GroupWBench

For many sailors, the end of summer means the end of sailing. They pull their boats out of the water and wrap them in plastic. Here in Texas, the end of summer is the start of the good sailing. The wind comes in and the temps drop off. No more baking to a crisp as you bob around a windless lake. The number of motorboaters and zippy-do jet skis dwindles. It is the perfect time to go out and sail with friends.

We did just that with Patti and Dwight and had a great day sailing up and down the lake in our new (but mostly still unnamed boat aka MSUB). Ivy had the camera and managed to not be in any pictures.

The week before that sail, Ivy and I took MSUB out by ourselves and had a very relaxed afternoon learning the boat. It handles very differently than little Wee Bit. We are getting more and more comfortable with things and are enjoying MSUB very much.

As I said, the boat isn't fully named yet. We've selected a name, which in my mind pretty much ends it. But there are some details yet to do. First, we need to order and apply the vinyl decals with the name. Next, there is also a lot of ceremonial stuff sailors feel they have to do in order to rename a boat. I'm not sure if it includes chicken sacrifices under a full moon, but wouldn't that make it interesting? Ivy has taken charge of the ceremonial denaming/renaming process since I am mostly a curmudgeon and would just not do it in order to poke a thumb in the eye of ritual. However, ceremonies are important to her, and I (usually) know when to salute the flag and march in step.

In other news, Hollywood has reached in and grabbed Sophia and Julian by the imagination.

They like being box trolls now. While I'm not really sure what that means, they clearly are having fun with it. Selene and Leo are getting ready to take the kids on an RV trip to the Grand Canyon with his folks. I gotta say the first thing that popped into my head was the Griswolds heading to Wally World. Then I remembered the slapstick Robin Williams movie RV. The potential for things to go sideways on a trip like this is high and full of comic potential. At least they are in an RV and not a boat. On a boat, it is everyone all together all the time or someone sleeps with the fishes. On the RV, they can stop the thing and head for the hills if it gets to be too much.