Canada & Sandy Cruise 2012

Cast: Lee (me) Bob (my husband) Tutu (Bobs mother) Cathie (Bobs sister) Rick (Cathies husband)

Trip In a Nutshell: Tutu treats us to a Seabourn cruise from Montreal to Fort Lauderdale. We are forced to flee the east coast as hurricane Sandy approaches. Fear: Im trying to lose weight for upcoming hernia surgery. Can I at least stay even through two weeks of world-class cuisine? Fear: Ive been sick. Is my hernia about to explode? Will my stubbed toes let me walk like a tourist? Fear: My main walking shoes are falling part. Will I have to walk Charleston in flipflops?

Tuesday, 16 October Bloomington, Indiana to Indianapolis My generic trip list tells me to: Print cat-care instructions Leave checks for cat caregivers Set up per cat instructions (i.e. leave food, meds, syringes et al. where the instructions say they will be) Bring phone number of vet and cat caregiver But there is no need for any of this any more. Flora died this summer. Tutu gave me a new iPad for my birthday. In our airport motel I have my first ever conversation with Siri (the artificially-intelligent English-speaking assistant that lives in my iPad and the internet). She knows where we are, she knows nearby restaurants. How do we get there? She shows a map. She finds restaurant reviews. I am impressed. Bob

asks, "Parlez vous Francais?" Siri responds, "I'm looking for places named Hollywood." We dine at a bar across the road from the Independent Order of Oddfellows. They have a simple little brick building with an elaborate statue in front. Bob, who knows everything (except math) says they're like the Elks. Dad was a Moose. I feel much more like an Oddfellow than either an Elk or Moose. There's a vintage French movie poster for Arrete d'Autobus starring Marilyn Monroe. Stop of the bus? What the heck movie was that?1

Wednesday, 17 October Indianapolis to Montreal A dream: I'm in my college cafeteria wearing no pants because my roommate just died while we were eating lunch and the cops have borrowed my jeans to dust them for poison. My only thought: I'm going to write a great story about this! Sitting in the Detroit airport awaiting our flight to Montreal I realize with a shock that some of the people I am watching might be Canadian! Even French-speaking! But I hear no French. A Seabourn lady meets us at the Montreal airport and escorts us to our limo. Our driver, Lionel, is from France, and claims not to be a driver but part of a family of vintners with vineyards all over the world. I see a Quebec flag long before I see a Canadian one. I try to pronounce the motto on every license plate: Je me souviens. Our driver launches into a long explanation about remembering our French heritage and resisting our English slave masters. The Ritz Carlton Montreal is spectacular, having just reopened after a massive renovation. Andrew the clerk escorts us to another Seabourn lady who welcomes us effusively. He then escorts us to our room and demonstrates the touch-activated lights, blinds, and computerized toilet. I make sure I know how to flush the damned thing (in Tokyo I could not figure it out). Andrew assures us that if we get up in the middle of the night to pee, lights will come on automatically and direct us to the toilet with its heated seat. Hoping to see this for myself, I drink lots of water before going to bed. The toilet is surrounded by glass walls. The bathtub has a TV.

Bus Stop

There are lots of beggars in Montreal. Outside our wine store, one holds a sign reading: TOO UGLY FOR PROSTITUTION We dine at Wrap City, a sandwich place. The decor oozes cosmopolitan cool. I try out the vast tub with its own TV. The Kardashians in French! I need to charge my brand-new iPad. I'm 92% certain that Canadian voltage is the same as USA voltage, but just to be absolutely sure I Google it. Some Quebecois guy is outraged that Americans are so stupid that they don't know the first thing about North American voltage. I imagine he'd be equally outraged if Americans assumed that something in Canada was the same as in the USA.

Thursday, 18 October Montreal A classic dream: I've been cast in a Shakespeare play. It's a big production, opening tonight, audience present, curtain about to go up, but I haven't quite bothered to, you know, learn my lines. We visit a French-language bookstore. The big display as we enter is 100s of copies of Cinquante nuances de Grey2. Across the street is an architecturally interesting building sporting anti-gay graffiti. The Cathedrale Marie-Riene-du-Monde is a quarter-scale copy of St. Peter's in Rome. Encroyable. The Basilique Notre-Dame-de-Montreal is the most astonishingly densely ornamented thing I have ever seen, and, amazingly, is beautifully tastefully illuminated in heavenly blue. Behind it is the Chapelle Notre-Dame-du-Sacre-Coeur, even more beautiful, combining modern and old elements all in the same golden woody color. Next door is my favorite building in Montreal, an art deco skyscraper with no name. The archeology museum is thrilling and disappointing. The best part is the belvedere, or lookout tower, from which I can see remnants of Expo 67. I cross the giant geodesic dome US pavilion and the concrete box apartment pile called Habitat 67 off my to-see
2

Fifty Shades of Grey

list. Tutu and Cathie and Rick arrive. We catch up, recuperate, and demand a table for five now at the hotel restaurant. They get creative and seat us in a wonderful private dining room where we have a marvelous meal.

