Adventures of Luck of a Fool: August 16- September 22, 2022 Mary's Scoliosis and marina events

8-16 We were right on the Central and eastern time zone line, so we lost an hour that morning. We make it to Brunswick, Ga by 6:00pm. We stopped at a Mexican food truck at a brewery downtown Brunswick before going back to the boat. I dropped off Dave and our luggage at the boat so he could start cooling it down and the refrigerator/freezer. I went directly to the Publix grocery store. Besides picking up groceries, I was able to say hello to our son, Peter, who works there. I also bought a bag of ice and put everything in our freezer for the night. We didn’t go to bed until the air conditioning lowered the inside temp to 80 degrees.
8-17 We had to be back today because Dave has an appointment for lab work this morning at 10:00. His phone didn’t make the automatic change in the time zone, so he was going to be late. They let him reschedule to 11:00, thankfully. I had an appointment at 4:00pm with a spine doctor. He showed me the x-rays of my MESSED UP back. The scoliosis was severe in my lower back which explained my problem areas. I also have degenerative spine in my lumbar region. But no surgical treatment is necessary. And as long as it stays mobile, I should be able to avoid that in the future. He referred me for physical therapy. I was actually happy to have a plan to help me stay out of pain and avoid surgery.

8-18 Dave had his annual exam at the VA this morning. He hadn’t seen a Dr in person since before Covid early 2020. Our refrigerator and freezer were’t cooling like it should after we turned it off for the first time. So Dave started looking into that.

8-19 Friday. We went to our storage unit today to figure out where we were going to store our cedar chest and paintings. We made it work. Dave was feeling like he had a urinary tract infection, started antibiotics and took it easy. We had Pete over for dinner. We had brought a frozen crawfish étouffée back from Louisiana and shared that with Pete. Pete and I went up to the marina’s happy hour late and he played music and we played cards with friends.
8-20 to 9-9. Usual marina functions and boat projects.

pizza night on the dock

Dave's homemade Gnocchi

tried to have a happy hour on the dock, but a catamaran owner invited us to his boat

Dave's homemade bread

9-9 Friday Pete, Dave and I went to Woodbine, GA for their Woodbine Oprey bluegrass night. We’ve only gone on Saturday nights for the old country music. They served a meal of 2 tacos, chips and a drink for $6. Great deal. The bluegrass night is more of an open mic event and people took turns leading a song as others played along. The Saturday night event is more structured and retired professional musicians play. We visited with one of the performers afterwards. They would love to have Pete join them anytime.
9-12 We drove to Jacksonville early this morning to take Pete to the airport. He is flying back to Rapid City, SD for a week to play a gig with his old band, the River Liffey Boys. Murphy’s Pub celebrates Sept 17 as half way to St Patrick’s Day, also known as St Practice Day. After dropping him off, we stopped for breakfast in St Mary’s at Cedar Oak cafe. There were new owners and management. We enjoyed our breakfast. Photos are from 9-17-22 in Rapid City.

Toni Moore, Janice Zeller Mooore, Pete and Cheryl Ulmer

Back at the marina, I started helping a committee plan a fundraiser for another boater and friend, Eric Thompson, who has rectal cancer. He and his wife live on their sailboat full-time, but they are not of retirement age. They are/were both still employed. So many of the boaters wanted to do something to help them out. Much of my time between now and the event, Sept 22, was spent on planning, PT for my back, and packing for a SD trip with girlfriends.
9-22. The fundraiser was a huge success. We planned a beach party theme. The marina provided the food for a “picnic” type of meal-hamburgers, hotdogs, coleslaw, individual bags of chips, and cookies. Another boater offered to fry fresh caught fish. We asked for a donation for the plate of food, not an all you can eat buffet. Boater donated alcohol and mix for a rum punch and margaritas, bottles of wine and a keg of beer. That was also on a donation basis. We had sold raffle tickets for a 50/50 drawing. And we had a silent auction. We thought we might have 5 items, but we ended up with over 30. People came dressed in beach attire. We had games to play to make it more festive. We had hoped to raise at least $1000. The place was packed and we raided about $4500! The winner of the 50/50 drawing gave them his winnings. Eric was in the hospital on the day of the event. But his wife came and gave a heartfelt thank you to everyone. There were 3 of us on the planning committee, but we had all kinds of help from other boaters. It was a great night.