kochleffel

After that I booked a hotel in Manhattan for the two nights before embarkation, and bought a ticket to Nabucco at the Met. FWIW, that opera is apparently wildly popular in Israel even though the other guys win.

What caught my attention in the gala menu was the Slightly Less Than Perfect Manhattan. That may be the same as the Not So Perfect Manhattan, which is 2 parts Bourbon (higher proof preferred), 1 part sweet vermouth, 1/2 part dry vermouth, and orange bitters. Now I want one right away. I swear, I do think about things other than alcohol. I have class at 4:00 and I have only ever attended one class drunk, on the day that Nixon resigned. The professor was visiting from University College Dublin and didn't seem to object.

OK on the special days but I think that the third one might have been chosen specially for me. No on the meal (pork) and on the drink. Yes on Roy's alternative but it's not likely to materialize. For a red blend, I'll suggest Hunter's Red from the west side of Seneca Lake. I haven't been to Chile. Hartford International announced today that registration for the spring opens on Monday, which startled me, and released the course schedule. I needed to check the dates for an RCI cruise in January, and got a bigger shock when I saw that I had missed the final payment date. However, they had not cancelled my booking and were (I think) overjoyed to accept the payment. The ship returns to Cape Liberty on the day of the first class session, but class isn't until 4:00 p.m.

I'm in favor of all three special days. Unfortunately, I have plenty of reason to be aware of information overload and probably don't need a special day for it. The meal would be OK but I'm not sure that I would bother with a slow cooker for it. Probably no on the drink. For a Pinot Noir that's new to use, Red Tail Ridge 2020. I've been to Tallinn but not Riga. Dinner tonight will be the last round of haddock and peppers in Greek olive oil. I use my public library for both print books and e-books, but I can borrow e-books from five public-library systems including New York and Brooklyn--library privileges are statewide, but only the two last have a convenient way to sign up. I'm also waiting until I get back. In the U.S., it's covered by insurance but not by Medicare Part B, meaning that it comes under the rules of a person's prescription-drug plan. Mine will class it as a Tier I drug and charge a large co-pay, plus I haven't met the plan's deductible for the year. The Nieuw Amsterdam had a change of itinerary when I was aboard in 2020, because of a propulsion problem, and they didn't tell us in advance even though the problem had existed for months. We went to St. Croix instead of Sint Maarten. I have the latter in a booking for 2024, but with RCI.

In my working life I had two good bosses, years apart, several mediocre ones, and several who were truly awful. For pasta day, all I have on hand is orzo. The little gaudy clothing that I have is wrong for the season, but a headline in the WaPo today is Dolly Parton was told ‘gaudy’ clothes would hurt her career. She doubled down. We ate a fair amount of chow mein when I was growing up, but back then, in antiquity, no one had heard of "vegetarian." Pass on the cocktail. For a Pinot Noir, I'll return to Dr. Frank's Old Vines Pinot Noir. "Old" means planted in 1958, the second oldest planting of Pinot Noir in the U.S. I haven't been to Fakarava. I used to go to a dental practice where the hygienist always had talk radio playing in her cubicle. At the hour I was usually there, Dr. Ruth Westheimer. This made me wonder whether the invention of radio had been a good thing. Today, grocery shopping, acupuncture appointment, and trying on clothes. From the fit of my clothes recently, it would appear that I have lost weight, but I feel as if I've gained. According to the scale, nothing has changed for months.

I usually don't order kosher meals -- during travel, I practice only "Biblical kashrut," a totally unauthorized folk custom that follows rules that are actually stated in the Torah but not any added since.

With a transatlantic redeye flight coming soon, I was curious about what the airline might serve for breakfast, since while there may be a choice, there won't be any substitutions. Most of menus reported on FT have offered chicken sausage.

My religion prohibits it, as well as bacon and pork sausage. In England I ask for all of them to be omitted, but request an extra egg.

I'm back from having my car inspected, since the sticker would have expired while I'm away. The car failed initially, but only because of needing new wiper blades. I had already purchased a set and they installed them for me, probably in 1/10 the time it would have taken me to do it.

One hospital group here is strictly show-up-and-wait, while the other books appointments. I now try to get all lab orders written for the latter. If there's a long wait, I get too frightened.

I used to read the dictionary for entertainment. No way am I cutting up any credit cards. I use so little cash that I could be Swedish. I don't think that Mona Lisa and DaVinci are global cats; they have never lived anywhere but Pennsylvania and New York, but that makes them interstate cats. The quotation explains why people never seem to believe me. I would have said that a ground beef meat pie was a cottage pie, but maybe this one is made with a crust instead of a potato topping. No, no, no on the cocktail. For a Cabernet Sauvignon, Fulkerson 2017. I haven't been to New Zealand. I'm returning a pair of shoes from a brand that has always fit perfectly, until now. Most brands of shoes in the correct size are slightly too wide, but this shoe is much too narrow, so much so that I wonder whether it was mislabeled.

