Ten Years After

The Biloxi Bridge after Katrina

In 2005, my father (83 at the time) was living in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, in the Villa Maria Retirement Apartments:  a low-income senior building, a concrete high rise, that was four blocks from the water and one of the tallest things in town. He lived on the top floor, with a panoramic view of the Gulf Coast and its casinos, which often shot off fireworks on Friday nights. Villa Maria was a mile, maybe less, from the U.S. 90 bridge between Biloxi and Ocean Springs. He adored living there. He’d been even happier living on his sailboat in Biloxi, but health concerns had forced him off the boat and into an apartment. He’d had quadruple bypass in 2001, and in 2005 he often used a wheelchair and was also on a feeding tube -- which he hated; the man loved his food and especially his drink -- because of swallowing problems after a stroke.

I don’t clearly remember the sequence of events leading up to Katrina. We were all concerned about the storm, but Dad’s building wasn’t under mandatory evacuation orders, and he had no plans to leave. I remember at some point hearing that storm damage hadn’t been that bad and being relieved. We weren’t yet worried about not being able to reach Dad; we weren’t surprised phones were down. Then, on Monday morning, my sister called me and said, “Susan, New Orleans is flooding. The levees broke.”

My father was ninety miles from New Orleans, but reports from the Mississippi Gulf Coast were grim, too. That bridge I mentioned?  It’s the one everyone saw on the news, the one reduced to rubble by the storm. What were the odds that Villa Maria, so nearby and with such a high profile, hadn’t also been demolished?  “He has to be dead,” my sister said. “I just hope it was quick.”

We started a frenzied search for information. There was no getting through to anyone in Ocean Springs, but I found an online bulletin board where relatives and friends of people who lived in the Villa Maria were posting queries and sharing whatever they’d heard. No one had heard much.

Then, on Wednesday, a friend of Dad’s drove by the Villa Maria, saw people there, and realized that the building hadn’t been evacuated, as he’d assumed. He raced up to my father’s apartment, handed Dad his cellphone, and said, “Call your daughters. They’re going to be frantic.”

Dad called my sister. She heard his voice and started crying.

To hear him tell it, the storm had been a jolly romp. “They told us to go down to the lobby, so I went down there in my wheelchair with my mattress and my pillow and my Ensure and a bottle of vodka, and I poured Ensure and vodka through my feeding tube, and I was fine!” Whatever gets you through the night, Dad. Remarkably, the Villa Maria had suffered only minor roof damage, perhaps because the strongest winds had flowed around it rather than hitting it head-on. Dad was back in his apartment within a day.

We were very lucky. Millions of other people weren’t.

I flew down to Ocean Springs for Thanksgiving that year. Ocean Springs itself had been largely spared, although all of the beautiful old trees had trash in their topmost branches: clothing, children’s toys, kitchen utensils. Dad and I went for a drive along U.S. 90, the road to New Orleans, taking a long detour around the ruined bridge. Before the storm, the road had been lined with floating casinos on one side and antebellum mansions, surrounded by venerable trees, on the others. All gone. We drove through a moonscape littered with unidentifiable sticks and scraps.  A few staircases rose alone into the air for a few feet. Otherwise, it would have been impossible to tell that the area had ever been populated.

Our drive back to the Villa Maria was very quiet.

Everyone I talked to in Ocean Springs had a Katrina story. Almost everyone knew somebody who had died; many people had harrowing evacuation stories. No one had anything good to say about FEMA. No one had anything bad to say about the National Guard, hailed as heroes and saviors. One woman told me she’d complained to a Guardsman about the Meals Ready to Eat that everyone had been given. “It’s too much food! I can’t eat all that!”

“Ma’am,” the Guardsman said, “MREs are designed for the nutritional needs of soldiers in combat. You’re sitting in your living room reading a book.”

My favorite National Guard story came from Dad’s friend Darlene, who taught art at a local at-risk school where most of the students were black and very poor. The Friday before the storm hit, she’d gotten her classroom ready for the beginning of school the following week. She’d cleaned, put up student artwork from the previous year to inspire her new pupils, and left a to-do list on the corner of her desk. 

School didn’t start the following week. Darlene learned that her school was being used to billet National Guard troops, and assumed that the place would be a shambles. As soon as she could drive safely again, she went to the school and asked if she could visit her classroom. Yes, of course she could.

The room was pristine. The to-do list was still where it had been on her desk, and the Guardsmen had used the blackboard to leave notes for the children, telling them how beautiful their artwork was. I’m not sure if Darlene cried when she told me this story, but I cried when I heard it, and I’m crying now, typing it.  

