Rudi:


Saab story

The weather forecast was typical for Toronto, home of the most changeable weather in the world. One day some years ago Canada’s largest city set the record for the greatest temperature differential in a single day: a high of 82°F and a low of –18. This week the forecast was for clouds Thursday, showers Friday, rain Saturday, fog Sunday, and sun Monday. It was Saturday and raining as promised. We walked across the bridge to the airport, took the elevator down to arrivals and re-crossed back to the garage where our Avis car was waiting. It was probably possible to go directly down from the Sheraton to the car rentals but in the past we had got lost doing it so we didn’t attempt it this morning.

Walking to the Avis booth we passed a beautiful red Saab 95. I checked in with the agent and handed him an American coupon good for two free days, much more valuable than the United coupons I used to get. I asked him what kind of car we were getting, having reserved a full-size and being used to awesome upgrades through Avis President’s Club. The agent smiled broadly. “It’s a Saab,” he said. Not bad for free! Hunnybear squealed with delight and I handed her the keys. She always drove in Toronto because after all she was a Torontula and this was Her Town.

We met Lippy for breakfast at Steve’s Truck Stop, now called Steve’s Family Restaurant and not only long past the time when there was a Steve but now on its second generation of Georges. Hunnybear and I had yummy cheese omelets and Lippy had scrambled eggs and back bacon. “Back bacon” is what Canadians call Canadian bacon: they don’t have to say “Canadian” because they’re already in Canada. Hunnybear picked up the check using her hazardous-duty pay from Lansing, left a generous tip, and we exited through the back door so we could say hi to George on the way out.

Hunnybear drove the red Saab to her parents house up north in the suburbs where we helped get in the way of her mum cooking dinner. “Mum” is what Canadians call their mothers. After making a nuisance of ourselves awhile we piled into the car with Hunnybear’s brothers Carl and Cary and did some shopping, picking up the most expensive kosher-for-Passover wine we could find: an Australian shiraz and a California cabernet that both turned out to be pretty good. When we returned Tiger Woods had come from an eight-stroke deficit to take the lead in the Masters and it was time to eat.

Hunnybear’s uncle Rabbi Lulu led the Seder service, as was his custom, using puppets and props to tell the story of the Jews’ exodus from Egypt. His real name wasn’t Lulu, of course. Lulu was a moniker hung on him by firstborn Hunnybear when she was so young she couldn’t pronounce his real name properly. So ever since, he’d been called uncle Lulu. His real name was Laurie. As usual Hunnybear’s mum made some outstanding gefilte fish, matzoh-ball soup, and my personal favorite, beef brisket. The new generation was out in full force, screaming babies providing a stimulating counterpoint to the traditional ceremony.

When it had all wound down I gave everybody passionate belly hugs goodbye and Hunnybear drove the red Saab back to the Sheraton Gateway, where the parking fee had gone up from $9.50 to $12 Canadian ($1.62 U.S.). We returned to our room and I called U.S. Airways Gold Preferred line to ask if I could move my flight a couple hours later tomorrow. They said it would cost $100 so I passed. We put in a wake-up call and set the alarm for 5:30—2:30 LA time!—and hit the sack.



Courtesy call

Thanks to Chris Pirillo at www.lockergnome.com I had recently discovered a new feature in my Nokia 8620 cell phone: it was possible to download custom ringing tones from the Internet from sites such as www.supermegaphone.com and have my phone ring with them instead of the standard tones. So it was that at exactly 4 a.m. we were awakened by the sound of Michael Jackson’s “Beat it” accompanied by the wailing drone of the vibrator coming from my phone across the room. “That’s your phone,” Hunnybear said drowsily. “Not gonna answer,” I said. It was, I thought, probably one of my Vegas buddies calling to say hi since it was only 1 a.m. there.

The phone stopped ringing when it switched over to voice mail but moments later Hunnybear’s phone started playing the samba. Well, someone who knew both our numbers and was calling in the middle of the night probably needed to reach us so Hunnybear answered her phone and passed it to me. It was a 4 a.m. courtesy call from US Airways. My 7 a.m. flight had been delayed, meaning I would miss my Pittsburgh connection, and they had switched me to a 7:15 flight through Philadelphia.

Some people grumble when they get an involuntary rerouting but I rejoice. It’s like being dealt a pair of wild deuces: you can make just about anything happen. So while I had them on the phone I suggested they put me on the 8:05 through Charlotte instead. This would have the effect of giving me both an extra hour’s sleep and a backup flight in case I missed the first flight from Charlotte to Ft. Lauderdale. No problem, and I was confirmed in 1C for both segments. I went back to sleep.

