Ponder Post: Time Alone

Frank just came back from a week visiting our daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughter in Oklahoma. I picked him up from the airport this morning. It is good to have him home. He had been gone a week and it just whizzed by. We both enjoyed our time apart in different ways.

Her mommy loved Rainbow Brite, too.

What I enjoyed about this week was the total lack of structure and total freedom. I went to bed as late as I wanted, midnight or even 1:00 a.m. I ate one decent size meal early to mid afternoon and did not worry about dinner. The first morning after he left I picked up, vacuumed, cleaned (shallow surface clean only), and vacuumed (only what was exposed), all in moderation, so I could enjoy a fresh environment all to myself for the entire week. I did not clean again afterward other than washing my own dishes and making my half of the bed that got slightly rumpled.

I answered e-mails, blogged, did some reading, quilted, and surfed the web, ordering a living room lamp and some fabric on line. I watched a few old movies, so old that we have only VHS tape versions -– Sleepless in Seattle, You've Got Mail,  and Only You. (Frank usually does not like to watch movies again once he has seen them.) Yes, the Olympics were on, but I recorded them and fast forwarded through the boring parts. How thrilling is it to watch a pair of guys, dressed alike in Star Trek type body suits with skin-tight hoods, different only by color, speed race on a oval slab of ice? I also skipped the 1 hour and 40 minutes of bobsled runs that all look identical to me. I enjoyed the ice dancing, though, the snowboard races among four competitors, and the aerial ski jump tricks.

I did venture out of the house. After dropping Frank off at the airport last Thursday morning I went out to lunch with a friend. On Sunday I bowled with Alex and stopped by our local mall afterward for a couple hours. I mailed a package (to granddaughter-to-be), dropped off some discards at the local thrift store, and shipped back some UGGs slippers from Zappos that were not at all comfortable. On Tuesday I went out to lunch with a different friend.

This all sounds mundane and begs the question, "Didn't I miss Frank?" I thought of him daily, saved parts of the newspaper for him, recorded shows I thought he'd like, and spoke to him each night. What I pondered during this week was that this time by myself, solo, as good as it was, was just about the right duration. My thoughts could not help but drift toward a scenario, hopefully not until a long, long, time in the future, where this alone situation could be true all the time. That would really suck. I wonder, as one of us approaches the inevitable, do our minds and hearts become more prepared and accepting of losing a loved one? I sure hope so. People do adjust. Until then, I am committed that Frank and I are going to milk this retirement for all its worth.

Castle is our favorite TV show.  I recorded it and refrained from watching it Monday night. When Frank and I got back from the airport, we kicked back on the couch and watched it together. In the middle of the day no less! Yay!

Frank and I look forward to Castle each Monday night.

Overland and by Rail

Friday, January 3, 2014, the morning we debarked from the cruise ship, Frank and I embarked on an overland adventure. Ah, safe on land, at last! Well, sort of. We were going to visit the Orange Empire Railroad Museum in Perris, California, about an hour and twenty minutes from Long Beach, where the Carnival Inspiration docked. The museum is touted as "home to over 200 historic railway cars and locomotives from Los Angeles and the west".

This was our route from our cruise ship to the railcar museum.

We set our Magellan GPS, who we named Maggie, to 2201 South A Street and followed her instructions religiously. We began to lose faith in her judgment when the road quality and scenery we viewed out the car windows degraded as we approached our destination. But, these "roads" actually had street signs and names and were recognized by the software of our GPS and my iPhone so they must be legitimate. Right?

The bear went over the mountain. The bear went over the mountain.
The bear went over the mountain... to see what he could see.

As we crowned a hill, the prescribed route stretching out before us did not inspire much confidence.

He saw another mountain. He saw another mountain.
He saw another mountain...  'Twas all that he could see.

There was little comfort in the landmarks along the way... discarded mattresses, dented auto bodies, other rusted car parts, abandoned sofas, even a bee apiary, unclear to us whether it was active or defunct.

Frank takes me the nicest places...

The paths narrowed and the terrain increased in roughness. We were on the lookout for a location wide enough to turn around and go back to more civilized roads. As we crowned a particular hill we got stuck, like an impaled insect. Suspended on the peak, the drive wheels were not contacting the dirt and were unable to propel us forward over the crest of the hill or to backtrack us down from where we had climbed. Frank got out to assess the situation. He placed some rocks under the drive wheels hoping to allow them to gain enough traction to move the car, but he had no luck engaging the tires with the ground.

