False Alarm

For the past several months, Carol Anne had been looking forward very eagerly to the end of her teaching term. Part of her eagerness stemmed from one particular afternoon class, which had more than its share of immature students. Another part, however, was because the end of term would mean that she'd be free to get to know her boat better and go practicing with other sailors during weekends and weekdays at Elephant Butte Lake before the summer became too hot and the lake too crowded.

It hasn't worked out that way, however. Continued boat maintenance and repair issues, and other time intrusions have left us with little time for anything but to barely manage the racing schedule on weekends. And, each time Carol Anne or I have tried to go sailing during a weekday, either at Elephant Butte or Cochiti lakes, plans have fallen through, the weather has turned ugly, or people have been unavailable. It's all rather discouraging, especially when people don't always seem to realize how much trouble we go to or effort we put into being available to sail and how we have to make a lot of arrangements to have free time open.

Today I took an hour and a quarter away from work to swap vehicles with Carol Anne and help her find sailing and other gear and pack. Then, we found out that her plans had fallen through on the other end. So, we got to unpack the car of luggage, sailing gear, ice chest, snacks, etc. Now we've sort of been left hanging. Will Carol Anne get in a mid-week sail or not? Quien sabe.

Not having a tuning partner or mid-week crew might not be so bad if Carol Anne had regular weekend crew to depend upon. However, lately, even that has been dicey for her, with everything from teenage mutiny to losing crew to illness.

Of course, our inability to plan does have consequences and does affect our future willingness and ability to make commitments to others. If we can't count on people being available to sail with us in one venue, then other venues become more attractive. So, in the future, for a weekend such as this coming weekend with its specialty races at the Butte, instead of volunteering to practice and provide a committee boat, we might only come south for one day of racing or not come at all.