After procuring the lines for Puffer, Beloved and I had to figure out how to rig a 34-year-old boat from scratch.  We didn't even know how to properly tie ANY sailing knots.  Thank God for Basic Keelboat and The Handbook of Sailing, from which we somehow learned how to tie a figure eight and a bowline knot and how to rig a 12-foot sailboat when all the lines were lying on the ground in loose circles.

It only took three hours.

Despite the fact I was wearing 50 sunscreen, I managed to earn myself a painful sunburn.  And a bunch of bug bites.

But the result...

I have not felt a greater sense of victory in a long time.

Seriously, it is about time. Memorial Day was 8,000 years ago, and my best friend got married over Memorial Day.  It was totally fun, but not the relaxing long weekend I'm hoping for with the 4th of July.  We're staying in town. We have few plans.  Bella is flopped on the carpet on her back, paws akimbo, just thinking about it.  I echo her sentiments.

My house is a mess and in serious need of dusting.  I have a huge deadline at work.  But all I want to do is put on my swimming suit and go sprawl in the sunshine with a nonreview paperback book.

We did go on Tuesday night to a new sailing shop in Merriam, Kansas and were able to procure REAL lines for Puffer the Sailboat.  While we were there, they insisted on showing us the new and used small boats of 14 to 16 feet (ours is 12, and it's as old as I am, which is so totally not old for a person).  I thought I saw a little bit of drool escaping Beloved's mouth as he tenderly patted the hulls in adoration.  I reminded him that though I took sailing lessons and learned on a J/30, that was in 1998.  I want to completely master sailing Puffer, not to mention pay off debt and finish remodeling Chateau Travolta, before we do something ridiculous like buy a sailboat.

Still, there was this t-shirt in the shop that I almost took home. I normally don't like cheesy motivational t-shirts, posters, or anything of the sort, so inundated am I in corporate America with all that crap (translation:  work really hard to make more money for us, and maybe we'll kick you an Applebee's gift card).  But this one said:

Sunday
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday

See?

There is no Someday.

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Review of new movie (not out yet) Sixty-Six at Surrender, Dorothy: Reviews.  Also!  Check out the Sleep Is for the Weak page at BlogHer with contributor bios!  And did you see the new event widget in the sidebar?  That's how you'll know who will be where signing books this fall. Come on out and see us.

This weekend after the little angel kicked some serious preschool ass at her dance recital, Beloved, she and I spent several hours cleaning up our 1974 AMF Puffer.

Source -- this is not my boat.  If you haven't noticed, I hate taking pictures.  But mine looks exactly like this one. 

The Puffer is 12 feet long, which is essentially like sailing your bathtub.  I can't WAIT to get it in the water.  We bought new sails for it last year, but we never got the chance to put it in the lake because we were, oh, moving, and painting every wall in our upstairs and stuff like that.  This is Puffer's year. I can feel it.  Even though you should never, never go to Bass Pro Shop and look for new sailboat lines, because they will look at you as if your lily sailboat ass has just ripped off their fishing/motorboat heads and shit down their throats.  Then they will point stupidly at utility rope and indicate you should cut your own.

To which you will respond by laughing at them and buying a jolly roger flag and a Diet Coke and storming huffily out of the establishment.

Ahoy!

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Writing about downsizing the family auto today at BlogHer.  And I promise I will get around to picking the Lee Jeans contest winner this week, but I was distracted because I've been buying books to sell at BlogHer, which is three weeks away.  Yikes!