Net mending on a rather blustery day

A kelp-ridden grid was splayed across the grass, and occasionally staked to keep everything in place. It seemed as if we were trying to keep the undead from escaping the ash and topsoil, but more mundanely some idiot (or in this case "idiotrix") decided to drag the gillnet across an outcropping of barnacle-encrusted rocks.

The damage really wasn't any more severe than being visited by the Rottweilers of the Sea, but from one end to the other we were going to have to perform the ritual of netmending, one that created Ground Hog's Day-ja-vu and repetitive stress injury nightmares.

For most of the morning, me and J crawled around on our hands and knees hunched over opposite ends with a rhythmic unwind, unwind, spin, twist, flip, tighten. Normally we'd be jamming out to Ministry with Ziploc-waterproofed I-Pods, or hurling insults back and forth - but the island weather wasn't in a kind and cooperative mood today. There were winds gusting at what I'm sure was 70 miles per hour, giant raindrops in a showerhead downpour that changed directions randomly. I'd bet God was up there with one of those adjustable flow heads giggling each time the little spiders fought to stand straight and then he pelted them in the other direction by switching it to pulse.

It was a good thing I hadn't buried my raingear in the closet of doom, (although I did get beaned on the head by an errant halibut rod while extracting it). It had been years since life stapled me to the shore, and other than a skiff ride or two for out-of-towners, I'd managed to duck out of subsistence service as well. There really hadn't been much use for a brilliant orange pantsuit with matching cloak, I think the look would be considered overkill for a run-to-your-car drizzle. Pulling the canvas-backed hood over my head I'm hit with the scent of escaping polypropylene fumes, and reeled right back to a stop on memory lane.

I have always found the power of olfactory-driven memories fascinating. One sniff and you are sitting right behind that pungently cologned classmate, or hugging your grandma, or getting dipped headfirst into the water next to the bilge line. The raingear had me spinning tangents.

I'll have to elaborate next time, for now I'm headed back out to weave and bob invisible line before it gets any darker... or any of the Zombies start escaping the mud like the suicidal earthworms on the sidewalk.