Friday, March 19, 1993 - Mexico

This was not my day. Everything I touched turned to goosh.
First, I tried the experiment of making the oatmeal with ocean water. After all, you add a little salt to oatmeal anyway, right? Naturally, I couldn't just mix up one bowl and taste it; no, I had to mix both bowls before tasting. Eeeeeaaagh! So I had to dump both bowlfuls of oatmeal overboard.
Later, we were listening to the Manana Net. Suddenly, Roy said, "Someone's calling the Jofian!" I signed on, and sure enough, Roy's brother Ken was trying to contact us. He told me to go down "five KC." (You make contact on the net and then go to another frequency to converse.) I wasn't sure what "KC" meant, but I didn't want to admit my ignorance in front of all the listening hams, so I said, "OK. Going down five," just as if I knew what I was talking about.
First, I tried going down 5 megahertz, but I immediately realized that couldn't be right. Then I tried 500 kilohertz, thinking the "C" might stand for 100, as it sometimes does. (After I regained my sanity, I realized "KC" must mean "kilocycles", but at the time, all I could think of was "Kentucky Fried Chicken".) After dialing futilely all over the place, I gave up and went back to the net. Ken had given up, too, so we got together again on the net. This time, he told me to go to "14,330 and down", so I did. Someone else was talking on 14,330. I dialed down a ways, but never did find Ken. Oh well, maybe tomorrow.
My crowning achievement came when I tried to fix a can of soup for lunch. Such a simple thing!
I learned two important lessons:
1. On a boat, always serve soup in a cup, not a bowl.
2. Never set anything on a counter and expect it to stay there.
But I hadn't learned those lessons yet, so I got out two bowls, heated a can of green pea soup in a pan on the propane stove, and put half of it in one bowl, which I offered to Roy, who was at the wheel. But he told me to eat my soup first, while he steered the boat; then he'd eat his soup, while I steered. (It was almost time for watch change.) Obviously, the sensible thing would have been for me to eat the bowl of soup I was holding in my hand, but no, that was Roy's soup, so I set that bowl on the counter and poured the rest of the soup into the other bowl. I hadn't eaten two spoonfuls when zwoosh! --the bowl on the counter went flying across the galley, strewing its contents hither and yon.
It's bad enough to make a stupid mistake once, but to make the same stupid mistake twice in a row takes some kind of prize. I set my bowl of soup down on the counter so I could clean up the mess. Instantly, that bowl went flying across the galley, adding its contents to the pile of peasoup on the floor, the walls, the cupboards, the upholstery, the counter, my jeans, and just about everything else in sight. What an awful mess!
By then, it was time to change watches, so Roy cleaned up the mess, while I steered the boat. That man has more patience than Job!
Then he heated another can of peasoup and served it in cups.