Friday, 19 October Montreal to Quebec City I finally get up in the middle of the night. Do lights go on automatically? No. Do I stub my barely healed toe? Yes. On the Seabourn Sojurn, our home away from home. For the first time we are ordered not to bring our life vests on the mandatory safety drill. If you refuse to attend you will not sail. They tell us to wash our hands. My favorite part of any cruise is our first departure, and this one is spectacular with views of the 1967 expo sight, especially Habitat 67 and the USA pavilion geodesic dome. After passing under a mammoth bridge we cruise past an amusement park with a plethora of old and new roller coasters. I desperately try to learn several centuries of Quebec history in preparation for tomorrow's tour. It all collapses into a database of names, dates, and battles. I try, once and for all, to memorize the geography of eastern Canada. Where the heck was Acadia? Crisis: one of Tutu's bags is missing. The one with her Kindle, some of her favorite clothes, and, most importantly, the pain med (Percocet) that keeps her going since her back injury. Lying in bed reading after dinner (gay vampires) I sense a subtle motion: every limb leans left a little, and then right a little. The St. Lawrence River ain't the ocean but we are sailing! I love being rocked to sleep.

Saturday, 20 October Quebec City Good news! Tutu survived the night. We hope to get her more Percocet today. The ship is being very helpful.

Bad news! It's quite a shock to deal with this primitive bathroom: no tub TV, no heated toilet seat. Worst of all, you have to close the toilet lid yourself! I'm having coffee with Tutu as we sail beneath the massive Chateau Frontenac in Quebec City. I instantly fall in love despite the cold wet gray. Our bus tour deepens my love of the city as it increases my misanthropy (someone steals our seats). I try to tell our guide Renee, in French, that she is the most superb guide in the world. I'm still not sure what I actually said. Bob wins the tour quiz and is awarded a little glass log cabin of maple syrup. Renee lived in Florida for a while. Her husband refused to call the plumber for her in order to force her to practice her English. So she wrote out what she wanted to say, called the plumber, and said "I want to have a rendezvous with you in my bathroom." We walk back to the city after lunch. Standing in the little Place Royal square you'd never know you're not in the quaintest corner of France. But just as my love is threatened (must every tourist experience degenerate into junk-shopping?) a bucket list item is crossed out: we sample maple syrup poured onto snow and scooped up onto a stick. Better than we could possibly have imagined! My glasses are falling apart (one of the nose cushion things has vanished into the Great North) and my walking shoes are falling apart. We run into Carol, our Trivial Pursuit partner from the Caribbean cruise. I believe we will not play this time. I ask for a cookie at the coffee bar and am met with a severe scowl. "The minimum is two."

Sunday, 21 October At sea The ship's doc gave Tutu some pain meds and she's doing well. In an unprecedented move she joins us for breakfast rather than having room service. Maybe she's finally getting over her anti-social nature. Tonight we change time zones. We'll be farther east than Eastern! Throughout the day blue-gray cloud-colored mountains gradually emerge. I know they're not clouds because they have broadcasting towers on top.

We attend the captain's formal reception. I tell him Bob and I wear our sequined bow ties (from the Liberace museum in Ls Vegas) once a year, in his honor (i.e. in honor of the captain of whatever Seabourn ship we're on). He seems unimpressed. When he addresses the crowd he talks about a canal we're going to attempt to go through. The minimum air draft for this canal is 130 feet. Our air draft is exactly 130 feet. He plans to go through at full speed. They serve the usual great caviar on icky crackers. And Champagne, of course. Mrs. Fields of cookie fame gave a motivational talk today. She followed her dream and got rich. If you just follow your dream, youll get rich. Cathie and Tutu attended. After dinner (lobster or Beef Wellington) we celebrate Cathie and Rick's 35th anniversary. Bob and I listen to a few songs from the "guitarist" who's really kind of a folk singer. Cathie and I go to the big Broadway / West End show. It takes me a minute to get over my revulsion toward that cool Las Vegas finger-snapping performance style but once I convince myself to get over myself I really enjoy the great performances. When the guy dancer holds the girl dancer above his head she's in serious danger of smashing into a light. You know how Cary Grant just raises an eyebrow and a waiter appears? But in real life you could jump up on a table and do the Watusi and all the waiters would hide out in the kitchen rather than notice you? Well, during the show Cathie says, "would you like a drink?" I say, "sure," raise a finger, and within two milliseconds a waiter is standing before me, awaiting my command. A Seabourn cruise truly is heaven. He brings toostrong-for-Cathie Brandy Alexanders. As you leave you go through a receiving line and get to touch the singers and dancers. I'm starstruck!

