Pisces To The Rescue

Just another day at the office....oh yeah, and we made a daring rescue of a boat that was stranded at sea with six people on board. What’d you do today?   

 
     It was our final day at sea and we were going from St. Thomas to Puerto Rico when we came upon a small boat bobbing helplessly in the water. The Big Guy said he saw them waving a white flag, which I guess is a universal distress signal. I thought it meant they were surrendering.  Anyhow, through the binoculars I could see six people frantically waving at us, which was our second clue they were indeed in distress and/or surrendering.

Our 1st attempt at towing, just before the line snapped...

I’ll admit that I have a suspicious bone in me and so as we were circling around to come to their rescue I made a mental note of just where exactly my chef’s knife was in case they happened to be real pirates of the Caribbean.

     “Maybe it's a trick and they want to rob us,” I speculated to Big.

     “They are cleaning poop out of their pants, so I don’t think so,” he brilliantly deduced.

Ok, so we got communication with them and they told us that their engines had quit them. (We later learned that they had bought fuel on Tortola which is cheap for a very good reason…it’s mostly water…and it’s a lesson we have already learned.)

     So while Big rigged up a tow-line I drove our boat in big, slow circles around them. The scared faces on the three young girls told me it was for real and that we wouldn’t be dueling it out on a short plank.  Big then took the helm and got us close enough so that I could throw them the line.  They tied on and we began towing them only to have the line break within the first few minutes. 

     Big got a second set of lines ready, while I manned the helm and again we made another attempt. This time as I threw the lines I was knocked down by the pitching of the boat in the five to six foot swells and almost fell off the sugar scoop. The water rushed up the scoop and soaked me, but I managed to grab on to the rail, which by the way had broken loose when the first tow-line snapped, and drag myself to safety just as a giant shark was coming for me.

They tied on again and we made it about fifteen minutes before that line broke. (Note to self: we need some of those trucker tow-ropes.)

Big went with Plan C and got more lines and then tied them from both sides of the stern and then added another one in the middle. I continued to drive in a circle while their little boat bobbed like a cork in the rough seas and their little faces looked on helplessly.   

This way worked better

  

Big got us back into position and I threw the lines again.  The kid missed. We set up for another pass and I pitched the lines with all the strength I had. One of them caught it at the bitter end and The Big Guy had a screaming panic attack because it got flipped up over our soap dispenser stand and looked like it was going to tear that off, so I did a spectacular nose dive under the dinghy and managed to get the line on the other side of the dispenser. I should note that Big was doing some pretty spectacular driving on his part, keeping the boats close enough together so they could tie on.

We then towed them for about ten miles before Sea-Tow (like AAA for boaters) came to the rescue with their big trucker tow-lines and took over for us and towed them for the last five or six miles while we went on ahead into Puerto del Rey and docked.  

A couple of hours later six grateful young kids came to our boat and shook our hands and thanked us for saving the day.   

Authors Note:  Parts of this story may have been slightly exaggerated...you know...like the stuff about the rail breaking and the six foot seas.

The TSA : Taking Shit Away or The Sexual Assassins or Touching Sensitive Areas or Totally Screwing America or...

TSA: Reason #1 to have a Valium Martini before you get to the airport.

If I ever end up in the Crowbar Hotel it will be for killing a TSA agent! 

I’m a rebel, I know this. I often try to sneak past TSA with a wine opener in my purse, or God forbid 12 ounces of hairspray. Once I even went all crazy and tried to smuggle not one, but TWO nine ounce jars of cheese dip(s) from the very fabulous gourmet food store, Napa Style. The douche bag TSA guy, who clearly did not need the calories associated with said cheese dips, confiscated them from me (for his own consumption, I'm certain) lest I make a cheese bomb and blow the plane to pieces. Grrrrrrr. 
(Authors note: that was about 6-7 years ago and I'm still holding a grudge.)

     
So yeah, over the years I’ve had my share of run ins with them, but nothing has pushed me over the edge like this.

Billings MT...home of the ten thousand TSA agents who stand around with their thumbs up their butts all day waiting for the typically twenty-five passengers to come through security. Because they have nothing better to do, they will ransack every suitcase, legally feel you up and pat you down "with the back of the hand," and make everyone, meaning not just the random terrorist-looking grandma, but everyone, stand in their little box that blows a puff of hot air on you to see if any bomb making (read: fertilizer i.e. cow shit [this is Montana]) blows off.

So here's how my latest encounter went:  First off, I will tell you that I have mascara older than this little twit with a badge, who looks like she just quit her job working the deep fryer at Mickey D's and has now been a highly trained TSA agent for not more than two days. She decides that my 18-20 containers of Little Caesars dog food look suspicious even though I am traveling with two dogs.

