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. . .

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.

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?)

"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....

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!

Little Feet

The other morning I woke up and saw little paw prints all over our floating dock, Haddie and Old Yeller. Little muddy paw prints all over the place. They appeared to begin from the the muddy canal and then all over our stuff. Of course the paw prints are raccoon prints.

When we first moved in and were taking a boat ride around the neighborhood I saw a raccoon traveling under the dock on the pipes that run beneath it. He was just walking along like no one could see him. This would have been true besides for the fact that um, yea we were on the water. Sometimes as you walk down our dock you can see these prints on the dock. The mud is a mixture of light green and brown so it sort of stands out on our wooden dock. And now the paw prints were all over our boats, and dock. mmm. I don't really like sharing with little creatures.

I guess it makes sense why our trash cans are off the dock and in a little hut. It seems from the prints there is only one set of prints, so maybe he is just lonely. Maybe if he wants to go for a boat ride he should ask first, or at least come when we are awake.

Our first Tsunami, a little bit of a let down.

There is something about the weather service and their list of warnings, watches, bulletins and special reports that send people into a huge downward spiral. Last evening, I moved my car and instructed Ben to do the same. Then I went outside and secured Haddie and Old Yeller (our boats). Granted Old Yeller is now actually tied up to the house because I did not know what else to do for him. Then we sat and waited.

I felt like we had a lot of warning time. Growing up with tornadoes you get at least 30-60 mins of warning time. Earthquakes you get nothing. Yesterday was a bit strange because we had over 4 hours to get "prepared." And the content of the warnings seemed a bit dire. I get it that they need to prepare people for the worst, but still it sends people into a tailspin.

At 9:35 last night there was a huge gust of wind out of nowhere. Ben and I looked at each other, and of course did what all humans should do when faced with strange natural occurrence. We went outside and stood on the deck. It should be noted that if things were really bad we would have heard the warning sirens, and trust me they are loud here. The tide was not as high as the high tide picture I posted on Sept 18th. The waves were more defined and maybe 7 inches tall, which stood out to us because it is usually flat in our canal. Then that was it.

This morning all people and property are fine! The Chronicle doesn't even have any coverage of the Great San Francisco Tsunami of 2009. Their main focus is of course the beginning of it all in Somoa, which is no joke. The tsunami wasn't the 60 foot wall of waves that I had envisioned! I guess after traveling thousands of miles, like any traveler it was a bit too tired to rage on another town.

Lord, I miss you child . . .

One of the most popular questions that our friends ask us is "Do you miss the city?" As of right now, the answer is no. I think we were ready for our move to Marin, even way before it happened. Let's face our days of going out in the city late night and other stuff like were slowly coming to a close. (Sorry Ben!)

There is one thing that I just cannot get over. I miss the Video Nook. Holy Crap, I miss the Video Nook! For a long time we have resisted the Netflix deal, because the Video Nook was so close. I mean we could see their front door from our old deck. Every Sunday we'd head down to the Nook and pick out a video. The employees would help us if we had no idea what to rent. They would also ask for our opinions after we watched movies. On several occasions when a new movie would be released, it would be gone from the shelves. All we had to do was ask and we'd get the special "under the counter" videos that the employees would hide for people like us. They didn't even have to ask our names when we checked out. They knew us. Now we don't have a local video store, and I just cannot become a member to Netflix. This is due to the fact that for years Netflix was the evil corporate machine putting the places like the Video Nook out of business. The Video Nook is still too fresh in the brain to emotionally destroy them by becoming a member of Netflix. Instead of a local video store, we solved this issue by getting HBO.

I miss the human interaction of the Video Nook; the commentary of the movies we were about to rent, the selection of indie, documentaries and foreign films, and the secret hidden new release movies. Video Nook, I miss you!

Recap of the Tour!

Yesterday was a great day! The organizers of the tour believe about 1500 people came. There were 20 homes on the tour. I am still not sure how your home gets to be on the tour, but moving on.

