The Girls! The Girls!
Visit with Miman May 28-30, 2013
I cleared my week to prepare for RahRah and 3 friends to sleep over and do the city, shopping mostly and eating out, a belated treat for her 14th birthday which I missed as I was in Rio de Janeiro for the Carnaval and traveling all over Brazil after that. But alas, my electronic devices failed to sync, and did not update the change of dates. So when their visit occurred the week after, I had a play booked at the Horizons Theater and the cleaning lady was arriving at the same time. I could move the cleaning, but I have 3 other ladies going to the theater with me, and I have the tickets. Fortunately Uncle Doobie could be with them in my absence which thankfully, was anticipated with excitement by the girls. And here they are, they have arrived!
This is Raleigh's 2nd city outing with friends. Apparently they had fun the first time so she invited 2 more. I know how to do this now. The first time I had prepared an itinerary of children's museums, the Fox Theater, a visit to Buford Farmer's market.The latter I included because I thought they'd be fascinated by its international character with exotic fruits and vegetables and edible marine species from all over the world. I also wanted to take them for a tour of Buford highway, with its many Asian, Latin, and ethnic stores and restaurants and have them experience a dim sum feast.Wrong! They wanted to only shop at Phipps and Lenox and eat at PF Chang and Flip Burger.
On arrival they are already giddy with expectations. Wasting no time they dropped their satchels and were ready to start shopping. The lunch suggestion at Antico-Pizza Napolitano went over well, 5*. then over the 17th St bridge and GA400 off we go to shop till we drop at Lenox. We arranged to meet at a certain rendezvous point and time and they went to their favorite stores and I went to the Apple Store to ask a question about syncing my iPhone. My defenses unarmed, I encountered Christian who charmed me into believing I needed an iPad , and there I was, the original sucker extraordinaire, and promptly swiped my AMEX for $ 939.34 including apps and cool lime green case. Siri comes with it but she has a heck of a time figuring out my accent. I have to spend time training her to my commands. So here goes, I'm on my way to figure everything out.Ive promptly signed up a for the Discover Your iPad Workshop. On the few minutes left until rendezvous I stopped at Bloomingdale's and couldn't resist the purchase of a Kate Spade platform espadrilles at 40% off. Why did I think the girls would love museums and the theater?
The show and tell started in the car, you can feel the dizzying excitement and almost orgasmic pleasure. This continued until dinner at JCT Kitchen where the new outfits were modeled to bring out approval from a larger audience after Pauline, Uncle Doobs, Bud and their girlfriends joined us. Uncle Doobs noticed all the fancy hairs and the jeweled headbands worn a la Gatsby. The eatery was also well- received, another 5*.
The night wasn't long enough so they were up until dawn was breaking, and it's early morning when they fell asleep. I was back from a 3-mile walk, the sun was high, and they were still in REM stage. Breakfast hour was over when they finally staggered out of bed, sleepy eyed and hungry. We had brunch at IKEA next door, they were curious after Rah told them they have a nice cafeteria.
I'm a fly on the wall. They are listening to country music, by Luke Bryan. They like Beyonce and thinks JLo is pretty and they like her music sometimes. The Jonas brothers are getting back in favor, Justin Bieber is a definite persona non grata, Taylor Swift so so, but Justin Timberlake is cool, and surprise! Tom Cruise in the same breath. I agree with Ryan Gosling. But enough of sitting around, they are ready to hit the shops again, at Atlantic Station.
I declared they need to balance this shopping frenzy with some education. On my morning walk in midtown I saw that the Federal Reserve Bank has a free museum and thought how appropriate for the girls to learn about money since they're spending it like there's no tomorrow. We took the free Atlantic Station shuttle to Arts Center and walked 3 blocks to 11th and Peachtree. To my delight, they had fun in the museum, awed by all the bundles of money being processed, and in disbelief that they are being shredded at all. Late lunch at the Tex-Mex next door, Mi Cocina, with Shirley Temples.
It's time for me to get ready for the theater and they're all breathless for Uncle Doobie to arrive and wondering if his girlfriend will come too. The report is that the dinner was superb. Doobs served made from scratch hand rolled sushi and chicken teriyaki. He didn't have to plan entertainment. Between them they compared notes on fashion, shopping, giggled, and shrieked, and talked. This continued well past in the night, while watching movies on demand TV. There were microwaved popcorn remains next morning.
All good things must come to an end. Another late morning awakening then packing, and home cooked breakfast, and oh no! A last minute run at Target before Hal arrives to take them back home.
