Journey & Adventure

J and I have talked about buying a boat for some time.  It makes perfect sense considering we are avid scuba divers, love to fish and we live less than 20 minutes from Lake Erie.   We have certain requirements in mind - it needs to be large enough to hold scuba tanks and gear, fast enough to get us from point A to point B in a reasonable amount of time and we wanted to have a cuddy so that we had the ability to be able to overnight on the boat if we wanted. I found the perfect boat - it meets all of the requirements and is gorgeous.  The only problem is the cost.  I've always believed that the only thing you should finance are a car and a house, but suddenly I'm faced with the fact that I may need to add a boat to my list.   Seriously - why the hell are boats so expensive and why did I foolishly need to fall in love?  

I’m a byproduct of a broken home – two actually. Having said that, I would not say that it has scarred me emotionally; but would say that it has cemented my sense of humor and my belief in the saying, “what doesn’t kill you, will certainly make you stronger.” My dad is a living example of this. My parents separated shortly after my eighth birthday. My dad has never spoken of the divorce , but my mother’s reasoning was my dad’s “fishing habits”. I suspect it had more to do with her meeting future husband #2. Regardless of the true reasons, these “fishing habits” usually lasted a few days away from home and most certainly involved alcohol. He would return home looking like something the cat dragged in and smelling even worse. Oblivious to my mother’s mood, he would insist on showing off his prize catch and sharing his tall tales of fishing greatness. “Let sleeping dogs lie” is not a phrase listed in my dad’s vocabulary. To put it mildly, my moth...

As I stepped on board the research boat for the first time, all I could think of was “great, the boat stinks like day old fish.” Duh – it’s a fishing boat! What was it supposed to smell like? It was that day my career as a “Fisheries Division Survey Technician” began. My days were spent hauling nets, picking, counting, sorting and weighing the different fish species – all while trying to keep my rubber boots and not my ass planted to the deck of the boat. It’s a good thing I do not have a weak stomach because there was one particular fish species that made me want to cry and would have made a lesser woman (or my husband) want to vomit. I don’t recall the name of it, but it was small and invaded the nets in great numbers and the unfortunate part – they would literally “explode” when you tried to remove them from the nets. Just picture trying to grab hold of Jello with your bare hands and just when you think you have hold; you hear a “popping” sound, followed by oozing. Nasty, doesn...

Here is another look into one of my illustrious career choices. This one was driven by lack of work and my overwhelming desire to keep busy. I’m the first to admit I have a problem, I just don’t know how to fix it… During the early weeks of “one summer of boredom”, I was determined to do something new with my career. Who was I kidding? I didn’t believe anything could possibly jumpstart my current disaster, but I was convinced that there had to be something out there that would pass some time during my regular 9-5 working hours. While bemoaning my latest lack of work dilemma to my best friend, she asks, “Why don’t you just come to work for me for a couple days a week for the summer months?” “What exactly do you do?” is my response. For as many years as I’ve known my BF, I’ve never quite figured out how she earns a living. I only know that she is a government employee, has a lot of accumulated holiday time and that her title is something like Regiona...