I have alluded to an upcoming vacation a few times on The Havens. This morning as I was making coffee and putting Jim’s lunch together, he came up to me and put his arms around me and pulled me close, and said gleefully “Three weeks from today is Mike Hahn’s birthday party.”
This makes no sense unless you understand that Mike Hahn’s “Birthday” Party is an EVENT, held annually on the Saturday before Thanksgiving. It involves large quantities of blues musicians getting together out in the woods with a similarly large quantity of blues fans, food, alcohol, and includes a bonfire. This is an event much anticipated by our community, and this year it also marks the official beginning of our vacation, because we are going straight from the party (an all night event) to the airport from whence we fly to Spain.
We are going on another Seabourne Cruise. This time we are starting from the Spanish coast on the Mediterranean, sailing through the Straights of Gibraltar, and across the Atlantic to Florida. Since the cruise actually begins the day before Thanksgiving, we decided we were not interested in flying to Europe, or anywhere for that matter, during that particular holiday, so we decided to leave for the cruise early and spend a few days at the port where we are meeting our ship.
We have been planning this for over a year, saving for it, paying for it. Jim has been surfing the web and finding good places to eat. We already have our plane tickets to Spain and home from Florida, hotel reservations, we already have our train tickets from Madrid to the coastal city where we meet our ship, and we already have it all paid for plus a substantial amount of spending money set aside. Needless to say, we also have credit cards with rather large (unused) credit limits for emergencies, but we don’t anticipate having to use them. So, when we get home, we won’t be spending the next year paying for our vacation. Instead, we can start planning the next one.
Anyway, there has been quite a great deal of excitement around the Havens surrounding this event. The tuxedo had to be altered, as the gentleman who wears it has lost quite a lot of weight since it was originally acquired. I can testify that schlepping boxes of produce around for several hours each day will encourage weight loss as well as nice development of pectorals and biceps.
I have had a secret desire for strappy silver sandals ever since I was in my early twenties, and I finally succumbed to the blandishments of Zappo’s website and ordered up a pair. They are all that anyone could desire, and they fit too. Personally, I think they are darned cute, and they satisfy some atavistic desire that I have been harboring for several decades.
Yep, them’s my feet they are on, you can tell by the dragon tattoo. I don’t want to hear any guff about heels ruining my knees, hips, and ankles either. They aren’t much of a heel and I don’t intend to do much walking in them. I figure that they should last me the rest of my life, given how often I wear dress shoes.
I moved the plants into the house, and as per its usual custom, the Christmas Cactus got religion and proceeded to bloom like crazy. It is ornamenting the dining room plant shelves quite spectacularly.
I’ve been doing so well with the pink african violet my friend Sharon gave me several years ago when she moved to Nevada, that one of my clients showed up with a new one for me. This one is a gorgeous royal purple. I love it. Hope it loves me.
Out in the front garden the fall blooming crocuses are putting on a show.
Look at all the shoots at the base of that cluster. There will be blossoms for several days, especially since the nights have turned cool. They really are lovely things, especially when you get up close and personal.
Well, I’d rattle on, but we are going on a DATE tonight, out to a place up on the Lake where one of our friends’ bands is playing a gig this evening. We are going up early to eat, and will probably even Dance….
Gotta go take a shower and think about what to wear!
the havens 
Sounds like a fabulous vacation.
we can hardly wait. The best thing about Seabourne is that it it’s all inclusive, so once you are on the ship, unless you have some desperate need for Cuban cigars or 25 year old scotch, there Arno further expenses.
Additionally, there is no tipping allowed aboard, that is also included in your ticket price. This has the effect of equalizing everyone aboard. The millionaire with large quantities of money cannot endear myself to the crew by spreading twenty dollar bills around. In fact, the ordinary person who talks to their waiter and treats him/her like a real person instead of an invisible entity winds up being a favored customer instead. Interesting.
And four days on the coast eating fresh seafood sounds like Heaven to us!!
What an adventure! I like that you pay up front – i get edgy when i know that i’ll have a bill waiting after a holiday – and try to pre-pay as much as i can to reduce stress!
Blues party! Seaside dining! Sailing the Atlantic! Lovely man in a tuxedo. AND cute strappy sandals that will not wreck your back! Yippee!
Yes, yippee! Happy dances! Deep breathing and all that.
Of course, if you go off pre-paid with lots of available credit on your accounts, then if the Icelandic volcano blows or there is a hurricane or whatever, you are not stranded with no resources. The edginess factor is huge. You never know what is going to happen, and I like to put myself in as un-vulnerable a place is possible so I can roll with the punches instead of standing around wringing my hands….
Three weeks from right this instant we will actually be in the airport checked in for our flight…… and three weeks flies by like a leaf in the hurricane at this stage of life.
Oh how exciting! Your sandals are so pretty! And I love the zygocactus, we call them crab cactus over here and they bloom in April. Although I did find something very similar that only blooms in September.
The silly thing doesn’t know when it is supposed to bloom. I think it responds to suddenly being under lights that are on 16 hours a day…
One year when I moved it in it hadn’t bloomed for three years, and as I moved it from outside to the plant lights I informed it that if it didn’t bloom that year it would have a home on the compost pile. It showed buds within a week! So maybe what it responds to is threats…
I wore those sandals the other night when we went out and they are comfortable too.
The flowers do not look like saffron crocus; but I know they bloom this time of year too. They would make a nice addition for your garden, as well as providing some nice seasoning for the kitchen.
I used to have some saffron crocuses but I think they taste good and someone ate them.
These are a different variety of fall blooming crocus, there are actually about 5 or 6 of them that I know of.