First annual Spike memorial apple pie war

[bob perry]

I made my Spike memorial apple pie last week. No contest. Just a pie. Last week was the anniversary of Spike's death. I did not take a photo of my pie. I did not make the crust from scratch. I used two different apple varieties. I used less lemon. I used more cinnamon. I really did not feel like apple pie at all. But I had promised myself that would make one this weekend just to help me center on Spike. ( like I really need any help) It turned out just fine. I really need to learn to make pastry though.
So, that awful week is gone. I have another year till the next one.

[BeauV]

Bob, we had a couple of bites of a pie I made, but the low-carb diet stuff meant we fed it to the junior sailors at the club. It vanished in about one minute. A good use for a pie. I'm actually really REALLY terrible at making pies, but as I told the Admiral: "It's about making it, not eating it."

The Admiral wants you to know our thoughts were with you. We used last week to think about folks who weren't aboard anymore, those we really miss. Today, is the first day of doing day-care for our little Maddie. She's only been aboard three months and one week. Her cooing sounds help. All the best, Stacey and Beau

[bob perry]

Beau:
please don't trouble yourself thinking about me. People are hurting all over the word. There is nothing special about my circumstance. Feel bad for my wife is you like. But not me.

One night after taking a big hit of acid, I was being chased by the police down an alley way up on Capitol Hill. There was a cop car at one end and another cop car at the other end.
I was trapped, kind of. I climbed over a fence, ripped a hole in my jeans and crouched under the outside starway to an apartment bulding where the garbage cans were kept. I just huddled down between two garbage cans.
As I squatted there I wondered, "why me?" Then it occurred to me that people are being chased by cops all over the world so right now I am just one of them in the cosmic soup.
Then I decided to excersize my cosmic perogative and escape because some poeple in the world being chased by cops were escaping. I'd be one of those.
The cops shined lights all around but never spotted me between the garbage cans. They left.
I escaped.

So now I am experiencing what so many people all over the world are experiencing, the loss of a child. I'm just one of many and I am handling about as well as one would expect.

Now I am lucky to have some help. Look at what an amazingly lucky man I am today.
"Take a bite Grampy."

[Orestes Munn]

Baby looks concerned about you, Man.

I'm not in a hurry to become an alter kacker and my daughter doesn't even have a boyfriend, but I would love me some little tiny grandkids. Maybe I'll open a daycare when I retire.

[bob perry]

Eric:
I'm tellng you it breaks my heart when I have to say goodbye. Max is talking about bringing her for a few days at the shack when the weather turns nice here.
I hope I can teach her how much she is loved.

[Orestes Munn]

Eric:
I'm tellng you it breaks my heart when I have to say goodbye. Max is talking about bringing her for a few days at the shack when the weather turns nice here.
I hope I can teach her how much she is loved.

I don't think you can. The kids either feel loved or they don't and they won't understand how you felt until they have their own.

[BeauV]

OK Bob, we won't spend cosmic energy feeling sorry that you feel bad. Well, I can say that - but doing it is harder.

Today was our very first day as the "day care" for our granddaughter Madison. She was delivered by her Dad at 0630 and he picked her up at 1630. It was quite a day. Diapers, bottles, laughter, hugs, giggles, smiles, all sorts of fun. Having a granddaughter is about the best thing I've had since having a daughter. She's only one week past two months, but I think she's beginning to learn that she's loved.

What a great goal you've got Mr. Perry - to convince someone they're loved! I have NO DOUBT your Violet already knows it.

Here is our Maddie in her "Big Girl Crib" for the first time. She wouldn't stop smiling and go to sleep. Pretty tough duty, get a kid to stop smiling and go to sleep... but I'm up to it!

[bob perry]

Beau:
She is marvelous. I think you are going to have a lot of fun with her like I am with Violet.
I have a few months head start on you so if you ever need any tips you can call on me.
Tip no. 1:
If they eat it, you eat it.
Nothing bonds people together better than eating the same food.

[Ish]

Yuck. I have seen baby food, and have seen what babies will eat. Better get your rabies shot now, just in case.

[kdh]

Yuck. I have seen baby food, and have seen what babies will eat. Better get your rabies shot now, just in case.

Ish, sometimes you are impossible. But for a minister whose girlfriend is a sheep, I suppose this is what we should expect.

[BeauV]

Bob - I like Tip #1 the stuff that Maddison is eating (breast milk) - probably the best "food" any human ever gets. But, it's for her. As soon as we get her onto "big girl food", I couldn't agree more. We're now on our second day and geeesh it's hard to get much done with Miss Wiggles (as I'm calling her) on my arm. She's got a switch someplace - she'll be wiggling like crazy and then after a few fussy cries just goes to sleep (click). I haven't found out exactly how to throw the switch yet, but I'm working on it.

