3/9/14 You all know I dont believe my husband is sick. I dont know how hes done it, but for two and a half years hes been able to fool everyone, except me, including his team of doctors. Its unbelievable that he was able to finagle a year of disability before I forced him to go back to work. After that, he worked about a year when he announced he was physically exhausted and couldnt keep working. Even though I said NO, he took early retirement. I know, the doctors had been saying since he got sick he should quit working. But what do they know? And do they know what the difference between my husbands salary and his retirement income has done to my spending money? Nobody, especially my husband appreciates, the sacrifices Ive had to make. The one positive thing about my husbands retirement, the bank was so glad to get rid of him they gave him a Panama Canal Cruise as a retirement gift. But, because of the sacrifices hes forced me to make, I considered this my cruise. Even though Id claimed this as my cruise, there was one big negative that almost ruined everything, I had to take him along. Anyway, my cruise started in Miami and ended in Los Angeles, passing through the Panama Canal, with stops in Cartagena, Puntarenas, Puerto Chiapas, Huatulco, Puerto Vallarta, and Cabo San Lucas. Rather than give you a day-by-day or blow-by-blow account of my cruise, here are some random comments of what I saw and did: ∞ The cruise lasted 15 days. Thats the longest cruise Ive ever been on. ∞ I know 29 isnt really very old, but I was one of the youngest passengers on the ship. The average age of the passengers was about 128. Thats probably why the cruise was held up twice when local ambulances had to come and take people away. ∞ At least half the ship was made up of Germans. Seems like there were more people speaking Deutsch than English. The announcements were even repeated auf Deutsch. The ship had what they called a traditional English Pub and every night you could hear shouts of Prost and Noch ein bier bitte echoing throughout the ship. There may have even been a few choruses of Deutschland Uber Alles. Question, do you typically hear German drinking songs in traditional English Pubs? ∞ Amal, my cabin steward was particularly accommodating. Besides making me towel animals every night, he customized my cabin for me. Each cabin has a small bathroom that you can lock from the inside to ensure privacy. He reversed the lock for me so I could lock it from the outside. That way, I could lock my husband in the bathroom and then go have some fun. I kept him locked in there most of the cruise. ∞ Youve all heard of the Spanish Inquisition where among other things the Catholic Church tried to convert non-Catholics to the church through torture. The church did the same thing in Cartagena. To memorialize what was done, Cartagena has an Inquisition Museum. I toured it. They had exhibits of some of the equipment they used with explanations of how they were used. I got a lot of good tips of things to do to keep my husband in line. In fact, while wandering the streets in the old part of the town, I came across a pet supply store. Based on what Id learned at the museum, I bought a spiked dog collar and a leash. When I got back to the ship I reversed the spikes so that they pointed in and put it on my husbands neck. Then I added the leash and took him for a walk. If he stopped or tried to wonder off, or even if I just felt like it, Id jerk the leash and the spikes would dig into his neck. After a couple minutes, he got the idea and went along with anything I wanted. When I went to the main dining room for dinner that night, leading my husband by the leash, most of the women in the dining room stood up and cheered. ∞ One of the things that really irked me during the cruise was the attention my husband got because of his portable oxygen concentrator. After all, Im the one that has to suffer because of him. People were always stepping aside to let him go first (maybe thats because he tripped a couple of old ladies early in the cruise) and several made comments about how courageous he was to take on a trip like the one we were on despite his condition. Yeah, it was nice to cut to the front of the lines because of his disability, get priority seating when dining, get the front seats on the tour buses, and have people offer to carry things for him. But really, this was my cruise, not his. Everyone should have felt sorry for me and what I have to put up with, not him. ∞ Besides the way passengers were treating him, it looked like the waitresses in the dining rooms were going out of their way to give him special treatment. After the first day, the waitresses remembered him and automatically brought him his favorite rolls and things, and they kept giving him hugs. I was really getting upset that they were paying him so much attention, especially the hugs. Then I noticed when they were hugging him, they were slipping their fingers in his pockets and pulling everything out. Fortunately, when we first got on the ship Id taken all his money and important papers away from him. All they got were pamphlets and brochures of the places wed been that day. My dumb husband, he kept saying how friendly all the waitresses were. Boy is he dense!! ∞ The ship had brought on a guide to point out interesting facts about the Panama Canal. He told us the trip through the canal usually takes around 9 hours and uses 26 million gallons of water per ship. Many ships are too big to fit in the locks and our cruise ship was the maximum size. It was a tight squeeze with a foot or less of water between the ship and each side of the locks. There are three sets of locks used to raise or lower the ship. The day we went through, there were about 20 ships in line to go from the Caribbean to the Pacific. We were third in line and really messed up the whole process. Remember Id said they had to take two people off the ship in ambulances? One of them was in the canal. We were in the second set of locks when we had to stop for an hour waiting for an ambulance. Just about everyone behind us got backed up and had to wait. ∞ Anyone recall Manuel Noriega, the Panamanian dictator and drug runner? Hes in a Panamanian prison next to the canal. The guide told us Noriega is 80ish and in failing health. Panama has a humanitarian law that says a prisoner in poor health can apply to have his sentence converted to time served so they can die at home, and he is expected to apply for that program very soon. Rather than that, I suggested they swap my husband for him. The State Department was interested in my offer and said it was not without merit and society would be better off without my husband. But, they declined saying my husband didnt have the international reputation needed for the swap. They gave me some suggestions I could try to boost my husbands international presence and then offer the swap again in a couple years. Hopefully, Noriega lasts that long. ∞ When we were in Huatulco, my husband announced he was taking me for a typical Mexican lunch, nothing like what wed get in a Southern California Mexican restaurant. He knows I love mole sauce and hinted that I was having some mole for lunch. Boy was I excited. That is till lunch was served. Hed ordered me grilled grasshoppers in mole sauce. The jerk!! I got even though. We had a couple Mescals that afternoon and I made sure he got the worm. ∞ Leave it to my husband to try and ruin my cruise. Somehow, he managed to expose me to some kind of rare Latin heebie-jeebie malady. Part way through the cruise, I caught a cold. By the time I got off the ship, it had turned to bronchitis, and later pneumonia. But I got even, I passed it on to him. Check him out. Given his supposed lung problems, if hes not worse off than me, youll have to agree he doesnt really have any lung problems. If he is, serves him right. Chris
Posted on: Mon, 10 Mar 2014 01:21:01 +0000
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