One summer, I hadn’t gotten paid for about three months. The insurance company that reimbursed us for most of our clients was undergoing a major change in their computer system. None of us in the clinic where I worked were getting paid on a regular basis. My boys and I were hanging on by a thread.
So what does a girl do when the going gets tough? She takes her boat home to spend a week moored at the Isthmus of Catalina Island. With a good book, all her troubles are left behind.
We were really living a good life, in spite of having no money. I had a bag of masa, a hunk of cheddar cheese, a few eggs, and stuff like spices. The boys were fishing and diving for abalone. What else do you really need for food? We had lots of homemade tortillas with melted cheddar and scrambled eggs, along with plenty of fresh fish and abalone. That’s when abalone was still plentiful in California.
Someone taught us how to eat raw abalone. Instead of pounding it like you need to if you cook it, you cut the raw meat into pieces like shoestring potatoes. Dip it into a mix of soy sauce, ginger, and anything else your taste buds desired, and munch! It’s a wonderful treat!!
Once, when folks from our local sail fleet had a cookout, we showed up with fresh sheepshead http://www.landbigfish.com/fish/fish.cfm?ID=26, abalone, and hot tortillas. Everyone else was roasting wieners and opening cans of beans. Even though we didn’t have money for beans or wieners, we ate well – and were the envy of everyone else.
I was kicking back on the boat one day with my book, half asleep in the fresh air and warm sun. My boys, Mark and Erik, had gone ashore to hang out with friends. The dinghy bumped against the fenders on the side of the boat and I knew they were back. The boys scrambled up into the cockpit.
“Hey, Mom!” Mark whispered. “Come below. I want to show you something.”
So we went down below and he pulled a huge roll of money from his pocket, about $50 worth or more - a lot of money in those days, and especially to us.
“It was just there on the ground by the garbage cans,” he said. “Someone must have dropped it out of their pocket when they were dumping trash.”
We talked about what to do, and finally checked with the Harbor Police who said that almost anyone could say they’d lost a bunch of money. So they suggested that we wait a couple days to see if anyone asked them about it and if they didn’t, it was ours to keep. No one ever came forward to ask about money that might have been found. It was enough to get us over a financial hump.
The picture above shows me hanging out on Lothlorien, hooked on a mooring - livin’ the life – livin’ off the sea (and a bag of masa)!
So what does a girl do when the going gets tough? She takes her boat home to spend a week moored at the Isthmus of Catalina Island. With a good book, all her troubles are left behind.
We were really living a good life, in spite of having no money. I had a bag of masa, a hunk of cheddar cheese, a few eggs, and stuff like spices. The boys were fishing and diving for abalone. What else do you really need for food? We had lots of homemade tortillas with melted cheddar and scrambled eggs, along with plenty of fresh fish and abalone. That’s when abalone was still plentiful in California.
Someone taught us how to eat raw abalone. Instead of pounding it like you need to if you cook it, you cut the raw meat into pieces like shoestring potatoes. Dip it into a mix of soy sauce, ginger, and anything else your taste buds desired, and munch! It’s a wonderful treat!!
Once, when folks from our local sail fleet had a cookout, we showed up with fresh sheepshead http://www.landbigfish.com/fish/fish.cfm?ID=26, abalone, and hot tortillas. Everyone else was roasting wieners and opening cans of beans. Even though we didn’t have money for beans or wieners, we ate well – and were the envy of everyone else.
I was kicking back on the boat one day with my book, half asleep in the fresh air and warm sun. My boys, Mark and Erik, had gone ashore to hang out with friends. The dinghy bumped against the fenders on the side of the boat and I knew they were back. The boys scrambled up into the cockpit.
“Hey, Mom!” Mark whispered. “Come below. I want to show you something.”
So we went down below and he pulled a huge roll of money from his pocket, about $50 worth or more - a lot of money in those days, and especially to us.
“It was just there on the ground by the garbage cans,” he said. “Someone must have dropped it out of their pocket when they were dumping trash.”
We talked about what to do, and finally checked with the Harbor Police who said that almost anyone could say they’d lost a bunch of money. So they suggested that we wait a couple days to see if anyone asked them about it and if they didn’t, it was ours to keep. No one ever came forward to ask about money that might have been found. It was enough to get us over a financial hump.
The picture above shows me hanging out on Lothlorien, hooked on a mooring - livin’ the life – livin’ off the sea (and a bag of masa)!
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1 comment:
I know those were tough times, financially, you but look GREAT and very content in this picture. Enjoy hearing about those times (and seeing pictures from them). Please don't stop! I wanted to leave a comment over on Lava to Lilikoi, but the comments don't seem to be enabled. Wanted to say I'm finding that blog TREMENDOUSLY interesting. What a great idea for a blog: documenting homesteading (for lack of a better work) a patch of lava on an island.
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