It has been about 25 years since we've had an infant around and The Admiral and I are really REALLY enjoying it. There is damn little better in life than a baby, she has made our entire world a better place.

BV

[bob perry]

Beau:
Before and just after Violet was born Max and Stacy had all these rules set up for what they would feed her. That didn't last long once her teeth started coming in. When she sits next to me at the dinner table I give her little bits of whatever I am eating. I gave her saurkraut the last time she was up here. She liked it. She drinks out of a regular water glass now. She likes to put her hands in it and turn it into a soup de jour but she still drinks it.
Beau, when you look at these pics remember this is what one year does. It's truly amazing. Look at those teeth! She had the veal for her birthday dinner with mussels and lobster ravioli as an appetizer. I didn't think was ready for the grappa yet but Max and I enjoyed some.

[kdh]

From a purely objective viewpoint, you guys have a couple of great looking grandkids.

My mother pretty much completely ignores almost all of our rules for Adele. I don't blame her.

[bob perry]

Yeah, and look how Adele is turning out.
When I feed Violet I keep a weather eye on Stacy to make sure I am not breaking any of the "rules". But now it's more about bite size than content. I gave her some olive bread at the restaurant and she was picking the olives out of it and eating them.

[kdh]

You're right, Bob. Thing is, we all need to break rules, and who better than with our grandparents?

Olives? Adele, for her age, is an adventurous eater. I think that's good.

We have other rules about watching television. In short, she doesn't, or at least very rarely. But her grandfather likes to watch sports so she will with him.

I read today some silly story about an 18 year old girl that's eaten only Ramen noodles for 15 years. She looks reasonably healthy, though only noodles seems ill-advised. Doctors say about her, "she has the body of an 80-year-old." That's almost surely bullshit.

Beau, I'm curious to know how your low/no carb diet is going. Do you feel better? Are you giving up booze?

[bob perry]

I like Ramen noodles. I put green onions in. I add any left over meats I have and any other left over veges, brocolli etc. And,,,I top it off with some kim chee that a friend of mine's Korean wife makes. Have you ever had radish kim chee?
When I get done it's a hearty meal. Tasty too.

Beware!!!!!!!!
If you run accross a botle of Hudson Shah Cab 2010 in your wine section do not buy it.
It is pure plonk. I posted on their Facebook page and told them it was shite.
Once you post on someone's Facebook page can they take your post down?

[Chris Chesley]

Sometimes-- a bad cork can ruin an otherwise good wine.....

[bob perry]

There is no way a bad cork is to be blamed for this awful wine. I've been studying wine for over 35 years. It's a hobby of mine.
It's still sitting there.
Maybe late tonight I'll drink some more for novelty sake.

[BeauV]

Keith,

Over 20 days I've lost ten pounds on the low-carb food program. I have cut back on booze - limiting myself to two glasses of wine a day (mostly ). I simply refuse to give up wine for skinniness. By way of a little clarification, we're sort of doing a Paleo diet, except I can't manage to give up cheese and sour cream. I started this because The Admiral wants to be more slender and we can't figure out how to have 50% of the household on one diet while the rest is on another - besides showing solidarity with The Admiral wins points!

My doc said he'd like me to slow down the weight loss, and I think it'll slow down by itself as about 5 of the 10 pounds is water loss due to the big decrease in insuline in my system from removal of carbs. But I have just been cranking up the calories of the Paleo stuff to slow down the decrease. It does feel really weird to be eating almost 50% more calories and yet continue to loose weight.

Of course, I could start to cheat when the Admiral isn't around, but when I do I find I really REALLY crave carbs (like Strawberry Jam and Orange Juice) for a day or two afterwards so it's easier not to cheat. The things I miss most are pasta and bread. Giving those up has been really hard, especially when I'm trying to mop up the sauce from escargot or mussels in white wine and butter. People look at you funny when you're eating those sauces with a spoon.

BV

[LarryHoward]

Beau,

Be somewhat careful of the ultra low carb. It does an amazing job of taking weight off but also can get your system pretty far out of balance. I lost about 30 that way several years ago but 4 kidney stones later, I have the urologist telling me to limit protein and the GP telling me to watch the carbs.

[Lin]

Bob & Beau, your Grandaughters are both adorable. xo Love the pics and the stories of you enjoying spending time with them.

[BeauV]

Larry,

Good point. The various books I've read keep pointing out that one shouldn't get more than 20% of calories from protein. One of the big difficulties is getting people to replace carb calories with fat calories. For example, I'm putting butter on my spinach in the morning to get the fat up and the proteins down. I mix ground bacon into hamburger to increase the fat content, and. Work hard not limit the proteins to 20%. It is interesting to note that folks who live on meat, like the Inuit and the Masai, eat the fatty bits and only eat the lean meat if they are really hungry. In Masai, the word for hunger is reported to also mean: forced to eat vegetables.