What a view!

Even if we did jack up the car, precariously on a slope mind you, we had no tools to dig out under the center of the car. We thought a push assist might be in order, but which direction? Frank started to stand in front of the car to push it backwards but I thought that that was a bad idea in case the car decided to roll forward down the hill over Frank. Standing in back of the car and pushing forward had the same disadvantage. The car would back over Frank in reverse with even less visibility. If I did run over Frank I could not call for help. My cell phone battery had very little remaining charge so its function was dubious at best. It gets worse. I still had a badly sprained ankle from falling down the stairs from the family room into the garage on Christmas Day evening, so hiking back to the main road over that uneven terrain was not desirable, either.

Decision made. There would be no standing in front of or in back of the car. Period. So we tried the only thing we had not tried yet. Frank got out and I got behind the wheel. It was my car, not Frank's that we were driving so, in theory, had a better feel for it since I drove it just about every day. It is a 2003 Pontiac Grand Prix and does not have four wheel drive. I put it in reverse and eased very gently on the gas, only giving it a bit more when I thought I felt one or the other tire grab. Maybe it was my better feel for the car-road interface, or a change in the weight distribution, or shifting rocks and dirt beneath the wheel, or our joint desperation that backing was the only thing to do, or a little bit of each of the above... but the car moved. I backed quite a ways, navigating in reverse between a couple of rock outcroppings, and K-turned the car to head back out to the main road.

On our way in to this desolate landscape, small tributary dirt roads had joined the one we were traveling. Going back these paths presented as a sequence of forks in the road demanding a right or left decision, based on our vague memory of where we had come from. Thank goodness for memorable landmarks: to the right of the couch... bee apiary on the left going, on the right returning... hadn't we passed that radiator?... I remember that refrigerator... etc. We did make it back to the main road and called the museum to have a human being give us a set of directions. So much for Maggie and Steve Jobs.

Once home I checked Google to see what we had done wrong. The google maps route (in blue) takes you east down a paved road lined with houses (Mountain Ave) and then a right turn to go southward on South A Street. Near as I can figure the GPS tried to take us on the south-east diagonal overland route in the upper left corner of the photo. Google does not even name these roads; it's algorithm must have higher minimum standards than Magellan or Apple. We finally arrived and parked the car. I had this barely controlled urge to smash that sexy little GPS voice that announced cheerily "You have arrived!" as if she'd performed admirably throughout.

After verbal directions from a museum employee, this is the route, shown in blue, that we took.

We found the museum to be quite extensive. Its mission was the preservation and authenticate restoration of trolley cars and other rolling stock from the Los Angeles area. This aerial view shows a large quantity of rolling stock and large silver white hangars that house many of the more precious historical cars and locomotives. We had a tour guide who was delighted to unlock those hangars and tell us story after story of the rail cars and trolleys within. There was a lot to see. I will share just a few tales. The pictures are of lesser quality since they were taken with my cell phone, not our camera. To add insult to injury, I dropped our camera on a steel rail shortly after entrance into one of the dimly lit museum hangars and broke it. A spring shot out sideways under the bowels of one of the behemoth railcars.

Here is an aerial view of the extensive Orange Empire Railway Museum.

The museum grounds were far reaching and had lots of areas for exploration.

Historically, safety themes were important. What we think of as cow catchers on the front of steam locomotives in those western rail movies had their counterpart in trolley cars within city limits. The politically correct posters advertised them as safety fenders protecting little girls from injury if they wandered onto the rails. In reality they scooped the drunks off the tracks. And safety features were prevalent in car operation as well. The St. Louis Safety Car was so simple that even a woman could operate it. Imagine that! 

Isn't it every day that you would let your little girl wander in front of a streetcar?

So simple. So safe. A woman can operate it! And does. Amazing!

Because of its proximity to Los Angeles, cars that had been touched by the hand of Hollywood abounded. We saw the trolley cars that had been used in the movies Roger Rabbit (as a model for the animation), Singin' in the Rail, A Streetcar Named Desire, and Meet Me in St. Louis.

This trolley was the model for the streetcar in Roger Rabbit.

