Smooth-Sailing Sea Day

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It’s near the middle of our cruise and we get to relax a bit before we get some intense tour days ahead. We chose the Lido and took our time. Mother is getting used to being waited on hand and foot. Mother has gotten into a bit of a rut as to what she orders for breakfast: Everything! And why not, she has people to fetch it for her. She thought that she’d like to try the chocolate croissant, and it was ‘okay’ which basically means that she won’t be asking for another one. And then she made some comment about perhaps wanting a donut; but, Sharon stifled that by noting that they didn’t have any out today. I had an omelet with jalapeño, sausage, cheese, onions and piled on lots of salsa. Sharon went with the scrambled eggs today.

All three of us went up to the Exploration Lounge to do the Sudoku Challenge Number 11. We sit at our own little round table by the window and watch the sea go by. I finished off the Easy game fairly quickly; but, Sharon was just a tad quicker this morning. She’s starting to get the hang of not annotating everything and I noticed no extra marks on her sheet this morning… hmmm! Oh dear… hear it comes: “Beat you again!” Determined to stem the tide of these recent unacceptable results, I tried to remain focused for the “much, much more difficult” HARD puzzle (do you see where I’m going with this Erin?). Well, I did win the much, much more difficult HARD puzzle. And mother finished up her puzzle as well, and Sharon is impressed how she is able to work through these Sudoku challenges.

This morning’s Panama Presentation was something Simon had approached the home office of Holland America about putting together, and this was the resulting presentation, taken from the internet and his many transits of the Panama Canal, on that other cruise line that he shall not name (but it starts with Royal and ends with Cruises). Plans began for a canal in the last half of the nineteenth century, and construction began as a French effort. The Frenchman fronting this effort was the engineer who had constructed the Suez Canal, and he imagined that the Panama Canal could be completed without the need for locks. This effort eventually failed because nothing was done to address the working conditions, environment and disease. Malaria and Yellow Fever were prevalent and unabated. When the U.S. became involved when Theodore Roosevelt was president, he appointed a doctor to address these diseases. He concluded that the only viable plan would be to try and eliminate the mosquitos that spread the disease. A year was spent creating a work environment, worker’s camps and implementing extensive mosquito abatement programs. It was a time when the ends justified the means and there wasn’t the concern of how the environment was being affected, only that the mosquitos were dying. Our tour in two days to the Panama Canal promises to be quite worth the trip.

We went to the Dive-In for lunch. It was a zoo and it was 12:30 PM before we were able to eat. Even then, they didn’t get Sharon’s burger right, it had Dive-In sauce saturated on the bun where it appeared to have been scraped off. It really did look dreadful, like someone had retrieved a used bun from the trash. I took it back and told them, I needed a plan burger, and maybe I sort of overemphasized the NOW a bit too much and became one of those pushy cruisers. Still, we didn’t have the time to wait another twenty minutes for a replacement burger. Sharon showed up and told me to go eat my chicken sandwich and fries. She waited and she had her burger in a couple minutes. I headed up to the Crow’s Nest for Team Trivia and Sharon took my mom back to the cabin by way of the Ice Cream bar.

Today, a sea day, the Crow’s Nest was already packed. I sat at a table, the only I could find and sat with a view of people entering the Crow’s Nest so I could keep a look out for Sharon. A couple came and asked if I had a team and they joined me. They said they had another person, and they almost lost track of her, but she came over. She looked familiar, but she didn’t recognize me either until while introducing myself as having just moved to Las Vegas, she asked “Are you John?” And I was. She had joined our team the day before. And Sharon did join us. Some of the questions were common ones we’d heard before; but, some were not. “What is the southernmost world capitol?” or “Who is Tess Truehart married to?” or “In what castle would you find the Blarney Stone?” All ones we’ve heard at least three times before… Wellington, New Zealand; Dick Tracy; and, Blarney Castle. A good question that we somehow managed not to be able to find an answer for, but knew instantly when we saw the answer on the sheet we were grading was “Who were the litigants in the landmark case against segregation in the United States schools?” Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka Kansas. The one most of the room had trouble with was “How long is a nano-second?” Well gee… 10 to the minus 9 seconds; or, one billionth of a second. Sharon was asking are you sure it’s not one millionth of a second? I guess she forgot about her software days when things were measured in milliseconds and then microseconds. “What U.S. State is geographically in the center of North America?” North Dakota. The bonus was to list the colors of the Olympic Rings (in no particular order). From left to right I knew these to be blue-yellow-black-green-red. But we missed two and the winners only missed one! Second place again.

We headed for the Casino where a very lonely-looking dealer was standing by the Fun-21 table waiting for someone to sit down; so, how could I not? Meanwhile, Sharon had a date with Bob, unbeknownst to me! I was having difficulty not busting with 12, and that is never good in Fun-21 which has no kings in the 8 decks! I still managed to find more than my share of the tens, jacks and queens. The house advantage with such a deck of course, the players (and dealer) will have fewer blackjacks; and, the dealer will bust less often. Sharon stopped by and was not very happy with Bob. He’d taken her first $20 without even so much as a slam, bam, thank-you ma’am. And then he took her second $20 bill… no bonus game, no jackpot, no fun at all. At least at the Fun-21 table, I was having fun. Things were working out pretty much the way one hopes they will. Others were coming and going, while I just sat there and played. I had a fairly easy time of it, and when I’d reached one of my thresholds of $250 up, I decided perhaps it best to return to the cabin and get ready for bingo.

