Baby on Board

Yesterday, we had one of our more eventful walks down the dock. This time we pushed a stroller with a small baby down the dock, instead of a shopping cart full of groceries. The total count of humans living on Otis Pagoda is now 3! We were stopped by several neighbors who also welcomed the smallest and newest member to the houseboat community.

I believe the most interesting thing about the last several months is the awareness of the community surrounding the arrival of the newest houseboat dweller. Everyone on our dock has commented that they are excited about the move in date for this small human. This is one aspect of living here that I did not expect, and in fact was taken aback by.

I did not expect our neighbors to care and or notice the changes that were happening. When in fact there was an interest in what was going on with our lives. Making this just another part of houseboat living that surprised me. The other fascinating commentary about our experience in the last couple of months is the neighbors all had positive and heartfelt intentions when speaking to us about the upcoming addition to our family. Which is not always the case with pregnancy as you tend to hear the worst.

Overall, we are thrilled and pleased to bring little MMM home with us, and have her begin houseboat living. We look forward to finding out when she is an adult if she will think living here will be super cool or of course super dorky.

So the adventure begins. . .

I Dream Of. . . huh?

I know, it has been awhile. I guess there was a small fear that we might be leaving since our lease is up and I didn't know how to handle that. But alas our landlord is extending it, so we will just float on.

Two weekends we went to land for the weekend. It was our first weekend away since Oct, we have been waterlocked I guess. It was nice to get away but different than that urge when we lived in the city which would hit about every 6 weeks or so. Life is different in Marin!

While we were gone each evening Ben or I had a dream about water, and no good ones. The first night I have a dream we were at a Camp St. Croix-type of dining hall and there was a tsunami. The water kept rushing in and we had to hold onto the rafters to stay out of the way. I might mention that I do remember that the water was sea/ocean water so it wasn't bath tub warm, but wicked cold like the water we live on. (Guess I miss it when it is not around.)

The next evening Ben had a dream about the Mississippi, and a boat crash. His words of wisdom were; "Ann, if we are ever on a boat on the Mississippi and its capsizes, please listen to me and don't swim under the boat." Ok that seems like sage advice. Apparently, I wanted to prove that I knew what happened to make the boat capsize. After being in boats that have capsized, I can tell you from past performances I am not trying to figure out what happened but how to get the boat back up and stay the H away from the water.

Seems like this floating abode does have an affect on us when we are gone from it. mmm, who knew!

In the News, the comments hurt the most...

Alright, so I just got home from yoga no less... and clicked open sfgate.com to check out the latest news. I came across this article all about a new houseboat design. Yes, it is interesting and the concept of Tafoni is not off base of what Ben and I discuss. Well sort of... maybe it goes against it. Our thought is buy one of these "Dwell" prefab homes and slap it on a barge and boom amazing floating home. This article focuses on interesting design for houseboats, which I am not sure if this has ever been addressed.

Reading the Chronicle is always an interesting task. Sometimes they take themselves seriously and sometimes they don't. The best part of any sfgate.com article is the comment section. Oh man it is amazing. It totally increases the enjoyment level of reading anything online, until now.

Alright, yes my feelings are hurt and I am not going to vent them on the Chron's website, that seems a bit more public than I am willing to go (yes, I know I have a blog, but that is different).

James58 had this to say "Just the OPPOSITE. Smelly environs. Too close to your neighbors. What about a sewer system? A muddy parking lot for 4 mos. of the year?

Maybe for the dreamland vista of aging late 50s and 60-year old hippies... otherwise it's a nightmare to live on a houseboat surrounded by freaks and swales." James58, you have never been here! Shut up! This is a wonderful place to live, we have a sewer, the parking lot isn't muddy and the last time I checked I am not a 50-60 year old hippie and NOT A FREAK! I realize this kind of living isn't for everyone, but come on. I don't make fun of the places you live, unless it is really strange or something. Ah, now I am just annoyed.

