Regatta!

Originally, the plan was to run in several heats, have an official timer with stopwatch at the finish line, and other such formalities that would qualify the event as a true regatta.  Truly, though, our homemade boat race down the creek could not have been more...legit.  We crowded precariously at the creekside, heaved our vessels into the roiling rapids, watched in wonder as some stayed upright, and ran alongside to keep up with the bobbing survivors as they were caught midstream not by the pathetically stretched net but by the brave, cold hand of a 19-year-old in waders.

My boat, Rower Not a Shower, unfortunately got caught on a shoal and had to be retrieved after the race.  I think I'll release it into the big river before I leave for the season, perhaps with a message inside so when a Japanese fisherman finds it three years from now he can report back on Rower's seaworthiness.

You might notice several ornamental bandaids bedecking (ha) my boat -- they suggested themselves when I took a tentative break from applying them to my slightly mutilated thumb.  There is a blood-thirsty new serrated knife at work which claimed a chunk of one of the dishwasher's index fingers; apparently that incident only further whetted its appetite for flesh, and it surprised me in a weak moment, indecisively cutting bread crusts for croutons.  The regatta was quite a fun change from being sick the past week.  I need to get reacquainted with the splendor of the outdoors, and pause the weird, confused dreams that come from dozing off while listening to endless hours of NPR podcasts.

-I'd like to conduct an informal poll/public service announcement: have you heard of baked Alaska?  I first came across it in a Clue series chapbook, as something wealthy people with a tendency toward murder enjoy at their social gatherings.  It is ice cream on a base of cake, topped/encased by meringue.  Traditionally, it gets popped in the oven briefly to brown the meringue, but you can also pour some alcohol over it and torch it.  I'm just curious how widely known a dessert this is, as I expected to see it in every restaurant up here (how could you resist baked Alaska in Alaska?), but it seems it's rare and not well known even in its eponymous land.