By one of those strange paradoxes, the best sailing days are often those very exact days that nobody goes to their boats.

Saturday, for example. The only people on the whole of E-dock were Joe and Phyllis (who is generally called "Audrey" by her family, for reasons which remain at large), Dave and Roseann, and myself. Joe was telling me about some cruise he had been on, possibly on Friday?- I didn't catch quite when- about how they were just flying along and how it just felt like they were floating.

"Good" I says, "You should always feel like you're floating, you know, when you're on your boat."

Dave, who for some reason had stuck his head up through his hatch at this exact moment, caught the exchange, said "Yeah, you don't want to get that sinking feeling, ha ha" and disappeared back down into his hatch.

Joe looked mildly irritated, but merely said "Yeah ,well, we're going out for a sail here in a little bit... Wanna come?"

"Thanks Joe, but I think I'm going to take my boat out."

There was such a nice breeze, fifteen, twenty or so out of the north-east, that it would have been positively criminal to have a sailboat and not go sailing. Joe, evidently of the same opinion, shoved off with Phyllis/Audrey to go sailing. Soon afterwards, I was shoving off myself to do a little singlehanded sailing. First stop: the fuel dock, to get a pumpout. As I'm there, who motors by but Steve in the Blue Dragon!

"Huw! Jump aboard! Give me a hand docking, will ya!"

He swings right by the end of the dock and I hop on- Steve has just come from Kelleys, five and a half hours on the water. "Steve! after we dock your boat, why don't you come out on mine?"

"Aw jeeze, you know I'd love to, but I've just been out for five and a half hours... there's five foot waves... I'm kinda beat..."

"Steve.... ?"

"Oh all right, I'll come."

Back at Old Alt on the fuel dock, Steve borrowed my cell phone to tell Marianne that he'd be late. It started to rain. "Oh and honey, can your bring me some dry shoes when you come?"

The rain didn't last long before it kind of petered out into a misty drizzle, but it was enough to send Joe scurrying back in. As he passed the fuel dock we hollered out "What's it like out there?!", but if Joe said anything back it was lost under the throb of the diesels. Although I think I saw him give the "thumbs-down" sign.

When we got out there, the drizzle past over fairly quickly, and we were left with the delightful breeze and the splendid waves. They were every bit of the five footers Steve had warned of, but this sort of weather is specifically made to order for Cape Dories. We simply crashed through the larger waves, sending jets of spray twenty foot to leeward, but remarkably little came back aft: Old Alt is a singularly well-mannered boat. With the genny furled, just main and staysail flying, the sails are self-tacking, so all you have to do is steer. So simple even I can do it! Along we flew, doing high fives and low sixes. "You know, Huw, I'm sure glad you talked me into this!" There is nothing better than Autumn sailing; you're not broiling under the hot sun, the flies are gone, the winds are generally perky, and also the flies are gone. You have that bittersweet tinge that this might be the last perfect weekend of the season, you might not even get the chance to sail again till spring.

Coming back to the dock, Joe and Phyllis were waiting to give us a hand docking. People are always like that here, always ready to give you a hand, although I think that in some cases its only to watch the fun as some incompetent comes barrelling in, screaming at his wife, and desperately trying not to cause too much damage.

Another sailing paradox is that the skill with which you dock your boat is inversely proportional to the number of onlookers. You bring it in perfectly, there's never anyone there to witness it. You make a hash of it, there's always a crowd on hand gawking and guffawing. So with Joe, Phyllis AND Steve about, I felt kind of nervous. The odds were not in my favour.

But in spite of it all, Old Alt came in perfectly- despite the wind, she came in so softly, you could have had laid an egg alongside the rail and it wouldn't have cracked against the dock. It would have fallen into the lake of course, but it wouldn't have cracked.

In what passes all belief, I actually received a letter today from Clement W. Pyles, Attorney-at-Law, containing an actual check from my Crazy Ex Landlord! Staggeringly, it didn't even seem to be written with exploding ink or be sprinkled with anthrax spores or anything! Granted, the check still has to clear the bean-counters at the bank before I can consider the case officially closed- and I wouldn't put it past Isabella to pull some sort of deranged last minute stunt- but it appears that I am finally done with my C.X.L. and all her attendant lunacy, a mere 183 days after I won my judgment, 543 days after I left that apartment!

For reasons best known to Isabella, she actually wrote the check for a full twenty seven dollars above the agreed sum, although I'm guessing that whatever those reasons are, they probably have something to do with the vast raging gulf of insanity between her ears.

She also got the date wrong.


Naturally, with all those long-anticipated simoleons rattling around the old banco accounto, I felt somewhat indulgent coming home from work. I stopped by Target (it sounds classier if you give it a French pronunciation: tar-JAY) and I must admit I went a little bit overboard- I got a box of Hello Kitty (R) bandaids, on Clearance for only $2.48! You just know a boo-boo has to get better that much quicker if you give it a Hello Kitty (R) bandaid... This only stands to reason.

Well that was a fine weekend, I must say.

The folks opted out- what with their electricity still being out- although personally I should have thought that if your electricity goes out (and this means that your TV goes out too, remember) you'd say "The heck with this!", lock up the old homestead and head for greener pastures. Possibly the folks have grown fond of sitting around in candlelight and staring at each other?