The alarm beat the wakeup call by three minutes. I performed my morning ablutions, bid au revoir to Hunnybear, and hustled over to the US Airways checkin counter, which last night we had determined was at the extreme right end of Terminal 3, meaning I could easily walk there from the Sheraton. Both of the First Class agents were busy helping other customers so instead of waiting for the first available agent to help me I rolled down to the economy agents and checked in there. I explained that I was going to Ft. Lauderdale through Charlotte and they cheerfully tagged by bag and handed me my boarding passes. There was a small line at customs and a much longer one at security. It took a half-hour to reach the gate and it was almost time to board.

I settled into 1C on this 737-400 to Charlotte and soon realized I was the only First Class customer. In fact, the stewardess asked me if I had just upgraded because they didn’t have any First Class meal for me. It was only a 90-minute flight but I was hungry. She did scare up a muffin-and-fruit plate and offered me a choice of that or a bagel from coach but I didn’t feel like eating carbo bombs so early in the day so I just had coffee. It came in a Styrofoam cup. I asked what happened to the mugs and she said they ran out and were waiting to order more, presumably until they could order ones with the United logo on them. She refilled my coffee once but otherwise chatted in the jumpseats with the other flight attendant the entire flight.

We took off late because the fueling and so we landed in Charlotte with only 45 minutes until my next flight. I didn’t call Jeffrey because I knew he would drive over to the airport just to spend 30 seconds with me and instead I went over to the new gate and asked if they were going to feed me. The answer was yes. I called the Princess hot line and let them know I was on a different flight and while I had them on the phone I asked what the earliest flight I could take out of Ft. Lauderdale was next week. She said they tell people 10:00 but in reality the first shuttle leaves the dock at seven and it’s only a 10-minute ride. US Airways had a 9:15 flight through Charlotte back to LA.

Since I had been dealt a pair of wild deuces I asked the gate agent if there was a service desk where I could change my return flight. There was and it was close so I walked over and had the following conversation:

“I’d like to switch my return flight to an earlier one if there’s confirmed upgrade space available.”

“Y’all want space available?”

“No, I’m a revenue customer. I’d just like to switch my flight if you can confirm an upgrade.”

“Cuz I thought you said space available.”

“I may have uttered those two words in sequence but they formed part of a larger sentence that meant something different.”

Pause. “Shawna, didn’t he say ‘space available’?”

“No Darla, you just dreamed that up again.”

“Dang, I’m always dreamin’ stuff up.”

Six or seven more cross-communications and I was ostensibly booked on the 9:15 flight back to LA next week. Interactions such as this make me very nervous about the transaction ending in my desired result but I asked her to print out a revised itinerary and, after both agents declaring that their computer was having a lot of trouble with revised itineraries, I walked away clutching a printout showing my desired flights. Just to be safe I went back to the gate and called the Gold Preferred line from the pay phone. I was indeed booked on the new flights and was able to reserve 1C on both legs. No one said anything about a $100 fee so I was assuming the wild-card effect was in operation. While I was on the pay phone I overheard two young couples, both carrying luggage sporting Grand Princess tags, talking about their weddings yesterday.

I took seat 1C on the full 757 to Ft. Lauderdale. We left 20 minutes late because the late equipment. My seat opponent was a young man in the industrial-vacuuming business drinking screwdrivers and acting like he’d already vacuumed a few this morning. Across the aisle were David and Cynthia, a young couple headed for the Grand Princess. I gave them pointers about the ship and we ate our snack, exactly the same assortment I was served on the flight from Charlotte to Toronto on Friday: cheese and crackers, a small wedge of ham and cheese on foccacia (which upon dissection turned out to have turkey in it as well) and a piece of cheesecake, which I did not eat being a couple pounds overweight. David passed on it as well and I told him he should have eaten it since they didn’t have any cheesecake on the ship. “Just kidding!” I reassured him.

I took out Monkeyboy, fired up Bob Dancer Presents WinPoker, and practiced playing Deuces Wild during the flight since I hadn’t played for a while. Before I knew it we were landing at Ft. Lauderdale. As we taxied to the gate I saw the distinctive tail of the Grand Princess poking above the trees off the port side. A Princess representative was waiting along the path to baggage claim and she handed me a luggage tag to put on my suitcase when I found it on the conveyor belt. After 20 minutes or so the bags came out and I dutifully tagged mine, left it on the belt, and returned up to catch the shuttle to the ship.

