A motherly Decency

Lots of wind and rain

The magic of the Westerly route is every evening we are gifted an extra hour under our pillow, and when we wake it is always well in time for breakfast. The weather has been pretty bad- lots of wind and rain and swells that salty Wehlens don't consider large, but if you are Japanese you are probably throwing up. (Apparently the Americans and the Brits don't get sea sick but the Japanese according to our sommelier, can hardly stand any bump in the sea). As I write this, the window out of the front shows only fog. 

Thomas and I have been going to the Indian acupuncturist almost every day. He is very good and we can't say no to any upselling around here. We have both been sold (on the same day) de toxifying massage oil in great quantities which will surely shield us from the mystery ingredients in the soft serve. 

I am mesmerized by the sea- both its enormity and deadliness, and have always wanted to know just how small a person would look in the water, many decks down. So in Le Havre I had Thomas go to deck 7 and take a photo of me on the shore.

I am the little person in yellow hat to the right of gangplank

To show you some scale, here is a photo of an aircraft carrier (smaller than QM2) with swimmers off of it. Point is do not fall off the boat. We are too small to find in the sea. 

On the ship there are a lot of quotes from famous people who sailed across the Atlantic. One I found particularly beautiful from Henry James:

      "She was slow but she was spacious and comfortable and there was a kind of motherly decency in her long, nursing rock and her rustling old fashioned gait. It was as if she wished not to present herself in port with the splashed eagerness of a young creature. ...(The sea) was darkly and magnificently blue and imperturbably quiet -save for the great regular swells of its heartbeats, the pulse of its life and there grew to be something so agreeable in the sense of floating there in infinite isolation and leisure. " 

Clapping For a Moon that Doesn’t Hear Us

Ahoy Mateys! We are back where we belong on the North Atlantic, with the British National Symphony Orchestra and Philipino men selling us foot insoles. We caught the ship in Hamburg with F and a friend from his master’s program- a very English fellow who studied Math before he met Frederick at Imperial. Needless to say we had lots of not boring conversations and blessedly none of them involved Trump. We love this kid- a brilliant combination of brains and a deep seated love for his soccer team (Leeds) and pub life and long walks. By his account on this trip he experienced for the first time: evening turn down service; caviar; amuse bouche, a fish knife, (declared it suboptimal when needed for broccoli); and that silver thing they use to take the crumbs off the table. He also seemed to relish the night life, such as it is, on the ship. Anyway it was really sad after they left…although we did get an upgrade to a table for two by the window. 

The big news is Cunard was bought by some large American conglomerate and so many things have gotten worse- the food for one. Already with Harper the portion sizes were laughably small…But they don’t know whom they are dealing with in Thomas and me. Actually Thomas’ IQ has been of zero help and rather it is my single mined focus on nourishment that has made this whole trip work. FOR EXAMPLE the lunch menu was so sad in our fancy dining room that I took the drastic step of getting a nice large salad in the cafeteria where all are welcome and marching in the the Queens dining room stocked with tuna and chickpeas and greens. We also order three main dishes at dinner: two regular and one vegan so we can get more than an asparagus stalk with the meal. Add some wine and the chocolate we have in the room and you have enough energy to cross the Atlantic. It really is a bit sad…But we still have Mama Ocean and many English people with posh accents that apologize for everything and chirp greetings at all times; and these small signs of civilization and beauty make me grateful. 

Thomas noticed that guests when they speak to another table can’t really turn their heads (due to the arthritis) so there is this “Queen Mary Lean” he sees …old people bending over to hear better. Photo below is Thomas practicing looking right to prepare for old age. 

Today was a yoga class that annoyingly had both the yoga music and some soft rock playing at the same time…something that would never have happened under the old management…of course the group was too polite to say anything. Later is lunch (BYOSalad) and acupuncture and a spin class. (My foot hurts form a summer of walking and running and tennis and almost zero stretching). 

There were many half finished blog entries from the summer that I will post. The highlight of course was going to Spain with F and Will K to see the eclipse. If you ever see a total one, and you should, see it in Spain where the people are so joyful. When it happened the assembled cheered or cried or toasted the moon with red wine and ham. Frederick remarked how moving it was to see us humans clap for no reason, for a moon that doesn’t hear us. 

But he is a silly boy; because of course it does. 

Frederick (on the left) and his friend swimming in English channel while on stop from Hamburg to South Hampton

Beach at Le Havre France where QM2 stopped for a day

Our present position- tiny dot near England

Leaving Hamburg at night

Eclipse crew in España

Been a While.....!

