Screen Time

I have been trying to spend less time looking at  screens.

Thanks for the kind e-mails, they really cheer me up!  I have not posted in a long while for various reasons.  We've been busy with health appointments for starters.  Also, it seemed that it would be easier to drive a van camper (after renting one in Spain for over a month) so we went and bought one.  A 2015 Winnebago ERA Touring Coach model 170A on a Mercedes 3500 Sprinter chassis.  Only 17,000 miles in ten years, serviced at the Mercedes dealer annually.  Of course, such little use presents its own problems, notably with dried seals and such.  But the chassis part seems indomitable - so far.  And yes, it came with new tires.

First stop: Mistletoe State Park, near Augusta!

So, here we are in the Poconos, and I am finding it less and less attractive to look at my phone or to go on the computer.  Google searches return only incorrect or plainly wrong AI responses - or worse, ads for things they think I want to buy.  The "News" - particularly the once-storied Washington Post and New York Times seem to be all click-bait and rage-bait.  Might as well click on a Taboola feed story!  Social media is flooded with SPAM and trolls.  The lowest common denominator is now the norm.  Pseudo-science and conspiracy theories are bandied about as gospel and those who try to say otherwise are attacked.

Why bother?  There is no "there" there.

Others are fascinated.  Juan loves his tick-tock and not just for the porn content.  His phone sounds like a cacophony of noises and weird music as each short video plays.  Mark and I spent a considerable sum buying him iBuds, but he never uses them.  The other day, I heard the similar sounds coming from Mark's phone.  We had a discussion about that.

There is little to be gathered online anymore, other than the weather and maybe a few headlines (most of which are clickbait or ragebait as noted).  Even e-mails and texts are SPAN and junk.  I find myself not looking at the phone for days.  Juan looks at it constantly, as I assume most Americans do - based on the erratic drivers we pass, which you can see texting at 75 MPH in a construction zone.

In a way, it is like when I contracted the Norovirus on the Carnival Valor.  Three weeks of explosive diarrhea and the pounds just melt away!   My appetite for food disappeared overnight - for the first time in my life! I lost 20 pounds in two weeks.

Similarly, my "appetite" for screen time has shrunk to nearly zero.  I am just not hungry for click-bait news or garbage postings on social media.  It just isn't worth the time and effort, for the ever-diminishing returns involved.

Well, that and we've been busy.  The new camper has seen some neglect, or worse, half-assed attempts at repairs by the late owner.  The $8 rubber coupling on the toilet flange was dried out, so Dad decided to use 20 lbs. of spray foam to "fix" it.  PSA: Spray foam is NOT a sealant!  In fact, it is pretty useless for anything.  Just leave it on the shelf.  And never hire a contractor who has half-used cans of spray foam rolling around in the back of his pickup truck.  Not only is it not a sealant, it absorbes water like a sponge.

Some of the poop-soaked spray foam, which came out in chunks.  Ugh!

So, after gouging away 20 lbs of poop-soaked spray foam from around the toilet flange (after crawling under the coach!) I was able to remove the offending rubber sleeve and replace it with one from Lowe's for eight bucks.   What would have been a ten minute job became a two-hour long nightmare in the 95-degree Georgia heat, thanks to spray foam and Dad/s half-assed previous repair job.

The toilet flange with the spray foam removed and rubber sleeve removed.

Weird thing, while Parkinson's is making it hard for me to walk (and even type!), my dopamine levels seem to boost when I am confronted with a repair problem.  Put a wrench in my hand and the trembling stops right away!  I guess some musicians have this same effect - shaking like a leaf, until they pick up the guitar or sit at the piano and play.

The rubber sleeve, cracked as I expected.

Well, at least that's something!  Maybe I should take up the piano!

The new sleeve - longer and no leaks!

So Mark has a laundry list of things to fix on the new camper - together.   I guess this will keep me busy for a while!

The New Modesty

Granny was way ahead of her time!

