QUARANTINE BLOG # 648

January 10, 2022

A little over 3 weeks ago Paul DiFilippi, my agent at Sixth Star Entertainment, sent me a list of back-to-back Alaskan cruises, and invited me to send a proposal for four talks for each of two weeks.  With the cruise industry shut down (with standards and protocols imposed on no other segment of the entertainment industry) it was only the third invitation I’ve received since disembarking the Carnival Miracle on March 17, 2020, and the first I could respond to because of my schedule at Crawfordville United Methodist Church.  In less than an hour I sent four titles and blurbs.  A couple of days later Paul told me the agent at the cruise line would not be looking at proposals until after the first of the year, so I am still waiting with crossed fingers – which makes typing difficult.

So it is with a certain amount of frustration that I continue to read about coronavirus outbreaks on board cruise ships.  All of the cruise lines that Bonnie and I sail with require at least 95% – at least 95% – vaccination for both guests and crew, so when the headlines scream about outbreaks at sea the news spouters rarely mention that the total number of confirmed cases amounts to 1%, or less, of the population of the ships.  It took some research to find this quote – from NPR and CDC: “None of the ships so far appear to have so many cases that they would overwhelm medical resources on board and require a return to port.”

People on cruise ships who have tested positive for COVID-19 show little difference in behavior from those on dry land who have the same test results: shock, dismay, and disgruntlement over having to stay in quarantine.  Regular readers of this blog know my feelings about vaccination, masks, and social distancing – if you don’t, ask me, and I’ll be glad to tell you.  So I was a little grumpy when I heard that infected passengers on Cunard Line’s Queen Mary 2 said they felt “like lepers,” after they were forced to isolate in their cabins when they tested positive for COVID-19.  Folks, you have been diagnosed with a disease that has killed 5.48 million of us around the world.  Don’t be so selfish.  Have compassion for all of us.  And stay in your cabin and get better.

👉  No comment:

👉  Little by little we’ve been looking at how NFL teams got their nicknames, and technically we are up to the team from New England (to whom I have given a different name than the one you’ll read in the sports pages), but after Ben Roethlisberger’s 52nd game winning drive yesterday afternoon in Baltimore (and 12 of them now against the Ravens) you will excuse me for jumping the alphabet from N to P and telling you that Pittsburgh’s football team shared the same nickname as the city’s baseball team, the Pirates, from 1933 to 1940.  Before the 1940 season, owner Art Rooney held a rename-the-team contest.  Joe Santoni, who worked in a mill for Pittsburgh Steel, was one of several fans who suggested Steelers.  Santoni won in a drawing and received a pair of season tickets, which he would renew every year until his death in 2003.

👉  Two Blackouts:

👉  Below is a photo, taken at Walmart, which at first glance is hilarious.  When my favorite Walmart department manager viewed it he said, “There are blueberries behind the sign.  Look closer.”

I still think it’s funny.

👉  Some of you know that I like to play Texas Hold ‘Em – for play money – on line at Poker Stars.  I’ve been playing for about 15 years and with a win in a 45 player tournament yesterday, adding $237,150 – in play money – my bankroll is now $5.6 million – yes, play money.  When I told Bonnie she said, “If that were real money we could buy a small Caribbean island and move the entire family there.”  

That’s me – CAMAPA233 – with the straight flush about to win a 19,000 chip pot (CAMAPA, if you were reading that in Cyrillic would say “Samara” and 233 is our house number here on Woodland Drive).

Without a lode stone to turn lead into gold, or play money into real money – playing Monopoly Friday night, Mac said, “I wish all of our Monopoly money were real money” – I began to fantasize about winning a multi-million dollar lottery, and I googled for Caribbean estates.  

I found Cap Estate, Gros-Islet, St. Lucia (one of my favorite islands).  Its 9,000 square foot, 6 bedrooms, 7 baths, on .73 acres is offered for sale by St. Lucia Sotheby’s International Realty for $4.9 million.  My Poker Stars pot would just cover it!  Well, since I didn’t buy a lottery ticket, and since Sotheby’s doesn’t take play money, I can still show you Cap Estate.

Beautiful indeed, but let me tell you about a mansion I will inherit whose beauty is beyond compare.  And Someone else paid for it:

Then I saw a new Heaven and a new earth, for the first Heaven and the first earth had disappeared and the sea was no more. I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, descending from God out of Heaven, prepared as a bride dressed in beauty for her husband. Then I heard a great voice from the throne crying, “See! The home of God is with men, and he will live among them. They shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death shall be no more, and never again shall there be sorrow or crying or pain. For all those former things are past and gone.”

Then one of the seven angels who hold the seven bowls which were filled with the seven last plagues, came to me and said, “Come, and I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.”

Then he carried me away in spirit to the top of a vast mountain, and pointed out to me the city, the holy Jerusalem, descending from God out of Heaven, radiant with the glory of God. Her brilliance sparkled like a very precious jewel with the clear light of crystal.

The wall itself was built of translucent stone, while the city was of purest gold, with the brilliance of glass.

The foundation stones of the wall of the city were fashioned out of every kind of precious stone. The first foundation-stone was jasper, the second sapphire, the third agate, the fourth emerald, the fifth onyx, the sixth cornelian, the seventh goldstone, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth green goldstone, the eleventh zircon, and the twelfth amethyst.

The twelve gates were twelve pearls, each gate made of a single pearl. The street of the city was purest gold gleaming like glass.

I could see no Temple in the city, for the Lord, the Almighty God, and the Lamb are themselves its Temple. The city has no need for the light of sun or moon, for the splendor of God fills it with light and its radiance is the Lamb. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. The city’s gates shall stand open day after day – and there will be no night there. Into the city they will bring the splendors and honors of the nations.

But nothing unclean, no one who deals in filthiness and lies, shall ever at any time enter it – only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.

The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” Let everyone who hears this also say, “Come!” Let the thirsty man come, and let everyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift (Revelation 21:1-4, 9-11, 16-27; 22:17 – J. B. Phillips Paraphrase).

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