The Eve Of Christmas

I know that it's Christmas Eve because the calendar says it and the newspaper says it but it felt like another plain old day to me.  That's okay.  I got my pudding made for my contribution to Christmas supper tomorrow.  I've got all the presents wrapped and in a big bag to carry to DS's tomorrow.  I can't wait.

I finished the December Preemie Hat #4 this afternoon.  I'd have had it done sooner than I did except I fell asleep with it in my hands.  I woke up a half hour later with the yarn threaded through my fingers and the hat and needles on the floor.  Oh well.  What else did I have to do?  Naps are good.

There was only one squirrel on the suet today.  This was a different squirrel, I could tell because he didn't hang from his back feet like the others do, but clamped on with all four feet and used his teeth to gnaw off chunks of suet cake.

We woke up to a dusting of snow and, even though it never got out of the teens, the sunshine melted most of it away so we're having a brown Christmas.  I have faith that soon we'll have all the snow we can handle.  Ugh.  But that will mean skiing for the kids and snowshoeing for Meemaw.  Yay!

 

 

 

24 December--Barbara Malcolm, The Seaview. 

           Once the silver bubbles of my entry dissipated I looked down to see the shipwreck upright on the white sand eighty feet below.  Dougie and the other divers were slowly descending so I equalized my ears, adjusted my buoyancy, and swam down to meet them at the bottom.  I was perfectly happy to be on my own.

            I kept them in sight but was free to explore the world that had grown up around the artificial reef of the shipwreck.  There was the school of yellowtail jacks, silver white and spotted with lemon yellow.  They're fast swimmers and always ready for a handout.

            The silver blade of a barracuda patrolled the top deck.  I think of them as the teenaged gangs of the reef.  They swim with their mouths open so that their needle-sharp teeth are on display.  I like watching the sun glint on their silver scales.

            Along the rails and in the hawse-holes where the anchor chains used to slide, damselfishes have their algae gardens.  They tend them like any good gardener, repelling invading blue tangs that swim by for a snack.

            The water was the perfect temperature, eighty-two degrees, and it felt like silk on my skin as I swam.  I heard the snap and pop of mantis shrimp claws as they stunned their prey and watched fish of various species line up at a cleaning station on top of a nearby coral head where red and white banded coral shrimp waved their long white antennae to attract customers like a carwash strings banners.  I enjoyed watching the silver bubbles of the divers I was following trail upward like strings of mercury beads.  The hour-long dive went fast.  Soon we were ascending along the mooring line to stop at fifteen feet below the surface to do a three-minute safety stop.

            I watched one of the divers pull a piece of coral out of the pocket of his buoyancy vest and show it to Dougie, who took it, examined it, and tossed it over his shoulder so that it sank back to the bottom.  He turned his palm up and waggled his fingers in a "come on" gesture, asking if the diver had collected anything else.  The guy pulled a shell out of his other pocket.  Dougie turned it over to see a hermit crab shrunk back into it as far as it could go.  He shook a "shame, shame" finger at the diver and let the shell and its traumatized occupant float back to the sea bed.  I was amused to see Dougie frisk the guy, plunging his hand into each of the diver's pockets, then turn to do the same to the others.  They saw what happened to their friend and were too fast for him, each diver floated above a rain of broken coral pieces and shells drifting toward the sand.

            I ascended slowly to the surface watching to make sure that I wasn't coming up under the boat.  I grabbed the trailing line to steady myself behind the boat while I handed Freddy my weight pockets and fins before climbing the ladder at the stern and walking back to my seat.  I slicked back my hair and unzipped my wetsuit, peeling out of the sleeves and wiping my face with a towel before changing my gear to a fresh tank.

            The six divers climbed back onboard grumbling about Dougie "taking away our stuff."  I enjoyed hearing the usually taciturn divemaster warning them never to take shells or coral as "you never know who is living there" and reminding them that the waters around the island from the waterline to two-hundred feet deep is a marine preserve and protected from fishing.

            "What about those native guys we see coming in with boats full of fish and bags of lobsters?" one of them said.

            Dougie looked into his red, angry face and said, "They have permits.  Did you have a permit to collect the specimens you had?"

            The guy shut his mouth, shook his head, and went back to his friends.

            Freddy fired up the engines and nudged the boat forward while Dougie leaned over the bow to unhook us from the mooring buoy.  The ride to the second dive site was short and, since it was so shallow, Dougie said to be back on board in an hour, warned the six divers not to touch anything, and turned to me.  "Let's go diving, Mrs. Rose."  He handed me my fins, we stepped off the boat on opposite sides, and went for a nice slow swim along the reef.

            On the ride back to shore I realized that I had been right; by the time I climbed the ladder back on deck after the second dive, most of my frustration and irritation had dissipated. 

            I was a little frightened by something I'd seen in Calvin's eyes but I resolved not to be alone when he was around and I wouldn't tell Iggy unless I absolutely had to.

No tosses again today.  I'll resume next week when I can get the back of the car emptied at Goodwill.  After Christmas.

Writing went well for once.  I kind of took the prompt and went sideways but that was all right, the words flowed and that made me happy.

--Barbara