A couple days ago Ouest and I went out to the boat to check on things. Everything looked good, dock lines, fenders, bilge pumps, and no water leaks. Then I went and did something stupid. I pumped the toilet. Figured I’d just pump the water through for a minute before flushing it with fresh water again. Of course it plugged. I must have sucked some sort of marina garbage right in.

Ouest was ready to move on, so I left it and went back alone the next morning in the dark. Took the toilet apart, found the plastic bag, cleaned out a crap encrusted three way valve, put it back together, and was on my way. Including bus rides that one little toilet flushing cost me five hours.

The best thing about Ouest’s name is that it starts with an O. She’s two, so whenever she is drawing she is making O’s without even trying. But she gets to point to those O’s and say “Wahst.” And I totally know she is lying to me, that she didn’t mean to write her initial, but I pat her on the head anyway and say, “That’s nice honey.”

Probably the all-time most read book in our household passed away today. Miraculously, it is one of those flip the character open type books and all of those were still intact. The spine died on this one. Oso polar, pinguino, ballena, we’ll miss you.