You leave the country for a couple of months and all hell breaks loose.  Maybe it is being away for a while that puts new perspectives on things, but it seems some dramatic changes are happening, in social standards, styles, mores, and laws (or lack thereof).

I leave an America where women are wearing thongs or "Daisy Duke" cutoffs, and return to a puritan country where women are wearing "granny dresses."  Even in sin city New Orleans, I see flocks of tourists, with the wives all covered from head-to-toe in ugly, ill-fitting dresses, with puffy sleeves and some sort of embroidered panel covering their boobs. We visit WalMart - the real "heartbeat of America" and racks and racks of granny dresses are on proud display, right up front - your choice of primary colors!  When it makes it to the aisles of WalMart, it is become mainstream.

I mean, I get it - the far-right has ascended into power, but such changes so soon?  So fast?

I suppose it was inevitable.  Over time, women have shorn themselves of more and more clothing and exposed more and more flesh. In the late 1800's even showing your ankles was considered scandalous. By mid-century, dresses were knee-high, off the shoulder, and showing some cleavage was considered the norm.  By the swinging 60s, it was bikinis and cutoffs.  Eventually, there was nothing left to do, but go naked.  And today's "swimsuits" amount to little more than a patch of cloth and a string. Some women argue that they should be allowed to go topless - as the men are already allowed to do.

So it makes sense, in a weird way, that there was nowhere to go but to do a re-set back to ground zero.  The granny dress is "in" and it may be another 100 years before the thong rears its ugly head. Again.

Of course, maybe it is time men tried a little modesty.  Man-boobs are not appealing, even if it is a "norm" for men to go topless.  And shorts don't have to be the default dress code.  Combined with "manspreading" it leaves little to the imagination.  Ugh.

But maybe that is the point - misogyny.  Women must cover up their shame, while men flaunt it for all to see, whether invited or not.

Maybe time for the Muu Muu to make a comeback!

Health Update:  It seems you can't go on a Carnival cruise without getting the Norovirus.  On the mend, I hope! Instead of on the toilet!

Call Me Ishmael -or- Two Weeks Before the Mast

Two weeks on a cruise ship cured me of cruising!

Day 13.  People are getting desperate.  The bar is out of Margarita mix.  Fistfights are breaking out at the Guy Fieri hamburger bar, as overweight men scramble for the last of the precious "donkey sauce."  Women are selling their virtues in exchange for clean linens. All hell is breaking loose.

Well, maybe not that bad, but it is monotonous.  Our cruise director "LiA" (I kid you not) makes cheerful announcements over the P.A. system, each seeming more desperate than the last.  It is hard to put a novel spin on the same old thing, after weeks at sea.  Every morning, the same breakfast.  Eggs Benedict sounds dreamy, until you've had them ten days in a row, and they are often served cold.  I've taken to eating corn flakes instead - kind of hard to screw up cold cereal  but I am sure they will give it a try.  This AM, the last of the butter disappeared, only to be replaced with margarine.  Tiny, soggy bagels are offered at the buffet, undertoasted at 4AM this morning, and now just a cold, bready mess.

It is not all bad, of course.  The entertainers are not too bad.  One fellow plays the classic guitar in the lobby.  Turns out he is an unpaid volunteer.  Perhaps he gets a discount for doing this.  A violin trio does interesting interpretations of popular songs - but with a cue track, much as the "piano bar" player does.  A nice older couple who clearly studied Ballroom glides across the floor to everyone's amazement and applause.  I saw him later and said, "You guys are great!  But save some for the honeymoon!"  His wife looked exhausted after the tenth dance.  I wish I had that energy.

Speaking of which, I am feeling better in terms of digestion - getting over whatever I had and whatever Juan had before me.  The Parkinson's thing seems stable, no better or worse - maybe slightly worse.  Walking is odd - I don't try to walk like Frankenstein, it just happens.  One big problem is my lifemate is always looking for signs of trouble.  Juan asks where he can plug in his phone and I point to the lamp beside his bed.  "There's no USB port there!" Mark says condescendingly.  I reach out to move his ear buds which are blocking the USB port and he slaps my hand away.  "There's no plug there!" he says, almost smugly.  Ol' dementia Bob is off his meds again!