Weather was perfect in Florida: warm, sunny, and breezy. Our bus driver, a tall attractive black man, got up in front of the bus and gave a short speech that had no purpose I could discern other than perhaps to make it more likely that people would tip him for the 10-minute ride. An old woman in the front row stopped her kvetching long enough to ask him if anyone ever told him he looked like Tiger Woods. He sped us to the ship and locked us in the bus while he unloaded the bags so we couldn’t accidentally leave without tipping him. I stiffed him but on my way out thanked him for the ride and asked him if anyone ever told him he looked like Mel Gibson.

Boarding was a snap even though I had to pick up my documentation at the pier. I had paid for a category N inside cabin and was delighted to see I had been upgraded to category C, the same type of room I had last time. In fact, it turned out to be the cabin next door! I felt right at home once I got used to the furniture being a mirror image. It was time to eat so I went up to the buffet and had some yummy breaded sea scallops and just one slice of pizza because it was hot out of the oven.

I was tired so I took a nap that coincidentally coincided with the mandatory lifeboat drill. I was on Personal Choice dining, a new option for people who don’t want a fixed-time dinner, so since the casino wasn’t open yet I changed and went down to the Michelangelo dining room and asked for a big table. They seated me right next to the ship’s chaplain, Father Bill, who turned out to have a lot in common with me as far a liking to eat and drink a lot. I ordered a bottle of 1997 Opus One for $110 and had just one glass because I wanted to be sharp for gambling. It was wonderful as before. Gatsby’s, at MGM Grand in Vegas, charges more than $400 for this wine and Patrick the sommelier won’t even let me order the ’97 because he says it’s not ready.

The table filled in with three more couples, none of whom had cruised before. I gave them some pointers and explained they could order anything they wanted—Arnie always has six or seven entrees, I said. Princess was doing some subtle subliminal suggestion to save money: the pasta and soup were no longer separate courses but lumped under the entrée and salad respectively. I expected people would order less because of it. Tonight I had the shrimp cocktail, which was perfect, then porcini-mushroom soup, which was wonderful, an average Caesar salad, and beautiful rare prime rib with horseradish so fresh it was watering eyes across the table. I turned to Father Bill, pointing to the horseradish, and said, “Here’s my Seder!” Being a couple pounds overweight I didn’t eat dessert but I did have some yummy cheese and a doppio espresso to keep the Father company while he had his hazelnut ice cream.

It was close to time for the casino to open so I headed up. The ship had sailed late so the casino wasted 15 minutes of valuable gambling time waiting to get into international waters. Finally the lights turned on and I grabbed one of the six dollar full-pay Deuces Wild machines that I had done so well on last trip. Sure enough, within 10 minutes I hit the ducks for $1000. I played for four hours and slowly put it back in, ending up dead even plus the two free martinis Kerry, the slot manager, bought for me. They didn’t have Tabbycat’s favorite Gray Goose but there was a recommended triple-distilled Russian vodka that was pretty good. I returned to my cabin, flipped on CNN to see what was happening to the economy, and drifted off with the rocking of the ship lulling me to sleep.

Dancing Nurses from Minnesota

I got up early to play some video poker and found the casino already open after having a yummy lox breakfast at the buffet. I held my own all day, alternating gambling with wandering around the pool area to look at girls and munching on fish from the buffet, and finished dead even once again by the time I got hungry for dinner around nine.

Vincenzo, the same captain who served Arnie, Gary and me four months ago, seated me at a table with two nurses from Minnesota, Joan and Marie, and Asst. Purser Sara who was there with her brother and his wife. A German mother and daughter joined us briefly but took one look at the menu and vamoosed. I began with asparagus and more lox as the Hungarian waiter brought back the bulk of my Opus One from last night. Marie oohed and aahed over it so I poured her a glass. A bland lentil soup came next, followed by an order of Tilapia, which Marie said was the fish that J.C. fished for. It was delicious but came with an unnecessarily heavy butter sauce. Tabbycat says the best way to eat fish is sashimi and I tend to agree.

After dinner the Minnesota nurses went dancing and I returned to the casino to play some more video poker. This time my luck ran out and I got crushed. I wandered, dazed, over to the craps table where I did well with my secret new system. I didn’t see Kerry around to buy me a drink so I returned to my cabin and did some fun database programming until about three, when I hit the sack.

