Here are Tommy’s reflections on our trip:
August 2015:
September 2015:
Haikus
The ocean goes moo
I’m going to jump in
Ah! Peanutbutterjellyfish!
Look! A pufferfish!
I am going to eat it.
That didn’t taste like Cheerios.
Hello, Mr. Squid.
You’re looking healthy today
Please don’t eat me.
October 2015:
Nov 2015:
Mom,
Is a poem just
a couple of paragraphs
that kick grammar in the face
and shove it in the alley?
Dec 2015:
Jan 2016:
March 2016: Things I miss now that I live on a boat:
- Wifi. On a boat, you never have wifi, unless you’re at a marina, in which case it’s really slow.
- Friends. You very rarely meet people your age on a boat, unless you’re about 7, which then everyone your age is on a boat.
- Variation of things to do. On a boat, you can only do so many things, such as draw, swim, do various art projects, kayak, and be a tourist. There is little to no variation each time you do these things.
- Space. On a boat, there is very little space. You are cramped up with your family all the time, and if that isn’t punishment enough, you have to spend time with them. And in a small, cramped space where you have to see your family members all the time, the smallest flaw in character is something that you can’t STAND.
Things that I like about living on a boat:
- I don’t have to water plants in the summer. In our old house, (and still now, probably,) Mom was crazy about plants. In fact, we had so many plants, it took me two hours each day to water them. That was the worst chore I had. But now, on a boat, no plants can survive all the heat and the saltwater, so my crazy mother can’t bedeck us with enough flora to sink the ship!
- We’re not half froze to death nine months of the year. Minnesota! The land of a thousand lakes! What they don’t tell you is that either those lakes are all frozen or are so cold that you find Titanic wreckage in them. In the Caribbean and Mediterranean, (both seas we plan on going to,) they are both temperate climates, not tropical, but that’s great. Because of that, we’re never very hot or very cold. It’s quite comfortable, really. But in nine months of the year in Minnesota, Satan says “Screw this!” and gives up, goes vacationing in Florida, and lets his home freeze over. It takes him a few months to get everything up and running again in the summer! Cerberus doesn’t like it either, his paws not holding enough traction to run around and play with the tortured souls. So yes, it’s cold in Minnesota. Very cold. Glad I’m not there!
- We have very comfortable beds. In fact, I usually wake up a few hours earlier than I need to get up, and so I just sit there being comfortable for a few hours. It’s also very easy to sleep. Even if you are not that tired, you can sleep very easily.
- A free-ish sleep schedule. I could never go to sleep (without drugs) before 2 A.M. Now, I can go to sleep normally, because our school starts at 10:30. This way, I’m not always tired during the day.
Jan 2017: Tommy makes this cartoon about his Dove soap, which for some reason he drops repeatedly while taking showers on the boat. His soap is very hard and no soap actually comes off of it.
And he writes this essay about Why Xerxes is a Good Name for a Cat.
February and March 2017:
While stuck in Gran Canaria waiting for the boat to be fixed, he made these characters for the story we are writing as a family, called The Mystery of the Flor do Mar:
