#it may not be 7am but i forgot to eat oops

[aeligsido]

Welcome to another installment of Aelig's nightly random idea! (For once it is not 7am, cheer)

Plz, consider: Sirius had no idea Peter survived the blast. Like, he's recovering from Peter's spell, and then he looks around and Peter is nowhere to be seen, but there's part of human body everywhere and Sirius starts to laugh because did Peter just accidentally kill himself??? He was competent enough to fool them all and betray them and still stupid enough to accidentally kill himself trying to escape Sirius???

So like, Sirius is laughing, he's sent to Azkaban, and by the time his breakdown is kind-of over, well, survivor guilt is here so, Sirius more or less accepts his situation, and it's penance for being responsible for James and Lily's death, and Harry and Remus are probably better off without him anyway (but he's also innocent and can't stop clinging to it either), so, you know, lot of complicated feelings his therapist would need a therapist over.

Years after, Sirius has a very polite conversation with the current Minister and gets the newspaper and wow, it has been how many years? And then he looks at the picture and who does he see on the front, happy as a pig in mud and perfectly alive (if under his rat form)?

Fucking Peter Pettigrew.

[etraytin]

Quarantine, Day 64

Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when it's Quarantine Day 64? 

It's May 14, for those of us who are still having a hard time keeping track of the days, which means we  are very close to halfway through yet another month. Since April ended sometime in the late Pleistocene Epoch, this is a pretty solid accomplishment, go us! It also marks two weeks of being here in North Carolina instead of home in Virginia. My balcony plants are either super dead or forming their own jungle ecology by now, no middle ground. I'm not even going to contemplate what the milk is doing, because it was already not new before I forgot to throw it away on May 1. Oops. 

One of my followers sent me a message today to say they liked my quarantine journal, which is very nice to hear! I have been journaling for an audience off and on since I started my Livejournal in 2001 (I am oooooooold), but Tumblr is not necessarily a natural home for diary blogging. Still, a lot of my internet friends live her, and it's comfortable, and at this point journaling is pretty much the only way I can make sense of what's happening from day to day and week to week. I wrote a few things down during the first couple weeks of quarantine, but it barely seemed real for awhile. My daily journaling began around Day 28 because I had a night where I could no longer smell or taste anything, and it turned out to be allergies but it scared the hell out of me. It suddenly occurred to me that not only would journaling be something interesting to look back on, but it might be a vital part of contact tracing for someone like me whose appointment calendar is written on her hand as often as not. I have not needed to use it for that, thankfully, but I have gotten to tell a lot of stories and work through a lot of stuff in my own brain. If it has entertained anyone else or made anyone else feel less alone, that's even better. 

Today was another tiring one. I spent a lot of time trying to learn a bunch of stuff about Medicare on the fly, plus line up consultations with an elder law attorney for my mother in law and fill out the questionnaires we need to have done in advance. Answering those questions is long and tedious, and it often involves unpleasant truths like spelling out every medical problem either of them have, and every potential financial liability. I got six pages into the thirteen page form and called it a day, because even getting that far had involved about two hours of research and signing up for various government and insurance web portals to dig up information. Blech. It's like registering for the bar exam all over again but with less questions on moral turpitude and more disclosures about gifts to grandchildren. (And I shouldn't complain, the bar exam application was closer to 40 pages.) 

Things with my mother in law did go better today. I feel like I complain about her all the time on here and it's not really fair because she's a great person and I love her a lot. If I didn't, I wouldn't get so upset if she's not taking care of herself! She and the kiddo had a good time today playing games and reading books, and she was able to get in for a very important medical procedure that she had skipped last month because she had nobody to drive her. Today she got that procedure and as a bonus it meant keeping her leg propped up for hours, so overall it was great and there were no new falls. We also had to sit for quite awhile to do the questionnaire stuff, so that was one side benefit of me banging my head against the metaphorical wall for a few hours. Now that she's sleeping and eating more, she just has a lot more energy, and that's a good and bad thing when she's supposed to take it easy. 

Dinner was good today too, my husband decided to make a picnic for the balcony and did up roasted breaded chicken, biscuits with hot honey butter, and spicy potato-bean hash. It sound weird, but it was all very tasty, and the weather today was amazing. It's been very cold all week, but now it really feels springy and perfect. The table umbrella was not working, but I managed to jury-rig it with a bungee cord. Now it won't close but it stays open quite nicely, which beats the opposite. I'm also trying to drink more water, because the air here is super dry and I'm eating a lot of salty food, but results are mixed so far. I need at least another couple cups before bed. 