Bingo stunner

I got up early to play video poker but some lady was illegally playing my machine so I breathed down her neck until she left. I broke even again, spending the day in my newfound routine. At four it was time to play bingo so I bought nine cards and was surprised to find the callers were going so fast I couldn’t keep up. I was “on”—one number away from bingo—for a couple games but didn’t win. Everyone was stunned when someone actually won the bait-and-switch 50-number blackout jackpot on the 50th number for $1600. Usually those never go until the last day.

I lost a little more playing video poker and then dressed for formal night in my Bernini tuxedo and Catman cufflinks. The captain of Grand Princess, Mike Moulin, was called Commodore because he was the most senior captain in the fleet. The Commodore was having a private cocktail party for past passengers so I went and had some free martinis before dinner. After the party everyone on Personal Choice Dining went directly to the restaurant so there was about a 10-minute wait for a table. Vincenzo put me with three couples this time. My Opus One had survived the first overnight well but after 48 hours it was getting tired so I ordered another bottle.

I began dinner with a delicious smoked duck, sliced paper-thin. This was followed by an arugula salad and a very good lobster bisque. The main course was beef tenderloin, a huge piece that I couldn’t finish. I made my excuses after the entrée, being a couple pounds overweight, and headed to the casino to play a little more video poker. I won a little but got tired and went early to bed.



Sleepy St. Thomas

David and Cynthia from across the aisle on the US Airways flight had decided to fly home from St. Thomas. She was seasick and claustrophobic. He was going to buy her a watch for her birthday in St. Thomas but bought her a plane ticket home to Rochester instead.

I started the day as usual with cat food up in the buffet. There was no lox out so I had yummy fresh smoked mackerel instead along with some herring. I put on my tourist garb and wandered off the ship onto the pier where we were moored along with a Disney ship and a Royal Caribbean one. Right in front of me was an Internet café so I paid $5 for an hour and checked email. There was a large discussion of the Lansing Lugnuts going on in my trip-report thread in FlyerTalk but I decided to wait until I had Monkeyboy with me to add to it. This café was strictly pay in advance. You had to predict how much time you were going to use and pay $2 for 15 minutes or $5 for an hour. I paid for an hour and then said I needed an extra half-hour. It turned out I needed another 15 minutes on top that so I ended up wasting a dollar. I asked if I could upgrade ex post facto to the full hour by paying an additional dollar but it was not possible.

My cell phone was working since St. Thomas was part of the United States. I called Hunnybear several times and made a few other calls. Jeffrey was in the Charlotte airport and asked if I was there too. I said no, I’m in St. Thomas—want to come over? He said traffic was too heavy.

When I got back to the ship a combination of sea air and jet lag had caught up with me and I napped the entire afternoon. I had meant to take one more walk through the shopping mall and price watches but when I awakened it was already 5:30, all-aboard time, and the other two ships had already slipped their moorings and were pulling out. So I went up and had a couple slices of yummy pizza hot out of the oven, sat in a chaise longue, and watched the Grand Princess make a slow, proud turnabout as I made a few more calls on my cell phone.

By then it was time to change for the evening and anticipate the opening of the casino. The ducks were not quacking though and I bled slowly for a couple hours until it was time to eat. I went to the dining room and found Vincenzo, who seated me once again with the two nurses, Joan and Marie. I polished off the rest of the Opus One, this time giving Joan a taste, and had the Italian-themed dinner. I began with a good eggplant parmigiana followed by a bland minestrone soup. The entrée was yummy shrimp Fra Diaolo, which loyal readers will remember from the last cruise. Being a couple pounds overweight, I skipped dessert but I finished the wine while Joan and Marie each had half of one because you can’t get fat if you only eat half.

I asked the nurses when, oh when, I would ever hit the ducks again. Joan predicted not tonight, but tomorrow night. I grabbed a handful of butter mints and returned to claim my seat in the casino. I pounded away for an hour while Kerry came by and bought me a sympathetic martini. Finally I held two Deuces and up popped the others. I nearly fell off my chair. It was midnight exactly and Andrew, the slot attendant, brought me $1000 and a nice logoed pen. The man collecting the trash then came and stood next to me with his smelly trash bag for several minutes, saying, “Lucky, very lucky!” He went away and returned and repeated this process several times until I finally turned to him, smiled, and said, “You like watching me?” This seemed to do the trick as he disappeared for the rest of the night. I ended up putting in a bit more and went to bed around one.