I finally reach around him and push the ear buds to one side, revealing the USB port.  "Oh!" he says, "I didn't see that!"  No apology.  No admission he was wrong (and wrong to talk to me like I was some child).  It seems he thinks my brain is already shot and I need to be cared for like some old decrepit grandpa.  I mean, it may come to that, eventually, but let's not rush things!  But this sort of thing causes tension.  I guess he means well, but gee, it seems like he's almost enjoying this a little bit.

Oh, well. I ain't perfect, either.  But, like screaming at deaf people (or refusing to repeat yourself when you talk in a whisper, facing away), chiding a memory care patient for not remembering something is just plain cruel.  I remember things - too many things - but often I forget the names of these things.  This is a common symptom.

Well, we are off the coast of Florida, passing the Dry Tortugas.  We are 500 miles from New Orleans, which we could reach in a day, but for some reason, won't dock for two days.  A day or two in the Big Easy to relax, and then back home via rented car.

It will be nice to be on dry land again.

Sea-Sick

15 days at sea is a long time to be at sea!

We are a few days from docking in New Orleans.   Progress is slow - about 19 knots or 20 MPH or so - covering a scant 500 miles a day, if that.  Boredom sets in and certain food items have run out.  A waitstaff person tells me I took the very last banana.  Someone screwed up on the provisioning!

Carnival caters to a lower-class clientel than Holland America.  Instead of movies on demand, we get a  24-hour channel of "paranormal investigators" and HGTV.  "Carl is an assistant paper-clip sorter and his wife Ella is a homemaker.  Their annual income is $15,000 a year and their housing budget is $1.5 million."  Who are these people?  And of course, Ella passes up a great house at a great price because one of the bedrooms is painted green.  These channels tell me a lot about their target audience.

Juan fell ill in Barcelona, complaining about diarrhea and then later, leg pains.  He was nauseous in the morning and Mark ribbed him that maybe he was pregnant. He got better in a few days, but then whatever it was hit me.  I don't think it is sea sickness, as Juan had it on dry land.  I am mostly over it now, although my stomach is gurgling loudly.

The abbreviated rocking of the boat (stabilizers almost made the ride worse - causing a choppy back and forth movement) does tend to induce a mild dizziness in the hardiest of seafarers.  And this is during calm weather, too!   Right now, we are in two-foot seas, no whitecaps - calm weather, following seas.  On both crossings there were days when the bow of the boat plunged through 12-15 foot waves, throwing up an impressive spray.  Oddly enough, that was a more pleasant ride as the weather overwhelmed the stabilizers, producing a gentle, rocking roll.  But those stabilizer (fins) are probably the only thing keeping these top-heavy cruise ships from rolling over, like the SS Poseidon.  Not sure I want to do a Shelly Winters.

The Carnival Valor's regular route are 4-5 night cruises out of New Orleans to Cozumel or Caribbean island ports. This transatlantic crossing is a one-off for her, as the only purpose of it was to drydock in Cadiz, Spain for new carpet and paint (and a new sauna facility!) among other improvements.  We stopped briefly in Cadiz after leaving Barcelona, to take on more workers to finish some minor repairs.  I think they were flown home from Punta Delgada.

Unlike the Holland America Oosterdam, the Valor doesn't make an annual habit of crossing the Atlantic to move with the seasons - from the Caribbean to the Mediterranean, much as Alaska cruise ships  winter over in Hawaii, serving the island trade.  So I guess it is not unexpected that the crew was unprepared for 15 days at sea - ten of them uninterrupted.

(I whine about 15 days at sea, when we met a "Cruiser" who just came off 71 days of cruising.  The thought of it makes me ill - again).