Monday, 22 October Cap aux-Meules Cathie, Bob, and I have the wildest-ever tender (the little boat that takes you to shore in primitive ports with no dock) ride. Each cruise has a why-are-we-here stop, and this is it: a fishing village without a tree on a rock of an island, our last stop in Quebec. We walk the trail above the red cliffs and back through "town," a collection of un-quaint motels and gas stations, a pyramidal Catholic church, and an A&W that has mama burgers and teen burgers. As you re-board your tender a town lady give you maple fudge and the Seabourn people give you raisin cookies, so its not a complete waste. But seriously, its very sociologically interesting to get off the tourist track and see real gas stations and A&Ws.

At lunch Rick assures us that he has had vegetables on this cruise. There was something green on his plate that probably touched his lobster last night. He did not eat it. Tonight is French Country Market night at the Colonnade, the less formal restaurant. So rather than dress up to dine we have fantastic raclette and chateau briand and veggie terrine and crepes suzette and fromage and French wine and chocolate mousse and a chocolate chip cookie. The half-moon casts ominous cloudy reflections over the black sea.

Tuesday, 23 October Sydney, Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia A 50-foot high fiddle greets us at the dock. Bob's been here before and hates the town, so all five of us are taking a bus tour. This will be Tutu's first excursion. We drive for seven hours to and on the Cabot trail, exploring Cape Breton Island, the #1 island in the continental US and Canada. The autumn-colored hills are magnificent; we see several bald eagles. Our guide is good but I miss French accents. Coal mining used to be the big industry here, together with the steel mill. They tunneled five miles out under the Atlantic to get to the coal face. That's done, the steel mill has been moved to India (!), and the young people are moving west to the oil fields of Alberta. The population decreases every year. I love our guide's Canadian accent. His short 'a' is as broad as 'a' can be: "CAAnada." He makes us Midwesterners sound like Laurence Olivier. We also have a guide-in-training and she sings to us in Gaelic. Back at the ship Bob and I rush to hear more local musicians, the Cape Breton Trio, who play the same song ten times in a row. Sorry, that was mean. They were very good, and the audience got into them, clapping and even jumping up and doing some Scottish dancing. Back on our cabins balcony we hear another local singer down on the dock singing to the entire ship, accompanied by syrupy stringy synthesizer. She's kind of a pill.

Wednesday, 24 October At Sea Sadly I can't call my sister Pat to sing her "Happy Birthday" (a sacred tradition) on her 70th since we are at sea, but we will toast her at the chef's dinner tonight. Tutu and I attended his cooking demo this morning. He made an astonishingly elaborate foie gras with ginger brioche, caramelized apple and pomegranate salad, and dark chocolate sauce.

Each serving includes about five drops of this sauce. It takes five minutes to explain how to fry the toast that goes on the bottom and the whole dish takes half an hour to prepare. It will be one of several courses tonight. He also makes the ultimate hot chocolate which we all get to taste. Encroyable! Tutu wears my mom's gold chain, which I always find moving. On our way to a reception for repeat Seabourn cruisers some lady asks me what's going on with the big crowd. I tell her where were going and that she's not invited. Everyone finds this remark amusing at best. The lady who lives on the ship has more than 2000 days at sea. We drink a birthday toast to my sister Pat. The big chef's six-course dinner is, however, a bit of a disappointment. The incredibly elaborate foie gras seems to be just foie gras covered with weeds and icky pomegranate seeds. We wait hours between courses. The halibut is bland, covered with more weeds that I chew on for a while and eventually spit out.

