HOME: Three Sisters, Three Views

Beverley Cameron, Susan Sutherland and Sandra Brownlee are sisters.

They were raised in a home filled with beauty - on a budget. Their

mother, Vivien, made centrepieces from nature. Her dishes sparkled.

Pops of colour filled each room, from a simple chair slip-covered

in purple corduroy to a lime green, mohair blanket folded across

the back of a sofa. Their father, Marshall, believed in a beautiful

front door. A table large enough to accommodate unexpected guests.

A comfortable bed. Both parents worked outside the home, but this

didn't preclude them from being homemakers. They lived in many

homes when their children were young, but the message was always

the same: come in and sit down, we were expecting you.

One of their favourite houses was on the Bedford Highway. It had a

cherry tree beside the house and a long, narrow, sunny kitchen. In

mid-summer when the tree was filled with fruit, eleven year old

Sandra would climb on top of the scratchy roof and pick fat, red

cherries. Her twin sister Susan made cherry pie pastry in the

kitchen below. Older sister Beverley sat on a kitchen stool with

pencil and paper, drawing the scene : the garden beyond the kitchen

window, a bowl full of glistening fruit, a younger sister rubbing

flour and shortening together with her fingers.

The sisters are grown now and their parents have passed away. But

on any given day you can still find them at home, celebrating the

beauty of the everyday.

It wasn't meant to be a Job-like, biblical adventure that day in May. The sky was blue, the air was hot, and we were sailing - sans enfants - in the Gulf of Mexico. But our water supply had just run dry. The head was broken. I had to pee. Oil spill loomed off in the distance. And to make matters worse, we were covered in love bugs, and not the Jonas brothers kind.

According to Wikipedia, Upon reaching maturity the lovebug spends almost its entire adult life coupled (in copulation) with its mate, hence its romantic nicknames. The male and female attach themselves at the rear of the abdomen and remain that way at all times, even in flight.

They were making love on every surface: the boat, our hair, between my toes, the empty water bottles. Perhaps a little BBQ would help? But where was the BBQ? It wasn't in the fore cabin or the bins in the stern. It turned up much later tangled up with a life jacket. But no propane tank. It appeared under the spinnaker, stuffed beneath the bow. Searching, needless to say, is not an easy task with love bugs in your eye lashes.

Finally, with wine glasses in hand, we sailed up into a warm wind to the sound of burgers sizzling on the grill. A sailboat barbecue is a beautiful - yet precarious - sight: a small metal sphere suspended off the edge of the boat, attached by a small fist gripping the rail. Salty wind adds flavour. A touch of ocean spray adds spice.

As I brushed a love bug out of my lip gloss and took a sip of wine, I heard that tell-tale sound of sailing equipment malfunction - plop! The propane tank bobbed only for second before it sunk beneath the surface of the Gulf. Then it was gone. Lonely, raw burgers sat abandoned on the grill. We weren't feeling like tare tare.

Our fine captain finished the burgers off that night on the stove in the kitchen down below. We ate them at dusk as the boat motored towards the St. Pete Beach draw bridge. Our berth was just on the other side, and the last opening was minutes away. Needless to say we had given up on the overnight expedition. No toilet, no water, no propane and too much love drove us away.

But it was the best twice-cooked burger I had ever tasted. And a little love-protein never hurts.