Happy belated New Year, a la January 13th. A most interesting year. A year that began with me lying on the floor of a cabin In The Woods after having drunk too much “Delicious Red” (it comes in a box, oh woe) and ended with us, um, actually we were already asleep when the airhorn from some raucous partiers on one of the pirate ships woke us up at, presumably, midnight. Whatever, snore.

One learns things about oneself when one embarks on an open-ended trip in a vessel with a living space of 32 by 6 feet. One particularly glaring example that comes quickly to mind is that my bladder is apparently capable of holding 750 milliliters, at least. Who knew? When’s the last time you had a chance to measure your bladder capacity? Please don’t even try to imagine the circumstances that led me to this discovery because they were traumatic for everyone involved, including the Gatoraid bottle. Let us also not dwell on that little “at least” either because I try not to; we’ll call it an even 750 for the record. 750 ml. At least.

Much time was subsequently wasted on fruitful internet searches. A fin whale has a bladder capacity of 5.5 gallons (that’s 20,069.7 ml more than me). And how about the word “urodynamics.” There are also a whole lot of things that contain 750ml, like bottles of Veuve Clicquot. A most disturbing product called “Papa Bert’s Sippin’ Seat,” which I found in a cheerleading product catalogue no less, boasts some powerful tech writing: “the strong flexible bladder can hold over 3 cups (750 ml) of your favorite warm or cold beverage and can withstand the weight of an adult sitting on it.” It comes in camo. I think it might be the only product that Papa Bert has.

At any rate, it might be a while before I am invited to another boat for cocktails.

My brother Sage and his girlfriend Elise had a baby! Last time I saw them she was in that nebulous tummy phase somewhere between not-puking-anymore-thankyou and “Holy hell girl! Haven’t you had that thing yet?!”

Despite my brother being somewhat less than forthcoming with the details and photos (what? Like he’s busy?), here’s a cutie of the girl at the ripe old age of 56 hours.

(Despite her being the spitting image of Great Aunt Manfred Laverne Berdina Periwinkle—or more fondly, “Aunt Lou Chicken Poo,” Sage and Elise cast aside the shackles of tradition and named her Riley Marie.)

1. Garlic smisher (pronounced smeesher) from Ikea. A stylish thing but it took about a gallon and a half to get all the dang garlicy bits out of the tiny tiny little (pronounced leetle) holes.
2. Bright red melamine one-cup measuring cup. Waaa! We lost it at Los Frailes during some vicious wind; I had it out to dry on the hatch cover and the wind perked up and blew it off the freakin’ boat. My orange half-cup and yellow third-cup still mourn the loss.
3. Palm frond casting we picked up in San Diego and placed artfully atop our trampoline; “Hey! That’s that thing we saw down the street in that trashcan!” said our neighbors at the transient dock. Probably a good thing it never made it to La Paz or else we could have been charged with the illegal transportation of a forest product.
4. Five-gallon water bottle. We lost it during a tricky dinghy-docking procedure. It was full of fresh water and sank like a lead weight in the salt water that is Bahia La Paz. Hrmm. Makes you think about physics. Luckily we had a lot of beer aboard.

Notable mention: my sunglasses, which I’ve nearly lost overboard about 284 times. Usually because I have one of the ear-things hooked on my shirt and I bend over to swab the deck, or polish the brightwork, or batten the hatches.

One of our favorite taco stands (asada and adobada, which is the marinated pork).

Tacos in the making!

This guy makes what looks like salsa soup (hot); we haven’t tried it yet because every time we get to him, we’re already stuffed with tacos. We’ll get to it…

The previous two photos are of a very elaborate and popular stand that has very good fish tacos. You pay one guy who gives you a tiny bit of paper with your order written down, then you give that to the guy at the grill who will always present your place with the careful pronunciation: “feesh tacos.” Another woman mans the liquados and washes the dishes.

January 6th was Dia de los Reyes (day of the kings), which is a Catholic holiday celebrating when the three kings arrived to the baby jesus and gave him presents. Kids here open their presents (you know, from the kings) at this point and then everyone celebrates with a fruitcake, or ‘Rosca.’ Every bakery in town is loaded down with these ring-shaped fruit cakes, which represent the crowns of the kings, and something dangerous—possibly involving knives, and then there is a baby jesus inside the fruitcake! A Christmas miracle! (Um, if I understood correctly).

Pussy cakes! Actually, they are our favorite bakery treat aside from the palmeras; they are cheesecakes baked into a slightly obscene shape.

One the way back from CCC we stopped at a recommended liquor store on Allende and Independencia. It turns out we’d been there before and it was right across the street from our favorite tortillaria and a strange/cool fishing store where I bought a rapala (rapala = 1 sierra). Cheyenne is yelling over my shoulder “stay on target! Quinar.” So… to quinine. Said liquor store had corn-free tonic. Described on the bottle as “agua quinada,” which we take to mean “quinined water,” and in turn means that the verb must be quinar: to quinine. Ultimately, it means I had to dig into deep storage for the remaining bottle of Sapphire.