeration on the boat. Borrowed coolers from Ron in addition to our big cooler were cluttering the back deck. I had picked up a propane fireplace when I dropped off the chest fridge in Seattle and James was home installing it.
He had to sort through all the wiring in the column next to the dash that went through from the flybridge to the bilge to make room to run a propane line. It was packed full and most of the wiring wasn’t being used as he had removed many of the old outdated systems including the old radar. But none of the wires were labelled or color coded and he accidently clipped the wire to the bilge pump but managed to rewire it before we left for the day.
It was windy as hell and getting colder. I was helping James run wires as it was a two-person job to tug on the wire and see what wire was what from up top to down below. Our two-way headset radios that we called, “Marriage Savers” were broken, so we were yelling at each other over the howling wind and the clanking lines of nearby sailboat rigging. I was grumpy from yelling, dealing with ice in three coolers and not being able to make my normal things with the limited space for food.
Tom, the canvas guy wasn’t yet done with the canvas and when I left the carrot cake on the back deck in its insulated delivery cooler, the wind made the lid go flying. Luckily, I caught it before it hit the water. I was feeling a bit overwhelmed that I was avoiding the holiday shopping spree and instead chose a more practical lifestyle, but now the elements were intruding on my creature comforts. The mess of tools and spools of wiring were also cramping the space. I was proud of myself for being aware of my discomfort and me reasoning through the situation with confident consciousness rather than taking it out on James.