The Villa Maria instituted a new policy that in the event of a hurricane, all residents would have to evacuate and wouldn’t be able to return to the building until any repairs were completed. Because evacuation wouldn’t have been feasible for him, Dad decided to leave his beloved Gulf Coast. In 2006, he moved to live near my sister in Philadelphia. On his birthday that year, he sent me $300 and asked me to research Katrina charities and send the money to the ones I considered worthiest. In 2008, he moved to Reno to be near me and Gary. He died in 2009. He wasn’t technically one of the displaced because he left shelter that was still habitable, and he didn’t apply for or receive FEMA money, but there’s no doubt that he was part of the larger Katrina diaspora. He was never as happy as he’d been on the Gulf Coast. (After he died, our plans to scatter his ashes in the Gulf were defeated by another disaster, the BP oil spill. I was glad he wasn’t alive to see that; it would have left him sickened and despairing.)

Meanwhile, in 2006, my novel The Necessary Beggar won an Alex Award from the American Library Association, and I flew down to New Orleans to accept the award -- one of ten given to adult books with YA crossover appeal -- at the ALA convention. We were the first convention to meet there after Katrina, in the infamous convention center which had gotten so much press, and which was now as bland and antiseptic as most facilities of that sort. On the shuttle ride from the airport, my driver pointed out storm damage, implored us to spend as much money as we could in the city, and thanked us fervently for coming.

Everyone thanked us for coming. Shop windows displayed signs: “We love you ALA.” The city was desperate for business. Many people at the convention took storm tours of the hardest hit parts of the city; I didn’t, because I didn’t think I could bear it, but I wandered through shops, searching for anything I wanted to buy, fighting my guilt when I found only a bracelet, a Katrina memorial t-shirt, and a souvenir voodoo doll for Gary.  

For several years after the storm, I occasionally met Katrina survivors in the ER. One patient told me he was from Biloxi, and we had a long, lively conversation. “Sure I know the Villa Maria! You can see that building for miles. I’m so glad your dad was okay.” Although we’d never met before, and although I’d never actually lived in those communities, it felt like a family reunion. The patient had gone through, was going through, agonies I'd been spared; even so, both of us understood things that other people around us didn't.  

My family was very lucky. My father was in the right place in the right circumstances; even with limited income and mobility, he was less poor and had more options than many of the people (black and terrifyingly poor, left without any money because the storm hit at the end of the month) who died when the New Orleans levees broke. We were grateful for our privileges and enraged on behalf of those who didn’t share them. We mourned those who had died and gave thanks for those who hadn’t.  

I live in the desert, thousands of miles from the Gulf Coast. I know some people might challenge my belief that Katrina is part of my history, too. I’m white and affluent; I wasn’t there; the person I loved who was there made it through largely unscathed. Other people lost and suffered so much more. But I’ll always feel a connection to that terrible time, and I’ll never hear a hurricane forecast without thinking about Katrina.

Little and Big

Here's today's homily; the readings are 1 Kings 3:5-12 and Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52.

I'm preaching again in two weeks, at the St. Stephen's reunion. I've rarely, if ever, had to write two homilies this close together, and I have deep respect for people who do this every Sunday.

*

In November 1998, Esquire published a cover article by Tom Junod about Fred Rogers, host of the beloved children’s television show Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. Junod’s immensely moving profile includes this story:

On December 1, 1997 . . . a boy . . . told his friends to watch out, that he was going to do something "really big" the next day at school, and the next day at school he took his gun and his ammo and his earplugs and shot eight classmates who had clustered for a prayer meeting. Three died, and they were still children, almost. The shootings took place in West Paducah, Kentucky, and when Mister Rogers heard about them, he said, "Oh, wouldn't the world be a different place if [that boy] had said, 'I'm going to do something really little tomorrow,'" and he decided to dedicate a week of the Neighborhood to the theme "Little and Big." He wanted to tell children that what starts out little can sometimes become big, so they could devote themselves to little dreams without feeling bad about them.

The really big news this week is the horrific massacre in Norway, which seems to be everywhere we look, inescapable and omnipresent. Our Good News this week, our Gospel reading, is about really little things, the seemingly insignificant items we can so easily overlook: the mustard seed that grows into a large, life-giving shrub; yeast, invisible when stirred into dough, that transforms it into the miracle of bread; a fine pearl, grown from a grain of sand, that’s worth more than everything else in the market.

The Kingdom of Heaven, Jesus says, dwells in and results from these really little things. Fred Rogers was an ordained Presbyterian minister, and I have a strong hunch that he was thinking about this Gospel passage when he planned his week of “Little and Big” programs.

