Land rears its ugly head...

The sea

   isn't a place

       but a fact, and 

           a mystery

Mary Oliver "The Waves"

Bye for now big ship- bye, big ocean; bye, bye soft serve ice cream with the terrible cones.

You have been a salve to a fretful soul. 

Tonight at our last dinner, we each said what we thought the sea was saying to us when it spoke. 

To me it says the same thing every year, and yet every year I forget it.  It says simply:

"You don't know everything."

And that is a relief indeed. 

A Little Red...

So the storm has abated :( - it was fun while it lasted. We knew the it was pretty good when we saw the drying machines in the passage. If people are throwing up, it's a good sign.

As blog loyalists, you know the Wehlens do not get seasick; we hope the fact that others do will lead to shorter lines at the fro yo dispenser, but somehow it never does. I suppose it's because the passengers are already a self selected group-an elite force of heavy ankled people who don't spill their gin, literally or figuratively. 

Last night was delicious. We got into formal wear for dinner, and then went into the theater for a movie. Afterwards the boys took a stroll on deck and said it was genuinely unnerving: the water was black so one couldn't see it, but you could hear the water and wind raging against the ship. I woke up from the creaking in the middle of the night - not scared exactly, but starting to wonder if I should be. 

If there is anything more delicious than falling asleep with a gale blowing outside, I should like to know what that is. 

The latest craze is a Pilates class run by a 6 foot 4 inch Brazilian named Jose (pronounced joe-say) . It takes place in the bowels of the ship in a room smelling of smoke. 

But it is like going to a disco in a third world country: the same rules do not apply as at home. Jose has no interest in the health or safety of his class; he doesn't speak enough English to communicate that anyway if he wanted. But he has inspired fanatical devotees and we assemble before him with large red balls that roll and sway in the rocky seas. 

"Please To Not  hit the face of your friend!" is the only instruction I have heard him give. 

So tonight is the last formal night: a masquerade ball. I shall bring out a long red dress in honor of my favorite maitre d' who is making my favorite pasta at the table. 

As if that weren't exciting enough-there is a chocolate fountain party at 10 30 tonight, and I intend to be there filming fat people in masks up to their elbows in it. 

We will be so sad to get off the water on Sunday. Occasionally we meet people who don't feel this way- who actually think the ocean is boring; that it looks the same every day. 

To me that's like saying  the desert on Mars always looks the same. Who is bored on Mars? 

More in the morning.., xx

Rocking and Roiling

Day two at sea has been very exciting. F paid a visit to the hospital and my mother switched to strawberry yogurt. It is also force 9 outside. The sea has gone from calm to mild to rough with 40 mile an hour winds and 15-20 feet high waves. They are the largest waves we have ever seen on this ship.  The boat is so large though that, truth be told, we hardly notice any change in weather until the paddle tennis has been cancelled. But the photo above was taken on deck three: so almost three stories up. Scale gets confusing on a huge ship,  but that's a big wave. 

So F had an ingrown toenail and we went down below to a place that is genuinely scary. A place where the staff speak loudly out of uniform and there are no carpets, so everything echos in a menacing dungeon-y way. 

The other scary thing I did was go naked into a tiny room with a Bulgarian masseur named Ivan. Apparently in Bulgaria it is normal to comment on a woman's body while massaging her. As in: "no cellulite! good! at your age most women look pigs" Cellulite is apparently a huge problem in Bulgaria. 

Anyway, I'm going back. What can I say? he's good. 

Ok here is a brief pilot lecture synopsis. Cool people should leave the room now. 

As a child, Captain Wells pretended to park his little toy ships in the bathtub; unlike the rest of us, who tried to sink them. He joined the navy, and managed to pass the arduous tests to become a ship's pilot. After many, many months of unpaid study and an examination that requires a 98% to pass, he was assigned his first post in a war zone in Africa. So in between bullets and hurricanes he had to park very large ships. Why did he do it? there is neither money nor glory in the job. His answer was because people stop to watch. Sometimes, on the Tower Bridge (where he was later posted), little Billy Wells from New Zealand, stopped traffic. 

He told us the QM2 is large but not heavy. She is a spry 80 000 tons, and that is with every fat person and his walker included on the scale. The heaviest ship is 800, 000. He said he always got nervous, but only once almost peed in his pants when he had to dock a huge US aircraft carrier. He showed pictures of waves that were nectar to me, and told a very tragic story of a Japanese ship that lost its steering and plowed into a house (see below). Fun fact: the couple died from the ship hitting them, not from the house collapsing. The pilot was relieved of his command, not because he drove into someone's bedroom, but because procedure demands that the anchor be dropped whenever the ship is docked. Somehow in the melee after impact, with this poor couple's curtains wrapped around his neck, the pilot neglected to put the anchor down. 