Sister street cars 331 and 332 were used in movies Singin' in the Rain and Meet Me in St Louis.

Clang, clang, clang went the trolley, Ding, ding, ding went the bell,
Zing, zing, zing went my heart strings, From the moment I saw him I fell.
Can't you just hear this song in your head when you see this?

The Disney presence in Southern California was also prevalent. The famous Disney animator Ward Kimball, a fellow railroad enthusiast of Walt, donated his 3-foot gauge garden railway to the museum. He'd named his personal railroad the Grizzly Flats Railway. That name carried over to a portion of Disney California Adventure next to the Magic Kingdom in Anaheim and to one section of the Orange Empire Railway Museum in Perris.

Frank is standing next to the engine of Disney animator Ward Kimball's Grizzly Flats Railway.
The railroad ran 500 feet through the garden of his home in San Gabriel, California.

Grizzly Flats is one portion of the museum grounds.

I sat down and took a rest at the gift shop while Frank continued to roam the vast rail yards for maybe just under another hour. Our adventure getting to the place was well worth it. Late afternoon we checked into our hotel near Dan and Carrie and relaxed a bit before going out to dinner with them. We told them tales of our Carnival cruise at sea and of our Perris (perhaps more appropriate named perilous?) journey on land. The next day we had planned to visit a couple other smaller southern California train attractions and then leisurely drive up the coast, lingering a night at the quaint village of Solvang. We woke the next morning, looked at each other and agreed. These destinations could wait for another time. Stop! No more traveling! We decided to drive straight home that day, by the most expedient route.

This almost life size oil portrait of Ward Kimball was right.

It was time to STOP and go home.

After a night on the Queen Mary in Long Beach, four nights in our stateroom on the Carnival ship Inspiration at sea, and one night at the Ayres Hotel in Aliso Viejo, our bed back in Livermore felt so good that Saturday night. Ah, home, at last!

Jury Duty and Book Reviews

I was on jury duty for the past three weeks and I was actually selected for a trial. It was a federal criminal case and I commuted daily to San Francisco on BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit). I have a renewed respect for daily commuters. I left my house at 6 a.m. each morning to be assured I could get a parking spot at the train station. We jurors were generally dismissed by 4 p.m. so thankfully I was just on the front end of the evening commute back home.

For three weeks I joined the throngs of San Francisco commuters.

The gotcha was that I was an alternate juror and after all my extensive note taking and exhaustive listening and paying attention to detail I was not in on the deliberations. I kind of missed being part of the process that matched evidence with proof of guilt or confirmed innocence. My fellow jurors were great though. I was fortunate to be associated with a stand up, dedicated, intelligent group of jurors who e-mailed me the results afterward and I am happy to say the outcome was as I would have voted.

One perk of being on jury duty is that I got a lot of reading done. I read Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Book Store by Robin Sloan, which I highly recommend. I thought it was very creative and innovative, and the main characters reminded me of the trio of crusaders Harry, Ron, and Hermione from the Harry Potter series. The overall clandestine theme was not wizardry however but rather bibliophily. Each crusader brought different strengths to the adventure and any reader who feels strongly about Google or likes role playing games will get a kick out of this book.

Techies and lovers of the printed page alike will enjoy this book.

Next I read Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You by Peter Cameron. Perhaps it was because I was somewhat of a captive audience on my commute, but I liked this one, too. After all, sleeping was always an option and the book was good enough I chose to read rather than sleep on the train, despite my tiredness. This book is a coming of age story about a very bright young man who is about to head off to college... maybe. It is not big on plot but the reasoning sequences where the main character mentally justifies or explains his actions and feelings to himself and others are very humorous and often times amazingly on the mark. It was the type of book that if you are sitting next to someone that you know (i.e., not a stranger on a train) you want to read the section to them out loud right then and there. This is a short read and worth your time.

This book is not as angst heavy as one might be led to believe.
It has a tongue in cheek type of humor.