Jesus is speaking metaphorically, indirectly. As usual, he doesn’t tell us everything, but forces us to figure things out for ourselves. From this morning’s metaphors, here are a few things we can figure out about the Kingdom of Heaven.

First, it requires patience. Mustard seeds don’t become large plants overnight.

Second, it requires faith. You won’t plant the mustard seed unless you believe it will grow. You won’t look for the pearl unless you believe the market contains things worth finding.

Third, it requires discernment. Here’s a jumble of stuff in a market stall: souvenir t-shirts and plastic fridge magnets and 100% genuine local handicrafts made in China, and hey, the merchant’s offering a special sale on paste-glass rhinestones, five hundred for ninety-nine cents, and over here, almost hidden in a corner, is a small, round white thing with smelly bits of oyster still clinging to it. What are you looking for, and what will you buy?

And finally, attaining the Kingdom may require sacrifice, both of wealth and reputation. Dude! You can get five hundred of these pretty paste-glass rhinestones for ninety-nine cents, and you’re selling all that you have to buy that little smelly round white thing? Are you nuts?

A firm grasp on history helps with all this. Just as that large shrub started out as a tiny seed, famous King Solomon started out as “a little child” in the midst of “a great people, so numerous they cannot be numbered or counted.” We most easily discern the Kingdom of God, then, when we look both forward and back.

In fact, the Kingdom is everywhere around us, and also, Jesus promises, within us. Because our really big news is so often about atrocity -- Norway, 9/11, Columbine -- all of us need to cultivate the discipline of seeking out and tending the Kingdom, the Good News that starts out really little, usually where no one else is looking. It might show up, for instance, in a stable, in an obscure corner of an occupied territory, in the form of that weakest of creatures, a newborn human infant.

But that was two thousand years ago. If the Kingdom is everywhere, invisible and omnipresent as yeast in bread, where do we find it now?

With luck, all of us have many answers to that question. Here are two of mine.

First, I firmly believe that we become citizens of the Kingdom, helping to create and maintain it, when we perform even the smallest acts of mercy and charity, loving our neighbors as Jesus commands us to do. The really big bad news, the horror we see on TV, is often the work of people who’ve used terror and violence to tear huge holes in creation. It’s easy for us to despair, to believe that nothing can fix these gaping rents. Certainly we cannot do so by ourselves. But each tiny act of kindness is one stitch, repairing those holes, and enough small stitches will mend even the most tattered fabric.

Some of you know that I volunteer as a lay ER chaplain. On Friday, I helped an elderly man eat his lunch, cutting his turkey for him because he couldn’t do it himself. That tiny act couldn’t fix what happened in Norway, but it made me –- and him -– feel better. It kept me focused on what I can do instead of on what I can’t, and it reminded me that even the smallest kindnesses are infinitely valuable to those they help. When any of us feed our neighbors, we expand the Kingdom, giving despair and atrocity a little less growing room.

Here is my second example of finding the Kingdom in something small and easily overlooked. A few years ago, my husband and I spent a week in Honolulu, staying in one of the garish Waikiki mega-hotels. We love to snorkel, and before flying to Oahu, we’d read guide books describing the best snorkel spots on the island. Most, because they’re in the guide books, are overcrowded tourist meccas.

Our first morning on the island, we strolled along the Waikiki beach until we reached a small park, a series of pocket beaches separated by jetties. On a whim, we asked one of the lifeguards, “Hey, any good snorkeling around here?”

The lifeguard pointed two jetties over. “There. The fish love the rocks and the coral.”

We walked over to the tiny beach he’d indicated, donned the snorkel gear we’d brought along just in case, entered the water -- and found ourselves in heaven. The water was crystalline, filled with brilliantly colored fish, so numerous they could not be numbered or counted. We watched schools of angelfish, butterflyfish, yellow tang. We stayed there for hours, hovering above endless parades of fish. We saw no other humans. This little beach wasn’t in the guidebooks. All of our fellow snorkelers had rushed to the tourist meccas.

We returned to our pocket beach every day. It never failed to delight us, to create deep joy. We didn’t sell everything we had to keep visiting it –- although airfare to Hawai’i can feel like that –- but we did forego a host of more famous, high-profile attractions.

Coral polyps, as most of you probably know, are very small animals. Coral reefs take even longer to grow than mustard plants do, and like mustard plants, they support an enormous diversity of life. If Jesus had been a snorkeler, I’m sure the Gospels would include some parables about reefs.

I’m home in Reno now, but that little reef is still inside me. During the really big news from Norway, I’ve found myself revisiting it, cherishing its fragile peace and beauty. In the midst of horror, it comforts me. May all of us find such Kingdoms, and help others find them.