Living here has been a wonderful experience. We love all of our neighbors! It is not smelly. Whatever. And interesting home design should be open to all spaces and people.

Christmas Tree

Yes, I know this is really late, but we lost the power cord to our camera... but here is a video of how we took our tree out of the house...

The Girl with One Rollerblade (Sad.)

Yes, there are children that live on our dock. In fact there are probably about 10 of them, which for a place with no backyard or setting like that is a bit surprising. Also for some reason people have it in their head that a houseboat would be a dangerous place to raise a child. I really don't see that but then again people can believe whatever they want, right, right.

Each morning a young girl around 9 years old walks down the dock with her mom or dad. I would imagine she is of course on the way to school and not work. The funny thing is that she wears 1 rollerblade, not two, but one. So the foot with the rollerblade is higher than the other one, which you think would throw her off, it doesn't. She then also scoots down the dock as if she was on a skateboard. I am not sure why she only wears 1 rollerblade. I am curious if this is about safety but honestly it is pretty hard to fall into the water or mud (depending on where you are in the tides). I think it would be easier for her to wear both rollerblades than just 1 of them. Then again maybe she only has 1, I have not checked out if it is always on her right or left, which would help answer that question. I also don't want to stop and ask since she is usually with a parent and that seems like a bad idea from all sides!

You have to wonder what they say about us?

GUS. . .

As you may have guessed there are many types of interesting people living on the dock. We have met many of our neighbors as we have lived there. And yes when we walk down the dock there is always someone to say "Hi" to or something new to look at. I have no idea why I have brought this up before, but I should probably talk about Gus, since he is a cat.

It hit me that this should be a blog topic on Friday as I was walking home around 5 and noticed Gus and the dude who owns them cruising down the dock. Each night (and possibly morning, not sure) Gus goes for a walk. He lives in the middle of our dock. Well I have seen him in the windows and I know where his owner lives. Gus and said owner head out around 4-5 and just take a stroll down the to the end of the dock. Apparently, Gus is 15 year old and has been doing this for year. He is a orange and white long haired mix. He jumps up on planters, sniffs around and just sort of saunters down the dock, much like a cat would. His owner is never more than 3 steps behind him. If you pass him he only sort of looks at you and them keeps moving. There is never a point where Gus stops and lets you pet him. It just isn't his thing. This is his time to cruise around and take his walk.

I think I have gotten used to this deal, but all of a sudden it did strike me as a bit odd since this is only time I have seen anyone take their cat for a walk. (Ok that isn't really true, a young girl I grew up with did tie a jump rope around her cat's neck and took it for a walk, granted the cat never stood up. Therefore it might not count since in theory she really dragged her cat around. Not a walk then, right, just a drag?)

Rain

I have not seen the sun for more than like 5 mins since December. It has been cloudy and overcast, and now the forecast is calling for more rain. Rain, it is different here. Well the sound is different, also the walking down the dock in the rain . . .

When it rains, the raindrops do not hit the ground like in other places, instead it hits water. This creates a noise that is quiet loud and shocking. It sounds as if maybe the rain is actually coming into our house and possibly getting our things wet. It sounds like rain that you might hear in a tent while camping. Ben thinks this is great and really relaxing. It has taken me several months to get used to this noise.

So as the forecast brings rain it also brings noise, but after several months, I am not as alarmed as I once was.

"My First Blog" a Guest Spot

Hi! I’m Ann’s dad and am visiting the land of houseboat living. It is most interesting, beginning with the fact the whole arrangement is a larger community than you might imagine, with a number of docks stretching out from the parking lot. Some docks have sailboat dockage and a large number have these houseboats, all on cement hulls of one kind or another.