Had another post-bedtime conversation with the kiddo just a few minutes ago, one of the hardest ones yet. He was very sad because he said things are not getting any better, only worse. After teasing that out for a couple of minutes, we dug down to him being very sad about the fact that his Papa is sick and not getting any better, and that he wants to visit him, but it's also horrible because Papa not only doesn't remember their previous visits from day to day, he doesn't always remember the kiddo right away at this point. And fuck, I didn't know what to say at all to that. He cried, and I cried right along with him, and told him that he was right, it's horrible and unfair that this should happen to anybody, but especially to Papa, who has always been so clever and had such good stories. In a lot of our bedtime conversations I can remind him of good things that are happening or things to look forward to, but there is no reason to assume that anything is going to get better in this situation, and every reason to believe that they will be worse soon. 

In this case, I figured it was best just to level with him, even though he's only ten. I told him that I remembered having to do this with my grandmother, and that was terrible and sad, and it felt like losing her in tiny pieces. It hurts, and it will hurt to lose Papa, and it's okay if he needs to cry or needs to not go on a visit or needs to talk about it with me or Daddy. But I also told him that I believe that my grandma is in heaven now, and that she doesn't forget anymore, and she's not hurting or confused, and that one day we are going to have so much to talk about, and that helps me to feel better. And I reminded him that for Papa, every moment with him is important because every moment he is living in is the one he remembers best. So when seeing the kiddo makes him happy, he is very, very happy and he doesn't remember feeling sad or scared or angry, even if he was just yelling a minute ago. We can still give Papa lots of good moments, because we love him. 

After that, we had to go fix ourselves up because we were both extremely snotty and gross, which gave us the opportunity to make stupid jokes about whether we should waste the extremely valuable toilet paper and whether a Kleenex over one's face counts as appropriate masking. There is definitely something to be said for the period of cathartic humor after a difficult talk. To further that, we went and had some cocoa even though it was already after ten, and I let him have marshmallows and whipped cream. Carbs and sugar, hell yes! It's good for what ails you. Then we watched Micarah Tewers again because silly seamstresses is what makes us both happy these days, and by then he was feeling okay to go to bed again. 

He's sleeping now, and I think he's doing all right. He said he likes talking to me like this, and I'm glad. I like talking to him too, though it is a continuing revelation to me the kind of complex inner life he has going on. I mean of course I understand that he is a real person, but internalizing the fact that he has somehow gone from being the extremely demanding wet bag of flour I brought home from the hospital ten years ago to a full-fledged self-determining individual whose thoughts and insights amaze and baffle me is an ongoing process. (He was an extremely cute bag of flour, don't get me wrong, but I swear to god, raising kids is sometimes like suddenly realizing your adorable baby kitten now has opinions on politics and wants you to defend your positions on moral virtue.)

Anyway, it's time for me to get to bed as well, because the only Walmart pickup slot I could get on Monday was for Friday at 7am. At least they're unlikely to be running behind during the first slot of the day, I guess? It's funny because I also made a Walmart pickup order for when I get back to Virginia, and they were offering me same day pickup. It seems like they may be a little bit more back to normal than we are here. I may have to check and see if they have toilet paper and yeast and everything. That would be awesome. 

[deladane]

Day 6: Tuesday, March 6 ~ Sea Day #2

Day 6: Tuesday, March 6 ~ Sea Day #2

Today’s daily schedule:

Last night was the one and only time we changed our clocks on this cruise.  It was nice that Captain Leo waited until the second sea day to spring our clocks ahead one hour to match the time zone in the Caribbean so we didn’t lose an hour of sleep on the very first night of the cruise. Daylight savings time occurred on the sea day mid-way through our itinerary when we were sailing from Barbados to Bonaire, so that put us back on track with the Miami time zone and saved us the need to change our clocks at the end of the cruise.  Before going to sleep last night, we put the breakfast room service door tag out and requested an 8:30-9am delivery time with hopes of sleeping in a little bit, but also to test out the process.  We like to eat breakfast on our balcony each port day to avoid the chaos at the buffet, so this was a good chance to test it out and see how things go before tomorrow when we will arrive at our first port of call. This is the breakfast room service menu for Concierge (and Aqua) class cabins.  