Walking St. Maarten

When I awoke we were already moored in St. Maarten at the new pier inconveniently located a 15-minute walk from town. Alongside us was the Royal Caribbean ship Grandeur of the Seas. After a breakfast of lox and oatmeal I walked off the ship and toward town. There was one new yellow building near the ships containing a souvenir store and an Internet shop. They wanted $12 and hour to use the Internet, better than the $30/hr. on the ship but much more than the $5/hr. in St. Thomas. Their connection was down anyway so I walked to town and did a little shopping. I discovered that the watch prices were exactly the same here as they were in St. Thomas, a straight 20% off the U.S. retail price.

It was a several-mile walk all the way to the end of town and back. On the way I checked out several casinos. The best video poker I found on presumably trustworthy IGT machines was a set of quarter multi-games with decent pay schedules for Deuces Wild and Triple Bonus Poker Plus, both with a payback of around 99.7% if played perfectly. That assumes no one has gone and reprogrammed the machines after they left the factory to deal the cards non-randomly—perhaps a poor assumption far from the watchful eyes of the Nevada Gaming Commission.

I walked back to the Grand Princess. The Internet was still down at the small shop by the ship so I didn’t get on line. Instead I had some cat food for lunch along with a couple slices of pizza and retired to my cabin to watch TV. There was a very interesting show on the Discovery Channel about gambling so I watched it, followed by a great program on the 100 funniest movies of all time. The top two movies were about female impersonators, perhaps saying more about the particular tastes of members of the American Film Institute than about the films themselves. The deck party started around 4:30, right above my cabin, so I went out and listened to the steel-drum band play as we sailed from St. Maarten.

The casino opened at six so I went down to play a little video poker, astoundingly finishing once again dead even before it was time to eat dinner. I had a couple martinis in the lobby bar while Vincenzo insisted on finding a table of single women to seat me at. The nurses from Minnesota were nowhere to be seen but he put me instead with two lawyers and a lobbyist from Chicago. I had debriefed Father Bill about what to order tonight and let the ladies know: escargot, French onion soup, and duck l’orange. We had a great Hungarian waiter, Istvan, who sold me a wonderful bottle of Chateau Talbot, a Grand Cru St.-Julien Bordeaux. It was a ’97, so it took about 45 minutes to open fully. I saved the rest for the formal dinner tomorrow night.

As a rule I don’t eat dessert but they had a cheese plate including my favorite Stilton, so I ordered it along with a doppio espresso to keep me up for more ducks. I thanked the ladies for their company and headed to the casino to play a little video poker. The nurses from Minnesota came by briefly to say hi and I told Joan I had hit the ducks last night despite her prediction. She turned out to be right after all, though, because around one I hit them again—finishing once again dead even by the time I closed the casino down at 2:30 and went to bed.



Sneaking past Vincenzo

Friday was another day at sea so I got up early to have lox and oatmeal, play a little video poker and play in the slot tournament. I was leading right up until the last second when someone else hit a big jackpot and passed me. Inconsolable, I went back to the Deuces Wild machine and hit four ducks twice—the first time dealt to me! It was a good morning. They had sushi for lunch in the buffet so I had a couple pieces along with some shrimp-and-scallop salad.

We had a medical evacuation during the night and were running over an hour behind schedule as they loaded a passenger into a helicopter. It was a lazy day of grazing the buffet, playing ducks and watching the children in the pool kill each other. Kerry the slot supervisor comped me a pen, cap and T-shirt but someone stole the T-shirt while I was playing in the slot tournament. Soon it was time to change into my tuxedo for the second formal night.

Properly attired, I got hungry early and snuck past Vincenzo to eat with Father Bill. He had worked up a big appetite from his Good Friday service so we both ate well although he missed out on the Beef Wellington because he didn’t eat meat on Good Friday. He asked if it was possible to save a piece for tomorrow and Luigi, our waiter, said he would see. A very nice couple from South Carolina joined us along with their beautiful daughter who looked 18 but turned out to be a very poised and well-mannered 13. They asked Father Bill about the medical emergency and he said it wasn’t life threatening but there also had been a death on the ship last night. Shannon, the daughter, opened her eyes wide and asked if they removed the body from the ship when that happened. Father Bill shook his head no. I chimed in: “They put the body in the food freezer, between the beef and the lobster, because that’s the coldest part.” Shannon’s eyes got so wide they took up most of the space from her cupid’s-bow mouth to her cornsilk hair.

