"Taking the Cat for a Walk"

"Taking the Cat for a Walk" means kicking the caterpillar motors of a speed boat/yacht (?) into high gear and raging exponentially through the water. Monday night i happened to be on a boat which had some cats taken for a walk.

it was a magnificant boat measuring 41.2' or "39' if you're dockin, 42' if you're braggin'!" after cleaning the already gorgeous vessel, loading up the stereo with some Brooks and Dunn (guy's cousin: do you like 'em? Me: i'd like anything right now!) and feeding coronas and michelob light to the cooler, we puttied right out of a lovely, little quaint inlet and jetted into Chesapeake Bay. That's right. Chesapeake Bay, not a place i ever thought i'd be spending time.

and there i was.



the sun was going down and i shot pictures, 121 total. the cousins situated the boat in many different positions just for me to get the sunset, buoys, lighthouses and my portrait all lined up in the just the right places.


("I'm flying Jack!")

then we took off for the harbor. cruising underneath the Francis Scott Key Bridge aka "The Key", we shortly came to guy's cousin's favorite place in the world, the very spot in the Chesapeake where Francis Scott Key wrote "Star Spangled Banner." there's a buoy there painted like a flag, just bob bob bobbing.



i got shivers standing there, on the back little deck, off the side of the boat, water licking my feet, smoking and watching the buoy, thinking about history, feeling that feeling that you get sometimes when you hear that song. no matter how much you hate politics, it is undeniably inspiring. i was simply out of my head at that moment. time travel is possible way deep in one's head if you let it be. there are traces of the past that are accessible if you let the air in, if you let your mind open, if you absorb that layer of reality just beyond ours. and i was feeling it.

after a few pictures there, we climbed back onboard and wailed into the last of the sunset towards the inner innards of Baltimore Harbor.



and got burgers at hooters, where the girls were so scary looking, i thought i might embarrass them by taking their pictures. so i shot the souvenir shelf.



we ate our burgers on the boat, docked right in the harbor, right next to an excitable mall filled with shoppers and diners and cruisers and losers. they walked past us and gave us a sign. sometimes a nod, sometimes a stop-n-stare. i felt like one of those lucky lucky lucky people you see sitting in fabulous boats, eating burgers, drinking beers, people who you can't imagine where they came from or how they could be so lucky.



this time it was me. and it was thrilling.

tie up, tie off, pull it in, jack it up and off we went.

the burgers were gone and it was getting late. we had been cruising for 4.5 hours and there were cigarettes we needed to get to an angry wife at home, who'd had a treacherous day.

it is difficult to describe an experience of such wormhole, upper level, super-conscious, scorchingly alive fun...these men-cousins that i've only met a couple times, i found myself hugging and kissing spontaneously out of over-the-top gratitude and pure hysterical joy.

i can still feel the water.