The major disappointment for me was how he breezed over what it's like to climb aboard on a little ladder in high seas. We can get to hand grenades being thrown later; what about the ladder??

Oh well. I intend to stalk him for the answer. Also I intend to stalk the attendees of the fruit and vegetable carving class and just say: Gladys? Simon? 

What in God's name are you doing here? 

More soon-HT put a special, drippy candelabra by our table (special for us..) incredibly romantic. 

I went out on a fashion edge and wore a jumpsuit that HT loved, but Frederick said looked like I was a pilot about to make a jump. 

No vision these Exeter kids. 

Japanese boat and poor house

F giving me grief over jump suit.

Candelabra

First Days

By the sea by the sea
By the beautiful sea
You and I; you and I
Oh how happy we'll be-
I love to be beside your side beside the sea beside the seaside-
By the beautiful sea!

As sung to us by CAB as we bobbed in shark infested Stinson beach waves. 



Ahoy land locked people! We are safely floating in the Atlantic-all is well. Handsome is still here and purports to remember us, and best of all-claims to be sad we never write.
We are incredibly busy with exercise and massages and lectures. One lecture was on astronomy and one by a ship's pilot-not to be confused with Ship's Captain. Pilots are captains but they are the one's who basically park the ship when it comes into port. There is no way for a captain to know enough about each ports-currents, depths, bird patterns whatever, to do it as safely as a local. So every time we come into or leave from a port, a small ship approaches and a pilot climbs 25 feet into the air, on a ladder to come aboard. This is in any weather. Can you imagine? obviously I will be devoting an entire, nerd entry to this lecture. But right now I am rushing to a hair appointment and tonight is black tie. Last night I pulled out a very short dress that seemed longer in the store in New York.
To say I caused a stir would not be accurate-confusion is more like it. Some of the more elderly passengers with, perhaps, very early onset Alzheimers wondered aloud why we were playing tennis in the Queens Grill. That's how short and white it was.
Whatever. We had caviar; we had vodka;
I walked out between my mother and Thomas, head high.
xx more soon.

Stealing kisses from a teenager

peering way below

everyone needs a dash of scarlet in one's life

MMB early fishing

happy camper

Happy Father's Day

In this blog's never ending quest to lift the masses, we will be adding a new feature (that might only last one day) called Pirates Prayers.
A section devoted to the pirate in all of us: the rum drinkers and the land skeptics; 9-5 haters, the silence cravers, the wind fanatics; and above all, the ruthless in love.

Today's entry in honor of one of the great fathers and sailors: CAB -how happy he would be to set sail today.
The Dying Pirate's Prayer

"Fetch aft the rum, Darby!" Captain Flint (R. L. S.)
Out from the rottin' barnacles and the harbour stench;
Out from the rusty ringbolts adown the weedy stairs;
Out from the roadstead green and the milky inshore blue,
Let me go! - it's all I ask of You!-
Out and away, out and through
To the whisper of bursting bubbles across the deepsea blue.

Let me clear for sea. Let me go aboard
Any old craft that pumps will float clear of soundin's, Lord-
Clear of the festered harbour and through the hole in the reef-
Out on an offshore breeze, clear o' the milky blue.
To the slosh of cloven waters and the lift of the outer blue.
Hear this sinner's prayer, Lord! He'd do the same for you!

I'll take all that's due me in the way of Hell-
But, Lord, to leave me strangle of this here inshore smell!
Me that was bred a seaman, through and down and through
Fathoms o' blue water, down in the deepsea blue,
Out of sight and sound and scent of inshore gear and crew-
Out of sight of every port a seaman ever knew.
There lays the careenage, white as curds in the sun;
White as Devon curds... God, the deeds I've done
Since the day I went a-fishin' and boarded the Sea Rover!

Fetch aft the rum, Darby! Lay aft an' ease me over!

Aye, the damn careenage! Sink it, God of wrath!
Hark'ee, God of mercy, to a sick man's prayer!
Let me clear for sea. Any old craft will do.
Drive me out on an offshore breeze to the jumpin' deep blue;
Then sink me clear o' soundin's, Lord! I'd do the same for You.
Fetch aft the rum, Darby! ... Lay aft and raise my head-
And pity a poor seaman bilged ashore in bed
With faces crowdin' 'round- mostly a long time dead.