Thursday, 25 October Bar Harbor, Maine, USA Cathie and Rick honeymooned here and will revisit their old haunts. Tutu got up in the middle of the night, worried that the bad guys might break into her cabin via the balcony, and locked that door. I assume she was inspired by our discussion of Egyptian salesmen climbing up our boat as we cruised the Nile. Bob dreamed that he was cutting off kittens' feet. I dreamed I was about to be tortured. The other night I was dodging derailed railroad cars. The approach to Bar Harbor is impressively wildernessy with a few huge houses on cliffs overlooking the Atlantic. A Coast Guard boat circles us. It has a gun in front and the gun is manned by a guy in combat gear. Immigration officials board us and we all have to line up and show passports. While waiting the lady ahead of us asks where we're from. Indiana?! She has a second cousin once-removed who once had a friend from Indiana! She can't believe we're from Indiana! Somehow I feel cockyperhaps because these bureaucrats are on our turf, the Grand Salon, so after the guy checks my passport I tell him he's supposed to say "Welcome home." Instead of locking me up or confiscating my papers or shooting me with the Coast Guard gun he apologizes and says Welcome home. Bob and I do a bus tour (excuse me, a "motor coach excursion") which lasts twice as long as we thought; Cathie and Rick relive their honeymoon; bottom line: poor Tutu is abandoned and has to have elevenses (alcoholic beverages consumed at 11am) alone.

Acadia National Park is hills and mountains covered with autumn color and granite cliffs overlooking the ocean. The drive is gorgeous, especially to the peak of Cadillac Mountain, at 1500 feet the highest peak on the Atlantic coast. From up here our ship gleams minuscule and white, far below. The tour includes two main stops, one good and one bad. An entertaining lobster man explains lobsters and how to catch them (good). A priggish woman puts the double B in B&B giving us the history of and a sales pitch for her utterly boring house onto the floor of which you had better not drop a cookie crumb (bad). Our guide tells us his brush with greatness stories of celebrities who stay in Bar Harbor. E.g. he and his wife were dining out. Wife whispered That's Paul Newman at the next table! Guide looks, responds Nah, that guy doesn't look like Newman. As Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman finish their dinner and get up to leave, Paul tells wife, Yes, ma'am, I'm Paul Newman and it was a pleasure to meet you. Also Ernest Borgnine. I sneak off to a pharmacy and buy a Starbuck's Frappuccino, my first in a week. At home I barely survive on two a day. Bob must be incredibly jealousthere's no actual Starbucks here. True-life drama: I'm sitting in the tender waiting to depart when I see a man sit down on the railing of the seawall sixteen feet above the water. The railing breaks, he falls backwards, hits his head on the stone wall, and splashes into the cold saltwater. His wife screams for help. A young fisherman I've been watching messing around with lobster traps runs over, strips off his shirt, dives in and, with help, gets the guy out of the water. Meanwhile several people have called 911 on their cell phones. The ambulance arrives in just a few minutes and our tender departs. Bob does some laundry before dinner. The dryers are so slow his first cocktail is delayed. Our lives are living hells. We cancelled our Restaurant 2 date because the main restaurant is having Bob's all-time favorite food: soft-shelled crabs. Everyone has them except me. I have haddock. Bland. I do laundry after dinner. Bob is right: the dryers are slow. After a serious 11pm #2 the toilet will not flush. Talk about a real-life nightmare! I phone the toilet-fixing lady and she says she'll send someone immediately. Immediately after hanging up, it flushes all by itself.

Friday, 26 October Boston This is a red-letter day: I get my first phone call while sitting on the terlet. The ringing sound is so loud in the tiny marble-floored and -ceilinged room I almost crap my pants. It takes a moment to realize it's not some kind of emergency alarm. (Dear future readers: in 2012 not all phones were mobile. Some were permanently attached to walls, and it was the height of luxury to have one permanently attached to your bathroom wall.) The call was from some fellow passengers asking us the name of the street we said they must not miss in Boston. We figure they must have confused us with someone else. True-life drama: hurricane Sandy is heading for the USAs east coast and may force us to alter our itinerary! Bob and I get maps and figure out where we are docked so we can get back. Boston is one of those cities I think I know better than I do. True-life drama: a woman has fallen by the dock and is being taken away by ambulance. We take the shuttle bus to Faneuil Hall. We try to find a Starbucks so Bob can do unimpeded wifi (on the ship wifi is slow and impeded). The first one, at Quincy Market, has nowhere to sit; the second, where we celebrated getting our marriage license at Bostons architecturally infamous city hall a year and a half ago, is filled to bursting with nowhere to sit. I abandon him to his search and take the subway to MIT. Some guide books say that this campus is too ugly to visit, so I never have on any of my previous trips here (first business, then performing with Bob at the Boston Early Music Festival, then marriage). But recently I saw online that MIT has some famous modern architecture. Does it ever! I'm delighted that the Eero Saarinen chapel is unlocked. Inside a janitor befriends me, explaining all the subtleties of the great modern buildings, especially how hard they are to clean, and then launches into an in-depth history of MIT. I tear myself away. He follows and continues the lecture. I tear myself away again, this time successfully. The famous view of the dome is ruined because the dome is covered in scaffolding. If I ever get to India, you can be sure the Taj Mahal will be covered in scaffolding. My life's work should have been a book titled Architectural Masterpieces of the World Covered in Scaffolding. The Kresge Auditorium, also by Saarinen, is the most famous modern building and very hard to clean. I discover that two buildings I had admired before finding the tourist info office are by I. M. Pei! One is a skyscraper; the other is a low modest building that got

