"Punieta!"... I've singed my thumb and forefinger on some hemp...

Oh yeah...I know what you may be possibly thinking about... and yes, I do indeed seem to recall burning the hell out of both my thumb and various other fingers while messing around with some variation of hemp or some such way back in the day.

Somehow I vaguely remember leaning up against the base of a coconut tree for days on end back in my youth and staring at my navel while overlooking a pristine, mesmerizing blue ocean on some isolated beach in Puerto Rico. I'm certain that I burned the hell out of my fingers and I'd tell you which beach I might have been contemplating my navel on except that I simply can't remember.

Nevertheless, I did indeed singe my thumb and forefinger today while tiding up the bitter end of a line today. The line was an embarrassment to all marina-kind, both woman and man and was most certainly in dire need of some nautical maintenance. It wasn't something imperative to be done before setting sail but nevertheless an annoyance and a reminder that S/V Blondie-Dog wasn't quite ship-shape. The ragged bitter end of the mainsail-line somehow resembled a Rastafarian along with all it's hair gone completely unkempt.

I took it upon myself to snip, snip, cut, and snip some more all the ragged threads and then stitch a good measure of twine both through and around it and once again completely through it until it was well worn out and Completed. I later singed my fingers after pressing the melting nylon threads tightly together that I had heated up with a cigarette lighter that I'd previously claimed off a bar-room floor. Liquid electric tape was lastly applied and the bitter end of the line was left to dry. I've got a few more lines aboard the boat that will share the same fate later today.

Not that anyone cares... but I've yet to heat up a can of whatever for dinner. But I did nevertheless sip the last of my bottle of Dark Barcardi Rum. I happened to notice a sign posted in a local tavern earlier in the day stating, "The liver is an evil organ and it must be punished"... I was only doing as directed.