Whitney vs Whitney

It's a rainy day and I miss Albert and the old Whitney. We all went to the Armory where we were treated to 7 year old girls giving soliloquies as performance art. Actually it wasn't a soliloquy because periodically the seven year old would ask a strange, unanswerable question. Like:
"what is the relation between a sign and melancholy?"
Not making this up. Then she would stare at one person-in this case, me. Horrible. I wasn't going to offer up a fake attempt at an answer (like some other people), so I went with a sort of pensive far-away look, and a silent prayer (please stop, please stop...)
Then we listened to a piano playing itself under flashing lights while we were on a sort of grandstand that turned around and around.
As you all know, the Wehlen trio never misses this kind of thing-and we gaily ignore my mother mumbling why we can't just go to the Frick. "What's wrong with Rembrandt?"
I think we like it because unlike in California where judging is looked down upon (judgementally non judgemental) here in New York it's open season. Heather says she does this on the subway all the way home: judging other mothers (your child is up too late, she eats too much candy, she is a whiner..) She says its invigorating, and she gets off the train refreshed.  And no where is judging more high art than a contemporary museum. The old Whitney-God rest its soul- was our first stop every year. We looked at blank walls, we stared at blue dots, once we even stood under sacks of flour that were a copy of another show of sacks of flour-but therein apparently lay the art. The copying. It was dazzling.
But the best part was the dynamic of the people around you: people loving or hating it, or loving or hating other people who didn't get it, or people who just wanted a ho ho (they sold a version of them in the cafe). It was a judgement free-free zone. Judge way! look down on other  people!
The new Whitney is stunning: perfectly located downtown in the meat packing or Chelsea or whatever that is, with indoor outdoor flow, and happy light and architecture. It is so happy that it is like you see the exhibits together with your fellow man-as if you are all friends. It's almost boring-so much so that I got an itch to play an old fav game of mine: Flip the Orthodox Jew.
A secret shicksa game where we try to make a little eye contact with them...rattle their cage a bit. Oh don't judge! we country club types have so few opportunities to play the role of femme fatale. (I am wearing white tennis shoes for God's sake.) And lord knows we don't want their mothers to actually die of a heart attack. We just want to see if we can give them something to think about on the way home.
Anyway I like the new Whitney-it's impossible not to. I just wish the old one could have stayed for the days when you want to drink and scoff; the place for a rainy day and a rainy mood.

I tried to get T and F to the transportation museum, so we could see the story of the subway and the bridges, and Thomas actually said that between that idea and the cranberry juices, he was worried about me.
?? Are you kidding? who wouldn't want to do that? I told him Amy would have gone with..and he said: yes I know.
Pray for us bloggers- the crossing begins tomorrow!


xx

Man with a hat with a tan...

My father used to say that you knew you really loved someone when you wanted to put your face into theirs; nose to nose, like with infants. Or puppies.

(oh Albert..!!)

And you know you have a very good old friend when your first moments in New York involve sprinting down the street just so you can hang out while she gets her hair done. Below photo of Heather with two men that seemed like Saturday night live actors- making her stand while two of them cut her hair. Then when she started to voice her own opinion about which length, she was gay sushed and they flounced off, before handing her a $600

bill. 

The rest of our time has been filled with museums (above F at the Whitney which is a blast- but one still misses the weird old one..) and the view deck in the World Trade Center. I always forget until it's too late that I hate heights- I'm all gung ho til one of them drags me to an edge or a clear patch 102 stories up. 

I worry that we don't give New York its due: it's heaven to us, but is that because of the ship? Is it merely ship foreplay? 

I mean we talk constantly of leaving for the high seas... and we have never gone to a single show downstairs (woody Allen included) nor do we make a real effort with the best restaurants. Today we were so tired after hours in the meat packing district- we crawled into a nap and then rushed to see Jurassic park in an upper west side theater where you get to lie down in your seat. Then I had cranberry juice at dinner (on a Friday night!) 

Oh well. 

One day to go til freedom....

...And then there was one..

Leaving Albert was awful- something akin to the ending of a Russian novel or a Meg Ryan/Billy Crystal movie break up. 

The agony...

MMB is safely in the van in her weird running shoes and Nordstrom purse. In a weaker moment months ago she thought it would be zany to sit in economy plus with F, but now she is weakening...mumbling things like: we better buy all our food now Frederick, because in Steerage we won't get any. 

I am gently reminding her that first class on virgin isn't exactly Lutèce, but if fois gras appears, I'll send it back. 

On a lighter note, below is a text I wrote to the driver yesterday thinking it was F. 

"Poppy says you need to throw away all underwear that is too small ... Can you do that before OE comes? Xx"

He picked us up with assurances that all his underwear fit.

So happy to be on our way. We have plans with some of my favorite Arab men in London, as well as the Austrians and  beloved London Brighams. 

But first, see you in New York

Xx

Thomas thought he needed to add the ridiculousness of my yoga magazine obsession . I don't do yoga, but I am a whiz at the magazine buying .....