The docks are longer than you might think; Ann’s dock has forty homes on it, twenty on each side, with an average width between mooring pilings of about thirty feet between boats. The dock carries the electricity and water and gas hook-ups and it also has the hook-ups with the city for fire hydrants. The dock has plants all up and down the docks and people have added additional touches as well, now with lots of Christmas decorations. The whole area was at one time plated by the city in preparation for filing in the bay and making home sites and such. As a result, there are open spaces along the dock and these represent the spaces where streets were to have been, giving a sense of openness to the whole community.

The thing that makes this whole thing go, of course, is the fact that each floating home is hooked to city sewage treatment. That fact is also the reason why people generally can’t live on the sailboats moored here, until they can show that they are responsibly dealing with sewage. Each floating home has a holding tank which holds waste and waste water, which is then pumped out into the city system from time to time. This is done by a connection over the edge of the hull; the hull is not broken into to allow this access.

The variety of homes and home types is surprising, as is the fact that few of them seem of have a nautical theme of any kind, with the exception of the one that is built to look like a little tugboat on top of a dock. The height restriction is twenty feet above the water line, generally enforced except for some larger grandfathered floating homes…just as in your neighborhood!! Some are a single story, but most are two. Designs are compact and generally open, with economical use of space, as you would have in a condo or other tight space construction. Many also have a floating deck or something on the waterside to accommodate boat docking, canoes and kayaks.

Vary interesting and fun!

Frost!

In the last two days it has been quite cold in the Bay Area. In fact it has even snowed in some locations! (Someone even skiied a mountain here) But alas no snow at our house!

For the past two mornings there has been a visible sign that it is cold here, frost. We wake up to the dock frosted over with a beautiful white covering that is yet a bit dangerous. Ben took a bad fall/slip on Tuesday morning. In that fall he managed to spill his coffee all over the place and by the time I left for work a little bit later all of the spilled coffee had become frozen. Yesterday, I had to use a credit card to scrap off the frost on my car, because why would I have an ice scrapper? I no longer live in the middle where I have to deal with these things. (Tahoe is different; I know we go there…) That was sort of exciting.

This morning greet us again with frost but this time our dock people had put some salt down so it wouldn't be so icky....

How do I feel about this frost? Um, yea, I am not sure.... After moving away from the middle we haven't had to deal with any of this in awhile.... so yea, I am not sure...

Trick or Treat

Yesterday was Halloween, a much loved holiday among children of all ages. We were very curious if we were going to get trick or treaters. There are children who live here, so we thought we'd get a few. And we did, at both sides of our house.

The biggest surprise was the trick or treaters we got at the back door. Yes, the back door. These people were in kayaks. The first group there were about 5 kayaks, and I scampered down along the house to give them our candy. They said there were about 30 people doing this in kayaks. Then another group came by, which is the photo pictured here. We were trying to throw candy into their pumpkin on their kayak. I wasn't very good at it, but needless to say I helped out the cause. I think these people may have been drinking...mmmm...

I have to say it was the best thing about Halloween, the fact that we got trick or treaters, and some were even on boats. I think I know what we are going to do next year!

My God It's Full of Stars

Our new home isn't that far away from our old one. Only about 10 miles or so. Otis is tucked into a bay, which is pretty much protected. From our deck we can see the homes in Mill Valley, Tiburon, and some in Sausalito. There aren't very many street lamps or "light pollution" around our hood, which makes one thing quite surprising; the stars.

It was late one evening a couple of weeks ago and as Ben and I walked down the dock the stars were everywhere. Unfortunately for us, we can only identify like 3 constellations, and there rest of them are just a mess of shiny specs. Since we do not have that much light pollution we can actually see them living in a city. (Yes, I am calling Sausalito a city, notice I did not refer to it as The City).

If you are here on a clear night, remember to look up and take it all in!

note: i did not take that photo....

What's in a Name?

Our houseboat did not come with a name, or at least one that we know of. On the tour a couple weeks ago they all had names! As time has gone on, I have started referring to our home as Otis Pagoda. I should probably give you some context.

