Thursday, December 13 and Friday, December 14 – Home:

            I just knew I’d have a story…

            Of course, we didn’t sleep very well the night before we left…too much excitement…hoping we would wake up and not oversleep (which never happens because you are up all night thinking about that very event), the cat knew something was up and was not happy because she knew whatever it was, she was not going to like it, and we were just thinking about too many things in general.

            Anyway, at 5:00 a.m., we decided to get up.  We had set the alarm clock on the cell phone for 5:30 and this would be a good way to see if it actually went off, which it did, scaring us as we initially thought the ringing signaled that the taxi driver was calling to tell us he couldn’t make it for one reason or another!

            So the first thing I do every morning is (on demand) feed the cat.  This morning, however, I had to mash up the little pill in her food that would hopefully make her enjoy the day (ha ha).  So I do this – clean out her dish, mash the pill into a nice helping of food, just sure that she is going to be ecstatic that she is getting this extra helping, and I set it down in front of her, and she looks up at me with this scornful look in her eyes that says, “You really don’t expect me to eat that, do you?”  And with that, she sauntered off to who knows where.  Yikes!  Oh well…I guess she just wanted to be acutely aware of all the goings on today!

            So as we were preparing to get ready, and I was in the head brushing my teeth (just what you all wanted to know, right?), I hear kitty banging on the door (yes, she does do that).  So I let her in and she jumps up on the counter, and I get it…she wants a drink of water out of the faucet.  This persnickety cat likes to drink directly from a running faucet instead of lapping water in a dish.  So I let her have her drink, and lo and behold, she goes and eats everything in sight in both cat food dishes!  Thank Heaven!!  Here’s hoping the little blue pill does its job and knocks her out!  First disaster averted!

            On to the second potential disaster.

            First off, I have to offer one of my personal opinions about men – my husband included.  I don’t know what it is about them, but they like to push the time envelope.  The taxi driver is coming to pick us up at 6:50 a.m., and at 6:30 Bob is still puttering around, and then he tells me he has to check the engine room one more time.  I am saying, “You know, we have to get all this luggage out to the parking lot, and the cat, and we should be out there a few minutes early, yada, yada, yada, and Bob is saying, “Yeah, yeah, we have plenty of time.”  This is a man’s standard response to everything.  I swear, our plane is supposed to leave at 10:30, and if it was 10:00, Bob would still say, “Oh we have plenty of time.”  Well, what can I say – I like to be a little early (for precautionary purposes)…just in case something happens on the way to the airport!!!

            So, we get all our stuff out to the parking lot, and guess what, the taxi driver has been waiting for us since 6:30 a.m.  I start to be impressed.  However, when we get in the car (which I think was Mercury Marquis) and I start to look around, I realize it is similar to the car we borrowed way back in Deltaville.  The inside is semi-falling apart, the passenger side window doesn’t work, so he has to open my window so Bob gets some air, the seats don’t work – do I need to go on.  Oh well, we are on our way home.

            Now I am sitting in the back seat with the cat so I don’t have a great view of everything, but I figure that’s probably not a bad thing; and as we start to pull out of the parking lot, I hear from both men in the front seat, “Wow, I never noticed that earlier,” “I wonder what that could be,” “I hope this isn’t a problem.”  So I finally yell, “WHAT’S THE MATTER!”  And they turn around and tell me the engine is overheating.  Do you see why I like to leave early sometimes?

            Yep, I realize that something that resembles smoke is coming out from under the hood of the car…Yikes!  So now the first order of the trip is to find a gas station where the guy can get some water to put in the radiator.  I am just shaking my head.    So that’s where we head – fortunately, there is a gas station on the way to the airport, and all the while he is apologizing, and saying how embarrassed he is etc., etc., etc.

            The water seems to fix the problem, and we actually get to the airport in about 45 minutes (everybody told us that it would take over an hour), and the guy is pretty talkative the whole way.  Actually, he had such a “gift of gab”, he should have been a bartender – he probably would have made a lot more money.  He was born on Long Island, so he and Bob had lots of stories and reminisces to talk about, and he was a wealth of interesting information about Florida in general.

            So here we are at the airport by 7:30 a.m. and the plane doesn’t leave until 10:30.  Bob is looking at me like, “we could have slept another hour.”  I sleepily agree.  Now we just have to get through ticketing and security.

