how do I not have a boating icon?

[rivendellrose]

Dad's boat has been christened and launched. It's an all-wood, hand-made 17 foot rowboat right now, with plans to build mast and rudder for sailing later. Cream paint on most of the hull, mahogany trim. Smoothest, most beautiful row-boat ever - I managed to finagle two trips on it - the first, it's maiden voyage, with my dad and stepmom, and the second out again with my dad and The Boy, on which we tested for speed (impressively fast - the thing just glides, coasting along for quite a while on a single stroke) and stability (Dad was able to lean what looked like all his weight on one side, and it still had a good six-to-eight inches of clearance above the water). The boating bug is tickling at the back of my mind again - I hardly ever get out on the water nowadays, but as soon as I do something in the back of my head clicks into place, and I'm happy as can be.

Same thing with being out in the sticks (my dad's place now is even more rural than where I grew up), wandering aimlessly through the garden and enjoying being surrounded by trees. I love city living, and it's pretty much a necessity for me given how much I hate driving and how downright not-good-at-it I am (depth perception: it's a remarkably important part of driving, and I do not have it in the way people with normal eyes that work at the same time do).

But anyway, yes. Boat was lovely. Lake was lovely. Seeing Dad and grandparents was lovely (ha, Grandpa has read "Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell," as well as most of Bill Bryon's books - the older I get the more I wonder what the hell skipped a generation, popping over Dad's head straight from Grandpa to me). Seeing Dad's pastor and a friend of his from his church and their god-help-me-Stepford-Wives was less fun, but they were nice people, just... slightly unnerving, as were about half the conversations with Stepmom and Grandma. But hey. That's life.

Comments

[icepixie]

Jonathan Strange! Bill Bryson! I want to meet your grandfather now. :D

Eeeee, rural places. I want to live in one so much. Going to college in the middle of nowhere (600 people in town, an hour from the nearest medium-sized city) made me fall in love with cornfields, woods, and empty roads. If only a reasonable selection of employers were available in such places...

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

He's an awesome guy - very well-read and clever and nice, but, sadly, not very talkative. Half the time when we visit them the best I can get out of him is a brief period of questions about my company, half the answers to which I don't know because I'm not very knowledgeable about business stuff, and then he's off in the living room with my dad talking about the stock market and boats for the rest of the evening while I get stuck in the kitchen with my stepmom and grandma. I keep trying to corner him for more actual chatting about the stuff we keep discovering we have in common, but it's tough with how little I see them.

Eeeeeeeee. I grew up in... well, technically suburbs, but in reality pretty damned rural suburbs, and dad's new place that he moved to after I went away to college is even more rural - there's pastures of horses and things all over, and little development close by, and my grandparents live out in one of the few actual agricultural regions west of the mountains here. When I was a kid, I spent a lot of my time playing out in the woods behind our house, going hiking and stuff like that, so every now and then it just... kind of gnaws at me that I spend my life in the city now. I miss trees and brush and having a lot of space away from people. As you said, though, the jobs are in the city...

Your college sounds absolutely amazing - I've never lived anywhere that small, we've always just been sort of out from the center of town (and I get the impression that the west coast is really different about that kind of thing than the rest of the country, although I could be wrong about that?).

[icepixie]

He's an awesome guy - very well-read and clever and nice, but, sadly, not very talkative.

Aw, too bad. I have an uncle who's kind of the opposite--he's an English prof, so we had plenty to talk about when I was in grad school especially, but he doesn't really let anyone get a word in edgewise.

I grew up in...well, anywhere else it probably would be considered a suburb, but Nashville is a.) not as big as Seattle, and b.) has a city/county metro government, so it was part of the city. About twenty minutes from downtown, but everyone had a yard, there were big parks with woods nearby, etc. So I like to be ensconced in greenery, and uuuuugh, I hate being surrounded by people. When I spent my junior year in England, that was the one thing that bugged me most--and I was studying in a small city of about 100,000 people. Like, I would go for a walk near a pasture, and think, "Ah, solitude! Peace and quiet!" only to turn a corner of the hedgerow and run into someone on their damn cell phone. GRRRR.

and I get the impression that the west coast is really different about that kind of thing than the rest of the country, although I could be wrong about that?

Hmmmm...not totally sure what you mean. The west coast doesn't have tiny towns in the middle of nowhere?

Being in a town as small as Gambier was awesome, even if it did mean that pretty much anything beyond basic groceries required a shuttle trip to the town of 15,000 about ten minutes away. (Which...is about the distance I go for groceries now, so hey.) But basically I have the convenience of being able to walk to everything in town, plus the emptiness of the woods and cornfields and whatnot around campus. The college kind of surrounded the town, which was pretty much one street with a post office, deli, market, and hairdresser. Plus the Amish who liked to set up shop on the gravel path going through the middle of town/campus on nice days. (And have horse-drawn carriage drag races down the main street...)

[narsilion.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you had so much fun on the boat today (jealous as crazy though, miss boating like crazy!)
Too bad the weather wasn't as nice as it could have been.

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

It actually didn't start raining til we'd already left their house, so it was perfect. Chilly and grey, but no rain. I'll try to get some pictures of the boat up later on. :)

[narsilion.livejournal.com]

I would love to see the pictures. Also, you and Grandpa have always seemed to have more in common than your Dad and his Dad. Very similar tastes in a lot of things it seems.