The girls have departed, the house is mute.
Friday, May 31, 2013
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
Pacific Mysteries
April 18-May 6, 2013, Country Club Cruising with Oceania
Marlon Brando and his movie, Mutiny on the Bounty , and Paul Gauguin’s paintings of an island paradise populated by languid and sensuous women fires the imagination with exotic fantasies and builds a desire to see for oneself what this is all about. When a friend I met from a tour of Cuba last year expressed an interest to share a stateroom for a cruise anywhere of my choosing I quickly jumped on the opportunity and unbelievably found this cruise with all the destinations I wished to visit. I have just returned from a trip to Brazil, but if I didn’t book now, I would have to wait next year, for this is the last cruise scheduled for this itinerary before the ship repositions for the Caribbean. There is no question, that coming so close to making this happen that I will consider postponing it. I think it’s just as well that I didn’t have any time to do any research of cruises, for it might have given me some serious reservation to commit to this particular mode of travel. I have always traveled independently, doing my own research and booking, and often with an open ended itinerary, planning where and how and when as I go along. I’ve been looking into this destination for sometime and unless I wanted to spend a lot of money and hired a boat that it would require tremendous organization to coordinate, air, water and land transportation, and accommodations, and still cost will be high. It didn’t require much deliberation to realize that this cruise was very affordable.
We flew to Papeete to board our ship, a 2-year old medium sized luxury 5.5 stars cruise ship with less than 1200 passengers and 800 crew, the latter an international mix of Italians, Indians, Czechs, Polish, Ukrainians, Croatians, Filipinos, Malaysian, US Americans, South Americans, British, French, Greeks, etc. My excitement quickly nosedived however, when I saw that my fellow passengers are 99.9% geriatric. OMG! They’re not only very old but many are disabled, walking with canes, walkers, or rolling wheelchairs. Those unaided with devices walk with slow shuffling, wide based and flat footed gait suggesting Parkinson, and men and women have the bent postures of osteoporosis. There are easily recognized signs of chronic cardiac failure in many with chronic pedal edema and leathered elephant legs. When you get in a crowded elevator, there is the peculiar scent of the aged, reminding me of consultations I did in nursing homes. In Bora Bora a couple got off ship after the wife had a fall in the library, then flew to rejoin to the ship in Fakarava. In Huahine a man on coumadin misstepped while climbing the tour bus and cut his legs on the running board requiring 14 stitches which looked more ominous by copious bleeding. He is diabetic and has peripheral neuropathy. The tour director while not very old had medical issues and got off in Bora Bora together with her spouse who was also one of the entertainers, never to rejoin the ship. This required reshuffling of the ship’s staff, resulting in the assistant director being promoted and doubling as the alternate entertainer also. The ultimate catastrophe was a woman’s fall which broke her femur after Fakarava which caused the cancellation of the next port of call in Pitcairn Island, forcing us to be at sea for 4 days to get to Rapa Nui (Easter Island) where she can get medical attention. This left everyone disgruntled, and I was particularly unsympathetic, saying carelessly since I did not examine the patient, that it is not life threatening and if she can wait 3 days, another day would not make a difference, and a fracture, if not displaced and has no bleeding can be stabilized by splints. Later I learned that she has other complicating medical issues, and of course after my initial indiscretion, I acknowledged I was wrong and irresponsible. I booked the cruise for Pitcairn, as not too many ships stop there, so there goes my fantasy, still unlived.
But all these led me to contemplate the issue of aging and my reaction to it. I have faced my fear. It is not death, for I do not believe in an after life, and in judgment day. To me death is just the end of life, and my only wish is for it to be quick, and without suffering. Death is more a problem for the living who has to bury you, settle your estate taxes, and sort out your material possessions. I do not wish to impose this on my loved ones so I have simplified my affairs, divested myself of unnecessary objects, left instructions for my remains, and I’m spending my children’s inheritance so they won’t have to worry about estate taxes. My fear is aging into feebleness and dependency. Acknowledging this allowed me to see my geriatric fellow travelers in a different light. Cruise travel is like being cocooned. Everything is planned and organized for you, all your needs are attended to, you are reminded of important things to do, the service people attend to all reasonable requests, your bed is made, your meals cooked, you are entertained, and within all this structure there is room for personal pursuits and enrichment if one wishes. So feeble and disabled seniors can continue to be engaged in new experiences in a sheltered environment, travel the world and socialize, and continue to have fresh stories to tell.