One of our friends was really into Otis Reading. I am a huge fan of "Sitting on the Dock of Bay". When I had lots of time on my hands I was doing some research about the song and Otis. (When you have an hour to kill these are things you do!) I found out that he wrote that song while living on a houseboat. Now that is really cool! I of course found out more things about the history of houseboats, but I will save that one for later. Hence: Otis.

The outside of our house has an Asian feel to it, at least the outside does. And pagoda does not stand on its own, unless we are talking about the "Royal Tenenbaums." Hence: Pagoda.

Now this doesn't mean that we are going to post signs or get a banner. This gives us a point of reference to speak about it.

I Never Thought I'd Live on a Boat

Yes, the above is true. I never thought I'd live on a boat. In fact if you would have said this to me 7 years ago, I think I would have told you that you were crazy. And then I'd laugh in your face. Ben and I got into a discussion with Ryan and Ashley (lifepartners) on Friday night. And we began talking about if Otis Pagoda really is a boat. Does a houseboat classify as a boat, even though it uses "boat" in its title?

According to webster's a boat is: a small vessel for travel on water. Or another name for a ship. Ok, so we are "small" when you talk about homes. I think we have 1100 square feet here, maybe. Ok that part of the definition; check. Ok let's cover travel. We do "travel" with the tide. You know up and down twice a day, and side to side with the wind and current. Travel part of definition; check. Granted we have nothing to propel us to either move us forward or backwards like a sail or motor. I guess if we had to go out to sea Ben and I would classify as a crew. I am not too sure who would be captain, but that we can work that out if need too.

Ashley was trying to convince us that we do not really live on a boat, but I think that the above will show that yes, we do in fact live on a boat. Did I ever think we'd get here, um no. I never thought I'd live on a boat. (enjoy the little link there)

Mine Mine Mine

There is always a flurry of wildlife around our home. Yes, this differs from your home in some aspects. We do not have squirrels, deer, coyotes, or anything like that. We do have birds, and lots of them.

The most popular bird happens to be the Sea Gull. The bird that stalks you for food and snacks when it sees you. The bird that comes floating along when you appear on the deck just to check out it is that you might be doing, and yes, if you are going to share. The bird that follows the egret to see where it is fishing to see if it too can get in on that game.

I don't know how to tell the Sea Gull that its call is not pretty. It is not the calming bird song of let's say a penguin. (Ok, I'll level with you, I have no idea what a penguin sounds like, but they are cute so one can only imagine.) The sea gulls always sound like they are harassing each other and other birds. When I used to drink coffee at home for a living I used to spend my time scolding them and telling them that they are not pretty. Now, I do not have the luxury of that any more.

I wonder what the other birds think of the sea gull, and if they too judge it. Clearly I am judging it, but whatever!

Another Storm?

Seriously? This morning I wake up to the announcement that there is going to be another storm in the Bay Area. I guess I can handle it. So it is suppose to rain and things like that. The one line of this story that Ben and I thought was funny is they want people to be prepared for flooding. How more ready can we get?

We already living in a flooded area, because we live on water. Maybe we should go and pick up some free sandbags and explain that our home has already been flooded. It becomes interesting to figure out what really applies to someone that lives on a floating home and what doesn't. The only thing that will be interesting will be the wind and rain. It is a long walk from the car to the house!

Last day of Freedom

Note: This is going to be a selfish post. . .

As some of you know I have been partaking in a self-imposed unemployment since June 25th. I will say it has been amazing. Not only have I been able to see tons of family and friends, and traveled around the world. On another note I have been able to recharge by battery and get to a place where I know what I am looking for both job and life wise.

Ben and I have been to spend a ton of time together. We spent an amazing two weeks in Europe and some great time in the middle. When he goes away on business I have gone with him, no real questions asked! On one trip we walked off the plane and I had no idea where we were staying or how we were going to get to the hotel. That is so not me! I always know where we are headed and how we are going getting there. It has been great for my mind to rethink how it thinks.