Despite my best efforts to sleep late, I woke up at 7am and the ship was rocking so much that I couldn’t fall back asleep.  I got up and sat outside on the balcony and took notes in my trip journal and let DH sleep a little longer.  It looked like there was a beautiful sunrise but we couldn’t see the sun directly on the starboard side this morning (I’ll bet early risers with port-side cabins had a great view though!)

At 8:25am, the cabin phone rang with a heads up that our breakfast was on the way. I have a feeling a lot of people use breakfast room service as a wake up call, so it’s a nice touch that they call on the phone first to give you a minute to open your eyes and put on some clothes or a robe or something before they come knocking on the door.  The food arrived promptly at 8:30am, and everything was hot and exactly as we ordered, including my special request for smoked salmon!  We ordered some orange juice with our breakfast- the menu has premium and regular OJ and we ordered one of each, but could not tell which was which!  I have a feeling one is fresh squeezed (presumably the premium OJ), so we ordered that for the rest of the cruise, but like I said, I really couldn’t tell the difference from the regular juice.

Instead of taking the whole stack of plates outside, I like to divide up our food inside and then we can just take one plate outside for each of us.  

My breakfast (before adding cream cheese and salmon to the bagel)

DH’s breakfast

We popped open the bottle of champagne from embarkation day (another Concierge class perk), and made some mimosas to go with our breakfast.  

We stayed out on the balcony until around 10:30am, and then relocated to the solarium.  It was another windy and cool day, so it was nice to hang out in the solarium which is a bit warmer than out by the pool.  We noticed many chairs were occupied by towels and books, but not as many as yesterday by the pool.  Luckily, there were 2 loungers available but they were in the middle of the row so we had to crawl up onto them.  Why must they set up the seats so close together?!  It gets so awkward to climb in and out of your seat, and I can only imagine how challenging this is for anyone with mobility issues.

Sorry for the terrible lighting in this photo! The section where we were sitting was right near the door to the elevators and the spa where the ceiling is a solid tarp and much dimmer than under the glass ceiling in the main seating area.

The Slush Bar is located right next to the Pool Bar on deck 12 and offers fancier versions of the standard boozy slushy drinks. These drinks take a few minutes to make, and there is only one bartender stationed at this bar, so it can take a while to get your drink, especially if there is a line before you get there. The bar is only opened from noon until 4pm, so we made sure to be there right when they opened to avoid a long wait. Here is the menu (sorry for the glare!), and the drinks are included with the premium beverage package.

Side note (because I took this photo while we were waiting for the bartender to make our drinks):  This is a photo of our sea pass cards.  Since we had the classic alcohol package when we boarded the ship, there is a code “CALL” preprinted at the bottom of the card.  When we paid for our upgrades to the premium package, they added the “PALL” sticker.  If your sticker falls off (or if you take your seapass card in the ocean/pool and it wears away), you can go to guest services and they will print you a new card with PALL printed on it.  Notice the bottom left corner of the card where it says “068”.  The seapass cards all list the last 3 digits of your cabin number, but not the first digit which is for the deck.  I think Celebrity started doing this because people forgot their cabin numbers and kept going to guest services to ask, but I’m not so sure this was the best solution.  If I lost my seapass card and someone found it, they could go to every deck and try to open the door for the cabins ending in 068… with only 7 decks on the ship with cabin numbers ending in 068, it wouldn’t take long for that person to find my cabin.  Just a thought!

DH ordered the Golden Coconut (a gourmet frozen pina colada), and I had the Spiked Razz Slush.  We both enjoyed our drinks, but honestly couldn’t taste much difference from a regular pina colada or daiquiri at the pool bar so we only returned here one or two more times during the cruise.

Back in 2016, the Slush Bar served drinks in disposable to-go cups, similar to what Starbucks uses for their frapuccinos.  We thought those cups were fun, and were disappointed to see that the Eclipse just uses the same tall hard plastic cups that they use at all the outdoor bars for frozen drinks.  I guess Celebrity decided it was better to use cups that were washable instead of wasting the disposable ones.  I can’t really blame them… it’s not like we can really take these drinks too far considering they aren’t allowed off the ship!  

We took our drinks back to our loungers in the Solarium and relaxed there for a little while until we started to get hungry for lunch. One corner of the Solarium houses the Aqua Spa Café, which serves lighter and healthier options for breakfast and lunch.  Despite the name, this spot is not restricted to people staying in Aqua Class cabins. Anyone can eat here as long as they are over age 16 (because that is the restriction for being inside the Solarium). The food was pre-plated and served buffet style, and there is a juice bar where they will make smoothies and juices both off the menu and made-to-order.  I don’t think I ever took a photo of the lunch menu (oops!), but here is the breakfast menu (taken later in the cruise, but it was the same for the whole cruise so I may as well post it now!)