A third book I read was The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown. I found this book a bit hard to get into. I had started it twice before, weeks before I was a captive audience on a commuter train and in a jury room. Since I now read for pleasure, I no longer feel the compulsion to complete a book just because I started it. There is too much out there enjoyable to read to plow through something that is a drudgery. Once I got into this book however, I was engaged and wanted to complete it. To summarize, it is the relationship among three very different sisters, the eldest an organized control freak, the middle one more of a yuppie with expensive New York fashions and lifestyle, and the youngest a free-spirited hippie type. It is set in a college town where the father is a professor and a die-hard fanatic about Shakespeare. Shakespearean references permeate their conversations and the daughters are even named after Shakespearean heroines. The three daughters say they love each other but do not like each other. The daughters re-convene at their childhood home, ostensibly to help with their mother's illness, but more pointedly to address their own needs. I found it a clever, yet subtle, exploration of generalizations about birth order influences. Even more interesting is the voice in which this book was written - first person plural. I have never known of a book written in first person plural... "we" did this, and that happened to "us", even when the portion of the tale relates to only one of the sisters. It catches you off guard as you read. I finished this book and I am glad I read it mainly because of the quirky bond among the sisters. I'll refrain from recommending it, however, because I do not want to be blamed if someone else does not like it and doesn't resonate with its redeeming qualities. If I have raised your curiosity though, read the Amazon reviews and go for it.

 I found this book a worthy read. Though heavy in Shakespeare references,
 my ignorance of the bard did hamper my reading experience.

The fourth book I read while on jury duty was Innocence by Dean Koontz. Koontz is an author I love to read but have no desire whatsoever to see any movies made out of his books. They would scare the bejesus out of me. My own imagination I can handle but not the shocking special effects of some Hollywood movie producer who interprets the book. I love how Koontz immerses the readers in the settings he paints, how he maintains an aura of suspense throughout his novels, and how he manages to save a big reveal until the very final chapters. This book was a page turner. There is something about the main character that prohibits him from revealing his visual appearance to humanity, forcing him to live hidden in isolation. A huge snow storm envelops the city, adding to the swirling, blanketing secret. He pairs up with someone who cannot be touched, a counterpart to he who cannot be seen. Good reading. Very good reading. Classic good vs. evil reading!

The title says it all while giving away nothing.

So here is my summary of the best feature of each book:

• Mr. Penumbra's24-Hour Book Store for plot and creativity
• Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You for humor and coming of age
• Weird Sisters for birth order relationships and unique voice
• Innocence for mood evoking suspense and page turning conflict

Thursday: Our Day at Sea

Thursday there were no ports of call. It was our day at sea. Frank and I had signed up for a Behind the Fun tour of the ship. It lasted almost three hours and it was great. We were not allowed to take photos so I will describe what we saw or supply photos of the more public areas.

We started our tour at the galley, which is slightly aft of the middle of the ship and spans the full width of the ship. It is flanked at either end by a dining room. The Carnivale Dining Room was nearer the stern and we never ate there. It was for passengers who did not choose a consistent seating for early or late dining. The Mardi Gras Dining Room, closer to the bow, was where we ate each evening at the earlier of two seatings. The Mardi Gras Dining room seats 650 and has full-length windows on either side. There is a raised center section which is where we sat each evening at our personal table for six. We had the same waiting staff each night who learned our preferences and anticipated them such as having a plate of fruit and cheeses set out at our table pre-dinner.

Sitting in the central raised section we had a view out the windows of both sides.
The peach and black rimmed plates with the marbleized borders were really quite pretty up close.

We passed through a dining room to enter the galley area. Just upon entry is a long counter that is for food prep only; e.g., chopping, slicing, peeling. The hot foods are prepared in a totally separate area. The head chef spoke with us about how he orders the food for the cruise. For example, at the starting port, three lots of bananas are taken on board – ripe, green tip, and green – so there are always some at the correct stage for eating. We saw meat and beverage storage too. The quantities to feed over 2000 passengers plus a crew of about 800 is staggering. I thought a very interesting part of the galley tour was the logistics of the waiters. There are revolving doors between the galley and each dining room to muffle any kitchen noise that might disturb the dining experience. Waiters walk along a cafeteria like pickup railing that extends about two thirds the width of the ship to pick up their orders. Part of their training is speed trials. They have only three minutes to enter the revolving door, pick up the entrees for their table (as many as twelve) and go back out the revolving door. If timing is not synchronized an entire tray of entrees can wind up crashing to the floor. If this occurs the galley staff all yell out "Happy Birthday!"

Carrying a tray of twelve loaded dinner plates at one time is quite a skill.