Amen.

Blah

I'm back, after a rather more inconvenient trip home than my very easy one out. Flying East always seems to go more smoothly than flying West.

I haven't been able to get myself going today. While I enjoyed Mythcon a great deal (and have already registered for next year in Berkeley), the hotel was horrendous. I was allergic to something in the AC, and the bed was too soft for me, and they didn't have an espresso machine so I had to take the hotel shuttle to Starbucks to get my brain in gear each morning -- the shuttle folks were very nice about this, but it was still a hassle -- and there was, I swear, not one comfortable chair in the entire place. The wifi in my room was erratic. The laundry I delivered to the front desk the first morning (getting everything into carry-on was predicated on being able to do laundry) was never picked up, so I had to do the laundry myself, and the front desk was out of laundry soap, so I had to buy some. At least they had a small laundromat onsite and the machines worked, although someone else doing a load told me the hotel staff had warned her not to run both dryers at once.

There were also bizarre issues like my housekeeping tip being apparently stolen out of the room the first day, vanishing hours before any housekeeping was done, and the fact that two of us in my hallway returned from evening programming to find washcloths wrapped around our outside doorknobs, while the people across from me found their door open, although nothing was missing. The front desk staff had no interest in any of this. Someone Googled the hotel and learned that it has a reputation for theft, and while there may have been some perfectly logical and harmless explanation for the little strangenesses, I found myself on edge. (One of the conference attendees was indeed robbed, but I think she may have been staying at another hotel.)

You get the idea. Travel's tiring, and so's being ill at ease in a strange place. (One of the shuttle drivers told me the Reno Aces stay at that hotel when they're in Albuquerque. Gary's response to this was, "Yeah, that's how they know they aren't the majors.") I think it's a testament to my exercise regimen and my chiropractor that my back held up during all of this, but I'm still a lot more worn out and fuzzy-brained today than I usually am after a trip. Maybe it's dehydration. Maybe it's my age showing. Whatever it is, I have no energy -- although I did exercise for an hour -- and I've gotten no writing done yet today.

Yeah, I know. Okay, Susan. Stop whining. Go write!

Wild Horses Framed by Train Window

Wild Horses from Window of V&T Train

View from the V&T Train to Virginia City

Yarn on the Hoof

Driving to church today -- a route that takes me through a flat, ugly part of town, with lots of dismal strip malls -- I happened to glance to my left and saw, standing at a fence . . . two llamas! I goggled at them for a minute, thinking maybe they were huge, misshapen dogs, but quickly realized my error. I think maybe they'd been sheared recently; one reason they looked so weird is that large swathes of hair were missing.

I wonder if somebody around here is making llama yarn. Although, given the recent heat, they might have needed a shave to cool off, poor things. Anyway, they were grazing in a nice little enclosed meadow which, when I scrutinized the area as closely as I could on my drive-by, included some barn-looking outbuildings. I've never noticed this before. A lot of Reno used to be farm or ranchland, and there are still pockets of grazing land where you least expect them: a herd of cows munching away next to a bottling plant or self-storage place, say.

On my way back from church, I drove by the meadow again to see if I could get a photo of the llamas (llami?), but I didn't see them. I'll keep looking.

I turned the heel on my mother-in-law's first sock today. I'm afraid I may have made it a smidgen too long, and the thing looks huge anyway because it's made from relatively inelastic yarn, but I've learned that socks that look too big often fit fine. I hope to have them finished and mailed off to her by the time I leave for Albuquerque in twelve days.

The socks have created a delay in the scarf-weaving project. However, last night I had an epiphany and realized that instead of using thirty different bobbins for the warp (talk about a headache!), I can use a smaller notched piece of cardboard as a roller for all thirty warp threads at once. If that works, it will greatly simplify things. The moderator of the small-looms group on Ravelry thinks it should work, so that's heartening.

I'm still toiling away on the book, of course. For some reason, my left hip's been killing me for the last two days -- usually my right one's the culprit -- and I think that too much sitting time may be part of the problem, so I'm trying to get up and move around (limping like Quasimodo) at least every half hour. Swimming and using the elliptical has helped somewhat. I've also temporarily traded in my backpack for an extremely tiny pouch purse to lighten my load. I have to lug a fairly heavy backpack around when I go to Albuquerque (which I'm determined to do without checking, and paying for, luggage), so I want all the muscles rested and healed before then. I'll also have a rolling bag, of course, but I can't fit everything in there, and the backpack's the next best thing, as long as I'm walking okay.

