Breaking news! WMDs found and destroyed.

"The last VX-filled land mine went on the conveyor belt into the incinerator beginning at 11:51 a.m. Altogether, 361,802 munitions and 293,003 gallons of nerve agent have been processed at the facility. That included VX-filled munitions and GB-filled munitions."

http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2008/12/last_of_nerve_agents_destroyed.html

No folks it's not Iraq and Saddam. These are our very own WMDs.

"Officials at the Anniston Chemical Agent Disposal Facility said this is a milestone because it means 99.5 percent of the risk to the community from the chemical stockpile is now gone."

Hmm..I wonder how much they publicized this risk while they were stockpiling the lethal toxins in such huge quantities?

I love this nail-polished car!

http://bellasugar.com/2627519

"Lots of ladies in my church donated nail polish, and lots of ladies at Weight Watchers, too," she told the newspaper. Bell estimates that 100-250 bottles of nail polish were used to accomplish this feat — a feat that took 13 months to finish. Whoa.

Beware the Ingestigators. The Fat Tax is coming.

If you have a jiggley butt you really ought to worry. Now that cigareets have been taxed up the ying yang and only millionares can afford them, the Ingestigators are once more on the move, flashing their beady telescopic eyes around wondering what to eliminate next. These people are the descendants of the group who banned booze, then moved on to pot, and now they are eyeing the icon of icons in American culture. A Fat tax on Coke is their aim. $5.95 for an 8 ounce bottle.

Maybe you don't realize it, but Coca Cola is costing our country a fortune folks. People are frigging dying from the stuff. Addicted Coke addicts are plugging up our society so badly it is almost impossible to get around anymore. Ever try to get on a bus? Who! Try to get through any door nowadays and you will see what I mean. Someone is always stuck in front of you, trying to turn sideways, trying to jiggle through. And it is ALL Coke's fault. All sugar's fault really, but the Ingestigators know you have to start small, so Coke will be their main target.

Now I am not against large people. I think love handles are sexy and jowls an academic asset, but then I am very liberal about ingesting things. I am the arch enemy of the Ingestigators. If I had my way and oddles and oodles of money, (enough to bail myself out) I'd be sitting here now with a glass of French absynith on my desk and a nice fat joint in my hand instead of this whole wheat bagel and lemon tea. Ha! Ha! You know I'm just kidding of course!

Being concerned about health is important. Recently I stopped smoking on my own, well Chantix helped a lot, but I just find it curious that these movements sweep across the country, lawsuits are filed, gadzillions of dollars are offered in settlements in the name of helping those afflicated with addictions and then presto! That money disappears faster than the recent bank bailouts. So now the Ingestigators this week announced Coke is their target. I predict the outrage will be enormous.

No pun intended.

Sharing an article published this summer

Furl all Scupperlips and Haul up the Anchor
By Carole A. Borges

I guess you could say I bought the Ms. Bligh as a kind of revenge. After spending my whole life living aboard an old Alden schooner my father was eternally restoring, and then helping my first husband Joe spend a decade building a fleet of ferro-cement boats in Boston, I wanted to know what it felt like to be a captain.

With her clipper bow, raised taff-rail, and black hull, my 27 foot Kenner ketch looked like a small pirate ship.

Because I’d been dry-docked for so long, I thought it wise to get a second opinion, so I called my brother, Capt. Fatty Goodlander, a world famous sailor who writes for Cruising World magazine.

“I think I got a real bargain,” I boasted.

When he first saw the Ms. Bligh, Fatty gave an appreciative smile. ”It is kind of odd though,” he giggled, “how much she resembles you. She’s sagging a bit in the transom, a little too wide amidships, and she probably has a leaky bottom.”

See what I mean? I was a woman desperate for empowerment.
* * *
“Well, she’s built strong,” Fatty said after the survey. “However the previous owner, obviously a landlubber, filled the whole transom with blown-in foam. It’s saturated with water. You’ll have to dig it all out and rebuild the box.”

Disappointed to hear labor was involved, I watched my brother draw up a schematic showing me exactly what I’d have to do.

The next morning when I saw Fatty off at the airport, waves of insecurity washed over me. I couldn’t remember half the terms he’d used, and his drawing, which had looked so simple the night before, suddenly seemed as complicated as a manual on spaceship construction.
* * *
When I saw Greg and this other guy coming down the dock, my heart sank. What had I expected? Robert Redford? Rubbing his gnarled fingers against a scratchy grey beard, the old man rolled a fish-like eye along the length of Ms. Bligh. “Well, I’ve gone farther with less,” he croaked.

The day we left, Capt. Andy showed up with a huge fishing chair on a high pedestal. As he began wrestling it into the cockpit, lashing it down with bungee cords and duct tape, I protested.

“You can’t bring that,” I told him. “It’s way too big. It looks ridiculous.”

“Well, I ain’t going without it,” Andy growled. “My back’s bad. I can’t do this without a good chair.”
* * *

The Ms. Bligh heeled over as the sea darkened and the wind picked up. Water shot up through the half-dismantled motor well, and the sea swirled around my ankles. I’d yelled for Andy to take the sail down, so he was crabbing his way back along the deck when the big wave hit, and it knocked him right into his fishing chair. Wobbling from the impact, it swiveled first right then left. Then the bungee cords snapped, and the flat steel base came buzz-sawing across the cockpit.

“I told you that thing was a menace,” I snarled.

Andy tossed me a dark look, mumbling something about women only being allowed in galleys.
* * *
On the morning of the last day of our cruise, I sat sipping my second cup of coffee when Andy finally poked his head out of the hatch. A bit wall-eyed and smelling suspiciously of rum, he clambered into the cockpit beside me.

I pointed to a line of buoys on the chart. “Here’s the channel under the bridge,” I said. “We ought to be in Key West by dark.”

As he hobbled to the bow to raise the anchor, I yanked the cord on the outboard and started the boat moving slowly forward. “A little more. A little more,” he was saying. Then, I heard a big PLOP.

It took me awhile to register the fact that he had gone overboard. Racing up to the bow, I could feel my heart rocking like a bell buoy in bad weather.

“Get a rope. Get a rope.” Andy groaned. His flabby arms shook from the strain of having to hold onto the chain beneath the bowsprit. His skinny legs wrapped around the bob-stay looked like a pair of octopus tentacles.

I still have no idea how I managed to get him back on board.

“I’m going to go below for a few minutes,” he said.

It took me a long time to feel brave enough to peek into the foc’sle hatch to see how Andy was doing. Already, I could imagine myself calling the Coast Guard on the radio I didn’t have. “Ahoy there, this is the captain of the Ms. Bligh. I have a dead man aboard my boat. Can you come right over?”
* * *

Now some people may think it wimpy of me to sell my boat after only one trip, but let me assure you, hanging that FOR SALE sign in Ms. Bligh’s rigging gave me an enormous sense of relief.
* * *
After I sold the boat, I moved to Knoxville, TN, a safe distance away, I thought, from any temptation I might have to become water-borne again, but a few weeks ago, I discovered a marina down by the Gay Street Bridge. The boats were mostly runabouts and small cruisers, the kind that seldom need repair and can be driven like a car.

Dazed as a drunk entering a neighborhood bar, I somehow found myself stepping inside the office,

“How much do you charge for a slip?” I asked.

copyright2008@caroleBorges
This first appeared in Pacific Yachting 2008