ED AND LENORE

April 9, 2018

This morning I was on stage at 9 a.m. for “Atlantic Cod.”  It required a 6 a.m. alarm to shower, shave, shampoo, and have room service, then the final rehearsal.  I redid that talk in the last two days.  I almost always fiddle with them, changing something here or there, but I did a major make over for this one.  I think it went well.  Tonight as we were going to the theater a man stopped me and asked me if I had Cod for supper.  I told him, no, but I did have the seafood pot pie (shrimp, mussels, clams, squid, crayfish, and scallops, plus a spicy rice – excellent).

I will be doing the Potato talk tomorrow (one of the two new ones I wrote for this cruise), then we are at Funchal Madeira, and then a sea day with “Raise a Glass,” the other new one.  Then 3 stops and the big bird for Fort Lauderdale.

I received an email today from one of my agents offering a half-price deal on a 14 day Transatlantic from Cadiz to Fort Lauderdale leaving on April 16.  The sailing is on the Pacific Princess – the ship we are going on in December.  Would have loved to do it, but we will be on Holland America’s Zuiderdam.  Maybe next time.  But a Transatlantic for $350 for the two of us would have been awesome!

But enough about me.  This morning after my talk, my Beloved and I went out into the Piazza where she had banana bread and hot chocolate and I had decaf coffee and a good book.  She had done laundry and not had breakfast (I’ll let her tell the story.  It is a doozy).  We were sitting alone at a table for 4 when a couple walked up.  I started to say Older Couple, but then we are O.C. as is most everyone on board.  Ed is 91 and Lenore (as in Quote the Raven, never more) is catching up to him.  She is Jewish.  He is a German Catholic.  And they are a hoot!  I laughed for the 30 or 40 minutes they sat with us.  It started with Lenore’s costume.  A Goofy t-shirt.  Goofy’s body is on the shirt, but there is no head.  Lenore’s head is Goofy’s head.  And she had on a purple aviator-like hat with long black, floppy, Goofy ears.  Bonnie says it is a Goofy hat. She regaled us with story after story.  I wish you had been there.

Well, it is time for BBB – Blogging By Bonnie.  Ask her about the laundry day!

TTFN

Okay, so I get up with him at 6am. Slept pretty good. I had planned to do laundry but had said I would wait till tomorrow since I had to be in the room when his breakfast arrived in case he was in the shower. Well, he finished showering before it came so he said I could go ahead and do the laundry. So I had it already mostly loaded in the suitcase. I added a few more things, made sure I had my key and the soap. It is about 6:45.  I knew you needed your key to pay for the laundry. Well, I walked to the end of our hall where the laundry was located and  went in and it said you needed bronze coins to run the machines. FOOT! So I drug the suitcase back to the room and headed up to the desk. Well, the guy at the desk said, “there machine to get coins from in laundry room”. So back to the room, get the laundry and head to the laundry room. Get there load the laundry and soap. Go to machine hanging on the wall, how did I miss it. I touch the screen and follow the directions. I need 4 coins to wash and dry, $3 per coin, I press ready to pay and slide my card, wait for it!  There is a malfunction with my card. The message says call 6000. I pick up the phone and dial 6000, I get the dude I had just talked to at the desk. He say, I send some one. In the meantime another lady enters the room with her laundry. She has no coins either and the machine won’t work for her. I am not taking my laundry out of the washers, even when a 3 rd lady enters with her laundry and she has already purchased coins from the desk yesterday. Well, a young man, who spoke very little English and understood even less arrived about 10 minutes after I had called the desk. He said who knows what but said he would be right back, HA! 40 minutes later, 3 more calls to 6000, and I was a little less friendly each time, I said enough is enough. Asked the first lady who had come in if she would watch my laundry, I was going to the desk. She said yes. I walked to the desk. By this time there were 3 people behind the counter all on the phone. I am positive the young man who I had seen earlier delayed getting off his phone so he didn’t have to deal with this angry laundry lady. One young man got off the phone, I said I had been waiting almost an hour for someone to come to the laundry room to bring coins, I was tired and I wanted to buy some from him. No problem, gave him my card and he gave me 4 bronze coins costing $12. I proceeded back to the laundry room. Deposited said coins ran the washers, it takes 40 minutes to wash, then moved clothes to the dryer, it takes 40 minutes to dry. The other lady who had also gone upstairs and bought her coins put here wash in when my loads were finished. By the time I returned to the room it was after 9 am. I put the clothes away and took my bath and then went to the talk arriving about 9:25.  If the dude had just sold me coins when I went up and asked all of this could have been avoided. I was not a happy camper.

I finally got some breakfast and took my morning pills about 10:15. Today the time was changed at 11 am again so it was soon. Noon.

Lunch wasn’t much at about 1. I tried some cream of broccoli soup, it was yucky. I tried a small salad and the vinegarette dressing was way to oily. So I gave up on lunch.

So I decided to go for my walk. It was very windy outside and cool, 66 I think. I went around the deck 4 times since I hadn’t walked earlier. There are some really crazy people on this ship. One guy in a very wide wheelchair was wheeling himself around the deck on the promenade. Really. He was so wide you had to stop and let him go by because there was no room to walk beside him. Then, there are all the little oriental ladies, bundled up like it is freezing, moving their little bodies around flying rudely by you. At least no one was flat out running. In order to go all the way around the deck there are two flights of long high stairs you must climb at the front of the ship. You walk up on one side of the bow and then down on the other side.  It takes me a minute or two to walk the stairs so I usually will stop and wait if there are people directly behind me or in front coming down or up when I am trying to go up or down. But some are really rude pushing past you and not waiting for me to go.  Well, the trials of walking. I did get my 10,000 steps in today.

After walking I took a 2 hour nap before supper. Supper saw no improvement on eating. The watermelon appetizer was good, the soap ( soup) was okay. But the Austrian whatever which was supposed to be sirloin steak with red cabbage and potatoes was not.  The meat was grizzle and I only ate about 2 or 3 bites of it. The cabbage was kind of tasteless and the potatoes weren’t much either. I tried cherries jubilee for dessert but it was only okay. So eating today has not been good. Maybe better tomorrow.

The show tonight was good. A singer originally was Sydney who now lives in London. He has had lead roles  in Westside story, Les Miserable, and Phantom of the Opera. He sang songs from each. Absolutely beautiful voice and nice to look at, too.

Well, my tale is done. We have one more day to turn our clocks forward and tomorrow is another formal night. The Captain has the hammer down, traveling at 20 knots or more and you can hear the waves crashing against the hull. It is time to try and go to sleep.

Well, kids it is off to school tomorrow. Sorry Mac.
Love, Mom , Granny and Bonnie