I just got a call from the Keelhauler, who reported happily that the Sukey III had just left the harbor.

He is aboard The Sukey III; it’s the boat he’s delivering to Monterey, which means going “around the corner,” or up past Point Conception—if you look on a map, it’s the elbow where California’s coast takes a sharp jag east. It’s the roughest part of the coast, and although the Keelhauler goes around it all the time for work, this time he’ll be on a 30-foot sailboat instead of a 200-foot steel work boat. He’s planned the trip carefully, packed all his charts, noted all the waypoints on the GPS, looked ahead to learn the weather conditions. He just got back from sea yesterday afternoon, and spent a couple of hours making sure he had everything on his checklist, before picking me up from work.

He had another boat to check on, so we headed south and on the way, he told me about his afternoon. “I met a girl who has an even weirder name than you…” he started, then caught himself, backtracked a little, and explained that he’d encountered a young couple standing by a car with a flat tire. The Keelhauler reinflated their tire using a battery-powered air compressor he’d bought at a yard sale, about which he was very proud, but mostly he wanted to tell me about the girl.

“Her name was MEDIUM,” he said, happily.
“Are you sure that’s what she said?” I asked.
“Yes. I said, ‘Medium? Like the size?’ and she said, ‘My mom’s Mexican, and that’s what she named me,’ and just kind of shrugged.”
I didn’t really understand the Mexican angle, so I asked, “Are you sure she didn’t say MIRIAM? Like, with a rolled R?”
“She was NOT rolling her Rs. She said MEDIUM.”
“Did she spell it?”
“RRRRRrr!” [that noise people make in the back of their throats to indicate great irritation]
I let it drop, because sometimes Being Right is less important than Keeping the Peace. (Just another piece of sage life advice I can impart to you, my friends. You’re welcome.)

The Keelhauler explained that he’d met Medium and her boyfriend in the “parking ramp” next to Dargan’s Pub, and when I didn’t take the bait and ask why he parked there, he said, “Don’t you want to know why I was parked there?”
“Because you went to Dargan’s?” I guessed.
“No, I have not gone to no bars today,” he said, and then revealed he’d been out buying me a birthday present. (To be fair, I should mention that he’d surprised me with a present before my birthday—a beautiful, collapsible table-top easel, with a drawer built in to store paint and brushes, that he’d picked out indpendently, and which I love.) “It’s in the arm rest!” he said, absurdly joyfully, “But um, I didn’t have time to wrap it.” I opened the armrest to find a Macy’s bag containing a big bottle of Chanel No. 5. His smile was actually wider than his face as he watched me open the box, alternating between looking at me and watching the road ahead, as we sped at 70 miles per down the 101. “Is that the right kind?”

It was the right kind: Chanel No. 5 Eau de Parfum, totally de luxe, in a beautiful faceted bottle, and thoroughly unexpected. “I know you were running out,” he said, and he was right—I’d used the last drop of it only the day before. I love getting presents from the Keelhauler, first because he’s insightful, but second, because he becomes so overjoyed upon giving the present, that his reaction surpasses the gift itself.

And so now he’s out to sea again, less than 24 hours from the time he stepped back on land, and of course we had an argument this morning, because it's hard to adjust every time he comes back from work, and he was preoccupied with the trip and I was grouchy and running late for work, and he dropped me off at the office saying, “Have a good week!” in a tone just slightly less than sarcastic, and I went inside and started crying. So, when he called, I was happy, and he sounded confident about the journey, and I apologized for the argument, and so did he (kind of). “I’ll call when I can,” he said, which probably means he’ll call from the Cojo anchorage, just under Point Conception, where he’ll wait until nightfall, when the winds are calm. It’s best to let things settle down before setting out around the corner.

Star of the day. . .Marc Perlman