Ah, aging. Remember when you bounded out of bed in the morning with no thought as to whether your joints would behave themselves? I'm infinitely happier now than I was in my twenties, but I could still do without the achy-creakies.

Today's Effort

A little crooked, but it was fun to make. As Gary said, "Hey, you're only using a cardboard loom."

Today I started planning an insanely ambitious scarf, which is probably beyond the reach both of a cardboard loom and of my beginning weaving skills. Everything I've read says that to make a scarf on a cardboard loom, either the cardboard needs to be as long as the scarf, or you need to make the scarf in loom-sized sections and sew them together. Seems to me that if you have your warp on bobbins, and have a way to clamp the finished cloth to the bottom of the loom as the project advances, you should be able to weave a scarf in one piece on a workably-sized loom.

So today I ordered clothespins to use as bobbins and some kitchen clips -- the kind designed for bags of potato chips -- to use as clamps. Since we're talking about thirty bobbins, rewarping the thing whenever I need to weave a new section is going to be a hefty piece o' work. But looms with fancy rollers and whatnot cost approximately my annual salary (okay, that's a slight exaggeration), and I think cardboard and tapestry looms are better for freeform weaving, anyway.

So, the scarf: Longtime readers will recall that last July, my sister and Gary and I drove through Arizona's red rock country on our way from my cousin's funeral in Flagstaff back to our hotel in Phoenix, where he and his wife lived. We stopped in Sedona, where I bought some gorgeous orange laceweight yarn that reminded me of the color of the sandstone formations. I've since tried to knit with the stuff, but it's just too fine, and keeps defeating me.

But if I weave with it, especially in conjunction with other, thicker reddish-orange yarns, I think the results could be really pretty, and might even look something like the layers in the rock formations.

Or, I could just make a giant mess of expensive yarn. It's a toss up. But what's life without risk?

Tomorrow's the formal beginning of my sabbatical, and also the first day of my state-mandated paycut, and also the first day of our new, drastically unimproved health-insurance package, with its huge deductible.

I gotta say, I've been in better moods (although I'd feel infinitely worse without the sabbatical).

And on that note, back to work on the book.

Neat!

I just had a long chat with my sister, who told me that she and her husband have booked their first cruise (on my and Gary's beloved Holland America Line). They're doing a Montreal to Boston trip this summer. Liz went to college in Montreal, at McGill, so I think it will be a very rich experience for her.

I'm jealous, since I've been wanting to do that particular itinerary! Well, someday. I'm also delighted for them, and envy them the experience of cruising for the first time. I just hope they enjoy it even a fraction as much as Gary and I do.

She and her husband had been wanting to try cruising even before Gary and I became addicted to it, but she said, "I knew you'd be happy we're doing this."

Yes, indeed! I can't wait to hear about their trip.

Mythcon, Here I Come

Long time no post, I know. It's been a packed week: I'm the scholarships coordinator for our department and our annual awards ceremony was yesterday, so I was busy getting ready for that, and I also had an article deadline. The scholarships have been awarded and the article's in (although I haven't heard from the editor yet, so I don't know if she's accepted it). I still have one more set of classes on Monday, and a final exam the following Monday, but I feel like I can breathe a little easier.

Sabbatical's almost here.

To celebrate my getting through the week, we went out for pizza last night, to the place in town that serves soy cheese on gluten-free crust. It's surprisingly good: not "real" pizza, of course, but as close as I'm going to get, and tasty in its own right. Over dinner, I mentioned that Mythcon's in Albuquerque this year, and Gary said, "You should go." (The article I just sent in will, I hope, appear in the MLA's volume on Approaches to Teaching Tolkien, which is how we got onto Mythcon.)

I've only been to one Mythcon, back when The Necessary Beggar was nominated for a Mythopoeic Award. I didn't win, but I had a wonderful time anyway. Everyone was very friendly. The papers were both accessible and interesting, which is more than I can say of some conferences I've attended. I felt at home there, not least because I didn't have to worry about being bashed for being Christian (Wiscon can get pretty hostile that way). A conference devoted to the work of the Inklings isn't going to bash anybody for being Christian!

The problem is that even if UNR has any travel money left -- doubtful, in the present climate -- I can't get it unless I'm giving an academic paper, and Mythcon's theme this year hasn't inspired me . "You should go anyway," Gary said. "You'll have a good time. You'll see friends."

