kochleffel

I lived in McMinnville for several years.

Maybe I will start listing the Wheatland Ferry in Oregon. It's an electric, cable-drawn ferry that carries six cars at a time across the Willamette River, a trip of about two minutes.

Don't worry, folks. I'm not going to book an Amazon cruise.

My blood-draw appointment was uneventful. I also had to go out briefly just after 11:00, as some YKW was just starting to fall. It's not sticking but the temperature is falling. When I got home from the second errand, there was email asking me to check in online for my appointment, sent at 11:35. Two things are wrong with this: I had already checked in online, and the appointment had been at 8:55.

I have an issue with awesome. Young colleagues in education are always asking for "an awesome lesson plan" or "an awesome family program," or an awesome something. Almost nothing in education is awesome, but there are many good lesson plans, programs, etc. Somehow I don't expect to be awestruck by a lesson plan. There's nothing wrong with my middle name, but I don't use it. I haven't seen a phone booth in a long time. The last one I used was in London, in 2008. I use zaatar in and might like it with fish. Not very enthusiastic about chianti or fuzz.' I'm having a blood draw this morning, so while I would like coffee and breakfast now, I'm having only water, as much of it as possible since (a) I'm prone to vasovagal syncope, (b) I'm rather hard to get blood from, and (c) I think they're going to need about eight tubes, my doctor having ordered the most blood tests I've ever had at one time.

I think that these would mostly appeal to passengers continuing B2B from the previous cruise, or embarking B2B on the next.

Ahead of you. Had that for lunch.

I tried not to look. I have an appointment for blood tests tomorrow morning.

Not sure about any of the days. The meal, drink, and wine would all be OK with me and if you could deliver them at 6:00 p.m. I'll be ready. Debbie's post yesterday evening led me to thinking about travel in 2025 and I looked at a lot of cruise itineraries, all of which were impractical for one reason or another. When I came to my senses I started thinking about a short trip to NYC in May for the Met's new productions of Die Zauberflöte and Don Giovanni.

There is enough nastiness in the world without my contributing to it. Last night I had a Zoom meeting that I thought would be nasty enough to require brandy after it, or possibly during; I was glad that it was on Zoom because it is really hard for people to attack each other physically over the Internet. It wasn't quite as bad as that but I was still ready for Calvados at the end. I edit a publication that has three proofreaders but sometimes a typographical error mysteriously appears after it has been printed. Madeira Chicken might be OK. No on the drink, probably yes on the wine. I haven't been to Newfoundland except for Gander Airport. I could post pictures from Saint John, New Brunswick, but too many people would know they were wrong.

And at the other end of the scale, there are a couple of one-night cruises, Vancouver to Seattle.

Today is Purim, one of the two Jewish holidays when it is proper to have fun. It's based on the book of Esther, which is probably spurious, but no one cares. The observance entails chanting the entirety of Esther in Hebrew during the morning service, but the celebration is sort of a combination of Halloween and April Fools. We have a joke in the synagogue about its being a festival for sober contemplation and reflection, and playing off that I dressed in dark suit and white shirt as a costume. I guess that cereal is OK, but I'll pass on the roast of pork. Peace Corps Day was last week. Pad Thai might be OK, no tequila for me, Pinot Noir is always welcome, I haven't been to that part of Norway. I haven't started my income-tax filing yet -- I usually wait until about March 15, because when I don't, I usually receive a corrected Form Something-or-Other right after filing. But I am thinking about travel in 2024 and 2025, and it's making my head hurt. I have a booking on the Anthem of the Seas to the southern Caribbean, 11 nights, in January. I'm also planning a trip (obviously not a cruise) to Moab, Utah, in the spring or fall, for Arches and Canyonlands national parks. After June 30, my schedule will be more flexible, but I plan to travel less than I have in the past year or so and, if possible, to fly no more than once a year.

Any Alaska cruise from Seattle must call at a Canadian port. Usually that is Victoria. Because the ship wasn't built in the U.S., isn't registered in the U.S., doesn't have a crew of U.S. residents, and doesn't have a waiver for any of those conditions, the Passenger Vessel Services Act requires it to call at a foreign port. I was on a cruise recently that should have gone to Bermuda, but because it was going to be impossible to dock there, the ship had to continue to Nassau, Bahamas, even though the port call there would be from 9:00 p.m. to 3:00 a.m.

Thanks. I'm not worried about the cruise itself, only about the other passengers. For those who expect it to be horrible, it will be.

While I agree that the hospital will investigate the error, I wouldn't count on it. I would report it myself to the chief medical officer of the hospital and to the state medical board.

It appears that dinner tonight will be a stew of tomatoes, green beans, and tofu, served over spaghetti, because those are the ingredients that I have. New worry: according to the roll calls (there are two, overlapping), people booked for the Spanish Farewell are expecting to have a horrible time, based on recent posts about the Oosterdam and, really, all HAL ships. At least one has cancelled, and I rather hope that all those who would be whining and complaining for the entire cruise will cancel, too. Cruise Critic is feeling more and more like FlyerTalk: too many posts with extreme sense of entitlement and anger about everything.

One side of my family was always close-knit but did not get along with one another at all. Their custom was to get together on every holiday and have a huge fight that would keep everyone angry until the next holiday. If they failed to accomplish that while together, they would continue the quarreling by phone until the goal was reached. (Peculiarly, those who did most of the fighting were not the drinkers.) The other side did not get along very well, either, but mostly left one another alone. I'll pass on the special days and on the fried rice. The wine confused me, because I didn't recognize Chaleur as a wine grape (it isn't) and in French it means heat. I'll leave that discussion for the F&B department. I haven't been to Auckland. After I posted yesterday I hosted a Zoom meeting that was so annoying that by the end I was self-medicating with Armagnac, which I had purchased at Total Wine on the way back from Weekawken.

