November 2, 2012 Hurricane Sandy Pittstown, NJ

Pinky and I are now four days without power, telephone service, water, heat, television or internet service. Thank goodness we have cell phone service. This is all due to Frankenstorm Sandy, which hit us Monday evening and lasted well into Tuesday. We would have had to be totally clueless not to know about the threat of the storm being on its way. News coverage was non stop. Even the mainstream media got it right! We didn’t have that much rain, only about 2”, but the wind was terrific! Anticipating Sandy’s arrival, we invited our next door neighbors, Tom and Doris Hurban, over for wine and snacks. This was a brilliant move on our part because rather than obsessing over the storm, we instead enjoyed the company of good friends and fine wine. As the evening wore on, the bumps on the roof became of less concern, largely because we didn’t care quite so much about them. We slept well despite the roar of the storm’s fury! The next day we awoke to find ourselves isolated due to numerous large trees having blown down over our 900’ long driveway. I heard the sound of a chainsaw and on investigating found Tom busy attending to sawing away. I joined him late in the AM. Tom rejoiced when Ryan unexpectedly arrived with chainsaw in tow to help us out! I did, too, for that matter, and he was a tremendous help. By the middle of the afternoon we cleared the path for ingress and egress for both our houses. (Ryan later admitted that if he had known the conditions were so bad, he might not have come to our help!) Later in the afternoon when fruitlessly seeking a shower at Courtside tennis club, I found that a straight route didn’t exist and that roads everywhere were closed due to fallen trees and downed wires. Clinton was totally dark, and most signalized intersections along state route 31were without power and closed down. That evening Pinky and I (without shower) were guests with the Lazarottis of the Hurbans, who had the forethought spend thriftiness to have a generator in their home, for one of Doris’ magnificently prepared dinners. Things weren’t so bad after all, and no one complained about me. My mistake on Wednesday was to drive to Panera Restaurant in Flemington to connect to the internet to finish an overdue ’69 CSF report. It was totally mobbed, with an unbelievable long line to order something to eat. Half of Flemington must have been there – high school students, crying babies, the works. I found an outlet next to a table I shared with a Kutztown coed, did my work and escaped. The commercial areas of Flemington had power, and there were long, long lines at the couple of gas stations that were open. There were many people standing in line with gas cans getting fuel for their home generators. The big events Thursday were lunch at Applebys in Flemington, where Pinky and I saw a TV for the first time since Monday morning, and my shower after tennis that evening at Courtside (where I was also able to charge my laptop and mifi)! How great it was. I hadn’t gone that long without a shower since Ethiopia in 2006! So now it’s Friday and still no power in Pittstown. So what are we going to do? Movie time at the Phillipsburg Regal theater, which has power and is open, to see Argo, a welcome reprieve from tending to the woodstove and fireplace. Then Monday – off to Cancun with the Mitchells. It is ironic that we have to go to essentially a third world country to renew our connection with the world and improve our standard of living!

Carnival Dream, Western Caribbean Sea February 7, 2012

In our never-ending quest for the next chapter in our Amorous Adventures, Pinky and I left NJ last Wednesday for a few days in Orlando before embarking on a week’s western Caribbean cruise.  Always mindful of getting the best bang for our buck, we stayed three nights at Marriott’s Grande Vista before cashing in a cruise certificate good for a week for $1850 for the two of us. In FL, I shook off the frost of recent skiing for more moderate climate and resumed to try and improve my golf game at the Faldo Institute, located on the Grande Vista grounds.  I can’t say that anything exciting happened during our stay.  One unexpected feature was that we were given a Chrysler convertible with only 24 miles and Sirius radio.  We enjoyed tooling around getting to places as much as being at places.  Highlights of the visit included seafood at Fulton’s Crab house in Downtown Disney, gin and tonics while watching the Magic Kingdom fireworks from the California Grille atop the Contemporary Hotel, and blues at BB Kings, just up International Dr. from where were staying.  Our hot convertible sped us to Port Canaveral, where we boarded our home for a week, Carnival Dream. Now, there is a ship!  We are joining 4200 passengers and 1450 crew aboard a vessel that has about 15 stories (I haven’t counted them all so far), 4 pools, 8 hot tubs, and countless bars conveniently located wherever we happen to be.  Absolutely huge, particularly imposing given our last cruise included only 225 passengers.   Our stateroom is on the 9th deck!  It has a balcony and is really cozy.  Stress? None here that we can discern.  The food is good and, if nothing else, plentiful.  At 8:15 PM dinner we join a family of 6 and another couple for the week.  So far I haven’t alienated anyone at the table that I am aware of, and the 4 kids liked Pinky after our first night’s dinner, to no surprise.  The couple, Ray and Deb, reign from Minneapolis, and Ray likes to talk a lot.  We seem to run into them everywhere despite the low odds provided by the 4200 passengers on the ship.  The people on board come in all sizes and shapes, but mostly large.  The large ones are particularly conspicuous at the breakfast and lunch buffets, where they really pile it on.  The plates lend themselves to this, as they are shaped and about the same size as a rugby ball, and that ovalness has a lot of room for all sorts of food.  Pinky and I have been pretty moderate in our intake and actually find ourselves hungry by the time the next meal comes around.  Super Bowl Sunday was great.  There is a sports bar with a dozen flat screen TVs on deck 5.  I scoped it out early and succeeded in claiming 2 stools at the bar by 4:45 PM, and Pinky joined me for the entire game.  And what a game it was!  The couple to our left supported New England, and I felt bad for the guy because he took the Giants win particularly hard.  Interestingly, our signal feed had NO commercials, but we did see Madonna for the half time show.  (I was told she is 52, which is hard to believe.) Yesterday the ship moored at Cozumel, off the Mayan coast of Mexico.  We opted out of the many excursion offerings and spent the afternoon at Alberto’s beach.  Nobody has ever heard of it, and for good reason.  It is small with a bar and kitchen.  We read on the beach and enjoyed an occasional Pacifico cerveza.  I confess to be really getting into my Kindle and downloaded Zane Grey’s Riders of the Purple Sage. Yes, we are really exciting, the two of us sitting for hours on the beach glued to our Kindles!  But, what could be better? Tonight is Cruise Elegant, so we all should look pretty sharp.  I expect we will meet the captain this evening – Massimo Marino.  Yes, Italian.   However, upon careful checking, I’ve confirmed that the ship goes nowhere near any rocks. Nevertheless, the two of us have been practicing daily putting on our life preservers, which we have down to about 4 seconds now. One thing the ship has that Pinky and I really like is a piano bar.   We spent an hour or so last evening after dinner and enjoyed a great mix of Billy Joel, Beatles and Ray Charles.  If we can stay up we will return after dinner this evening.