We got seats in the center front with a couple of small tables for us in the Vista Lounge. We enjoy playing with Cass because she offers different games than the normal fare. She hasn’t yet started with a simple bingo! The first game was the 4-corners and someone had the nerve to call Bingo on the fourth number called! The second game was a six-pack. I can’t remember ever playing this game on Holland America, needing a 2x3 rectangle of numbers allowing the FREE SPACE. The third game was the ever popular B-O game. We just didn’t seem to have very good cards today. Blame it on Sharon… she bought them for us! My mom came close on the blackout game… I saw that she needed just three numbers; and, then I noticed that I-19 had already been called. I told her to poke that one as well, and quickly checked the others for her. Three calls later she still needed two when someone called Bingo!

Sharon went to the 5:00 PM vigil mass; while, I took my mom back to her cabin and we got ready for dinner. Sharon joined us and said that the Queen’s Lounge had been standing room only for mass. We sat at a round table for 8; but, there were just seven of us after we sat down. Mother selected the fruit salad and I convinced her to try the beef and chicken satay. We used to get that for take home from a Thai place when she used to live in Anaheim. But now, she wasn’t so fond of the peanut sauce. I started with the prosciutto and crostini, and I also had the satay. The butternut squash soup was quite good as well. My mom had the coq au vin, I had the very tasty mushroom crepes, and Sharon opted for the daily grilled chicken breast. Sharon and I both had the chocolate cake for dessert; while, my mother had the cherry sundae.

The show this evening was Avalon, a musical dance production featuring the HAL entertainers. They gave a very energetic performance, and each of the male dancers jumped from the stage or the piano at least once. My favorite piece was the instrumental from the band “Baby Elephant Walk”, a tune my mother used to play all the time when I was a boy, and made me listen to it over and over when I was a boy, so I leaned over and asked her, “Do you know what this music is called?” She hadn’t a clue. It’s funny how something so familiar and common and even annoying at one point in your life can be recalled fondly in later years. Even Sharon didn’t know what the piece was, until I told her.

My mom and I decided to try the chocolate, cheese and port tasting in the Pinnacle Grille at 9:30 PM. We were the first to show up for this event; but, we were fifteen minutes early. I made sure I checked the ship maps on the floor by the elevator so we got there without making any missteps (as I had the other night at the Canaletto when I had my mom walk all the way down one side of the Lido, only to need to walk all the way back down the other side; basically, right near where we got out of the elevator. I would say a dozen or so people showed up; and, as we would learn this was just a chocolate and port pairing. My mom and I had a small round table, and the final three woman to join this event were then seated with us. The three of them were from Minnesota, and let me just say this about that. They spoke in a regionally distinct accent and cadence that brought to mind one of Sharon’s and my favorite musical theatre favorite series: “The Church Basement Ladies”. If you’ve ever seen this production; then, you’ll know what I’m talking about. There were three ports. He gave the very European sounding names of what we were having, and the sommelier decked out in his impeccable tuxedo appeared to know what he was talking about… I sometimes wonder though if the accent is real. I’m just saying… The first port was an early port, or light port. It didn’t look like port at all from my limited familiarity with port. It looked more like a rose or a cognac. We learned how port came to be much by accident from the British seeking a source for wine. For years there were conquests in France attempting to secure wine producing region for the Crown, until the French finally repelled them for good. The British then sought to import wine from Portugal, but the first shipment by sea took weeks and had undergone additional fermentation on the journey and was essentially vinegar upon arrival. The next shipment was protected by adding cognac to it, which slowed the fermentation processes and resulted in the first Port. Subsequent experimentation added some spices, and the choice of cognac and proportions and flavorings became closely guarded secrets that have led to the ports we know today. The young port went with the white chocolate, and the nuts in the candy made a nice taste in the mouth. The ruby port came next and it paired with the dark chocolate in front of us. I liked this also. The final was the tawny port, aged 25 years in oak and an addition 15 years in a bottle. It paired with the milk chocolate. I liked them all. I’m not sure which I liked the best. My mom says she likes the ruby port the best.



Meanwhile Sharon spent the evening in the Piano Bar where Stryker was doing an A-Z evening. He had an alphabetic list on all the tables and started with A where everyone was supposed to yell out what song they wanted to hear. The first 3 he heard were then put up to a vote. When he got to E one of the songs yelled out was Edelweiss which he didn’t seem too happy about having to play. Then on G one of the songs was Grandma’s Feather Bed which ended up winning. He said that had never happened before. About half the room sang along and the others didn’t have a clue what was going on but it was fun.

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