So I'm going. I got up this morning and made my hotel reservation and plane reservation, and then bought my membership and meal plan. One of the great things about Mythcon is that everyone eats together, so you really get to meet people, and there's none of that seventh-grade-ish "oh man whom I gonna eat lunch with and will that group over there let me in?" thing that tends to happen at Wiscon and other cons, where small groups congregate in the hotel lobby right before mealtimes and unattached folks wander around trolling for invitations. I didn't enjoy seventh grade the first time, and I still don't. Mythcon's much more restful; you just find an empty seat, sit down and start talking to people.

But, yeah: here I go again, spending money right before sabbatical. We have more left over this month than we expected, though, and it will cover the entire Mythcon package.

So in July I'm going to Mythcon, and in August, Worldcon's coming to Reno, and my old friends are coming to my house for dinner. Bwah-hah-ha!

I can't remember the last time I attended two conventions in two months. In fact, I'm not sure I've ever attended two conventions in two months.

Huh. My geek quotient may be lower than I thought!

Easter

Happy Easter.

Last night I attended the Great Vigil, which never fails to move me. The transition from darkness to light is beautiful. This is the first Great Vigil I've attended which used a cantor -- a young woman with a lovely voice -- and that added to the power of the service.

One of the things I loved about my old church was how much of the sanctuary had been handmade by parishioners or former clergy; the altar and roodbeam were carved by a former rector, and the stained glass windows were designed by a former parishioner and cut and assembled, under that parishioner's direction, by a group of people in the congregation who met once a week for many months to work on the project. That happened long before I arrived, but I always loved the story.

Many people in my old parish moved to our mini-cathedral downtown. This is a gorgeous building, but to me it's always seemed like an uncomfortable worship space: too formal and too large, not human-sized enough for me. The church I attend now is on a more comfortable scale (larger than my old church, but smaller than the fancy one), but won't win any awards for aesthetics. The walls are cinderblock with glass bricks scattered throughout to let in light; the floor's linoleum. And above the altar hangs -- may I be forgiven for saying this -- one of the most unappealing Christus Rex crucifixes I've ever seen. It's huge, shiny, and looks like ceramic; light emanates from behind it. To me, it's always looked like a particularly hideous nightlight someone bought at a yard sale. (Last night I was sitting next to our bishop's wife, and she giggled when I said that.) One of the advantages of Lent and Holy Week, from my point of view, was that this excrescence was veiled.

At the beginning of last night's service, I couldn't see it at all, because everything was dark. But part of the blaze of light preceding "He Is Risen!" -- the high point of the service -- came when someone flicked the switch to turn on the nightlight. We were in the dark with just candles, and more candles were being lit, but all of a sudden . . . there he was, the Savior, glowing from the wall in all his ceramic glory.

I got a lump in my throat, and acquired new and grudging respect for the nightlight.

After the service, I told the rector about this. Looking a bit pained, he said, "That piece was hand-carved by a parishioner. It's wood."

"It's wood? It looks like ceramic!"

"It needs to be stripped and refinished."

"Yes, please. Strip and refinish it so it actually looks like wood. I think that would help a lot."

Whether that ever happens or not, I'm now a lot fonder of the thing than I used to be: not just because of the Easter moment, but because the crucifix was a labor of love by someone who belonged to the church.

I didn't go to church this morning, since the pastel-and-Easter-egg scene always makes me itch. Instead, I pigged out on smoked salmon for breakfast, a special Easter treat, and then went to the hospital. It was a pretty good shift; at least one family was actively glad I was there, and I had nice conversations with several staff members. Also, I've discovered a pastoral rationale for going to Hawai'i: it's actually useful at the hospital. Today I had a patient going into surgery who was in pain and very frightened, but I noticed that her husband was wearing a Kaua'i cap, and we had a lively conversation about their trip to the island that distracted her from her pain for a few minutes, and gave me material for a guided visualization exercise later on, when her pain came back.

Let's hear it for tropical islands.

Prudence Wins Out. Barely.

So this morning I got e-mail from an old college friend: one of my TAs from freshman year, if you can believe it. We're still in touch all these years later! He's in Switzerland now but had seen the news story about Glick, and sent me a note, and I mentioned the Hawai'i cruise, and he mentioned that he has a timeshare in Kona, and said he has a few extra weeks he can't use.

We've been wanting to go to Kona.

We could have gotten this place for a ridiculously small amount: less per week than one usually pays per night in Hawai'i.

We were all set to do it. But then I started looking at airfare, and came back to my senses. The available weeks are only about three months before our cruise; it just doesn't make fiscal sense to take two expensive vacations on low pay, even if one of them's an unbelievable steal once you get there. The airfare's the real deal-breaker, but we'd also have to rent a car and buy groceries (mondo expensive in Hawai'i), and would probably want to eat out and do other stuff that costs money.

