the rose of kiev

A baked ship on a listless sea lies limply on the waves.  White light tramples on the splintery boards as the vessel rocks in the glare of the sun.  Deck is bare and sail is empty; the lonely helm creaks as the weak current catches the rudder. I stumble up on deck, a bottle sloshing in my hand.  My eyes are unable to focus; puking over the side helps the hangover.  And I look over to the wheel from the railing, remembering the storm that drove me below decks. The storm came quickly; I had not been scanning the skies for the hints. Suddenly the rain had begun; a gust pummeled the sail as the tide kicked at the rudder beneath.  I clung to the wheel, already straining to breathe, to stand, to steer.  I lashed the wheel as another of the storm's tantrums pounded down upon the deck with heavy waves grasping at my shoes.  I battled over to the mast and fought to furl the hysterical sail. The salt and the raindrops stabbed into my bare hands, as the storm's shrieking began to grow. Lo...

Long before I knew I would be getting married in December, I knew for a fact that I would never have an outdoor wedding.  I would not be able to handle the stress of planning 2 locations for the ceremony and making paranoid visits to weather.com for the prior 3 weeks.  I'm also a person that when I develop a certain expectation (such as getting married outside) I would not be able to roll with the punches if it rained.  In fact, I just might start punching people. Why didn't I remember this key aspect of my personality before I started planning my yard sale?  Hours and hours of rooting and tagging and pricing and ad-placing  - and what do I get?  Torrential downpour, one tentatively dry hour, and 7 lousy guests during an 8-hour day. My damn yard sale got rained out.  And I want to punch someone. The good news?  At least I've earned a little more money than I spent advertising for the dumb thing.  The bad news?  I've made an equivalent of $2.50 an hour.  That right there...

So it rained today.  Not the kind of weather one hopes for at the beach.  In the morning it was simply grey, but we had heard the forecast and knew what the clouds were bringing later that day.  Since it was our first full day, we all went down to the beach, sun or no sun.  As the girls laid out their towels and stretched out, their sunning positions were almost laughable.  Myself and a few others opted to play in the waves; Thomas taught Cynthia how to bodysurf since it was her very first time in the ocean.  She and I weren't very good at it, and the pre-storm waves were pretty forceful.  As we got sucked and dragged and crashed against, battered by the waves and currents, this is what it felt like: It was brutal fun.  And as we were out in the surf, we figured out why they were so many fisherman lining the beach.  Many many times as a large wave would swell, just before the crest would break we could clearly see entire schools of two-inch long fish, which we later learned are cal...