cornvillenutmeg

You may not have noticed, but I certainly did. I have not posted to my blog for more than a year. There were reasons. Our stepped up house-hunting was a big one. What is also true, however, is that I was boring myself a bit. While my view of Public Education has not changed, I find have little more to add to what I’ve already said. So, I am going to let the focus of Cornvillenutmeg shift and wander with no particular intent. For the time being at least, you can expect content as diverse as the people you might meet on a cruise.

Speaking of Cruising, until last month, my previous experience with that was nil. While I have before a short time ago traveled aboard ocean-going passenger ships, the primary purpose of those ships was transporting passengers from, in the first instance, Marseille to New York City, and in the second, New York City to Le Havre. No ports of call, no shore excursions, no sharing with others.
Today, I consider myself Cruise Proficient. My wife and I have recently returned from spending fourteen nights and much of fourteen days aboard a medium-sized cruise ship (1300 passengers, 600 crew), which traveled from Seattle to Seattle visiting along the way many places in Alaska and one city in Canada.

At this point, I need to admit that I am a reserved and reticent person. I like people well enough; I just don’t want to spend much time with them. I’m very happy to make conversation with, say, the check-out person in my supermarket. I would rather not engage in conversation with a seat mate on the rare occasions I travel without my wife; but I’m not rude, and if someone wants to tell me about his grandchildren or chiropractor, I will listen after a fashion and make empathetic sounds and short comments. I do not as a rule, however, encourage further intercourse by sharing. On a cruise,being reserved and reticent is not an easy thing to pull off.
At home, we don’t take three or four sit down meals a day. Our breakfasts are, mostly cold cereal relieved by fruit. From then until supper we graze, each on his own. At sea, on the other hand, we ate in the main Dining Room each morning, mid-afternoon, and evening. Lunch we took on an upper deck where a luncheon buffet was served school cafeteria style which is not a judgment of the quantity, quality, or variety of fare. Plates full, we searched for unoccupied seats where we joined other passengers, their mid-day meal already in progress. We often visited mid-afternoon High Tea served in the upper level of the Main Dining Room, and except for one blessed occasion, we did so in company. What each and every one of these dining opportunities meant to me, apart from a growing fear of growing fat, was dismaying and unavoidable opportunities to share with others.
Now, we could have limited our exposure to other guests, as passengers are repeatedly referred to. We could have chosen to eat at the same time each evening, at 5:15 or 8:00. That way we would have eaten with the same people at the same table each evening. (If you are like me at all, the possibility that the people you could find yourself with for the next fortnight would turn out to be less than ideal companions occurs to you immediately. I kept that to myself, however.) In the end we decided the first seating was too early and the other too late; we chose instead “open seating.”

At the entrance to the Dining Room, stern-most on Deck Four, one is greeted by the Dining Room Steward or his assistant. One is asked one’s stateroom number. All cabins are staterooms, even our 171 square feet with unobstructed ocean view the enjoyment of which necessitated only the slightest contortion. (Quite simple really, once you got the hang of it. Starting from a supine position – back of the head on pillow, feet facing the stateroom door – turn over, come to all fours, kneel up, arms at your side, forearms raised, shuffle forward on your knees, lean forward until your forearms come to rest on the sill in front of you. There before you is the ocean, or the coast line, or an interesting view of pier pilings, all depending, of course, on the ship’s location.)

The Steward enters the number you gave, then says, “Mr. and Mrs. So-and-so?”

You nod or say, “Yes.”

The Steward says, “Happy to share?”

Our first evening I had no idea what that meant. “I beg your pardon?” I said.

“Happy to share with others?”

I looked at my wife. I don’t hear all that well, and while I was wearing my hearing aids, certain voices, higher pitched and soft ones particularly, are still difficult. All the dining room staff, in fact most of the crew, are Indonesian. They all speak excellent if not unaccented English, but their voices are also soft and higher pitched. It must be an island thing. Most were from Bali.

The steward rephrased. “Happy to share a table with other guests?”

“Yes,” my wife said before I could think to ask if there weren’t possibly some tables for one or two set aside for reserved, reticent curmudgeons such as I.
And so began our Cruise, my first, during which I shared intimately with more adult human beings in fourteen days than I had cumulatively during my previous 68 years.