my attention because of its subtle styling. He has a third nearby, triangular like his East Wing of the National Gallery in Washington, and next to it is a giant sculpture by Louis Nevelson! And a Calder! And a Moore! I'm in art-campus heaven. Oh, and a goofy, pointlessly curvy Frank Gehry building. It's hard to walk around a campus like MIT and not think about one's life and what might have been. Back on the ship we find that our Charleston stop (never been) is cancelled due to Sandy. We may go to Bermuda (been there) instead. It's a little thrilling to be to the mercy of gigantic natural forces. I am rudely awakened from a lovely nap by an announcement that fueling is complete and we can now smoke. I gather my things and head out onto the balcony to write my journal. Smoke wafts toward me from our neighbor's. My life is a living hell. The captain just announced that Sandy is going to hit between Long Island and Chesapeake Bay, and the only way for us to avoid her and still end up in Florida is to head straight out to sea and then south, going around her on the east. All of our remaining ports are cancelled. We may stop in Bermuda. The entertainment director announces that cocktails will be served all around the ship. Just before departure I call my sister Pat to let my family know the plan and that we expect to survive. Leaving Boston is exciting: not only do we go right past Logan airport, with gigantic jets thundering a few hundred feet above us, but we also go right by an 18thcentury fort next to piles of container ship containers. Poor Rick is between knee surgeries. The first is pretty well healed, but he hurt his other leg on his excursion and barely made it from the bus back to the ship. Some passengers disembarked in Boston rather than take their chances out in the Atlantic. All diets are cancelled. Why bother when we're all going to die? We'll be at sea for several days. I can only hope we'll have enough, like, food and stuff. The crew is having big party tonight, Octoberfest. They're amazed that we know about it and hide their horror when we threaten to crash it. When the ship vibrates the feeling is indistinguishable from the heart arrhythmia I used to experience before I got off caffeine. Cathie's and Rick's stewardess (maid) creates ever more elaborate humanoid creatures from towels, pillows, umbrellas, eyeglasses, booze, and anything else she can find. One

was seated in the bathroom and moved when you opened the door. Our stewardess, Alyona, makes a little turtle (I think) out of one towel. She teaches me "good night" in Estonian: head d. The big question: should I try to use this unexpected week off to dream up and plunge into a big project? Songs, music, art, writing? Can I force a new idea? Should I? Should I try to figure out what to do with the rest of my life? The next decade? Year? Today reinforced Bob's and my love of Boston. Before retiring, around midnight, I go out on the balcony to admire the lights from several ships and the 7/8 moon reflecting on the water. The evil German smoking couple next door has left their balcony light on, which spoils the dark.

Saturday, 27 October At Sea I awaken in the dark to the ship rolling. Nowhere near as bad as it might be but by far the worst so far on this trip. I never get seasick but I do feel funny in my tummy and I did get carsick ("bus-sick"? "motor-coach-sick"?) driving around Nova Scotia. Can I take days of this? Will Tutu have much trouble moving around? Will Cathie's and Rick's Dramamine save them? From my bed I see a slice of northern sea and sky as the sun rises ahead. The colors are all sandy soft: sandy desert blue just above the water, pink soft stone above that, yellow dust above that. On the other side of the ship, in Tutu's cabin, she and Bob insist that I missed a glorious sunrise. I tell them the colors on my side were pretty too. Eat. Read. Sleep. Eat. Sleep. This morning it was windy and sunny; now it's windy and gray. Start to work seriously on a song idea I've been playing with. Writing on the balcony until a drop of salt water lands on my iPad. Cathie plays mahjong and wins twice. Rick goes to a lecture on Fort Sumter. Bob practices guitar, well on his way to 10,000-hour mastery. On our balcony, watching a gray sunset, I see in the distance what is either an oddlyshaped little cloud brilliantly illuminated by an otherwise invisible sunbeamor Michael the Archangel. I hear the beginning of a ship-wide announcement. When these occur everyone runs to