We sailed right by Bermuda, whose lights could have been seen on the horizon, but for a cloud bank.  We are poised to thread our way through the Bahamas and then pass by Key West on the way to New Orleans.  I suspect they are not stopping at Key West due to the Jones Act, or perhaps because of the delay it would cause - and the port fees.  No great loss.  Key West is no longer the Key West we used to know and love, and cruise ship dockings - which dump thousands of people onto Duval Street for eight hours at a time, are part and parcel of the problem.

This may be the last cruise we go on.  We were never big cruise ship fans and my previous postings on the subject verify this.  Still, it was interesting and novel, to travel by ship, but not something I need to do again and again, as some "diamond guests" do - going on as many as 20-30 cruises during their lifetime.

Speaking of which!  The big hubub on the ship was the announcement that the frequent cruiser program was being overhauled.  I have written time and time again about these loyalty programs - designed to lock you into one brand and one company.  You never get ahead in these games and even if you did, well, they simply change the rules of the game much as the airlines have done over the years, again and again, with "frequent flyer miles."  Time was, you could fly the whole family to Hawaii on your flyer miles.  Then, as overbooking became the norm, the best you could hope for was an upgrade.  Today, even that is gone and the best thing you can hope for with frequent flyer miles is to be the last person bumped from the plane due to overbooking.  Some treat!

The frequent cruisers are pissed-off.  They spent thousands - tens of thousands - of dollars over the years, trying to build up their cruiser "status" and patiently wait while they climb the ladder high enough to get venerated diamond status.  Now, it is all being taken away, or at least they have been kicked down a few rungs.  Anxious couples sit closely together in the quiet Eagle lounge, studying the new terms of the contract, looking for a new hope. "Well, you do get a free bottle of water!" one wife says to her husband, "that's something, anyway!"

The husband merely grunts in return.  I feel his pain.  I have four of these bottles of water on my desk in my stateroom.  A cheerful note on a necktag attached to each bottle informs me that I should stay hydrated!  At $4.95 a bottle!  No thanks!

You can't win, chasing these award points or miles or ten cents off a gallon of gas.  Maybe, at best, if you end up shopping at a certain store or going on the same airline, you can use these points for a minor discount or upgrade. But don't kid yourself you are getting anything for "free" - even a $4.95 bottle of water.  But if these programs alter your financial decision-making, well, then you are losing badly.

I recall a guy writing an article in the Post a few years back, about how he would book his business trips to take the longest flights possible - going from LA to NY by way of Portland, Chicago, Houston, and Boston - just to rack up more flyer miles.  Spending ten hours on an airplane for points makes no sense to me.  But people do this stuff all the time, distracted by the ancillary "deal" and neglecting the underlying transaction.

So yes, I indulged in a little schadenfreude over this cruise-line screw-job.  The veteran cruisers were getting the shaft, and all the medallions listing their previous cruises - adorning their cabin door like medals on a North Korean General - now mean nothing.

Well, that's all I have for now.  See you on shore!

What I Will Miss About Spain

Europe seems to be more practical about many things.

There are so many little things - and large ones - that distinguish Europe from America.  You don't realize how much of a cash-grab the USA has become over the years, in the name of "free-dum."  Time was, you could buy a house and raise a family on the salary of a milkman, mailman, or policeman (as the Up With People! idolize).  Today, only the policeman is making out financially, thanks to a strong union.  But who knows?  Maybe that will be privatized next.

I mentioned the ice before - it comes in small bags of enormous cubes - so large that a typical glass holds only one.  Perfect for a sipping drink like bourbon or scotch.  In the US, commercial ice machines (and I do own one) make tiny cubes - perfect for shaking a martini, but also perfect for making a "fountain drink" - 70% ice and 30% drink.  I'll miss the ice.

Plastic bottles have a cap that is retained by a ring, so when you open a bottled water or soft drink, the cap stays attached.  No loose caps littering the ground and recycling is easier.  Speaking of which, recycling is much easier, as is garbage disposal. Huge recycling bins, each the size of a small car, are placed on nearly every block.  One for glass, one for plastic, and another for general trash.   It is never hard to find a garbage can in Spain, and as a result, the streets are cleaner.  Well, that and an army of street cleaners - both the machine kind and human kind, wash the roads and sidewalks daily instead of annually.  And the guys on the highway picking up trash?  They are paid employees, not convicted criminals doing "community service."

