Its always painful, of course, to pack up the boat for the year. This year was no exception. Indeed, this time was more painful than most, on account of the fact that I somehow managed to sprain my ankle but good, as a consequence of jumping off the boat.

By Sunday in the a.m. my foot was all swolled up like some damn Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade float in some damn Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade... the toes sticking out like some sort of afterthought... but in and of itself an over-inflated foot isn't really all that comical (despite looking kind of like Popeye's forearm, which is sort of comical)- so I'm somewhat mystified as to why Rob and Steve got such a kick* out of my foot.

"Ha! Ha! Ha!" says Rob. "I know it's not funny... but... it's PRETTY DAMN FUNNY!" Of all the people I know, Rob derives by far the most merriment from the misfortunes of others. Possibly not incoincidentally, Rob is also one of the most generally cheerful guys I know. This particular Sunday we had gone out to breakfast at the New York Grill (the finest breakfast joint in Lorain, Ohio- although that's not saying much- I give it two thumbs!) They offered to help me try and tarp up the boat but I'm all "ah the Hell with that... I'm just gonna go home... oh ow, oh damn my foot hurts..."

"Ha! ha! ha!" Rob says again.

Home, of course, is a total disaster right now: sailbags stacked everywhere, piles of lines: sheets, halliards, outhauls, downhauls, reefing lines, docklines; bags and boxes and buckets everywhere all over the place, crammed with all sorts of gear, gadgets, geegaws and gizmos... not to mention doo-dads ... I pretty much managed to wrestle most of the stuff out of the car, but I'll be damned if I'm gonna shlep all that crap down into the basement with a bum ankle! Screw that! what I ought to do is just move somewhere in the middle of the night and not leave a forwarding address. Yeah, I'd do it, too, alright, if only walking wasn't such a pain.

It's pretty cool how my foot's been turning all these sweet colors- mostly red, of course, but huge swaths of purple and blue and all kind of shades in between. I have a sunset on my foot. The thing to do, see, is get all hepped up on leftover Vicodins and just kind of groove out on all the pretty colors. It's a pretty good deal!

* sorry.

The Great Crash of 2008.

As is so often the case at night, it was dark out. Matter of fact, it was real dark. It was so dark I couldn't hardly see nothing at all. I certainly couldn't see that other dude until he was, like, ten feet in front of me. I don't know if it was me or him that hollered "WHOOOOAHHHHH!" (I'm pretty sure one of us did) then: kapow! The very next thing I knew I was on the ground looking up at the stars, both those in the skies and those in my eyes. If I was a cartoon character, I'll bet I would have had those little cartoon birds circling my noggin!

I've never even heard of a head-on collision between two cyclists before. I'd always just kind of assumed it was cars that I had to worry about.

I hadn't been going all too fast, what with not being able to see where I was going and all, but that other dude must have been seriously moving, because he slammed into me so hard my tail-light broke clean off. My front wheel was all bent to hell, but the other dude's wheel was knocked right out of the forks. So, clearly, I won the crash.

I don't know how it was possible that neither of us got really hurt but somehow that seemed to be the case.

The other dude was surprisingly cool about the whole thing. We inquired civilly about each other's well-being, and felt around the bike trail for any missing body parts. Some other guy, who evidently likes to hang out all by himself by the bike trail after dark, came running up to see if we were okay, and very decently offered a ride home. As myself I prefer not to accept rides from dudes who hang out by themselves by bike paths after dark, I politely declined his offer and, after shaking the last lingering stars out of my head, I set off pushing my poor bike back the way I'd come from, back to my parents' house.

In the morning's light I could better inspect the damage. I ended up having to buy a whole new front wheel- the old one was just too mangled, with a big old dent in the rim, and my bike helmet is now spiderwebbed with a network of cracks. Better that than my head I guess. And what's more I even decided to spring for a headlight this time.

My shoulders and neck are all kinds of sore today.

Ever had some giant monkey mistake you for a Rubik's cube, and try to solve you? That's how I feel today.

So, to reprise a semi-occasional topic that semi-occasionally appears in this space: What I got In The Mail Today.

Gold.

Ha ha, yes! I bought some real mail order Gold. This is because lately all my investments have turned out to be crap. Stocks, of course, are in the crapper these days, and as savings accounts don't pay a rate of interest equal to the rate of inflation, savings accounts are a losing proposition. Their only (and somewhat dubious) claim-to-fame is that they don't lose money quite so spectacularly rapidly as do stock funds these days. What's a guy to do! Obviously, what a guy should do is emulate my personal financial guru, Scrooge McDuck, and obtain a swimming pool full of gold coins in which to do high-dives. Doubloons! Pieces of Eight! Arr, matey, there's romance in them there gold!

Now I, too, can sit there like Midas counting my gold coins. "One... Two... Three.." I'll say, and then I'll start again: "One... Two... Three..." This is because I only have three gold coins. That was all I could afford.

Fun as counting to three is, sooner or later the best thing to do with Gold is stash it somewhere, and hope you remember later where you stashed it.* I stashed mine in the sugar jar. I stashed my in the flour bin. I know it'll be safe there! Who would look in a flour bin for Gold? Seriously though it is not in the sugar jar. That was a typo. Seriously though just stay the fuck away from my sugar jar, okay? Thanks.

*Did you ever find a twenty that you stashed a decade ago, maybe in like a book or something, a book that you never read, and you've totally forgotten about stashing the twenty, and then for some reason one day you pick up the book and there it is? Isn't that so totally sweet? Isn't the joy of finding a forgotten twenty far far greater than that pain (which you never felt anyway) of forgetting about stashing the twenty in the first place? Maybe I'll just scatter my gold about in random hidey-holes around the house and forget about it. Just think about how happy I'll be when I'm, like, eighty six or some shit, and find a gold coin in the heating register!