the inner hallway where the sound is intelligible. From the balcony it's audio slush. The captain, a Norwegian, starts every announcement, "Ladies and uh [long pause, like he's trying to come up with the English word] Gentlemen." Anyway, the swells around Bermuda tomorrow are expected to be 15 to 25 feet, with high winds, so we will probably not stop there. We might even go around Bermuda to the east. I do hope we have enough, like, food and stuff to make it to Fort Lauderdale. Tutu might have the right idea hoarding her fruit. She hides it so it will have time to ripen before the stewardess takes it away, but soon starving passengers might be breaking her door down with axes to get the last food on board: rotten plums. There's a streak of brown on the sea. Sargassum? Oil? Archangel poop? Before retiring I always go out on the balcony to admire the view. Tonight the sea is pretty wild and I'm covered in salt spray. Walking to my bed is a challenge as the ship is now rocking and rolling. To get to the bathroom you climb uphill. Going back to bed you run downhill and then climb uphill and then are suspended in midair.

Sunday, 28 October Still At Sea Getting to breakfast is a bit of a challenge, but going randomly uphill and downhill is a little more fun in the wide hallways because you have more time to adjust before crashing into something. Carrying plates of fruit and glasses of OJ between tables and waiters and passengers carrying plates and glasses is even more fun. On the way back to our cabin I want to experience the outdoors. We step outside into warm air, and a second later into 53mph wind and spray. We hustle back inside. The captain gives an update. "Ladies and uh . . . Gentlemen." We are skipping Bermuda altogether. The seas right here are 15 to 20 feet. It's going to be a bumpy night. He asks us not to go outside and not to use our balconies. Part of our cabin rattles and part of it squeaks. Continuously. Tutu's cabin has a wind whistle I refer to as the Siren's song. One makes many accommodations to our motion. It occurs to one that one could pee sitting down, like a girl. One doesnt. I didn't want to acknowledge it but my tummy was a bit unhappy the first few hours of this, but now it seems fine. Tutu is wisely staying in her cabin, so far. Bob and I are going to her cabin to watch the live TV feed of the 10am lecture on the songs of Tom Lehrer. Tutu is a big fan. The lecture will be given by Ambassador Edward Peck. Before

it starts we show Tutu the Youtube video of the Naval Academy midshipmen dancing gangnam style. The "lecture" wasn't; it was the ambassador playing recordings of his favorite, leastcontroversial Lehrer songs, which was great fun. Lots of laughing out loud. Lots of ambassador fussing with his iPad. Tutu and Bob and I just had a picnic! I.e. room service. We had to pour our own wine, refill our own glasses, and put our linen napkins on our laps all by ourselves. It was really fun roughing it! Seabourn has thought of everything. Apparently, to ensure we won't get too used to all this luxury, they assign us stewardesses whose job is to make our lives more difficult by rearranging all of our stuff, putting unnecessary things (extra pillows, mini-covers) on our beds, closing drapes we want open, and turning on the lights we want off and vice-versa. Bob's reading a bio of the 16th-century essayist Montaigne. He was raised in France, but speaking only Latin! No one was allowed to speak French or any other language around him. I'm reading Michael Palin's (of Monty Python fame) 1980s diary. Movie-making is hard work; his kids are geniuses; he loves his wife. We nap. What's this? Sunlight pours onto our balcony and into our room! We still rock and roll, and even naval Bob is impressed by the enormous swells, but we do so under only mostly cloudy skies. Did I mention the water temp is 82? If we do go down, avoiding starvation after we've eaten Tutu's last rotten plum, we will die not like Leonardo at the end of Titanic but like Australian surfers, of shark bites. Directly disobeying the captain I go out on the balcony. The air is warm and every surface is encrusted with salt. The Germans are out there smoking. Aren't Germans supposed to obey orders? Yesterday I wondered whose law we are subject to, out in the Atlantic. Bermudan? American? Seabourn? Captain's whim? (This is purely theoretical. No murders are being contemplated; we non-Germans are all getting along splendidly.) Usually we dress nicely whenever we leave our cabin, but sometimes I just wear gym shorts and. T-shirt to visit Tutu. The other day she was looking intently at my Car Talk T, which has, in addition to their logo, black grease fingerprints all over it (people have been known to return the shirt with indignant letters). Planning afternoon tea with Tutu and Bob. The idyl is over: the sky is totally gray, the balcony totally wet.