There are, of course, some downsides.  The fascination with diesel engines, for example. More efficient, I guess (slightly, compared to hybrids), but also more polluting.  And diesel is not more expensive than gasoline (or not much more) so I guess that drives the narrative.   Yes, fuel is expensive.  We paid anywhere from $1.25 to $1.80 a liter for diesel (about $5 to $7 a gallon) which is a lot more than we pay in the States.  Smaller cars are the norm, and yea, it takes some getting used to, to see a BMW 5-series "M" model with a diesel engine.

But I am not sure that "cheap gas" is worth all the other hassles we have in America.  The delta in the cost of fuel is far outweighed by the expense of student loans or health care.  We cheer for a our cheap gas, and then blow the advantage by purchasing fuel-hog vehicles.  I never measured the gas mileage on the Fiat (Ram Workmaster) van we rented, but it never seemed like a lot of money to fill it up.  And since everything else was much cheaper than in America, it was a wash.

As a result of expensive fuel, people buy more fuel-efficient vehicles, which can be quite roomy, like our Kia Hamster is.  Plus, the level of public transportation blows America out of the water.  Even when the trainmen go on strike (because they actually have unions here) there is luxury bus service from competing companies to take you almost anywhere in the country,

Bike lanes are the norm everywhere and people seem to respect bicyclists, even on narrow country lanes.  And pedestrian crosswalks are as  wide as a car lane and controlled by leisurely traffic lights.  In uncontrolled crosswalks, the default is the pedestrian has the right of way over any car.  Walking in any city is a treat, not an obstacle course.  And people walk everywhere, sometimes just to walk or paseo.  Europeans think nothing of walking a kilometer or two, whereas Americans would reach for the car keys.

Like I said, bike lanes - everywhere.  Of course, the e-bike (and the e-scooter) rules the road - or the bike lane, anyway.  Meanwhile, in the US, we are told that wide sidewalks and bike lanes are impractical and should be sacrificed for yet another lane of traffic - to protect the auto industry, which today, comprises mostly foreign makes or foreign-owned US brands.  There are other ways to live!

Of course, this is not to say it is a Shangri-La.  Locals complain about the price of housing.  A one-bedroom condo might cost you $150,000 in the big city!  Not a lot of money, but then again, salaries are not very high. Many young people work two jobs to make ends meet.  And the right wing complains about illegal immigrants.   We are more alike than different.

I could go on - there are so many other little things, too, which seem, well, just practical.  You see a parking space across the street?  No need to do a U-turn, just park the "wrong" way.  You won't be ticketed or towed (a handy feature when trying to wrestle a van down the side streets in the "old" town).  In fact, the presence of police seems a lot more subdued, although in one city we visited, the police vans had fold down riot cages that slid over the windows.  I guess they do expect trouble from time to time.

Anyway, we are on the Carnival Valor halfway across the Atlantic.  What a change from the Holland America Oosterdam.  No lectures to attend, or art classes to take, but two giant water slides and a huge (and well-attended) casino.  Carnival touts itself as home of the "Fun Ships!" and the fun, I guess, comprises alcoholism and compulsive gambling.  It is darker and louder than a Holland America ship, but at least we did get an upgrade to a balcony stateroom.

The entire ship is decorated in patriotic tchotchke.  The Washington Dining Room, the Lincoln Lounge, the Eagle Bar (America Eagles dominate the ship - literally hundreds of them!).  It is an interesting welcome home to America. And no, the "Hall of Presidents" bar and lounge doesn't have a bass relief of Trump - yet.

But maybe that is the one thing that distinguishes Europe from America.  They've lived through wars and fascist dictatorships and don't want a repeat performance.  Perhaps.  Then again, the rise of far-right parties across the continent seems to indicate that the younger generation hasn't learned from history.

Oh, well.