These are the food options for lunch…

Fresh fruit, no idea what the white thing is- maybe yogurt??, turkey and tomato wrap

Beet salad, Caprese salad, bowtie pasta with pesto

The end of the line had a few other salads like tuna, chicken, and salmon salad.

There were also some breadsticks and a biscuit/scone type thing but I didn’t try any of these

I opted for the bowtie pesto pasta salad and the salmon salad and brought the little plates back to our loungers so I could share them with DH.  Both were light and tasty, and they made for a good pre-lunch snack.  

Of course, we can’t resist checking out what they had upstairs at the Oceanview buffet, so we took turns going up there to get a few more things to eat.  Today’s theme was A Taste of Italy and featured a fresh mozzarella station with pesto and a few kinds of tomatoes.  There was also several kinds of lasagna (DH loved the beef lasagna), meatballs, and other pasta dishes.  I ended up with a slice of pizza topped with shrimp (not a combination I’ve ever tried before but it was bizarrely tasty), pasta salad, seafood salad, fresh mozzarella with pesto, and of course, a piece of that yummy chocolate fudge cake.  

We ate our lunches on our loungers in the Solarium, then relaxed there for a few more hours until 3pm, when we went upstairs to the Sky Lounge for music trivia.  This was actually the start of a tradition for us, and we attended many of the 3pm music trivia sessions in the Sky Lounge throughout the cruise.  It was offered every day, regardless of if it was a port day or a sea day, and there was a core group of about 50 people who seemed to show up every day just like us!  At first, DH and I played on a team of just the 2 of us, and while we did respectably, we knew we wouldn’t ever win without more man power.  At some point later in the cruise, we teamed up with a couple of baby boomers and realized the secret to music trivia success: form a multi-generational team!!  DH and I knew all the songs from the late 70’s through today, and the baby boomers knew all the songs from before then.  We were allowed to have teams of up to 6 people, so this made it more fun and gave us better odds at winning.  No spoilers just yet to see if we ever did win a trivia game!

Today’s trivia theme was Broadway Music Trivia. They played 15 songs and we just had to guess the name of the show, not the song name.  DH and I have had a subscription to see the traveling Broadway shows that come to San Jose for the last 4 seasons (and we’re already signed up for the 2018-2019 season!), and I have seen over 50 Broadway shows from when I lived in New York, so we thought we had good odds with this theme.  In the end, we only got 10 out of 15 correct, and the winning team got 14 right.  Every day, at 3:30pm, they went right into general knowledge trivia which is not one of our fortes, so that was our cue to head back to the cabin and get changed for the evening.

When we got back to our cabin, our cheese tray was waiting for us, as was the disembarkation questionnaire.  Today was day 3 of a 14 day cruise, so I thought it was a bit soon to be talking about disembarkation, but I assumed it was to give us priority on our preferred time slots before they asked the rest of the ship for their forms (or maybe everyone got their forms today, I really don’t know for sure).

We went down to the Martini Bar at 4:45pm and all the seats around the bar were taken.  One of the ladies sitting there said we needed to arrive by 4pm to get a seat, but that is way too early if you ask me!  We would never be ready by then on a port day, and even if we were, we don’t need 3 hours of drinks before our 7pm dinner reservations (at least not if we want to enjoy our dinner at all!!).  Luckily, someone got up a minute later so we could take a seat, and one of the bartenders quickly took our order.  I always love when they pour multiple drinks at the same time!

I ordered a Sunset Martini, made with Grey Goose Le Citron vodka, Bacardi Coconut rum, pineapple juice, and grenadine.

A few minutes later, I noticed another bartender, Ketut, getting ready to put on a show by the Crush Bar, so I went over to check it out.  Ketut was my favorite bartender at the Martini Bar and we always tried to order from him because we thought he was the liveliest and had the best flair of the group. I am always so impressed that they can get the drinks into the correct glass without spilling!

BTW, this was a great use for the burst mode on my camera haha  Back at my seat at the bar, I was ready for round 2, so I ordered the Blue Wave Martini with Bombay Sapphire gin, peach schnapps, blue curacao, and lime juice.