Enlightenment achieved, I can now enjoy my fellow passengers and revel in the luxurious appointments of Oceania’s Marina and look forward to our ports of call. I found a small group of late nighters who hung out in Horizons, the dancing venue, presided over by Siglo, a talented Filipino band. Days at sea are crowded with a medley of activities but you can find me in my morning workout at the Spa and 3-mile walk on the sports deck, painting with Artist in Residence Graham Denison, in the Trivia Challenge with my team “Seize the Day”, in Obstacle Putting Contest, and in Jackpot Bingo, where I won the minor games 3 times for a total of $334 in prize money. I wasn’t too lucky in the casino slots and I lost in the finals of the Blackjack tournament. My roommate and I would go our separate ways during the day and come together in the evening for cocktails and music with Constantine at the piano or with the Orpheus String Quartet and dinner in the many fine specialty restaurants on board. I passed on some of the evening postprandial shows, for dancing or the casino. There was very little time left for reading or for just laying out in the sun poolside. Just as well since I couldn’t check emails and Facebook anyway. Internet is available but cost for connection is prohibitive. It is delivered not by high speed fiber optics but by a system of geosynchronized satellite signals, is painfully slow, and often down. I opted to spend on Martinis and wine, which were not included in the cruise price. When I needed solitude to recharge, I enjoyed sitting in our stateroom veranda at sunset, in awe of the vast Pacific Ocean, listening to soaring music from my iPhone and musing on the lives of the ancient Polynesians and what life would be like for their descendants if the Europeans never found them.
Polynesia is very much like the the southern islands of the Philippines, though its terrain, flora, and fauna is not as complex and diverse. Development and tourism is changing the idea of paradise. In Bora Bora where the obscenely expensive resorts of St Regis and Four Seasons are built on sandbars across the lagoon, where their overwater bungalows go for upwards of $1000 a night, paradise living is designed as an escapist fantasy of catered services and fine dining done in an island setting. They were built to cater to millionaires, but ordinary salaried men can book a bungalow and live like one for a day. In the mainland, some resorts are left abandoned after the last hurricane, and some unfinished projects lay in ruins to the elements when funds ran out after the world financial collapse. In Papeete, the capital, located in Tahiti, the biggest island, resides half of the 267,000 population. Its traffic will rival Atlanta any day. Huahini, still part of the Society Islands group, is still fairly unassuming, and offers a contrast to overdeveloped Moorea, Bora Bora and Tahiti. In Fakarava, one of the more remote attols of the Tuamotu group, its possible to enjoy an unspoiled island get away. Isolated small beaches surround its perimeter, and as the archipelago was formed from the coral reefs, diving is said to be spectacular. It’s pristine ecosystem has been designated a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve. There is only one hotel in the island, White Sand Beach Resort. Two attols in the Tuamotu have been used as nuclear test sites by the French government amid protests from 1966-1996, exploding 181 devices. During this period, the military provided significant local employment which of course disappeared after the testing was banned. Today unemployment is close to 12 %, and 25% of Polynesians live in poverty. Papeete is ringed with slums, almost exclusively occupied by indigenous Polynesians. On top of the heap accounting for 80% of incomes are French, in the middle are mixed races and the Chinese, the tradesmen class together with minor government employees, and in the lower rungs , the indigenous population.
In Bora Bora on Saturday, our tour guide noted that it’s election the following day, and on the ballot is independence vs status quo. Our guide is for independence. He envisions a return to community living, and living off the land and the fruits of the sea, a simple life. It may be too naive. French Polynesia is heavily subsidized by France, it’s possible France is losing money on it. However, another local guide have achieved the ideal within the present political system. After his government employment was terminated, he bought a small sandbar island where he constructed a thatched hut, and with a boat, he is self-employed providing lagoon tours and snorkeling. He took us to his little island, guarded by his 2 friendly mixed pit bull dogs. He has an electric generator so he can power his satellite TV, he receives cell phone signals, and there’s plenty of clams, oysters, and fish in the reef. He has a small vegetable garden in the sand. When he feels like it he takes his boat to the deep sea without tourists, and delights in catching a big tuna, or snapper, then he invites his whole family for a feast. He is friendly with his rich French neighbor, who owns the bigger and coconut blanketed island next to his, with it’s several guest cottages and large main house, who likes to join him on his fishing trips, and invites him to take down any number of coconuts anytime for his use, and lets his dogs swim across the channel and carouse on his property. After the last storm, not too long ago, his hut was inundated by the surf and floated away, but he built another one in a day. He seemed quite content, and happy, he takes life as it is.