Thanks. The card up my sleeve is that I have unused HIA excursion credit, so I've booked a HAL tour. If I change my mind, it will have cost me nothing, because the credit would otherwise go to waste. On the wallet and security topic, I will have three wallets total: one in my pocket with €20 or so and one credit card; a very thin wallet with another card, and, if I think I'll need it, a debit card, inside my clothing; and the real wallet with everything else back in the safe in my room.

I'm getting annoyed about Funchal. No one in the roll call was interested in a taxi tour that I was trying to set up, but another passenger posted about looking for more people to join one that they had scheduled -- and ignored two requests from me to join it. They are still looking for two more passengers and I'm concluding that they're holding out for two and won't consider a solo. Or are just too flaky to rely on.

A vegan crunch wrap might be OK with me. French 75 was the drink of the day on May 12, 2022: For a Pinot Noir, there are lots of Finger Lakes choices. Maybe Fulkerson, which I think is the 2019 vintage. I haven't been to French Guiana, or to St. Helena, unless you count the one in California. I was starting to feel feverish at bedtime last night, but any fever was gone by this morning. My arm hurts a little. What is worse is that every joint hurts, possibly an arthritic reaction to the vaccine but more likely caused by the cold, damp weather.

I wouldn't mind some meatloaf. I might also like the cocktail. For the wine, maybe Long Point Sauvignon Blanc. I have been to Victoria, but only by the car ferry from Port Angeles, around 1979. I have visited the George Eastman House (museum of photography) in Rochester. The service officiation this morning went well, even leading some music that we haven't sung in months. I got a flu jab this afternoon, as late as possible so that if it led to fever, it wouldn't start until after the concert. The concert was outstanding. The centerpiece was the Hummel trumpet concerto, a real virtuoso piece. Interestingly, it could only be composed because of the invention of the keyed trumpet in the nineteenth century, but keyed trumpets required difficult contortions of the player's hands and didn't produce the best sound, so now it is ordinarily played on a modern piston-valve trumpet, although the performer tonight used an E-flat trumpet instead of the standard B-flat. The concert was given in the historic church downtown (one of several historic churches, but the only one still in use as a church). It was built for unamplified preaching--one of the Beechers was the pastor for much of the nineteenth century--and has incredibly good acoustics.

I had a course assignment this week. It's not a photography course; it's a class in environmental chaplaincy.

Yes. I looked at both brands, many similar bags that were too small and a few others that were too large.

One of the assignments for my class yesterday was to draw (or photograph, if you can't draw, and I can't) some outdoor plant matter; if photograph, study the plant as carefully as you would if you were going to draw it. Here are my pix. I've reluctantly ordered a Pacsafe day bag, plus a second Air Tag since I'll check two bags on the outbound, and four more small locks for the various zippers on those bags. I don't lock any bags that I'm going to check, not even with TSA-complaint locks--there have been too many reports that TSA cut or smashed locks rather than use their key, maybe because many of their keys have been lost or stolen. The locks are just for the trains in Spain.

I say enough silly things already, no need to have a special day. The code with Romesco sauce would be OK with me. Actual dinner will probably be haddock with peppers sautéed in Greek olive oil. The drink does not sound good at all. A website says that the wine is made from Sangiovese, which isn't grown here, plus some Cabernet and Merlot, which are. I might choose Dr. Frank's Saperavi, sold out at the winery but maybe still in stores. I have been to Corfu, last year on the Norwegian Jade, and I think I might have posted some of these photos before. The Duolingo Greek course was constantly talking about elephants, and I expected to see them roaming all over Greece, but these, at Corfu, were the only elephants I saw. Today I need to take more things to the rummage sale and then try to figure out the donated electronics--whether they work, and before that, what they're supposed to do--but for that I must pick up some batteries. Tomorrow morning I am a service officiant at the synagogue. Later I'm scheduled for a flu jab, then leading a brief online religious ceremony, then attending an orchestra concert. Right now I really just want to go back to bed.

I have a lot of cookbooks but I don't launch them. I don't even know what I would launch them with. Beef taco soup would be OK with me. I have class until 7:00 p.m. and I have no idea what dinner will actually be. I believe that the Rye Opener was last featured in September 2022 - a friend owns a bar and restaurant called Rye and I sent him the formula then. For the wine, Wiemer 2021 Dry Rosé, made from Pinot Noir and Cabernet Franc. I cancelled the only booking that would have taken me to Costa Maya.

It's actually domestic chard, from a neighboring county, not imported from Switzerland.

Oh dear. Dinner here is turning out to be a grilled-cheese sandwich, Brandywine tomato (on the side) and Swiss chard.

In Venice, the presenting issue was physical damage to the channel. But support for the ban also grew because residents and business owners didn't benefit appreciably from cruise calls: they said that cruise passengers, there only for the day, didn't shop, didn't eat at restaurants other than McD's, and then threw the wrappers into the canals. Passengers embarking from Venice, OTOH, tended to stay in hotels, eat in restaurants, and even shop, but that was of no account. That, and the proposed tax to enter the city at all, have put me off the idea of ever visiting Venice. Air pollution is a genuine issue as well, but increased availability and use of shore power would relieve that.

Also my experience with NCL a few years ago. I was coming from the Ramblas, and it took longer to get a taxi than to get to the dock once I had one.

EOM