One really fun feature of the Martini Bar is that the surface where you place your drinks is covered with a thin layer of ice. Make sure to always put your martini glass on a napkin or else it will stick to the ice and you may spill it when you try to pick it up!  DH found great amusement in drawing pictures in the ice while he sipped his drink. Here is today’s creation… a thirsty shark!

It’s so great that the Martini Bar is located just above the Grand Foyer so we can listen to the band performing downstairs while we enjoy our cocktails.  They are very talented and always played a great set!

After 2 drinks, we were ready to move along, but it was still too early for dinner.  Time for an impromptu photo shoot around the ship!

Those large pieces of art back near the specialty restaurants on deck 5 make for a great photo background.  On the way, we passed through the Ensemble Lounge, so we took at seat at the bar to try out a drink or two.  Unfortunately for us, we arrived right at 6pm and the bartender was extremely busy.  Not only does she make drinks for people sitting at the bar, but also for those sitting at the little tables around the lounge who order drinks from the bar waitress (who only takes drink orders but does not actually make any drinks), as well as drink orders from the specialty restaurants!  This is one very busy bartender and I was surprised she had to handle all of that by herself.  My guess is that service is a lot faster if you arrive here outside of dinner hours, but we rarely came back here so I don’t know for sure.  When we got her attention, I ordered a Kir Royale and I think DH had a beer.

A few minutes before 7pm, we made our way over to the dining room.  We requested to sit in Pinto’s section again, and the hostess said it was no problem, but for some reason, when we arrived at the table they wanted to seat us at, there was another couple sitting there.  The lady who escorted us to the table looked very confused, but just sat us at the next open table, which was unfortunately not in Pinto’s section.  At the time, we didn’t know what happened and why they assigned us to a table that was occupied, but towards the end of the cruise, we figured it out.  There was another couple who we saw escort themselves to their table.  They started to sit down and were saying that they like their waiter, Peter, but they were sitting at a table in Pinto’s section. Peter and Pinto have sections right next to each other, and I think this couple was confused and sat themselves at the wrong table, which was then assigned to us because the hostess didn’t know these people were sitting there.  Tonight, we sat at table 546, but we were assigned to table 545, and I have a hunch this couple just sat at the wrong table but meant to sit at 546.

The reason this was such a problem was that Peter and Erick were very slow as a wait team and our meal took an hour and 45 minutes, start to finish.  That was way too slow for our liking, so we talked to the hostess on the way out in hopes of getting back in Pinto’s section tomorrow.  She was a bit confused as to why we weren’t in his section tonight, but assured us she would do her best to seat us with Pinto tomorrow if there were tables available.

But let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves. Here is tonight’s dinner menu:

Barolo Braised Beef Ragout

Sesame Crusted Tuna Carpaccio

Mediterranean Seafood Orzo

Lemon-Pepper Roasted Chicken

Roasted Beef Flank Steak

Dessert Menu

Apple Pie (minus the ‘a la mode’) from the classic menu

We left the dining room at 8:45pm, and hurried over to the World Class Bar to pick up a drink to bring to the theater for the show.  I tried the Celebrity No. Ten and really enjoyed it.  It was light and refreshing, and was conveniently served in an easy-to-carry glass haha

Tonight’s show was a comedian named Dan Grueter, and the daily schedule described his jokes as quick and clean.  I do not usually like when comedians resort to profanity and dirty jokes to get a laugh, so I was hopeful for these “clean” jokes. He was very funny, but he did not have a pre-written routine.  Instead, he talked to people in the first few rows of the audience and made jokes about them. I must have been very tired from all of the relaxing we did today because I nodded off towards the end of his show.  Luckily, we were sitting at the back of the room and he didn’t see me!

When the show ended, I went back to the cabin to pack up our bags for our first port day, while DH went to the atrium to listen to Hard Days Night.  I was fast asleep by the time he returned to the cabin, but he later told me the band was a lot of fun and I missed a good set.  I guess you can’t do everything on a cruise, and I needed my beauty sleep before arriving in St. Maarten tomorrow.

Step Tracker Daily Total:  6018 steps; 2.45 miles; 113 flights of stairs*

*So yea, I think it’s highly unlikely that I walked up 113 flights of stairs in one day haha  More likely, the strong winds that persisted all day today caused the ship to rock up and down, and I spent most of the day towards the forward end of the ship (in the Solarium and the Sky Lounge), and that end of the ship felt more movement than had I been mid-ship.  Very weird, but at least this was the last day I experienced glitches like that on my Fitbit.