Lowe’s little cough hasn’t gone away still, so today we went in for a pediatrician visit with a new doctor. Excuse me, Doctora. She was recommended by some friends and seeing as we never really liked our original pediatrician we decided today was as good a time as any.
On the way there we told Ouest that the doctor might want to check her out too. Just listen to her heart and look in her ears. All the stuff we do with her little play doctor kit at home. She was having none of that though. It was like she suddenly realized she’d been kidnapped and was being taken somewhere against her will. “No, no, no, me, no,” she repeated over and over again while tapping her heart. Clearly she did not feel she needed to have her heart listened to.
We assured her that the visit was for Lowe and that we’d just see how it went, and she eventually calmed down. The doctor was as great as promised and Lowe was once again the most incredible patient imaginable. Ouest always seemed to sense danger in a doctor’s office, but Lowe just smiled and laughed the whole time he was being checked out. She didn’t think the cough was anything serious and told us to just continue monitoring it. If it gets worse we’ll do something about it. Same advice we got from the other doctor I guess, so maybe he isn’t such a bad guy after all. Lowe’s six month numbers: weight 18.3 lbs, length 28.34 inches, head 17.7 inches.
This was really the extent of our day. We left the boat at 10:45 for a noon appointment. Saw the doc, speed ate our way through a Chinese lunner, caught the bus home and it was three o’clock already. Over four hours for a quick trip to the doctor. This is our life.
The boat and our dock are rather disastrous looking right now. I’m excited to get this dinghy davit project done because I’m starting to feel a little bit like the ugly duckling of the marina at the moment.
Speaking of which, did I ever mention how difficult it can be to get work done around here? Work done by other people I mean? I know I mentioned a while ago how I was finally going to bite the bullet and just hire out a few jobs around the boat. Simple tasks really, but things I just wasn’t finding the time or energy to tackle myself. The lazy jacks were one. Ultra simple job for any rigger. I went into the riggers office here six times, and each time he would say, “Yeah, sorry, I’ll come by your boat later today.” Six times. He never did come by, and when I see him now he doesn’t seem to be ashamed about it one bit. I contacted a second rigger asking if they did lazy jacks. Oh sure, was their reply. My follow up e-mails went unanswered. I was also going to hire out the removal of all of the outside varnish. Brainless work. A heat gun and a scraper are all it takes. The guy came out to the boat, looked it all over, said he’d get back to me with a quote, and then proceeded to ignore me from that day on. I still see him on the docks. Weird.
In the end I guess I should thank them for saving me the money. Jack lines really are simple. And the varnish really isn’t a big deal to me either way, though I suppose I would like to see the teak cleaned up a bit (just with varnish removed, not with new varnish on).
So I went to the small rigger/chandlery shop here at the marina today to inquire about those little stainless steel rings I need for the lazy jacks. The guy said no they didn’t have those, and asked why I didn’t just use small blocks instead. I said because that would cost a small fortune and be stupid. He then thought about it some more and said he could probably have some fabricated. I said I only needed seven, and they cost one dollar apiece. I don’t think fabricating them is the answer. He then shrugged. This is the most popular rigger in this marina and he can’t come up with stainless steel rings. It always seems weird to me. So I guess I’ll just order them from West Marine and have some family member bring them down on the next trip. Seems to be the simplest, most cost effective way, to get any sort of part down here.