Another Sea Day

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I’d gotten up early and was working on the blog. The previous two days hadn’t given us much of a chance to blog, and the internet has been flaky. And I must add, that we’ve been tardy at posting these final days, but hope to finish them off; albeit, a couple of weeks late.

Sharon went to mass, noting that until sailing without a priest, she hadn’t realized how much she missed having this daily service. We went to the dining room for breakfast, where I opted for the eggs Benedict. My mom and Sharon are completely unimaginative, choosing again the American Breakfast with scrambled eggs.

We then made our way to the Exploration Café and Lounge for our daily Sudoku challenge. My mother is getting much better and actually finished the Easy Puzzle before Sharon completed the Easy and then Hard Puzzle. One advantage I have, is that after a couple weeks I can blog that I won both games and even Sharon’s memory, although impeccable, is unlikely to be able to refute this claim… so I do, and I did (win both games that is). In the spirit of full disclosure, I am blogging from notes made during the cruise.

Sharon stopped by the Casino to visit with Bob, and that fisherman must have a thing for her, because he let her win, again! Sharon made it back to the cabin in time for us to make the Mariner’s Reception, which my 4-stars was evidently enough to get an invitation without receiving any HAL award. We just stayed for the reception, and planned to have lunch with my mother in the Lido. We stuck with the Dive-In, needing to get up to the Crow’s Nest for Team Trivia.

My mother joined us in the Crow’s Nest for Trivia, and Carol came today as well, not getting back in time from her tour the previous day. Another couple also sat with us. Simon started with one of the more common Trivia Questions, succumbing to complaints that there are not enough “Canadian Questions” from our fellow travelers to the north, “What is the capitol of Canada?” Some Americans suggested Montreal and others thought perhaps Vancouver. Our team all knew it was Ottawa. And Simon offered up the ever-popular “Elephant Question”. Pick whichever one you like: “What animal is the only animal with 4 knees?” “What terrestrial mammal is the only mammal that can’t jump (even though this is technically not right, there are also the rhino, hippo and sloth)?” or “What is the largest terrestrial animal?” I guess we needed Paul on our team to answer “How much time is on the Olympic Basketball shot clock?” We went with 20 seconds; but, they get more time than the NBA… 30 seconds. And there was the “Shakespeare Question”. If this question is of the form, “Which of Shakespeare’s plays…?” then there is a high probability that the answer is Hamlet. It is the longest play, it has the longest soliloquy, it’s main character has more lines than any character in any other of Shakespeare’s plays. It takes place in Denmark. This time we did get “In Greek mythology, who gave fire to man?” Prometheus. There was discussion among our group as to how many people are on a water polo team. We settled on 7, and that was right. Simon’s Trivia’s come down to the bonus question, all-or-nothing multipart questions, “Name the 6 Nobel Prizes.” It makes it easier if you know that “Mathematics” is not one of the right answers. There is Chemistry and Physics, and of course Literature. Another one that is sometimes missed is Medicine… and Economics (which technically might be considered a field of mathematics). Which leaves the coveted Peace Prize. We tied for First.

We played bingo hoping for the $20,000 bonus jackpot. The games continued to feature some of the more uncommon games, and I don’t think that we’ve played a simple Bingo during any of our games: and today was no different. Mother seemed to get the best cards; but, never managed to get closer that needing two calls to win.

Tonight was our final gala dinner, so we dressed up, and I’m having trouble fitting into my suit. I wonder why? I ordered the jumbo shrimp with brandy sauce, the sweet potato soup with anise and a meatless pasta with marinara sauce; but, what I like most about the Gala “Surf and Turf” night and dining with my mom and Sharon is that I wind up with two (count them two) lobster tails… Yum!!! Mother and Sharon both enjoyed the chicken orzo soup… and they both enjoyed the “turf” part of their entrées. Sharon and I opted for the chocolate lava cake, while my mom chose the angel food cake.

The Show tonight featured the HAL performers “In Concert”. It is an encore performance we’ve seen before, but offers a good presentation of the singing and dancing skills of the crew cast.

It took some doing, but we convinced my mom to join us for “Majority Rules”. This game is played with teams of up to six people. Each team comes up with its best answer to fairly innocuous questions. Realize, there is technically no right or wrong answer to questions like “What is your favorite color?” The right answer, as it turns out, is the one written down by the most teams. And if your team submitted this answer, then your team gets one point for that round. Prior to the start one lady was looking for a team to join. She wouldn’t join our team, because we were seated too far away, and she felt that she and her husband needed to sit closer so that they could hear the questions. Well she found such a team. Although, after hearing the results of the first question I felt like asking her how that was working out for her. The question was, “What pickup line do men like to use?” Sharon convinced us to go with the very lame “What’s your sign?” I mean, are we back in the 1960’s or what. We evidently had a tea-totaling team that never heard of the “Can I buy you a drink?” pickup line. Actually, both were tied for first, so we must be in a room full of people who came of age in the 1960’s! Of course, I could point out that if they’d gone with my answer than the “What’s your sign?” would have been in a distant second place. What was hilarious though, was that the answer that hard-of-hearing team who was seated right next to Simon and his microphone was “Ford”. That’s right, they thought the question was to name a brand of pickup that men like. Sigh! What are you most likely to find in a man’s wallet? We got this one “right” as well, choosing “Driver’s License”; but, again we had to share this prize with the alternate answer… how shall I put it… well I’ll put it just as they did “An item of personal protection”. It seemed only fair to ask what item are you most likely to find in a woman’s purse. I don’t know why Sharon pooh-poohed my answer of lipstick: Perhaps because you’re not likely to find this in her purse, still… I’m just saying. How lame was our answer… well we went with wallet. Things went downhill from there for our team. As it turned out, the winning team got all of the answers right, so we were never in the running… but we had a good time nonetheless.

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