The chef held a large round tray, about three feet in diameter loaded with twelve plates and their domed lid covers similar to the previous picture above except it was configured as four stacks of three plates each. He singled me out and handed it to me. Then he had me hoist it over my head and support it on the palm of one hand. There was no food on those plates and it was pretty heavy. He then had me hand it to Frank who did the same thing. The chef then pointed out that if we got our dinner plate without our steak on it, it could be hanging from one of the light fixtures if the waiter were as tall as Frank. Carnival only hires short waiters because the ceilings are so low.

Our next stop was the laundry facilities. There is a lot more linens on a ship than just those cute towel animals. Here were the creations from our stateroom each day. I was collecting the menagerie on our window sill for a group shot but our stateroom staff was too quick for us and whisked them away.

First night towel friend was a frog.

Our second night towel companion was a teddy bear.

We were welcomed to bed our third final night by a towel sea turtle

The laundry room is so noisy! Our tour guide needed to yell over the din. We saw huge commercial washers for the sheets but the most fascinating machinery were the huge roller type machines that dried and folded the sheets as one process. Wet sheets were fed horizontally into a set of rollers similar to those on a wringer type washing machine but these rollers were spaced apart and connected by webbing. The sheets were transported along on these parallel straps of webbing while hot air was blown over them to dry them. The two outer thirds of webbing dropped away so those parts of the sheets fall vertical. Air jets blew them inward so they fold and are dropped onto the next narrower set of webbing straps. This drop, blow, fold sequence was repeated and out the far end came dry, folded sheets. Towels were pre-dried before being folded but both Frank and I got to feed towels into the machine just so and watch them drop out the far end folded. Frank laughed at me when my towel got sucked in crooked and the fold was very lopsided. He was sufficiently chagrined when it took him two tries, since his first try caused the machine to come to a halt. His towel need to be retrieved and fed in again.

We saw the ship control room with each system's flow diagram silk-screened on metal wall panels. There was the desalination system, the propeller system, the heating-cooling system, the water piping system, and others. I asked how long it would take the ship to stop if they had a man overboard alert and was told they do not stop but immediately begin a circle maneuver similar to the next diagram.  I asked the head engineer if he had ever had to do this maneuver and he said yes but did not elaborate other than saying it varies slightly with the condition of the person who fell over – whatever that means. Was the person inebriated or deceased? How do you tell from a distance? Thinking about it gave me the shivers.

On a lighter note our next stop on the tour was backstage of the theatre for the shows. We learned the Carnival has changed from a large cast of specialized singers or dancers to a smaller cast of dual talented dancer-singers and singer-dancers. We got to see the lounge area for the cast and learned that they have their own gym facilities. The lighting and sound control panels for the stage had two versions, an old fashioned low tech version that had never been removed and right beside it, a newer digital version where cues for lights and music are pre-programmed in. I guess if someone makes a mistake or misses a cue, the remaining performers must just adjust on the fly and not merely "get with the program" but also keep up with it!

The Paris Lounge was the stage for the shows and games we enjoyed during our cruise.

Our final stop was the bridge. Unlike our Duck Boat adventure in Boston (see October 23, 2013 post), I was not allowed to steer this ship. In fact, lest any member of the tour touch any critical controls, a plexiglas box was strategically placed over them as a precautionary measure. Although he is not positioned in a "crow's nest", the ship always has a person in the bridge dedicated as a lookout. The panoramic view from the bridge was impressive. Also, as a low tech detail, part of the floor on each side was outfitted with a thick glass window. The purpose was to provide a fail safe visual method of assessing the proximity of the dock wall at port.

At the end of the tour we posed for a picture on the bridge with the captain.

The rest of the day was pretty low key. We packed in the afternoon. In the evening we had dinner with John and Marita and Janet and Dave and then went on to see the energetic stage production titled Motor City featuring music, dancing, and costumes from the 60's, 70's and 80's. Some of us took in a final comedy show. Frank and I watched a debarkation video in our stateroom. The logistics of moving over 2000 people and their luggage off a ship was well thought out. Each range of staterooms was assigned a suggested 15 minute time window to leave in order to spread out the people traffic. There were different waiting areas and instructions depending on if you took your own luggage with you or had the cruise ship personnel handle it.

Debarkation the following morning, Friday, went very smoothly. We carried our own luggage off, were back on shore, to our car, and on our way before the end of our fifteen minute time, ready to start off the New Year back on land.