“Spring is sprung, and grass is riz, so this is where the classes is!” So spake, I believe, an ancient philosopher named Ogden Nash. Maybe that explains why I am into sunrises. It is Saturday, 6 A.M. I am sitting on a stool on the Lido Deck of the Carnival Cruise ship ”Tropicale” watching the sunrise. The big red ball comes up slowly giving the Gulf of Mexico and me a new day. We are steaming south (20 knots at most) to 20 degrees north latitude to the coast of the Yucatan Peninsula, specifically to the island of Cozumel. I’m into this Longitude and Latitude stuff after reading the book “Longitude-The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time”. We are, and have, experienced great weather, and too much food. Yesterday (March 19th) was spent on the island of Key West. We rode around the entire town on a small motor driven train with 60 some other tourist. The narrator never stopped narrating the entire hour and half. We saw many mansions of the early rich, Americans, Spaniards, and Cubans. We passed the cafe made famous by Earnest Hemingway, many exotic palm trees, bushes, and flowers. (The narrator was really in to the flora stuff) We learned about the “Conch (as in the shell) Republic” and its short uprising against U.S. After being subdued it, like most ex-enemies of U.S., received foreign aid. It is still celebrated with flags and feasts Cuban style. We passed the prison that once housed Dr. Samuel A. Mudd. He was the physician who attended to John Wilkes Booth’s leg after he had assassinated President Lincoln. He, I was told by someone other than the narrator, did not waste away in the prison, but discovered something that cured (?) malaria. He is, according to the narrator, remembered most today for having brought the word ‘Mud’ into our language as a term of derision, as in “Your name will be ‘Mud’, if you…or you’ll be knee deep in ‘Mud’ if…”
The visit to Isla de Cozumel was short. We had Eric and Paulie in tow. The rest were off snorkeling. We took a ride on a boat that had underwater viewing. It was beautiful to behold the forests of coral. Its variety was incredible. Some looking like fans of lace swaying in the breeze, other like the rocks we usually think of them as, and still others of shapes and sizes hard to imagine as “coral”. It is a growing plant on the bottom of the warm seas. Eric had fought and cried about coming at all. He then proceeded to fall asleep on my lap and became like a sack of potatoes. We sat on benches with no back support. June became my support and then she helped me carry him back up to deck at the end of the ride.
One of the highlights of the cruise happened on the last night. We attended a show. It was a Magician. He was very good. One of his acts was to use large horse collar apparatus and blow a balloon up inside it. He managed to blow two balloons up and they both bursts while he was attempting to fit them into the collar. This was not what he meant to do (allegedly). He was to run a thin rapier through the collar and the balloon to the other side, obviously not breaking the balloon. Having no more balloons he decided to seek a young person from the audience. Then from the darkness of the theater onto the light of the stage came a young man. What a surprise! It was Paulie Berger, our grandson. He had two missing front teeth. So he tried desperately not to smile. But between the antics of the Magician and the laughter of the audience he finally burst into one, pleasing everyone, but particularly his grandparents. He grimaced twice when Magician tried to push the rapier into the back of his neck. Then Houdini turned him sideways and proceeds to push the rapier through coming out on the other side and under Paulie’s nose. His expression in watching it come out was a classic “I can’t believe it’s happening!” It was a beautiful way to end the cruise. After the Magician left the stage the Cruise Director came on and rewarded Paulie. He was given a “24 carat gold plastic trophy”! We arrived home on Monday around 8 a.m. and were driving off with our baggage by 10. The trip was good one and a success in the seasickness department, though June did take some medicine on each day to help her equilibrium.
As I turned out of the parking lot onto the highway it was about 6:30a.m. Palm Sunday morning. I then turned onto the road that would take me home. It heads dead East. I heard the radio announce that we would now hear an organ recital by Handel. It began with a roar and at the same instant I looked up the road and gasped “Oh My God”. The blaze of the sun with a million shades of rose and red filled the sky through the palm trees. The music rose seemingly as a tribute to the majestic sight in front of me. So I then with reverence said “Oh, My God!” It was a dramatic way to commence a morning in this paradise known as St. Petersburg, and even more so a Palm Sunday morn. Easter week saw Bill, Sharon, Matthew and Karen with us. We got to see two baseball games, one of the Phillies, who won, and the other of the home team Devil Rays, who also won. For two days they were visiting Sea World and the Animal Kingdom in Orlando. They left Easter morning. We learned by email that they took nearly nine hours to get back to Harrisburg due to flight delays, missed connections, etc.
My curiosity about word-meanings got me thinking about “Easter”. Is it someone or something from the “East (-er)”. The ever-faithful OED provided the answer. “EASTER: Origin, Old English, EASTRE, of Germanic origin and related to German OSTERN & EAST. According to Bede the word is derived from EASTRE, the name of a goddess associated with spring.” The term “Good” Friday seems to be a contradiction in that it commemorates the death of Jesus on the cross. But I learned that I had forgotten that “good” might also mean, among other meanings, “holy, or observed as a holy day”
I am happy to report that this morning the scale informed me I had reached my weight goal. Now it is just a question of maintaining it. I think it will be so thanks to the great help I receive from June in seeing that I eat well, even though eating less. Hope all of you had a glorious Easter weekend and I will try to add a note to each.