Getting Ready to Cruise

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Can it really be a year since we were on our 5-year anniversary cruise and preparing to move into our new Las Vegas home after the cruise. We did an eleven-day cruise in the Caribbean and Panama in February for my mother’s 85th birthday; but, that was well over half-a-year ago and Sharon is in total “Cruise-Withdrawal” by now. My mother has also since moved to “The Home” also in Las Vegas (not “Our Home”), a very nice “Independent Living Resort” that is as Sharon says, “close to us, but not too close”. She laughs and agrees when we tease her that it's just like a cruise ship since she can leave her "cabin" to go down for meals, or entertainment, activities, movies etc. She won’t be joining us on this cruise, but heck, she’d grown up on the East Coast so she’s seen the colors change. We will however be joined by Sharon’s “much, much younger sister” Erin and her husband Dennis.



Sharon hasn’t gotten in the full swing of her normal cruise prep. With less than a week for our departure, she still hasn’t gotten out the packing cubes, or selected the outfits that she plans to take. I think she still has shopping to do! I myself haven’t lost the weight that I gained from that February cruise; and, admittedly my gym attendance hasn’t been what it should be. I have a “Year End Plan” to start getting my weight back to where it was before our cruise a year ago… but we spent yearly 7 weeks at sea and I’m afraid that I fell in love with those New York Pizzas on the rear deck of the Nieuw Amsterdam. Sharon assures me that the Rotterdam should also have this culinary venue. I may need to make use of the gym during this upcoming cruise. I did have to buy some up-sized pants; but, I am thinking it’s probably better to be comfortable on the cruise and enjoy every aspect of the cruise (including the food) than to walk around busting at the seams. Needless to say, I’ll be leaving the tux in the closet; because there is no way I could squeeze into that just now. And I’m afraid Sharon doesn’t have much confidence in my “Year End Plan” and is just waiting for the excuses to surface as to why I’m not going to the gym that day.



We Skyped with Sharon’s sister the other day, and I made sure that I was wearing my infamous “red hat” that I’d taken on our joint pilgrimage to the Holy Land (almost two years ago now). It had been temporarily lost since our move from Ohio, but showed up again in the box I’d been using for an end table in our bedroom. That box was replaced by the stone end tables from our Great Room when our new Great Room furniture arrived about one month ago. I’ve had a lot of fun with that red hat, which has that authentic patina and wear that makes the observer believe that I might actually be a member of the “Summit Team” on an “Everest Expedition”. There are enough (but not too many) societal patches and even some Nepalese writing stitched into the cap to give one pause… I’ve been assembling with a group of fellow travelers more than once in the chilly Midwest winter (once going to China and once going to the Holy Land) where the wife of a fellow traveler would complain about the cold and her husband would whisper in awe to his wife, “You shouldn’t complain about this weather around ‘him’… look where he’s been.” The truth be told, I’ve only been to Disney World and the hat was picked up in a souvenir shop for its Expedition Everest ride. But “Disney World” doesn’t appear on the red hat (unless that’s what the Nepalese writing says). Erin chided me when I pointed out the hat on my head, perhaps wondering if I’d really be wearing “that hat”. As she noted, “I know where that hat’s been”, and then snickered “twice”. Sharon congratulated her much, much younger sister on just becoming a great grandmother. Erin is in fact just 4 years Sharon’s junior. Sharon says she has no memory of introducing Erin to her friends when they were teenagers as her much, much younger sister; but, she certainly remembers the Holy Land where Erin would introduce Sharon to other fellow pilgrims as her much, much older sister. Payback’s a bitch! I’m looking forward to the introductions on this cruise.



After five years of living in Ohio, and each year listening to Sharon say of the winters, “Honestly, they’ve never been this bad before,” we finally got the opportunity to move to a warmer place when Sharon “retired”. And I suppose that I shouldn’t be complaining about cold weather if I’m going to wear that red hat. So you can imagine how I was chuckling inside when the designer she hired noted how this was the hottest summer, ever, on record in Las Vegas. Not so much for the highest temperatures reached; but, rather for the most consecutive days reaching three digits. Only a few days topped 115 this year. And it happens all of a sudden. It’s going along in May and it started out nice in April and then suddenly one day, it is hot… and it stays hot. Going into September it’s hot and then suddenly, a summer squall passes through and briefly it’s both hot and humid; but, now it’s pretty nice. Sharon’s grown tired of hearing me say, “Sure, it’s hot here; but, it’s a ‘dry heat’.” Payback really is a bitch.



We’re looking forward to this cruise, with two weeks to relax away from our bustle in Las Vegas and all of the things that have been distracting us from a more peaceful existence in our retirement. We’re spending a little bit of time in Montreal before boarding and later in New York where we will disembark. We even have plans for a Broadway Show. And when we return, our backyard should be nearly complete and our home really be what we envisioned. We call it “Villa Bella – Spa and Resort”. I remarked to Sharon the other day, how in retirement you certainly can appreciate the comments of the Dowager Countess (the matriarch on Downton Abbey) who couldn’t understand the concept of “a week end” (asking at one point, “What’s a week… end?”). Sharon wonders, how she ever used to have time to work. But in both our cases, the days now seem to meld together, and even with Sharon now going to mass several times during the week, we too seem to be losing the concept of a week… end. I wonder if that is a good thing.

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