So, reluctantly, after a flurry of e-mails when I thought I was taking him up on this very generous offer, I very reluctantly told him that we'd decided we just can't this time, but that he should please (please!) keep us in mind if the same thing happens next year.

Sigh.

Sometimes it sucks being a grownup.

Carpe Diem

I woke up this morning to a shaken e-mail from the head of the faculty senate, announcing that UNR President Milt Glick died of a massive stroke last night. Gary and I had seen him and his wife the night before at a concert. He looked great.

The mind reels. I can't help but wonder what role the state budget crisis played in this. The guy's been under incomprehensible pressure. Our bodies feel these things.

My immediate response -- surprise, surprise -- was to book a cruise in November for Gary's sixtieth birthday. It's a fourteen-day circle Hawaii trip, again on Holland America (on the same boat as our other two cruises, in fact; someday we'll get off the Oosterdam!). This goes well beyond decadent into financially irresponsible, but as I told Gary, "Life is short, and you only turn sixty once." And this cruise has been near the top of our wishlist.

We love Hawaii; we've already been to three of the four ports on the itinerary, but that means that we'll be able to make excellent use of our time without paying for shore excursions. I'm already looking forward to snorkeling again in our favorite spot in Waikiki, and then eating at one of our favorite Thai restaurants.

Gary cried when he found out. I asked if he was mad at me, but he's not: we have the money, after all. As he said, it's not like we'll be living in a refrigerator carton because of this.

I called my sister and said, "I just did something completely financially irresponsible."

"You booked a cruise," she said, without missing a beat.

What, me, predictable?

This is an expensive little addiction I've developed, but it's better for my health than other addictions. And at least now, having booked our next cruise, I can stop obsessively searching the cruise websites, which will give me more time to do more useful things.

Home!

We're home! The cats are delighted to see us. We're delighted to see the cats. We're really glad we went on the cruise, although the horrors of air travel rather destroy the relaxation of the previous seven days.

But we're home. And tired. I'll sleep well tonight!

Prow of Disney Wonder (docked next to us in PV)

Marietas Arches

Blue-Footed Boobies

Ah, Cabo!

This morning Gary and I woke up to find the boat anchored off Cabo. We ate breakfast on our verandah while watching whales and dolphins. Lovely!

We really liked Cabo (much better than Puerto Vallarta). The bay's so pretty, and it didn't hurt that the tender dropped us off right in the thick of the action -- bars! t-shirt shops! jewelry stores! ATM ATM ATM! -- so we didn't have to worry about taxis. As in PV, there were a lot of military around, but they wore simple sidearms and ambled along the boardwalk with everybody else, instead of wearing helmets and holding machine guns and generally looking combat ready.

Our second snorkel excursion was better than the first in a few respects. There were fewer people on the boat, and the boat itself was nicer: a catamaran with webbing between the pontoons, so people could sit there. On our way out of the bay, we watched sea lions playing in the water, and also saw a baby whale, surrounded by a ring of water taxis (no boat would have been allowed to get that close in the U.S.), breaching and slapping its fin on the water. One of the other passengers on our boat said, "Junior's doing tricks for the paparazzi." I just hoped that the fin-slapping wasn't baby's way of yelling, "Moooom! I'm being chased by those little boxes that travel on top of the water! Help!"

At the actual snorkel site, Gary and I were once again very glad we had our wetsuits. The water was cold. Also murky. Also, we'd been told to look for fish by the rocks, but we'd also been warned against touching the rocks, which sported sea urchins that could have pierced our snorkel flippers. The problem was that when we got close to the rocks, waves tried to smash us into them, so we had to keep a healthy distance. We still saw lots of fish, although not as clearly as we would have in Hawai'i. Mostly we saw other snorkelers; the site was a sea of waving blue fins and yellow snorkels. So it was still fun, but Hawai'i's much better for snorkeling all around.

Tomorrow's an at-sea day. Saturday morning, we disembark in San Diego. I'm sorry the cruise is ending, but it will be nice to be back home with the kitties. Our cat-sitter's been sending us photos and little notes to reassure us that all's well.

Oh, and we had no untoward effects from the Starbucks coffee. Thank goodness!

In Which We Become Ugly Americans

Our second day in PV has been a bit of a bust. We slept late, rolled off the boat around ten, and ambled down to the docks to see if we could find a short whale-watching trip. The only one we found was from one to five, though, and the boat's leaving at 3:30, so that didn't work. The tour operator offered us a private trip for $200. I know buyers are expected to bargain in Mexico, but I just wasn't up to it, so we told him we weren't interested.

