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.