We moved from an apartment that we lived in for almost 6 years. That whole deal became my project, and I think I did a pretty good job. I found this place! Our floating home, which I refer to as Otis Pagoda (I will cover that name in a later post) in my head. Living here has allowed us to reconnect with a ton of our friends. People seem to drop by at the drop of a hat, partly to check out floating home living and then to see us.

On Monday I will head back to work, which I am very excited about! I am ready to go back after this brief hiatus. Who knows if and when I will get to do this again. In theory I'd like to say this is my last day of freedom, in a sense. My last Friday of hanging out and sort of doing things. Next Friday I will be sitting at my desk working and not doing those things.

I have been trying to rack my brain of something fun to do. I have a feeling it will involve trying to find some amazing birthday presents for people who have their big days coming up. But I know I am just going to let it all soak in and just let the day guide me.

(the photo is of where I blog. yes, the computer is on the floor, and i sit in front of our sliding doors in our living room.)

The Wow Piece

As some of you know since we moved we went out and bought new furniture. This was the first time we had something of this sort. Even though we had a great couch and chair. They were pieces that Ben picked out when he was still living the "bachelor" lifestyle, so it was time to move on. And it helped that we had one hot weekend to realize that it was time for vinyl to leave. (Your body sort of sticks to it!)

We had been shopping for furniture for awhile and pretty much knew what we wanted. Today I went to pick up our custom chair. This is our wow piece. I love it! Not only is the fabric very us, but it is also comfortable.

ok time to go and watch the blue angels fly over our house!

Two Posts in 1 Day!

Ok well, for my second post I will put up some video I took today. There are two, and each cover the same subject: movement. In the first you will see the grey deck next door move around. The second will have some lovely commentary of what you should be viewing...

Enjoy!

Seasons

We lived in San Francisco for years. One of the most surprising things about living there is the lack of seasons. Well unless you count the following three; sunny during the day, foggy at night, foggy during day and night, and the rain all day long. These three osculate between each other. There isn't always a day where it will go from foggy all the time to sunny during the day and foggy at night and last for 4 months. The foliage was completely different so you couldn't walk outside and say "oh, huh, looks like Oct." None of that.

For the first time since we lived here it has actually felt like fall. There are trees in Marin whose leaves change with the season. When we first moved here, we caught the tail end of summer with warm summer nights. We just thought it was hot, now I am thinking that was summer! Funny that we moved 11 miles away from our old apartment and the climate is so different. I am not going to lie, but this is a nice change, since Fall was the one season I missed the most. The leaves change and add color to landscape. You can finally wear turtleneck sweaters, and no one judges you. Boots come out of the closet, for me these are not "functional" boots.

I will take this seasonal stuff. It really feels like we moved! Goodbye fog, and hello crisp fall mornings!

We Sleet Under Water, sometimes

Right now the water temperature of the San Francisco Bay is 54 degrees. Not the temperature that you want to go swimming in. Yet, that is the temperature that our house sits/floats on. In fact it acts as the opposite of a heated floor that covers our downstairs.

The bedrooms are downstairs, we do have windows but they are not really at "normal" window height. They are a bit higher. On the outside of the house under the windows is a ledge, and then the water moves up and down below that ledge. During the night and day as you walk downstairs you do notice that change in temperature from the upstairs to downstairs. I attribute this to the fact that part of the downstairs is submerged in water. Probably similar to when you walk into a basement in the summer.

Last night as I was trying to fall asleep I started thinking about the water level outside. It was a full moon, and it was close to low tide when we went to sleep. Then I was thinking about the water rising and figured that at times we may be sleeping under water. Which is a tough thought to get around when you look around you and everything looks like a normal house. Now I haven't done anything completely scientific like, um, measure the water levels. Right now we are in the "hypothesis" phase. Who knows if we will move into the next phase.

Since we are still in "fall" like weather I feel strange turning the heat on, but that will change as we get closer to winter and the air and water temperature move a little closer together. wonder what winter will be like here?