Walking back to the cruise pier, we saw two Mexican soldiers with machine guns and grenades casually guarding the tourist docks. Mind you, this is inside the cruise complex, which is surrounded by fencing topped with barbed wire and guarded by private security guards who check cruise ID at the gates. (Getting off the boat, one of the HAL crew had told me, "Be careful with your belongings!") After seeing the machine guns, Gary decided that he wasn't up to exploring. I'd wanted to amble around old PV when I thought I could get there on foot, but having to take a cab -- and not being sure how reliably I could get one back -- made me chicken out, too. If I had more energy today, and if we'd had more time, I'd have gone for it anyhow, but I'm exhausted. I've been having a lot of nightmares on this trip (the nuclear news from Japan certainly hasn't helped), and last night's was a long, complicated dream about losing my job, so I didn't wake up feeling very refreshed.

So what did we do? We crossed the street and, heaven help us, went to the mall, where I bought a Nike swimsuit I've wanted and hadn't been able to find in the States. Then we went to the Starbucks and had iced coffee. I used my tiny bit of Spanish only to apologize for the fact that I speak only a tiny bit of Spanish. The Nike saleswoman and I communicated largely with hand gestures.

On our way back to the ship, it occurred to me that one isn't supposed to drink iced beverages in Mexico. I just hadn't been thinking: we were in an American-style mall, buying from an American chain, surrounded by Americans on their laptops, but that doesn't change the fact that the fauna's different down here. I'd committed the very definition of a stupid tourist mistake. Whoops. Back on board, I talked to a member of the crew, who rolled her eyes and told me I'd probably be fine, but that if I got sick I should call the medical department.

So far we're okay, but the crew member said it takes twenty-four hours. In the meantime, we ate lunch. Gary's pacing the deck; I'm blogging. I wanted to take a nap, but our stateroom's right above the showroom, where there's a rehearsal for some extravaganza with thunderously loud bass, so that wasn't going to happen.

The ship's internet cafe is ten decks up. From up here, the view's lovely, and I just saw two pelicans fly by. That's the highlight of the day so far.

I'm so glad we have an excursion booked for Cabo tomorrow. I just hope we're healthy for it.

Exuberant Ocean

Today was our first day in PV and also our first snorkel excursion. The cruise terminal is across the street from a mall and a Wal-Mart; we'd think we were back in the States, if it weren't for the huge Mexican flag flying at a nearby park.

The snorkel excursion was quite delightful, though. We love our wetsuits -- the water was cold, so they were welcome! -- and Gary could see some fish even without a corrective mask. (HAL had told me the excursion company would have some, but they didn't.) The water here's not nearly as clear as it is in Hawai'i, but we still saw a lot of pretty fish. Other snorkelers and divers saw manta rays and an octopus; we missed those, but we'll be snorkeling again in Cabo the day after tomorrow, so maybe we'll have better luck there.

Above the water, though, things were hopping, literally! We saw several diving whales, lots of dolphins, and baby manta rays flinging themselves out of the water and diving back in. Groups of them did this, as if they were trying to imitate the dolphins. I asked one of our guides why they jump out of the water -- it's not like they need to breathe -- and he said they're building up their muscles so they'll be strong enough to migrate to Argentina. (I'm not sure if they mate down there, or what.) It sure looked like they were just playing for the sheer joy of it, though.

Very cool. I'd never known that baby mantas did that, and it was definitely the highlight of the day.

We also stopped at one of the Marietas Islands to lounge on the beach for a while. That was lovely, and we were surrounded by blue-footed boobies, who nest there.

Unfortunately, the guides on the boat insisted on doing tourist shtick on the way back: playing loud dance music and trying to get everyone into conga lines, that kind of thing. I guess it comes with the territory, but I don't know why these outfits can't just shut up and let people enjoy the scenery.

It was a nice day, despite the conga lines, but we were very glad to get back to the ship, take showers, and change into dry clothing. Dinner was welcome, too: neither of us had found the tour-boat lunch very appetizing, so we'd skipped it, and we were starving. The food's been exceptionally good this trip; Gary thinks it's even better than it was on our cruise to Alaska. (We eat in the dining room, not the buffet, but we have open seating, so we can eat whenever we want.)

Last night at dinner, we were seated at a table for six, since we'd gotten there too late for a two-top. It turned out another couple at the table was from Reno. Then it turned out that they both work at UNR. Then it turned out that they're good family friends of one of my former masters students. Talk about small worlds!

I'm not sure what we'll do tomorrow. Maybe a whale watch, if we can find one without shtick. Maybe some shopping, if we can figure out how to get to something other than Wal-Mart.