More from "Little House on the big Sea"

Juliet grabs her plate of meatloaf, she gobbles it down quickly so as not to be late for class.
"Did you put your valentine's card on the table for Dad?" I ask.

"Yossooneedtotellhimitzzdere."  She replied with her mouth full of mashed potatoes.

"Excuse me?"

She swallows hard. "I said, yes--you need to tell him it is there--please."

"Ah, okay, I will." I say, "It's almost five o'clock, don't you need to be heading down the dock?"

She takes a big swig of milk and gulps down the remaining meatloaf. "I gotta go! I have to get my valentine's cards for everybody!"  Off she goes, dashing through the engine room before I can tell her to clear her plate.

I follow behind her, handing up the bag of books and snacks for class. I sigh as I watch her head out the door of the charthouse, she throws one leg over the railing and then scrambles down the side of the ship instead of walking down the deck and using the gangway like everybody else does.

It's another evening at the marina. Juliet's captain's class is only a week away from being over. She walks down the dock to the yacht club where they hold class for four hours a night. Jeffery is on his way home from Anacortes where he and Tim are corking a wooden ship from Canada called the Yellow Fin. He'll be hungry tired and dirty when he gets home. I decided to stay home this evening and have Valentine's dinner with him, even though he'll be too exhausted to get much benefit from it.

I better go put the meatloaf back in the oven. Time for me to go back to work on my regular manuscript while I have a little free time.