2026 February: Haitian Dinner at St. Columba

 13 February 2026

Today was a busy day for both of us. We both had commitments at St. Columba church this morning. Both of us needed to be there for 10:00, so we biked there together. Once there we went our separate ways. Clark went to practice music for Sunday's church service with Johnny while I headed for the kitchen area to help prepare food for this evening's Haitian fund-raising dinner. 

I expected to find some number of people in the kitchen area, but the only other person there was Pastor Debra. The food had not arrived yet nor had the person in charge to say how she wanted things done. I decided to grab a seat to wait for things to begin. 

Before coming to the church, I went shopping at Walgreen's and Publix. I keep track of expenses in my phone, so I decided to update my records. No sooner did I open the app than Debra put me to work setting up and decorating the dining area. She said, "I don't want to waste your time." and proceeded to assign me work! Love it!

My first task was to put the napkins and menus out on the table. The Haitian flag contains red, white, and blue, so we used that as the color scheme.

Haitian Flag

We ran out of blue napkins, so Debra suggested we alternate tables blue then white with a menu at each place setting.

Once that was done, she asked me to put red, white, and blue beads out for a decoration.  Separating out the red, white, and blue beads from the vast assortment of other colors proved an interesting challenge. I ended up decorating myself! My friend Nancy said we needed a picture!

Once I untangled the beads from each other and from me, I placed them on the tower shown below as a bead tree.

After completing those tasks, the fellow kitchen workers had still not appeared. Fortunately, Debra had more work for me. She had gone through her personal collection of Haitian art to offer some items up for auction as part of this fund raiser. She found me a dust rag and put me to work putting a shine on these, mostly metal, object d'art.

Then I worked with Debra to set up the display of the items to be bid on.

This truck was the hardest item for Debra 
to part with.

Besides the items up for silent auction, Pastor Debra brought in a number of items for show only.

Debra rummaged around the church closets until she found the bulletin board she was looking for to make a display for the evenings gathering.

We were just finishing these various preparations when the food and our chef arrived to begin food prep. Almost 80 tickets were sold for tonight's dinner, so we had a lot of vegetables to chop up. My friend Nancy and I began by slicing multiple heads of cabbage and then moved on to slicing radishes. 

Nancy (Sous chef) and Winese (Chef)

While we were busy chopping, Pastor Deb continued decorating and put out orchids on tables.

Although they are all fake orchids, they look so real.

By 1:00, I had been at the church working for three hours and needed to head "home" for lunch. Clark was still busy rehearsing with John for Sunday. We biked home as soon as he was ready to go. After lunch he headed off to work with a fellow boater on a battery issue while I stayed on the boat and tried to stay awake while reading. I mostly failed!

Around 5:30 it was time to head back to the church for the big event. We passed by the folks waiting for the sunset and grabbed a picture before continuing on our way.

We thought we were on time, but when we got there, the room was packed with people.

Fortunately, Nancy and Steve had availability at their table for us. The food was plated in the kitchen and brought out to us. The menu is shown below.

Black rice, coleslaw, chicken and
fried plantain on my plate.

Dessert table

As described by Pastor Deb,
"Rum Punch with rum and
Rum Punch without rum!"

We had music before dinner.

Steel Band Music

After the meal, Pastor Debra made a presentation explaining the purpose of the dinner 

Pastor Debra

and then called Winese out of the kitchen to recognize her efforts to support the orphanage in Haiti and ask her to say a few words.

Winese

The event proved to be a success. The food was excellent; the silent auction fruitful for the orphanage. I was happy that I was able to acquire the one thing on the silent auction table that I wanted because it would fit on our boat. When I went to check out the table, I found that the refrigerator magnets that I coveted were not part of the auction, and I could buy one right then and there! Yay!

I have added this to my nook on the boat where I place my treasures from memorable moments.

Ev with Winese at the end of the event

I helped with some of the cleanup; Clark chatted with his fellow band members. By the time we left on our bikes to head back to the marina, it was near 8:00, so we put our lights on our bikes and headed out.

2026 February: Marathon Happenings

 8 February 2026

Cathy and Franklin's visit came to an end this morning. Clark and I were off to church, and they headed home to Vero Beach. Clark left earlier on his bike for pre-show practice. I left on my bike about the same time Cathy and Franklin left to drive home. The weather was pleasant, and it was a lot less work to ride the bike than to fold it, stow it in car, unstow, unfold, ... It is only a mile to the church. As I waited for the service to begin, I noticed that the band members were having a "powwow"!

With today being Superbowl day, I left Clark at the church after the service and biked across the street to Publix to pick up some food for the potluck dinner being held at the marina pool bar tonight. Clark wants vegetables, so I decided to do garlic green beans. That seemed to go over well with the crowd as I had an empty dish by the end of the event.

We had a good crowd at the game. The game was not riveting and we spent most of the time talking with other boaters - some we knew and others we just met that night. Clark met a woman there who likes to sing and we exchanged contact information. Hopefully they can get together for a singer / guitarist date.

10 February 2026

The only thing of note that happened yesterday was a trip to Publix. Today, however, we had a busy day. 

Being a Tuesday, I was off to the library for art at 9:30. I have to get there on time or earlier if possible because the room fills up. We now have to register ahead of time if we plan to attend and cancel if we change our minds. On the way through the marina, I noticed the iguanas enjoying the pool area - no more hanging out on the window sill like they were last week.

Today's class was more interesting than usual as she gave step-by-step instructions on how to blend watercolor paints to get the right mix. Then she walked us through how to properly measure a person's face to draw it. 

By the time I got back from art, Clark was packing up to leave for band practice at the church. I made him lunch and sent him on his way. He spends an inordinate amount of time organizing the music for the service. Every week he gets the list of songs and has to work with it to be sure he can play the songs in the right order.

Nancy, my friend I met at St. Columba, took me to Publix yesterday. I mentioned to her that an event was going on in Key Colony - music and food trucks in a park there. We arranged that she and her husband, Steve, would bring Clark back to the marina from band practice and then the four of us would go to the park to check out the event. 

It sounded good in theory, but band practice went too late to really take advantage of the event at the park. We set up our folding chairs and went in search of food. 

Several trucks had long lines that did not appear to be moving. Clark and I ordered a pizza from a truck but were surprised that we would have an hour wait for it to be ready. 

The many signs on the truck were interesting. I snapped pictures of a few of them.

As we stood with Nancy and Steve in line, we realized that it would be quite late by the time we got to eat - a restaurant would be faster. The band played their last song and packed up their stuff. 

Band is packing up

We decided to cancel the pizza and leave. The guys in the food truck had no problem canceling the order for us. They said they understood. I thought they might be happy to not have yet another order to cook. They could only cook 3 premade pies at a time.

We opted for the Marathon Grill aka Ale House and had a lovely dinner much earlier than we would have eaten at the park. As we enjoyed our meal, Clark received a text "Your pizza is ready!" Hmmm. Did we get charged? Our credit card company says to check back in 5 days to see if the pending charge became a "real" charge. Oh well!

11 February 2026

When Cathy came to visit for the weekend, she brought me a hyacinth that was just a bunch of green leaves in a glass jar. Over the past few days, it has grown and started to bloom. The growth rate in just 3 days is stunning! I did not think to take a picture on the first day where no portion of the flower appeared above the leaves.

 

Today, I joined my friend Deanne to attend a book club meeting at Boot Key Harbor under the Tiki hut. We had read "the soul of the octopus". We had 8 of us there to discuss the book. This is the second time I attended. Deanne brought seaweed chips and octopus stickers as gifts for the attendees. I met knew people and enjoyed the discussion. My afternoon was spent at the Boaters' Lounge doing my laundry.

Clark, on the other hand, was busy on another boater's boat helping him with getting his solar panels to work properly. One thing has led to another and it has turned into more work than expected. That is typical of boats!

At the end of the day, Clark chased me off the boat to get the night's sunset picture. As I walked up to the viewing area, I heard Roger blowing the conch to indicate the sun had set. I got upt there to grab my picture and found a bunch of boater friends to chat with to end the day.

12 February 2026

Forty-two years ago today I was in the hospital giving birth to my first-born son, Jeffrey! My how the time does fly. Today is extra special because his youngest daughter was born on his birthday, so we have two special people to celebrate! 

As I prepared to spend my day working on blog updates, I got a text from a fellow boater that folks would be meeting for Mahjongg at 10:30. I decided to join the group. Seven of us showed up. I am a novice at the game, but many of us are on the same level which is good for me. 

Mahjongg time

Our table ended at noon time, but the second table folks stayed for another round.

Clark hung around the boat for the holding tank pump-out and then left to work on the solar panel / battery issue on our friend's boat again today. He met me at the boat for lunch and then returned to the "job" afterwards. We hardly saw each other today. With him on guitar and me at art, mahjongg, etc., we are like "two ships passing". 

My afternoon was taken up with blog updates as evidenced by me submitting three entries today!

A manatee was visiting our marina today.

At 6:00 I walked out to check out the sunset and found quite a crowd waiting for the show.

A lot of dogs were roaming around among the sunset watchers.

"Keezy"

Clark stood apart from the crowd spending time with his young boater friend - Tessa.