I should point out that some freak wind-storm blew through town last weekend, and knocked out power to at least twelve people I know, and also at work. The newspapers suggested that more people- possibly even a couple hundred thousand or so- also lost power, although myself I can't vouch for the veracity of that report. Turns out that Hurricane Ike struck Galveston TX or some shit, thereby knocking out power to Central Ohio.

Anyways, Myfanwi and I set sail Friday in the a.m. to sail to Middle Bass. We had a delightful wind for the first hour and a half or so, zipping along at six and a half knots. Sadly, we began to lose our wind, going slower and slower, till finally we had nothing left but slapping sails and banging spars. You can't get anywhere going 1.2 knots. We had to start the engine. And motor we did- I've never once been able to go all the way to the islands and back under sail alone, a fact which is sufficient by itself to disprove Leibniz' proposition that this is the best of all possible worlds.

We got to Burgundy Bay about four thirty or so, or sixteen thirty or so I should say- what a delightful little marina! Only about 30 boats or so, but how exquisitely charming! I tell Bob (the proprietor) as much, adding as how I'd never even so much as heard of the place before. "Well, you know, this is a private club.... We don't allow transients in... if it wasn't that you were here visiting the Rotheys, we wouldn't allow you in..." The dockage fee was a preposterously small $20.

Speaking of the Rotheys, Scott showed up shortly afterwards- he had seen us come in, and indeed had been jumping up and down on the shore. Myfanwi and I had confessed to each other that we were both secretly afraid that meeting the Rotheys might prove to be awkward, as neither of us had seen them in thirty years and although they had been a fixture in our childhood they were really our parents' friends, not ours. But Scott quickly dispelled such fears. My goodness, it's pretty clear why the folks liked the Rotheys. They are eminently likeable people.

Scott took us back to his place, an unbelievably beautiful cottage right on the lake, with views of Rattlesnake Island and Sugar Island. Martie showed up about then, and I even recognized her from my childhood! We had a fabulous dinner watching the sun set over the lake and talking about the half-forgotten figures of my past, Davey Bruck, Brian Sekora (with his gold tooth), the Trices, Pooftah, all the rest. The weather, apart from the lack of wind, was ideal. I wish my parents could have been there.

The way back was again plagued with windlessness. We left Saturday in the pm and motored to Huron, the first time I've ever come into a strange harbour after dark. The people in Huron proved to be snooty- no problem, fuck them, we're off bright and early. About Vermillion the breeze picked up, we spoke, we saw Capt. Rob, and we flew eastwards. We got home in time for me to drive Myfanwi to the airport in time.

It turns out that I am from the future.

We had been making plans for ages that we were going to sail out to Middle Bass Island, me and my sister, where my folks' longtime friends the Rotheys (Scott and Martie) have some sort of house, cottage or domicile, and the folks were going to take a ferry up (they not relishing the idea of sailing six hours) and we were all going to have a nice jolly time of it. THAT WAS THE PLAN. Myfanwi was going to fly into Cleveland Hopkins on Thurs., at 7:30.

"So, ya gonna be there to pick me up? ... I'll be there at 7:30 ... " And I'm all like "7:30? Jeez, I don't know... by the time I get off work .... jeez I don't know ..." I mean, I gotta work, if I'm taking Friday off. So she's saying all this noise like "what, I got ta sit around Cleveland doing nothing? Sheee-oot! Why don't you just leave work early... Shit!..."

So I'm all "Jeez, look, I'll be there when I get there" (an answer that, all things considered, didn't really seem to suit Myfanwi, if her audible "Snoot!" was anything to go by) but then I proceeded to bust my ass! I worked like ten demons to get all my shit taken care of at work! I'm telling you, I was like some kind of goddam machine! I would be there- waiting for her- if it was the last thing i ever did!

So- all my job-related-tasks all well in hand, I went 'round to the folks to get my car. "got to drive up there RIGHT now!" I says, "can't let our little princess wait...", unnecessarily sarcastically. My Dad looked at me with that querulous, bemused expression that he often has when he has no idea what the hell nonsense it is I'm talking about. "'Our little princess'?" It's true I've never referred to my sister in such terms before. "Well" I say, to change the subject, "so, when are you driving up? Tomorrow?"

Sadly, this befuddles poor old Pops even more. "Driving up? Up to where?" He really seems to have no idea, poor guy. I sigh, and patiently remind him that we are all going up to meet the Rothey's. "What? Are you taking a whole week off?" he replies, exasperatingly. How can he be so out of touch! I mean, seriously! "No, Dad... We've had this planned for ages... Go up to the Rothey's... you remember..." I don't even know what to say...

"What? Up to the Rothey's? No..." he tells me, "No, I think that's planned for next week."

I didn't believe him at first of course, but all the ancillary evidence comes thudding home! Like when I spoke to Rapid, saying how it was now almost three weeks since the C.X.L. had settled, but I still hadn't got a check and Rapid was all "Three weeks? Hmm, I thought it was only two?" And like when I called Scott Rothey to confirm our plans, and told him that the weather forecast didn't look so good for next weekend, and Scott was all "Oh, okay, hmm.. okay", as though he was too polite too suggest that next weekend's forecast was rather irrelevant to our plans for the weekend after?

It was difficult to believe at first, of course, but now I clearly see that lately I have been living in the future. One week in the future, to be exact. Either that, or I'm some damn kind of moron.

There is no other explanation that makes any sense.

I don't regret being from the future, but I can't help but think that it would have been nice if I could have thought about writing down next week's winning Lottery number.