I started with both salmon caviar and shrimp cocktail then segued to a nice chicken broth and for the main course both the Beef Wellington and lobster tails. I told Vincenzo Arnie said hi. He was trying to place him but then I mentioned Lobster Fra Diavolo and he knew immediately whom I was talking about. Shannon excused herself because she needed to go break some teenage boys’ hearts but her parents stayed. Being a couple pounds overweight I didn’t eat dessert but I did have some cheese and a doppio espresso while I kept the others company.

Still in my tux I returned to the casino and played a little Let It Ride with the padre. He lost his allotted budget so I taught him to play Deuces Wild. His vow of poverty was kicking in though and he lost 10 out of 11 hands so he bid me good night. I wandered over to the craps table and it was cold so I made out well betting the don’ts. Two girls from Jersey, Rose and Janna, were playing the pass line and hard ways. When the shooter sevened out Rose would say, “Everybody loses.” “Not everybody,” I would say as I collected my pile of chips. I closed down the casino playing ducks but got hoovered as Andrew bought me a couple glasses of Remy XO. It was three when I went up to bed.



Picasso inspiration

We were still behind schedule from the medical evacuation so when I awoke we were not yet anchored at Princess Cays, a private resort on a minor Bahamas island. I decided to relax and ate a leisurely breakfast and watched TV as the other 3000 passengers waited in line to get ashore, a process usually ameliorated by the very early arrival of the ship but not this time. By noon the line had abated and I was able to walk right on to a tender and visit the beautiful beach. I walked up and down the beach for an hour and waded in to my waist but the water was too cold for my comfort, spoiled as I was by the bath-like waters of the Andaman Sea in Thailand. But there were enough curves on the beach to inspire a generation of Picassos so I enjoyed the scenery for about an hour and returned to the ship.

We had an early sailing time of 3 p.m. at this port so we could get back to Ft. Lauderdale bright and early the next morning. The side benefit of this was the casino opening early so I showered and changed and went down to play a little video poker. Nothing was doing this afternoon, though, and I was getting hungry, so I changed into my traditional last-night black slacks and silk shirt and went to the lobby bar to wait for Father Bill to finish his pre-Easter Mass and come down to dinner. All week I had watched the bartenders make martinis by pouring the ingredients into a shaker, waiting a few seconds, and then straining the contents into a glass. Since I like my martinis shaken, I finally decided to ask politely if it was possible to shake the shaker. The English barkeep looked at me like I was mad. “For a martini?” he asked, incredulous. I begged him to humor me and he finally put the top on and gave it a couple wimpy shakes, not enough to chill the vodka sufficiently nor to create the tiny ice particles that float on the surface and delightfully tickle the upper lip. I didn’t have the energy to fight so I thanked him and drank quietly.

Father Bill arrived, smiling, and I bought him a cosmopolitan since he had been asking about martinis but thought the taste of straight liquor would be too much for him. “Are you sure you’re a priest?” I asked. He assured me he was. He liked the cosmopolitan, as did I, and I ordered another round for the two of us. Meanwhile Vincenzo came by, thought about scolding me for bypassing his matchmaking service, but instead reminded Father Bill he had a Beef Wellington saved for him from Good Friday. He then turned to me and said he had a second order and did I want it? Oh yes. Yes, I did.

I started with shrimp cocktail and proceeded to have a superb hot asparagus-puree soup with tapioca balls. The Wellingtons came, none the worse for overnight storage, and both the Father and I ordered a few sea scallops for good measure. Being a couple pounds overweight I didn’t eat dessert but I did have some cheese and a decaf coffee, not my usual doppio espresso since I wanted to get to bed early.

After dinner I said goodbye to Father Bill, who needed a nap before his midnight Mass for the crew, and went up to the casino to play a final bit of video poker. I was getting creamed but finally hit the ducks to get even for the evening. I went back to my cabin to get my glasses and notebook and returned to play a bit more since it was still early. Joan and Marie, the nurses from Minnesota, arrived to say goodbye and just as I was telling Joan she missed my jackpot, up popped another four Deuces! That put me well ahead for the cruise so I evened out my credits, cashed out, and gave generous tips to all the casino staff. Kerry bought me a final Remy and I enjoyed it out on the deck, watching the ship’s wake disappear into the night, before turning in around midnight and watching the remake of The Thomas Crowne Affair, a movie that gets better every time I see it.



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