What is it about living on an island?
Marlon Brando and his movie, Mutiny on the Bounty , and Paul Gauguin’s paintings of an island paradise populated by languid and sensuous women fires the imagination with exotic fantasies and builds a desire to see for oneself what this is all about. When a friend I met from a tour of Cuba last year expressed an interest to share a stateroom for a cruise anywhere of my choosing I quickly jumped on the opportunity and unbelievably found this cruise with all the destinations I wished to visit. I have just returned from a trip to Brazil, but if I didn’t book now, I would have to wait next year, for this is the last cruise scheduled for this itinerary before the ship repositions for the Caribbean. There is no question, that coming so close to making this happen that I will consider postponing it. I think it’s just as well that I didn’t have any time to do any research of cruises, for it might have given me some serious reservation to commit to this particular mode of travel. I have always traveled independently, doing my own research and booking, and often with an open ended itinerary, planning where and how and when as I go along. I’ve been looking into this destination for sometime and unless I wanted to spend a lot of money and hired a boat that it would require tremendous organization to coordinate, air, water and land transportation, and accommodations, and still cost will be high. It didn’t require much deliberation to realize that this cruise was very affordable.
We flew to Papeete to board our ship, a 2-year old medium sized luxury 5.5 stars cruise ship with less than 1200 passengers and 800 crew, the latter an international mix of Italians, Indians, Czechs, Polish, Ukrainians, Croatians, Filipinos, Malaysian, US Americans, South Americans, British, French, Greeks, etc. My excitement quickly nosedived however, when I saw that my fellow passengers are 99.9% geriatric. OMG! They’re not only very old but many are disabled, walking with canes, walkers, or rolling wheelchairs. Those unaided with devices walk with slow shuffling, wide based and flat footed gait suggesting Parkinson, and men and women have the bent postures of osteoporosis. There are easily recognized signs of chronic cardiac failure in many with chronic pedal edema and leathered elephant legs. When you get in a crowded elevator, there is the peculiar scent of the aged, reminding me of consultations I did in nursing homes. In Bora Bora a couple got off ship after the wife had a fall in the library, then flew to rejoin to the ship in Fakarava. In Huahine a man on coumadin misstepped while climbing the tour bus and cut his legs on the running board requiring 14 stitches which looked more ominous by copious bleeding. He is diabetic and has peripheral neuropathy. The tour director while not very old had medical issues and got off in Bora Bora together with her spouse who was also one of the entertainers, never to rejoin the ship. This required reshuffling of the ship’s staff, resulting in the assistant director being promoted and doubling as the alternate entertainer also. The ultimate catastrophe was a woman’s fall which broke her femur after Fakarava which caused the cancellation of the next port of call in Pitcairn Island, forcing us to be at sea for 4 days to get to Rapa Nui (Easter Island) where she can get medical attention. This left everyone disgruntled, and I was particularly unsympathetic, saying carelessly since I did not examine the patient, that it is not life threatening and if she can wait 3 days, another day would not make a difference, and a fracture, if not displaced and has no bleeding can be stabilized by splints. Later I learned that she has other complicating medical issues, and of course after my initial indiscretion, I acknowledged I was wrong and irresponsible. I booked the cruise for Pitcairn, as not too many ships stop there, so there goes my fantasy, still unlived.
But all these led me to contemplate the issue of aging and my reaction to it. I have faced my fear. It is not death, for I do not believe in an after life, and in judgment day. To me death is just the end of life, and my only wish is for it to be quick, and without suffering. Death is more a problem for the living who has to bury you, settle your estate taxes, and sort out your material possessions. I do not wish to impose this on my loved ones so I have simplified my affairs, divested myself of unnecessary objects, left instructions for my remains, and I’m spending my children’s inheritance so they won’t have to worry about estate taxes. My fear is aging into feebleness and dependency. Acknowledging this allowed me to see my geriatric fellow travelers in a different light. Cruise travel is like being cocooned. Everything is planned and organized for you, all your needs are attended to, you are reminded of important things to do, the service people attend to all reasonable requests, your bed is made, your meals cooked, you are entertained, and within all this structure there is room for personal pursuits and enrichment if one wishes. So feeble and disabled seniors can continue to be engaged in new experiences in a sheltered environment, travel the world and socialize, and continue to have fresh stories to tell.
