First Day at Sea

He Said . . .

So this should have been pretty light reading since it was all pretty standard fare at sea but unfortunately in order for you to get up to speed on the book I finished I need to give you some family background so as to ensure that you don’t judge me too harshly.  So here goes…

As a youngster I was fortunate enough to be raised in a house with a mom who was extremely frugal, some might say cheap, I didn’t, I still claim frugality; my sister would disagree but we differ on a number of issues.  The reason for the mention was that when I was 4 my mom took in our next door neighbors grandfather as a “border”, I use quotes because I recall asking my mom who the gentleman was and I was told that he was our “border”; I assumed that meant a distant relative, didn’t ask any other questions and went about my daily life with a new relative, and was happy to engage in the daily discussions that 4 year olds have with their relatives.

It was nothing like The King of Queens portrays it, we treated him with the utmost of respect, always calling him mister and yes sir and no sir, and he in kind imparted a great deal of wisdom in me; all I could handle at the tender age of 4 but a good amount for sure.  These early years and having a “border” opened up the family like none I have ever seen, we openly discussed all things at the dinner table, including the most taboo of all subjects, no not sex, money!!!!

Now because of this early interaction and our family’s openness to the subject of money, there wasn’t ever a time that I recall that I didn’t know everyone’s income around the table, all my siblings and my mom/dad’s and the our “border’s”, it just wasn’t a big deal.  I found out later in life that not everyone was open as our family about the dollars and cents of their lives.  This turned out to be a pretty big life lesson.

Now with the backdrop of our border’s insights and me turning all but 7 I had the MOST profound data point ever thrust upon me by my mom’s boss; he was an elderly man in his 70’s at the time, I recall him being overly fatherly for someone who wasn’t a relative, I didn’t mind, he was Jewish, which, once again, meant nothing to me other than my mom had described him that way to me.  I’ll never forget the day he provided the data point that would come to mold my worldview on money, he was counting the till, yes they used to do that and I asked him what he was doing?  He said, let me give a piece of advice that you should never forget, please sit down and listen carefully to what I’m about to tell you, it will serve you well throughout your life - I was all ears, I knew this this was probably going to be big - he said, “If you take care of the pennies, the dollars will take care of themselves”!!  For some reason I got it, it was profound and it changed my life in an instant and I’ve always looked at money through that prism.

Now with this piece of wisdom and my mom’s “you collect everything in the first half of your life so you can give it all away to the kids in the second half so you don’t have to dust it anymore”, I was prepared to venture out into the world at age 7!!

Now with that backdrop I’ve always been interested in what people say about money, how they talk about it and how they talk around it etc so that brings me back to the book, it’s called “The Number”, I picked it up a couple of months ago in Port Angeles, no not Los Angeles, Port Angeles Washington, just across the Straits of Juan De Fuca from Vancouver Island and began reading it, I finished it today and it was helpful as I reach my retirement eligibility date on the 27th of this month.  Shocking to even contemplate, retirement eligibility, seems like yesterday we getting mobile phones to work, I saw on TV this morning that 43% of the entire world has a mobile account and by 2020 that number will be 74%, 5.2 trillion dollars incredible. [Editor’s Note:  My husband works for Verizon Wireless.]

Back to The Number, fortunately he brings up some fascinating thought provoking social aspects of the number that made me feel a little less dirty reading it, things like doing the greater good for mankind and volunteering your time with the elderly so they are not forgotten; harkens to my youth, we used to do this when I was a kid as well, once again I didn’t know why but every Sunday we went to the nursing home to visit folks, rambunctious kids are a huge hit with the elderly, I now look back and think it reminds them of their kids or even their own childhoods, although I didn’t get it then, now I know it built character, my mom, of course, knew that then…  So in today’s closing I’d say, money is just a tool like any other and don’t forget to love hard, appreciate the beauty of the world around you, as well as the diverse peoples that make it up, and leave it in a better place than you found it!!

Now with that said, I know Ami understands that with the kids gone, no need to fight about sex or money, there is little else to fight about, so I will still have to give her hell for shopping at Jane and Amazon 4 days a week; what else would I do when I download transactions to Quicken?  I’m glad she lets me be a part of her life!!  Sleep well my love, tomorrow Barcelona!!  Good night!!

[Editor’s Note again:  OK, my husband brought tears to my eyes.  I may give him lots of hell, but I’m not sure I would be half as happy as I am now without him.  He makes me laugh every day and makes me feel good about myself even when I don’t feel I can.  We all get that way sometimes.  My God, he schlepped me and my luggage halfway around Australia last year looking like I just got out of the ring with Mike Tyson! (Actually, I probably wouldn’t have survived that.)  Bottom line, he is the love of my life!]

She Said . . .

Saturday was our first full day on the boat and we were at sea traveling from Rome to Barcelona.

It was a nice relaxing day - we did next to nothing.  And we needed it after yesterday!

I ended up finishing the book I was reading - The Aggrieved by Brett Battles.  It is the most recent in the Jonathan Quinn series.  It is spy-type stuff.  I think I like those kinds of novels because it is so removed from my life and anything I know.  Next up is The Rosie Project.  Someone recommended it so I am giving it a try.  I think it is about a scientist with Aspergers trying to find a wife.  I am only about 2 pages into it on my Kindle and since I have limited internet, I can’t read the synopsis.

We started the day in the Sky Lounge.  Blaise read his book, The Number (about what $ amount you need to retire - surprise, surprise).  While I typed my blog about our day getting on the boat, Blaise was listening in on a conversation an older man was having on his cell phone about a vacation he was taking next June with someone.  From what I could hear, it seemed he didn’t really know that person well.  If I were going on vacation with someone, at least one that went on for weeks as his upcoming vacation clearly will, the conversation would have been way less formal than his.  He did not seem to have much familiarity with the person on the other side of the phone.

In the afternoon, I went to watch a guy speak about the “monkey trial.”  I saw it on the daily program and the draw to the subject of my profession was more than I could resist.  So I was all lawyer-like and went.  The talk was about a trial in 1925 in Dayton Tennessee where a teacher was accused of violating a newly minted Tennessee law making the teaching of evolution illegal.  Turns out the movie, Inherit The Wind, is about this trial.  While the speaker was not particularly dynamic, he will be on the ship for the whole cruise talking mostly about maritime law.  The topic of the trial was interesting though.

Not much else to cover, really.  We relaxed and read in various places on the boat.

Sunday is Barcelona.

Dana’s Food Watch

Breakfast - Buffet items - eggs, bacon, and toast

Lunch - A cheeseburger, but no fries

Dinner - Our little bite-sized thing (hopefully I can figure out how to spell this so I can call it by its proper name) before dinner was a caviar tart.  It was delicious.  I had never had caviar before, so a milestone for me.  I have been racking my brain to remember what I had for an appetizer and simply can’t remember.  I guess it couldn’t have been that good.  The entree was venison ragout with pasta.  Before dessert, they brought out a plate of cookies and various sundries and I ate possibly the sweetest thing I have ever had.  It kinda looked like a bite-sized brownie from a distance, but it had the consistency of a grainy gummy bear. I hated it.  Then we had this very bright green thing that looked like a sponge.  Not much much flavor to it, but it DID have a spongy texture in addition to looking like a sponge.  Dessert was some sort of very delicious chocolate thing with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Injury Watch

No injuries