This was the note in my phone that was meant to remind me to bring up something in this post: "...bunny in the street in Portugal and any to breakers.." I do not know what I meant by bunny; but "any to breakers" refers to a man running the Bay to Breakers with a near life sized, rubber Sutro Tower on this head. It was meant to be a philosophical discussion on why we do meaningless things, or really, why most of what we do is meaningless. It stems from a conversation T and I had about bringing Albert to Portugal and the absolutely bonkers amount of paperwork, cost, vet visits and trazadone for dogs (and/or me). But bring him we did. And now it is all clear why, because the first person in the family to have a Portuguese passport is our 11 year old Parson Russell. In addition he is somehow a service dog for one clearly neurotic Leonora Wehlen- who needs her drugged out dog on her lap or she won't fly. 

The best part of the passport is on the line for sex of the animal where it says: 'Macho'.

So it's World Cup Summer people with the Wehlens on the wrong time zone. I am no expert on soccer, but am highly conversant in soccer podcasts, and on one it described France as an apex predator who plays with its food for a while, but eats in one bite at the end.  No Country Road singing will protect us from this. We are all on a slow road to being eaten with a mother of pearl salad fork and some Beaujolais Nouveau. But how I love the American WHY NOT US???!!!! attitude. It is adorable. 

The Germans who-fun fact- have won four times (only one less than mighty Brazil) are arguably better if you count (and I do) the amount of times they have been second or third. Their reputation has always been this solid group of human knee bends and hyper organization that wins every penalty shoot out. Alas this appears to be slipping....and in the words of one journalist, the problem seems to be they are not that good. Apparently the problem lies in the youth camps where originality is discouraged and they turn out only mid fielders and no one to score. 

Many other exciting things happening: high temperatures; introducing Albert to pool swimming; lots of fun conversations with architects and kitchen designers. In sad news, we found out that the man who lived with the Wehlens for 20 years or so, died a week ago; and we found out his funeral would be the next day. So we went. The first question I had was attire- can one wear a black sundress? It is 93 degrees out. Thomas has a suit and despite the looming Queen Mary trip, did not bring a tie. Oh well- we figure we will sit in the back. 

On the way over, I give us a pep talk. This is going to be incredibly awkward- but our presences will be appreciated. We can say almost nothing in Portuguese but are feverishly practicing a chat GPT version of "My Condolences".  Anyway we arrive at a graveyard but the kind that is for cremated people. It's pretty grim...unlike the one in Switzerland which is green with a view of the lake, this looks more like a bare parking lot with shelves for loved ones. Everyone is standing around in the parking lot. Luckily Carlos, the son, is there. He is our age and we know him well (he is the one who drives us). Then the widow comes and we get to hug her and we see Carlos' daughter and it is all ok but we are being sort of stared at like the obvious not part of the crowd crowd. Oh and everyone is dressed very casually -the granddaughter of the deceased is in jeans and a t shirt. So we look even more like parents who showed up at the rave. 

Never mind...we go in to the sort of chapel but its not a chapel- there is no priest, and yet we are in pews all looking forward. We sit and then the group begins to socialize pretty hard- there are zero refreshments, but they all are so delighted to see each other so it gets pretty cheerful. We wait. And wait. And wait. New people come and greet the widow and then leave. We are intrigued - is this all that is happening? Will someone speak? How do we know when to leave if there is no beginning or middle? We start giggling. We are trapped, wildly overdressed in a tiny hot chapel not a chapel looking at a coffin but no program, no refreshments. Will we be here all night?  How long is enough? Thomas makes a radical plan to get up and pretend to look for water. I follow him and then after we have been coffin watching for more than an hour, three of the mourners get up and start to say some things in Portuguese. It is short and only a little teary. And then some more men get up and start to move the coffin into another room that I see to my horror is labeled: 

SALA DE ULTIMA DISPOSIZIONE

The door opens and I kid you not we hear the roar of an oven. Seriously. It is so in your face...the coffin goes into the next room and that's it. I am not sure what happened after that because some people left and we rode the wave and got back to the safety of the old Mercedes. 

I mean, not everyone has to have gospel choirs or throngs of women in Spanish mourning mantillas..but they might as well have all gone to the beach in bikinis and chucked him off a cliff. 

He was a lovely man.

I am now looking at Thomas carefully speaking to Albert- brand new Portuguese citizen - about pool safety and how he really need not be afraid of bright blue water. Once a swim coach, always a swim coach.