If you haven't read Gary Taubes books, I'd highly recommend them. Good stuff about all this.

BV

[kdh]

Beau, I think the Inuit diet is more fat and organs than protein/muscle. And what most of us call red meat is from sick cows, sick from having only eaten government-subsidized corn all their lives.

We had Sally Fallon, who runs Weston A. Price, a healthy diet organization, speak at Adele's school. She said, "if you like to eat vegetables go ahead, but you won't get much nutrition from them." To them ambrosia is butter from grass-fed cows.

The Taubes books are worthwhile. It amazes me that message isn't better appreciated, but we've been given the low-fat-is-healthy dictum for a long time.

By the way, you'll see your good cholesterol, HDL, go up and triglycerides go down, both good. Your LDL will look worse on the surface but it will be improved as the additional volume measured will be from the increased volume of the particles you already have, not from an increase in the number of particles. This is good.

My own experience is that I view carbs, grain-based foods especially, the same way I view a sugary treat. Biologically that's appropriate because our bodies process them the same way. I limit them but they're still part of my diet. I also don't eat breakfast, I have little time for it during the week and it's an unhealthy practice, and I exercise before lunch. Thus my body is accustomed to burning fat.

Beau, from your avatar you don't have the bloated face that so many of the carb-loaded and overweight get. You look healthy.

[BeauV]

I'm not sure where else to post this... then remembered the Pie War. Saturday just at dawn I took S'agapo from Santa Cruz to Moss Landing to enter her in a little ocean race from Moss Landing to Monterey and back again. Here we are getting the jib up for the start. This is NOT our weather, 6-8k of wind and flat water. It'd be good for getting a tan.



About 15 minutes after the start the normal 15-18k westerly wind filled in across Monterey Bay and we were off. By the time we'd reached Monterey's "4" buoy and tacked around it, the wind was 18-23 and S'agapo was strutting here stuff. We were first to finish and corrected out second. A Newport-33 which has a 174 PHRF to our 51, was simply unbeatable. The course was a beam reach both ways.... no way to beat a small fat boat on that sort of course. We'll have to wait until there's a race upwind.

Through it all, Spike was with us. Bob, I just want you to know that flag has covered a lot of miles and a whole lot of sailors have heard my stories about a young man I never met; but learned of from a loving father.

[bob perry]

Thanks Beau. I saved the pic along with the other pics of the burgee flying. Not sure what I'm going to do with them.
I like the look of your mainsail.

Friday was the Norwegian 4th of July. Max took Violet to the parade in Ballard. Ballard is the old "square head" neighborhood in Seattle where the fishermen lived.
Max wore Spike's armor. Violet wore her Viking hat. Max said that he was asked by a lot of people if they could have their photos taken with him. He's a big boy and makes a good Viking.
I like it that he wears Spike's armor. He posted on Spike's Facebook page the other day. I like that too. I post on Spike's Facebook page almost every day. I just talk to him and tell him what's going on.
I'll post a pic of Max in the armor when I get one . Here's an old one of Spike off doing battle.

[BeauV]

Bob,

There's a park near our home in which dogs are allowed to run around without leashes - the way all dogs did when I was a kid. This park also hosts soccer matches and has a great little kid playground, there are a lot of folks there when I take old Romo for a slow walk around the place. One of my favorite groups are the armor and sword guys. They look a lot like Spike in his armor, but most of them haven't the skills or money to put together such a great suit of armor.

Old Romo and I will sit in the grass and watch these guys smack each other around for an hour, then Romo will decide it's time for his soft bed at home and we'll wobble on. We're mostly wobbling now - Romo's back legs don't work too well anymore. But we do enjoy a good sit in the park while these guys smash each other. It's great fun to watch!

Glad you're posting on Spike's page, I talk to my Dad on long passages. He and I had a nice chat during the three hour sail home early today. He doesn't say much, but I can tell what he would be saying, so I fill in the blanks. He's great company. I miss him every god damned day.

All the best,

BV

[bob perry]

Oh yeah, these two Vikings are really tough!

[cap10ed]

Oh yeah, these two Vikings are really tough!

Great shot Bob. Now we know who wears the pants in that family. Cute kid !

[bob perry]

Thanks Ed. I think they are both cute kids.

[kdh]

BV, our first dog, a yellow lab, had hip problems that made getting around difficult. Old dogs are so easy to love.

Those sails look really cool. Last weekend pointing in about 20 knots I noticed for the first time the superior shape-holding of my spectra laminate compared to the new radial dacron. Maybe my next headsail will be a 3di.

Bob, great pics of the kids.