After valiantly attempting to move around her cabin looking for shoes, Tutu wisely decides to forego tea due to the serious motion of the ocean. Bob and I head to the coffee bar where I get my one and only cruise milk shake. Kelvin, a waiter from Malawi, tries to convince me I should have one per day, not one per cruise. Calcium is good for you! I am worried about Tutu crashing with her walker when we go downstairs to dinner in these rough seas. I wish we had a wheelchair instead. Its dawns on me that the ship might lend us one. Bob and I inquire and find out they won't lend us one but they will take her, in a wheelchair, anywhere anytime. We just need to call and ask. We go back to Tutu's and twist her proud arm until she agrees. Bob is practicing guitar, quite a job under these conditions, learning "Nearer My God to Thee." The ship announces "code alpha" on the highest deck, deck 10. We assume someone fell; it's inevitable, and the ride is wildest at the top. Rick skips dinner in the restaurant. My tummy's a little iffy as well, but some food seems to help. Tutu's wheelchair works perfectly. It's obviously much safer than the walker. I can rest easier, and so can she, despite her sore arm from all the twisting.

Monday, 29 October At Sea Forever Last night was the roughest yet. There was a real possibility of being rolled out of my narrow bed. I tried to stay as flat as possible. Shampoo, shower hats, et al. fell during the night. Halfway through my shower (I thank our designer for the grab bar) the door swings open and the shampoo flies. The sky is blue, the sun is bright, it's warm. The swells are 15 to 25 feet high. We're over 800 nautical miles from Fort Lauderdale, our destination, and getting farther away from it as we continue south toward Hispaniola. Alyona says she's bruised all over. Bob and I do a wave tour of the ship. At the highest point you hold on to your eyeglasses in the gusty wind. The whole ship moves like Riverview's funhouse. We go to the lowest point, the dining room, and sit by a window, to the slight annoyance of a waitress trying to set up for lunch. Down there I look up at a 25 foot high wall of water rushing toward me. At the last possible second the ship somehow soars into the sky over it. As we crash down vast clouds of spray sport momentary rainbows. Both of our iPads' times are totally wrong. They certainly aren't correct for whatever

mid-Atlantic time zone we're in. Weird. Tutu insists on going to lunch in the restaurant sans wheelchair. We'll see how that works out. It doesn't. We force her to accept the wheelchair and take her to the restaurant for the great wave views. Lunch is fine but she complains that the waves are not "as advertised," even though, right after Bob says, "here comes a big one," a tremendous amount of china and crystal smashes to the floor. After lunch I drive her home and it reminds me of wheeling mom around, although I never pushed mom up- or downhill in flat Illinois. Alyona teaches me "good morning" in Estonian: "tere hommikust." Ive already impressed her with my good night: head d. For the first time Bob and I sit on the balcony together. The seas have calmed a bit. I was surprised by how few ships we see, but of course, here in the Bermuda Triangle, they've probably all sunk already. Before dinner it's the worst ever. Remember the Wonder Spot at the Wisconsin Dells where everything is tilted and water runs uphill? That's how it is watching people dance down the halls. Then you're an astronaut trainee experiencing weightlessness on the Vomit Comet. Then you're on a carnival ride spinning inside a cylinder and weighing a ton. Then back to the Funhouse at Riverview where parts of the floor rotate clock- or counter-clockwise. In a classic example of my severe social ineptitude I manage to insult Cathie and Rick at dinner. I want to tell some stupid story about the Higg's boson and manage to make them think I think they're idiots for not having heard of it. Once again I've proved that I should not be allowed in social settings without a gag.

Tuesday, 30 October Another Day At Sea Bob isn't worried about starvation, just scurvy. I was hoping today would be all tropical splendor. But our windows are wet again. I see pictures of the flooding and fires Sandy wreaked on NYC and NJ last night. Now my wet windows don't seem like such a big deal. This is definitely my week to look like an idiot. It is all about me, right?

Halleluiah! We put on shorts and T-shirts and have breakfast outside! After a minute clouds open and we are bathed in sunlight! I am no cult-of-the-outdoors member but even I love it. And chocolate chip pancakes. As we leave on an outdoor tour of the ship I impress Alyona with my "tere hommikust." I've perfected the art of going up and down stairs using all four limbs. Bob says the sun and warmth and blue water immeasurably improve his mood. He says "tell Peter (our Canadian friend) 'screw Canada!'" We are finally heading straight toward Fort Lauderdale. We mustn't be too low on fresh watera Filipino crewman is outside spraying salt off the ship. Cathie introduces me to someone as her "socially inept brother-in-law." Lunch is outside. Too windy for Tutu, food blows right off our plates. I have two melon coladas. It's so Twilight Zone to suddenly be on a tropical cruise when I've always thought of this as a trip to Canada. I run out of Tums. Fortunately the ship's store has some. The clerk, like every other crew member, treats customers like royalty. One forgets how well one is being served. By dinnertime things are much calmer. Tutu is back to using her walker instead of the wheelchair. I decide, if we make it to dry land, I'm going to emulate Pope John Paul II and kiss the ground. During our pre-dinner cocktail hour Cathie and Rick surprise me with belated birthday presents! Yeah! One is an Acadia National Park T-shirt, perfect since I haven't found a T to remember this trip by. For our penultimate fancy dinner I have cheese souffl and lobster. Most nights after dinner I, and sometimes Bob, watch goofy movies like John Carter, Captain America, and other horror and sci-fi nonsense.

