Notes From New Zealand — Redeux

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the last time it snowed in Los Angeles.  A journalist friend, whom I trust, responded that the snow fell in 1949, not 1952.  So that calls for, if not a retraction, at least a caveat – do not trust me to be entirely accurate in this blog other than about my own thoughts and feelings.  I have always been semi-allergic to researching details because I find any project that takes more than three minutes has the potential to become seriously boring, and at my age I want to be amused, not bored.  Actually, that was true for me when I was younger as well.

During the past week the formerly good (but now, sadly, not so great) ship Viking Mars has suffered the indignity of being refused entry to one port because a freighter is stuck at the dock that was destined for us.  Also, one of the engines isn’t working (on a ship fewer than six months old), so we are headed directly to Melbourne for repairs rather than to Hobart in Tasmania.  Hobart promised to be a lot more interesting.

Also, the ship has run out of eggs – I kid you not!  So, no scrambled eggs for me this morning.

By the time you read this Daveen and I should be back home.  I have found that the best part of any vacation is walking into my bedroom at the end of my travels.  Home is where there are no stuck freighters or malfunctioning engines, and always . . . plenty of eggs.

A few days ago I began to write my rememoirs (I hope I am the first author to use that word).  I intend my rememoirs to be a humorous, perhaps touching, account of my first 83 years of adventures on this earth, or, as Heinlein wrote, in this strange land.  Memoirs are, presumably, what actually happened.  A rememior is what you remember happened.  The two are seldom identical.

Well, it’s almost time for an eggless breakfast (Oatmeal, anyone?).  The ship is rocking and Daveen has been in bed for almost an entire day. But I am reading another excellent book — Chancellor, a biography about Angela Merkel who was the outstanding, but not perfect, former Chancellor of Germany.

One of her guiding principles, for both herself and her country, is that you can’t do it alone.  I heartily second that idea and I’m grateful for everyone in my life who has helped me There are, and have been, many.

I’m looking forward to whipping up some scrambled eggs at home.

Alan