The home I was a docent on was only letting 12 people in at a time, so there was usually a line outside. For a while I was inside the home directing people and pointing out some great accents. For example, upstairs there was a personal sized sauna. The portholes in the home were originally from a Liberty Ship. (There is a liberty ship in san francisco that you can tour, the glorious Jeremiah O'Brien.) The living space was split between two levels so people find that interesting. Overall, a good day, and I learned something about how El Nino is doing something to the seals in the bay. Then I went outside and held people in the line and was able to chat and answer questions. As we all stood in the sun on the dock.

I wanted to share some questions and tidbits from yesterday.

Visitor #1: Do you live on the dock?

Ann: Yes, I do, just down the way. My husband and I moved here about a month ago

Visitor #1: Can I see it?

Ann: Ah, no. It isn't open today.

Visitor #1: Why?

Ann: (Seriously, are you asking me this?)

Visitor #2: Can you feel the homes move?

Ann: Sometimes you can see them move at high tide, but not really. (I know how to tackle this one)

Visitor #3: Where do the children go to school?

Ann: WHAT? ARE YOU KIDDING ME? We have a small one room school house at the end of each dock where the children learn the ways of the world together. I should mention that the teachers are seals.

Ann's Real Answer: Since we are apart of school district I would say they go to school there.

Visitor #3: Oh yea, that makes sense.

Visitor #4: Does the money raised today go to fight the city?

Ann: I assume you are referring the houseboat wars of the 1960s and 70s. These days, we and the city and the neighbors all get along. In fact the money raised today will be put back into our housing association. (Yea, I am not really sure what the money raise for today was going to be used for, and that seemed like a good answer.)

Tidbits:

I got to talk to a really intoxicated lady from Europe. Let's just say I am glad 1) that she wasn't driving and 2) when she left the house.

Some people who did not have tickets tried to sneak on, I had to stop them. Now if they would have just walked right on like they should have been there, then they would have gotten to see it!

No one stole anything, not on my watch!

Do you have $40 and live in the Bay Area?

And you have no plans today?

Come and check out the Floating Home Tour. You get to see about 20 homes, but not ours. We are not opening it to the public! Also who wants to come and look at all of our stuff?

I am volunteering today as a docent. I will pass along helpful information and make sure no one steals anything from the house I am stationed at.

It should be a beautiful day up here in Marin, no fog here.

Things to do in the Hood

A couple of weeks ago friends dropped off a kayak, Old Yeller. (Guess what it is yellow) She sits next to Haddie, our red Zodiac. They both live on our floating dock off of our floating home. Ben has gone out a couple of times in Old Yeller. This week in the calm of the morning I have gone out and paddled around. Yes, I have checked the tidal charts to see what the current is doing as well as where the tide will be. It would be unfortunate if I went out for a paddle then had to drag her home in the mud. Also I have found out that the mud stains clothing, this was discovered after the lock rescue mission. Note: stay away from the mud. (there will be another story later about things I want to dig out of the mud)

Each time I have gone out for about 45 mins or so. After you get over the fact that you are only about 5 inches off the water, it becomes relaxing. I grew up paddling a canoe, but this is a bit different, but yet sort of the same. At least for a while I have Richardson Bay to myself, besides the birds. Yesterday, I saw a cute little seal, seriously they are dogs of the sea. Maybe next time I should bring my camera, there is a waterproof bag in Old Yeller. Going for a kayak is similar to going for a walk in Golden Gate Park.

The interesting thing is that most homes on our pier have boats. There are ski boats, zodiacs, Boston whalers, row boats, old sail boats that looks like they haven't moved in years, sea kayaks, and canoes. These boats apparently become an outlet to embrace the fact that you live on water, and is the replacement for going on a walk. Kayaking is not something we could do from our back door at 128, we would have fallen off the deck. The sad thing is that this is not something we can do together, since it only seats one. I will say that going out for a paddle is a nice benefit of having not only a kayak but a place to put it and use it!