Wednesday, 31 October Last Full Day At Sea During the night things get rougher again. Bob's back is sore from fighting the motion. We both have wild dreams, mine involving all decades of my life: leaving mom & dad's house (50s-60s) to attend a conference at the University of Illinois (60s-70s) with Fermilab friends (70s-80s) and Bob (90s-10s). Our windows are wetwait, that's not water, it's crystalized salt.

Water in the pool! Water in the pool! We shall come rejoicing, Water in the pool! Of course we didn't bring swim suits. Seabourn sends us a letter thanking us for not freaking out over the storm and reminding us how well they handled it and refunding $59.78 for cancelled port fees. And 25% off our next cruise! The line at the booking desk forms immediately. I've been considering making a song out of one of the guitar pieces Bob has been practicing. A big issue: there's a note that might be part of the melody but might be part of the accompaniment. Bob, his guitar teacher, and I have all thought about this note carefully. I've decided it's definitely part of the melody, a decision which wrecks my lyric-in-progress. I've been extraordinarily anal about putting things away on this trip. Shoes come off and go directly into the closet. A book is not set down, it is placed in the book cabinet and the doors are closed. So I was surprised when Bob told everyone our cabin is a mess. Maybe his half... Bob sees flying fish. I do not. We finally let Tutu eat outside, for lunch, by going early and claiming a table sheltered from wind and sun, right next to the ice cream and cookies, and not too far from the pizza, which, today, mercifully is spinach-free. I compliment a woman on her horns (it's Halloween). After lunch we see a ship! Two ships! Other than TV and the internet, which can easily be faked, these ships are the first evidence, in several days, that we are not the last humans on earth. We nap; we pack; Bob takes care of travel details; I look out the window and see land! An island! Actual green and brown earth on the horizonwith a lighthouse! I resist the urge to commandeer one of our lifeboats and escape this ship of horror.

Thursday, 1 November Fort LauderdaleBloomington, Indiana Civilization: high-rise hotels sparkle on the horizon under black sky beyond black sea, observed by me in my underwear and a smoking German next balcony over.

I've washed my hands more in the last two weeks than in the last year due to the Narwhal virus and whatever other bugs are lurking. I assume our cabin is antiseptic and that every other surface on this ship is coated with a fetid zoo of deadly microorganisms. Now we're been ejected from our cabins and are sitting in a public area waiting to be called for disembarkation, teeming refuse huddled with our meager possessions, like refugees on Ellis Island, drinking double decaf espresso and typing on our iPads. Next to the Sojourn is a ship with a dozen yachts on it. I guess you can ship your yacht overseas. It's hard to believe tonight we'll return to a house with no cat to hug. The driver of our bus to the airport says, Welcome back to the real world. Flight to Atlanta OK. So far the "flight" to Indianapolis is us sitting at the gate, being dragged away from the gate, and then dragged back to the gate because our auxiliary power is out. The guy tells us (unamplified, a few rows at a time, because there's no power for the intercom) that we don't need no stinking AP, they'll just start our engines with some external device. In ten minutes, he says. I predict 30. The air is already getting warm and stuffy. Not sure I can take hours of this. After 15 minutes he tells us the AP door is stuck in the wrong position and they'll need "a few more" minutes to manually change it. I hereby predict we are flying nowhere on this plane today. While we wait a flag-draped coffin is loaded onto the next jet over, with three military personnel saluting. Probably a casualty of Afghanistan. Again my troubles are placed in perspective. It is all about me, right? Then a luggage cart zooms by, randomly tossing somebody's black bag onto the tarmac. After 45 minutes we leave the gate. Again. This time we eventually take off. We have spectacular aerial views of downtown Indianapolis. We arrive home 12 hours after leaving the ship. Our plain-old cheap boxed wine tastes wonderful! Bob makes fantastic spaghetti.

Friday, 2 November Bloomington The day after. At the gym. The real real world. Lost two pounds. Yeah! Bob gained 4. I remember my padlock combination.