Enlightenment achieved, I can now enjoy my fellow passengers and revel in the luxurious appointments of Oceania’s Marina and look forward to our ports of call. I found a small group of late nighters who hung out in Horizons, the dancing venue, presided over by Siglo, a talented Filipino band. Days at sea are crowded with a medley of activities but you can find me in my morning workout at the Spa and 3-mile walk on the sports deck, painting with Artist in Residence Graham Denison, in the Trivia Challenge with my team “Seize the Day”, in Obstacle Putting Contest, and in Jackpot Bingo, where I won the minor games 3 times for a total of $334 in prize money. I wasn’t too lucky in the casino slots and I lost in the finals of the Blackjack tournament. My roommate and I would go our separate ways during the day and come together in the evening for cocktails and music with Constantine at the piano or with the Orpheus String Quartet and dinner in the many fine specialty restaurants on board. I passed on some of the evening postprandial shows, for dancing or the casino. There was very little time left for reading or for just laying out in the sun poolside. Just as well since I couldn’t check emails and Facebook anyway. Internet is available but cost for connection is prohibitive. It is delivered not by high speed fiber optics but by a system of geosynchronized satellite signals, is painfully slow, and often down. I opted to spend on Martinis and wine, which were not included in the cruise price. When I needed solitude to recharge, I enjoyed sitting in our stateroom veranda at sunset, in awe of the vast Pacific Ocean, listening to soaring music from my iPhone and musing on the lives of the ancient Polynesians and what life would be like for their descendants if the Europeans never found them.
Polynesia is very much like the the southern islands of the Philippines, though its terrain, flora, and fauna is not as complex and diverse. Development and tourism is changing the idea of paradise. In Bora Bora where the obscenely expensive resorts of St Regis and Four Seasons are built on sandbars across the lagoon, where their overwater bungalows go for upwards of $1000 a night, paradise living is designed as an escapist fantasy of catered services and fine dining done in an island setting. They were built to cater to millionaires, but ordinary salaried men can book a bungalow and live like one for a day. In the mainland, some resorts are left abandoned after the last hurricane, and some unfinished projects lay in ruins to the elements when funds ran out after the world financial collapse. In Papeete, the capital, located in Tahiti, the biggest island, resides half of the 267,000 population. Its traffic will rival Atlanta any day. Huahini, still part of the Society Islands group, is still fairly unassuming, and offers a contrast to overdeveloped Moorea, Bora Bora and Tahiti. In Fakarava, one of the more remote attols of the Tuamotu group, its possible to enjoy an unspoiled island get away. Isolated small beaches surround its perimeter, and as the archipelago was formed from the coral reefs, diving is said to be spectacular. It’s pristine ecosystem has been designated a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve. There is only one hotel in the island, White Sand Beach Resort. Two attols in the Tuamotu have been used as nuclear test sites by the French government amid protests from 1966-1996, exploding 181 devices. During this period, the military provided significant local employment which of course disappeared after the testing was banned. Today unemployment is close to 12 %, and 25% of Polynesians live in poverty. Papeete is ringed with slums, almost exclusively occupied by indigenous Polynesians. On top of the heap accounting for 80% of incomes are French, in the middle are mixed races and the Chinese, the tradesmen class together with minor government employees, and in the lower rungs , the indigenous population.
In Bora Bora on Saturday, our tour guide noted that it’s election the following day, and on the ballot is independence vs status quo. Our guide is for independence. He envisions a return to community living, and living off the land and the fruits of the sea, a simple life. It may be too naive. French Polynesia is heavily subsidized by France, it’s possible France is losing money on it. However, another local guide have achieved the ideal within the present political system. After his government employment was terminated, he bought a small sandbar island where he constructed a thatched hut, and with a boat, he is self-employed providing lagoon tours and snorkeling. He took us to his little island, guarded by his 2 friendly mixed pit bull dogs. He has an electric generator so he can power his satellite TV, he receives cell phone signals, and there’s plenty of clams, oysters, and fish in the reef. He has a small vegetable garden in the sand. When he feels like it he takes his boat to the deep sea without tourists, and delights in catching a big tuna, or snapper, then he invites his whole family for a feast. He is friendly with his rich French neighbor, who owns the bigger and coconut blanketed island next to his, with it’s several guest cottages and large main house, who likes to join him on his fishing trips, and invites him to take down any number of coconuts anytime for his use, and lets his dogs swim across the channel and carouse on his property. After the last storm, not too long ago, his hut was inundated by the surf and floated away, but he built another one in a day. He seemed quite content, and happy, he takes life as it is.
What is it about living on an island?
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