April 29, 2023

Let’s see.  Where was I.  Oh yeah, somewhere on the Atlantic Ocean.  As I type this we are a day and a half from Malaga, Spain.  Scheduled to dock at 0900 on Monday.

Well, as I said in the mini “non blog blog” the ship switched the order of my last two talks (they had the last two really messed up when we got on board – part 2 of the Ghent Altarpiece was dropped altogether and the Civitavecchia talk which is for emergency use only, as in bad weather makes us miss a port, was scheduled for tomorrow).  The reason for the old switcheroo today is that the “Purple and Picasso” talk which was scheduled for tomorrow was in the Cruise Compass for today.  And even though they harp on the app, the CC is official.  So, there you go.  I didn’t have as much time as usual to rehearse, but it is one I’ve done several times, so that helped me to get ready.

I mentioned this morning, as I always do when a guest points out a mistake I’ve made, that I made a mistake.  After the talk, one lady who has been to them all came up to me aghast, “They point out your mistakes!  That is really petty!”  I told her it’s okay, because usually they are just spelling mistakes on a slide, and those I have looked at over and over and never see them.  If PowerPoint has a speel checker, I have never found it.  

I know this will cause naptime to come on early for some of my readers, but one of the questions (not really a mistake, but a mistake nonetheless) was a math question about the overall size of the Ghent Altarpiece, open and closed.  I searched 29 websites, found conflicting information but found an answer that suits me – it’s 12 feet open and 6 feet closed, which means the two side panels are 6 feet each.  Bonnie says we’ll take a tape measure the next time we go to Ghent (and I would really like to – go that is, not fool with a tape measure because the Mystic Lamb is behind glass).

Oh, here is a picture of our duck collection.  Two you can see are towel creatures, and two are not.  She Who Must Be Obeyed will regale you with that in a future blog.

I’m sure there’s other stuff we’ve done in the last day and a half, but popular demand, hereeeeeee’s Bonnie!

Well, I really haven’t felt like blogging. We are all set to blog last night when the cruise person called  and said David would have to do Picasso and purple talk instead of the part 2 of the Ghent altar piece which he had been working on all day. We got the message at 10 pm. They goofed but we had to pay the consequences!  So he spent the next hour and a half working on purple and we delayed sleeping till after 11:30. I finally got to sleep about 12:30. Not a good night. Well, despite all the aggravation it went well.

Now Brian this is for you. Evening dining rating a C or C+ depending on the dessert. Most of the appetizers get a B or B- depending on whether they are hot and as described.  The main courses get a C or C- depending on whether they taste good or served as described.  The desserts get a B or B-. Sometimes the desserts are very small and hardly more than one or two bites.  One salad was served with just oil and was yucky, the Caesar salad had no taste at all as if it had no dressing or so it seemed to me. I like the tomato soup with croutons but it was only luke warm while the French onion soup is so hot it burns your mouth and there are no onions. The shrimp cocktail was good but tonight they had what they called baby shrimp and they were almost invisible. Mozzarella cheese sticks were good. I have had a main course of steak Diane which was good, gave the mushrooms to David. The fried chicken was a joke it was just like Banquet frozen chicken tasteless and mostly breading and very little chicken.  The stir fried vegetables and rice were fair but almost no sauce. The chicken pot pie with chicken and vegetables had mostly large mushrooms. It was hot but there was little else in it. Their jerk pork chop which is usually very good was just a big bone, fat and little meat. The mashed potatoes and vegetables with it were good.

Most of the chocolate mousses for dessert have been good. I have had mostly unsweetened desserts and the have been okay. There tarts are very small and the shells are made of very hard graham cracker.

This is for Jen and Amy and anyone else who has been praying for our friend Angie from Macedonia. She got up and took a step. Progress. Please continue to pray for a complete recovery.

Well, our day mainly begins at 6:30. We get up and shower and head to deck 14 from our small room that is the  most front inside, inside cabin on deck 7. Since I have had to stop doing so much walking because my right leg was not happy and we have 2 tours which have walking, we ride the elevator to deck 14 and walk from the front of the ship to the back passing the 2 pools. The last 3 or 4 days it has been pitch black with sunrise at 9 or later and it is quite breezy. The high tomorrow is to be in mid sixties. But there has been some sun. After breakfast we head back to the room, he studies for and hour and we head to the theater, now, about 9:30 for his talk. The first 3 talks were in the 270-degree lounge which is very nice. Farther to walk but worth the hike. Where we are now in the theater they don’t open the doors till 9:45 so I usually get a drink and then follow after him.  Crowds are not as large as other times but losing one hour for six days in a row takes its toll and he is the first thing of the day. Everyone who has come has been very complementary. Also, for some reason they will put one of those only one of these events that everybody wants to see at 10:30. Right in the middle of his talk. And the Captain comes on at 10:00 and takes about 10 minutes of his time.

Well, after the talk it is back to the room, drop off stuff and he changes clothes. Then, we usually go to the 270 and sit in on the progressive trivia contest. It is a fun thing to do. We, of course, cannot participate because we would be competing against the guests. But we have had fun and done pretty well. Then time for a bite of lunch. We have had lunch in 270 bistro (sandwiches, soup, salad), or Sorrentos for pizza or the Solarium which is like  a mini Windjammer. Then, some cards if it isn’t too late. Score (3 to 0 ). Then, back to the room for a short nap and when he gets up he studies for about an hour. Then, dress for supper and have supper at 5. We have very nice waiters and the pair who sits at our table are nice. They are from a retirement community in Florida, His wife died and her husband died and they married(or David says they are cohabitating). The four had been part of a larger group of couples that did everything together in the community. So it made sense for them to get together.

We have only gone to about 4 of the shows. One night there was only a late night R rated comedy show. The shows have been okay. Tonight was a ventriloquist with a cock-a-too bird and an old man and a buzzard as dummies. He was really funny and very good. The show is at 8 but the doors don’t open till 7:15. We try to stand in line from after supper (which we get out of about 6:30) til the doors open. If you don’t it can be hard to get a good seat because of all the people who will save whole rows with only one person there and there is a very large section is reserved for the upper classes. 

After the shows it is back to the room where he studies for about and hour and then off to bed.

We had a surprise in our bathroom today after we got back to our room. We had stopped in the hall to talk to our cabin steward who was getting ready to get off duty. When we got in the room and I went into the bathroom there was a large soapy puddle extending out from under commode. It seems water from cabins ahead of us had been forced out a drain on the floor because of the back and forth and side to side motion of the ship. The steward was very quick to come in and clean it up. He is a very capable young man. We only have him clean the room once in the morning while we are at David’s talk. We are really very clean. Not too much to do.

Well that is it for tonight. Oh by the way my wonderful, darling hubby bought me a very expensive Citizen watch today. It is bigger than the one I was wearing and I like it a lot :),:),:),:)!!! My present for the cruise. 

Love you all, miss you all. Hope Maggie is enjoying the strawberries. 

Granny, Mom and Bonnie (Hi! Karen!)

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Stay safe.  Hug each other.

TTFN