Since leaving the boat the fam’s been busy. Wee Kiera-Lee joined the world, born at Community Hospital here in Sitka at a whopping 7 pounds 8 ounces (the doc predicted 6-2 – whoops) on October 21st. Seventeen months to the day from Haley. Bears were all over town for a bit – more on that in a moment.

Dawn on the tug, the volcano across Sitka Sound appearing like the bottom half of an hourglass. Earl the harbor sea lion barks up at Haley Marie, her laugh shrill on a Sunday morning. The tide’s out, and ravens hop among the rocks and popcorn seaweed as we walk to the coffee shop. Haley laughs, calls the ravens “ducks.” It’s fine.

I love the blur of action in this photo. Life accelerates at some ungodly speed once you have a child. People tell you this but hell if it doesn’t actually happen. As if as soon as you’re responsible for another creature the sand in the hourglass begins to sift at an alarming, thrilling rate. IMG_6603All of a sudden you’ve got a kid holding your hand walking down the street. The kid who yesterday needed your hand to hold her honeydew melon of a head vertical. And now she’s pushing a damn shopping cart through the aisles. Getting pissed when dad doesn’t put the milk in the cart quick enough.

Nested into the corner at a coffeeshop in Palmer Alaska. Looking out on the red alders and rain-shrouded foothills of the Alaska Range. Least that’s what I think they are. Waiting to read at Fireside, the local Indie bookstore. Wondering what section will fit the occasion.

It wasn’t easy, I can tell you that much. Minutes after we pulled off the dock in Sitka, waving to Haley and Rachel and Colorado, right off the bat we had engine issues, oil being thrown in the crankcase. 2I1A2566 (1)That held us up in Schultz Cove for the night, twenty miles from town. It looked like we might have to limp on home the following day – but then Steve Hamilton, who owned the boat in the 80s, and raised four kids on it, saved the day by finding a piece of chewed gasket in a pump valve. Voila.

Life life on the boat as of late has been superior. It’s almost as if our tug appreciates the attention we lavish on her, cleaning the cargo hold, replacing the hatch cover, the bulwarks, ripping out the bathroom. I think she was a little ashamed to have the tarp over the wheelhouse—or the “bag over her head” as a friend nicely put it—and now with the paint job and attention she sits taller in the water. IMG_5339Rachel and Haley have been installing sea glass and porcelain salvaged from the causeway beach in the shower.

Where to begin. Getting married? Finishing the book? Having a baby girl? Teaming up with R to get the city where we live to mind its own damn business? All these wondrous things.1923782_10208431838372666_8317590744334092240_n

As I write it’s that slack-tide between Christmas and January 1, when humans allow themselves that collective exhale before breathing life into the New Year.

It’s been a challenge over these past few months – with Rachel being kicked off the island for the high-risk pregnancy, HMJ’s challenging birth, hip problems, and now the most recent ordeal with the boat – to keep steady. If it’s a reminder of one thing, it’s about being on a good team. That’s what matters.

Well, I’ve held off posting about the status of the Adak out of sensitivity to the meetings we’ve been having with the city of Sitka, its attorney, its administrator, and the harbormaster. No more.

Sitting now in the salon on a Sunday morning, rocking gently in the lactation chair, as the dog snores on the settee, and Rachel and Haley snooze topside. I’ll try to sum up this rat’s nest with the boat as best I can. Meanwhile, we’ll include some cute baby pics just to sweeten this otherwise dry post.

Sitting by the woodstove here on the Adak, burning cut-offs from palette remnants, curious to see whether this log that I (mistakenly) sprayed with chemical fire retardant will catch. Cal curled up on his pillow, enjoying the heat as the rain drums away overhead. Fog makes it impossible to see much beyond the breakwater. Damp is the word today in the Alaskan rainforest.

August 3rd, at a wedding in Seattle of dear friends on the MV Skansonia when I got a call that the Adak, which has been rented out, was taking on water.

We’ll begin with the boat. You can make out the pinprick of her just beyond the airport in this photo, tied up at the harbor.

This blog comes a bit later than it should. Here we are well into October, and I’m putting in pics from fishing in August. What can I say, time seemed to accelerate on the boat, then back east for a quick trip (where I got to witness used Carhartts on sale for $60 at a boutique in SoHo!)

I’ve got a wee window in between fishing trips here in Alaska so figured it might be nice to give a report, if only to myself, on the state of my disunion.

So Dog and I left Oakland in the first week of June with the goal of making it to Alaska to fish, and finishing the final draft of the novel by August 15th. Deal is the book has to be in by then to keep the Fall 2015 release. I swear if someone had explained to me how nutty this how process was going to be…

It’s a game of waiting, I guess. And being anxious. Anxious over someone telling you that the past year of your life has been wasted rewriting a book. Why does no one tell you how excruciating this whole game of publishing is? My nightmare is that the editor will want to revert back to the original, the one she actually bought for publication. She’ll be like, hey, I appreciate the hard work, but this actually is a piece of s—t, and we should really pick up where we started.

Well, it’s been a wee bit. My apologies for that. I’m just now emerging from the cave of rewriting the book. What a strange place to be for six months. Now the manuscript is with the editor. What a strange, harrowing process. For those of you who read earlier versions of “The Alaskan Laundry,” there is no more Santo, no more Cuban-come-to-Alaska. The novel began with eight main characters. It sold with two. Now it’s just Tara. A war of attrition, to be sure. She’s starting to scare me. It’s like, settle down girl, I created you. She doesn’t care. She does what she wants.

I just got back from walking the dog. We went down Wayne Place, along Lake Merritt, then through the park where they don’t allow dogs – Oakland police, unlike San Francisco police, have better things to do – and back again. My first time out of this chair in a long, long time. When I get antsy or nappy I’ve got my natural bag of speed. Last week it was coffee beans. Four days before the manuscript is due to the editor, I’ve switched to espresso beans.

Whack-a-doodle. That’s what my future mother-in-law calls someone who’s a bit crazy. She’s from New Jersey, speaks her mind, which is what I’m about to do here, laying out the events of the whack-a-doodle past few months.

Legs stretched out this evening beneath the floral print covers at the Pine Barn Inn in Danville Pennsylvania, home of the Ironmen. A cup of tea cooling on the bedside table. Whomp out the window of a helicopter touching down at Geisinger, the hospital just up the hill. God knows what tragedy required that flight.

You are a bad blogger. Bad bad blogger! Days in California just go by, what can I say? Living here by the lake, screwing down into the book, which is due January 15th. It’s been writing, jiu-jitsu, reading, teaching.