I'd be delighted to have some pot roast, IP or not, but don't have anything that is pot-roastable. No, no, no on the cocktail. Yes, yes, yes, on the wine, but not with pot roast. I believe that multiple personality is now called dissociative identity disorder. I recently took a course on demons and possession, in which one of the teachers was a rabbi who is a psychiatric chaplain. He has seen many patients who thought they were possessed and wanted exorcisms, but has never performed one. He did have one DID patient with many personalities that appeared to stem from childhood sexual trauma, but there was one that he wondered about. My first name is the name that my father was called by, although it was neither his legal first name nor his Hebrew one. Nevertheless, it caused endless trouble in the family, because the custom in eastern and central European Jewish families is to name children after deceased relatives, not living ones. Some of my elderly relatives professed to be unable to remember my name. Two of my friends are just back from a cruise to Antarctica, booked through an adventure-travel agency, I think on a ship with only 59 staterooms. It was the sort with many zodiac excursions including one where they set foot on Antarctica and have certificates to prove it. They also have certificates for crossing the Drake Passage, twice. I slept badly last night but had to be up to teach an adult Hebrew class at 9:30. Then I attended a funeral (at graveside) at 11:00. Fortunately, the demons class has ended and so I could nap after lunch.

Carnival is trying to rein in Spring Break behavior. Carnival Cruise Line has a message for spring breakers planning to set sail: If you think you can get away with the type of bad behavior that goes viral on social media, think again. “We’ve all seen the news coverage and social media posts of people behaving badly,” Carnival Cruise Line President Christine Duffy said in a video address posted to YouTube on Feb. 15. “It’s happening in stores, restaurants, at sporting events and schools, on airplanes, in theme parks and, yes, on cruise ships, too.” Duffy said in the video that all of the line’s ships have added more security workers, and the company has introduced narcotics-sniffing dogs at home ports to screen luggage. Drug dogs might also be in place at destination ports, she said. https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2023/03/03/carnival-warns-customers-weed-fights/

I want to say a bit more about Holy Experiment Day, because it sounds like a strange name for a holiday. It commemorates the founding of Pennsylvania as a colony with religious tolerance, in contrast to the Massachusetts Bay Colony, a theocracy. Recognized as Holy Experiment Day, March 4th is intended to encourage communities to be more open-minded and unpredictable – especially when it comes to religion. “Sacred Experiment” is a term originally coined by William Penn Jr. to describe his idea of an ideal government that he would later establish in what is now Pennsylvania.... Penn Jr. envisioned a colony full of people who accepted the faith and were tolerant of all religions of others. https://localtoday.news/pa/rts-holy-day-of-experiment-news-212826.html I was in San Juan in January 2020 with the Nieuw Amsterdam, and posted pictures the last time it was the port of the day. In addition to the earthquake, that cruise had a change of itinerary (St. Croix instead of Sint Maarten), couldn't tender at HMC, and had a medical diversion back to Grand Turk. Chili and the Chardonnay would both be OK with me, but not together. I'll pass on the cocktail. I was in the marching band in high school but was better at the band part than at the marching part.

Yes. Except for a short trip to the grocery, I've done almost nothing all day, but with the norovirus or whatever coming right on top of covid, I think I need adequate nutrition in addition to rest. I had a respiratory illness in January 2020 -- not at all like covid, though -- that lingered for a very long time. Services at the synagogue tonight and tomorrow will be only virtual. It's raining now and according to the forecast that will alternate with YKW at least through noon tomorrow. It could all melt, or it could all freeze. Or both, which is probably the worst outcome.

I don't know, either. I do know that, in general, female cats are right-pawed and male cats are left-pawed.

Even without thumbs, cats can accomplish a lot: When cats can lock doors and raid food, pet-proofing gets extreme In early December, Sarah Burnham and her spouse, Mateus Oliveira, returned from a walk with their dog to discover they were locked out of the house — an especially baffling occurrence, since they rarely worry about security in their small Maine town. “There were a couple of minutes of just being like, ‘how did this even happen?’” Burnham recalls. Luckily, having grown up in the home, Burnham knew a trick for getting in without a key. She and Oliveira broke in through a screen door to access the back porch, then climbed through a window. Once inside, they found their culprit: Arsène, a fluffy Maine Coon-mix, appropriately named for the fictional French thief Arsène Lupin. While they’d been gone, the cat had apparently figured out how to reach up and latch the door. https://www.washingtonpost.com/home/2023/03/02/how-to-cat-proof-home/

A high proportion of cats on the south shore of Boston are polydactyl, meaning that they have extra toes. I guess there were polydactyl cats on the Mayflower! (The Junior Cat is from the south shore, but isn't polydactyl.) One of my teachers there had a nine-toed cat that could turn doorknobs. Yellowtail is also a brand of wine and I am going to contemplate that as a main ingredient of the recipe. I plan to have fish tonight, but most likely salmon. No on the cocktail but yes on the wine. I haven't been to PEI and the logistics of a cruise that would include it are rather daunting. I intended to go to the grocery yesterday before the you-know-what started, but didn't make it. The YKW is now predicted not to start until late afternoon, so I guess I have another chance. I slept better and don't feel so poleaxed this morning,but will probably nap after lunch.

Please don't make any extra effort to correct for local time. You're already going above and beyond, and by the time we read the post the position may have changed anyway.