She wants to know where I'm going and why I have so much of it. I tell her that at the present I'm living in the British Virgin Islands and that I can't buy it there, so I have to bring it with me. I must look like I’m a mule for the Colombians because she wrings her pudgy blue gloved hands and goes over to her supervisor, who is a lazy lard ass with an inflated ego and says that she thinks it's suspicious that I have so much dog food. They tell some TSA secrets and then he pulls his own blue gloved thumb out of his hind end and inspects one of my 3.5 ounce containers and then he says that I can’t fly with it because...wait for it… it’s a gel. 

Gracie & Elvis ~ The "gel eating" dogs.

The rest of the conversation went something like this:

Me:  “What the...? No it's not.  Dude, it's dog food.” (Note to self: TSA dudes do not like to be called "Dude.")

Lard A:  “It's gel and you will have to check it.” (He makes sure his Cracker-Jack looking badge is at my eye level.)

Me:  “No, really it is dog food.” Then I ask him what seems like a perfectly legit question, which is, “do you feed your dog gel?”

Lard A:  “Well you can’t fly with it.”  

Me:  “I fly with it all the time. Matter of fact I just flew here a few days ago with it.” I can feel my Bad Attitude coming to the surface and I can tell I’m about to do that thing when my horns sprout from my head, but I try to remain un-demon-like as I ask semi-nicely, “well can't you just make an exception this one time?”

Lard A:  “No I can't. What if the next person wants to fly with peanut butter?"

That’s when I throw my hands up in the air, my head spins around a' la exorcist and I declare loud enough for the air traffic control tower to hear me and say, “Peanut butter? Seriously? Peanut butter? We all know how dangerous that would be! There’s nothing like peanut butter to bring down an airplane!!!!”

And that's pretty much when things went down hill. The Big Guy began heading back to the counter to check the bag, while I wondered how much time I would get if I did a cavity search on him with the pointy toe of my super cute slingbacks.

I wasn’t completely finished…“Wait a second,” I say. You do know that we are flying on that little rinky-dink plane and that they will make us gate check this bag anyway, don’t you?”

(I had him there! And for a second or two he looked dumbfounded, or at least just dumb.)

Lard A:  “It doesn’t matter that they will gate check it. It’s not going past here!” 
He sounded pretty firm about it.

Twit with a badge is looking all sheepish because she knows she started this whole business and she knows I’m about to go postal on her frumpy ass. Every time she looks my direction I give her my evil eye. The other 7268 agents on duty look down and avoid eye contact with me because I’ve about turned her into a pool of butter with my death stare.

Enter unsuspecting-smiling-just-coming-on-duty-TSA guy. 
     “Hi poochies,” he says to my dogs, who are looking very sad at this point. “How are you little guys doing?” 

     “They’re pissed off!” I bark at him, “because that asshole just took away their food.” (I point a finger at said asshole, like I’m picking him out of a line-up.) 

My sad looking doggies. :(

And that was when it went all quiet. Luckily for me The Big Guy showed up about then and grabbed my arm and led me away, without the handcuffs on. Yeah, he did whisper in my ear, "Just keep walking, and step it up a bit. I figured they'd have you arrested by now."

I just spun my head completely around one more time and headed to the bar for a Valium Martini. 

 

On a lighter note, here is my recipe for a Stuffed Baguette, and you know exactly where I'd like to stuff it!  Click on the "Appetizers" tab to view it.

  

Bon Appetit ~ Round 4: The Ultimate Sticky Buns

The April issue is out and I can see that the BA Bully is getting serious about this throwdown thing! Not only had I never cut up a chicken, but I've never made cinnamon rolls (same thing as sticky buns, I think) that didn't involve whacking a can on the edge of the counter.

After my good luck with the pizza dough, my confidence has soared and I thought these buns would be a walk in the park. I was all excited to make them on the boat, even though past experience has proven that copious amounts of flour and open hatches and ocean motion do not a good combination make.
   
Then I read the recipe. A stand mixer? Yeah right, I keep it on my three inches of counter top right next to my microwave oven, panini press and deep fryer. Then I read further...and I'm quoting, "No stand mixer? Don't worry. Fit your food processor with the standard chopping or dough blade..."  BAHAHAHAHA!  My food processor with "dough blade" is on my other three inches of counter top, right next to the four-slice toaster, Nespresso machine, waffle maker and blender! (ok, so maybe I do have a Nespresso machine onboard, but you get my drift.) I have a "mini processor" on the boat, which I love like the kids and couldn't live without, but only if I cut the recipe by 1/25654236th could I possibly get all the list of ingredients in.
 
So you know what that means, don't ya? No sticky buns until May when I am home cuddling up to my stand mixer and food processor with dough blade. 

If anyone has made them, let me hear from you. I loved to know if they are the "ULTIMATE" or if BA is talking smack, because I'll call em on it, you know I will!

In the meantime here is recipe for French Muffins, taken from cooks.com. Click HERE to see the recipe. Mmmmmm!