            Ticketing is no problem – not too many people in line, and there were a lot of customer service people behind the counter.  I did have one lady and her little girl come up to me and want to know about the little kitty, and was she “humming”  as they tried to peer into the cat carrier.  Humming…???  I said do you mean “purring”, and she said, “No, humming.”  I replied that, “No, I don’t think she is humming – she is probably not too happy right now.”  Fortunately, we checked our bags and then headed off to security…oh dear…

            Now, before I left on this voyage, I took the cat to the vet as I probably related in an earlier blog.  And the vet told me, “Under no circumstances take that cat out of the carrier or even open the cat carrier!!”  And I plan to follow her admonition to the letter.   So we get up to where you have to completely undress in front of everybody (oh no…just take off stuff that goes beep), and one of the nice security guards says to me that I will have to take Lucy out of the cat carrier so the cat carrier can go through the scanner.   So I explain as nicely and cooperatively as I can that I was advised not to take her out of the carrier, and that I had been told when I bought the ticket that I could walk through the people scanner with the cat carrier.  So he tells me that when I get ready to go through, they will take me, but then I will be escorted to a safe room where they can examine me and the cat.  Yikes!  I am now thinking I am glad we got to the airport early, and I am not sleepy anymore.

            So we get up to the scanner, and get ready to go through, and a nice lady with a gun says to me, “You have to take the cat out of the carrier.”  I decide rather quickly that it wouldn’t be a good idea to argue with her, so I think I am just going to hold on to Lucy for dear life and get her back in the carrier as soon as possible.  So I grab the scruff of her neck and lift her out, and hold on to her for all I am worth, but it was ok, because she was a limp noodle.  She had been convinced early on that she was about to be shot by the nice lady with the gun, and that everything her mother had told her about people was coming true and she was just going to give up.  So we walk through the scanner and there were no beeping or flashing lights, and I think, “phew” when another security guard looks at me, and I swear – I SWEAR - he says to me, “Is that a panther?” I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP!! I said, “No, this is a housecat.”  But it was too late, another security guard heard that comment, and then another, so I am now surrounded by three security guards, all saying, “is that a panther??”  I am starting to wonder just how competent these people really are.  So another nice security guard lady, gets wide-eyed because she is in actuality terrified of cats (even a 10 pound limp housecat) and actually backs away.  Everybody within earshot is now looking at us like we have tried to smuggle some feline contraband into the country, and even if Lucy did get loose, she would have just lain prostrate on the floor begging to be shot and put out of her misery.  So now both Bob and I have to move over to a less crowded area and have both our hands swiped with some weird type of cloth thing.  I have no idea what purpose this served, and I am too tired to look it up on the internet, and I wasn’t about to ask the bevy of security guards surrounding us, but it must have had something to do with determining if we actually were handling a panther or a meek little housecat.  I suppose they finally determined that Lucy was just a housecat and not an illegal substance, and I was allowed to put her back in the carrier and continue on to our gate. 

            Just remember all this when you don’t want to leave early for the airport!

            Honestly, after that hullabaloo, Bob and I were just scratching our heads in between laughter and disbelief that Lucy could be mistaken for a panther (even a baby panther).  I mean, seriously, what level of education do you need to know the difference especially if you are supposed to be a security guard.  Ok I guess they are just doing their job, and yes, they probably did need to “see” the cat, but for three people to say, “is that a panther??”  I’m sure this was the highlight of their day, but C’mon people…

            Fortunately, after that, all went smoothly.  Lucy was completely quiet, even on the plane where I had to stuff her under the seat in front of me.  My daughter picked us up at the airport, and I was able to open the carrier and pet her, and we got home without any further incidents.  When I opened the cat carrier to let her out, she scampered out, recognized at once where she was, and seemed to be ecstatically happy.  We were all exhausted, and hit the sack early and slept well.

            So, this is Friday morning.  We are sitting here at the breakfast table and glad to be home (at least for the next month).  Lucy is sitting on the windowsill next to us, intently looking out the window, pretending she is a panther and hunting for birds looking for their breakfast on the lawn.  Bob and I are watching the gray squirrels scamper up and down the trees playfully chasing each other.   It’s a bright, chilly morning and a whitish frost covers the yard.  Among many things on my “to do” list, I am going to do some Christmas decorating today.

 Happy Holidays everyone!

           

           

            

Wednesday, December 12, 2012 – Cocoa (but going home tomorrow!):

            Don’t know if you all listened to the news item yesterday that NASA had launched a classified rocket, but Bob and I were puttering around the boat in the afternoon yesterday and all of a sudden this roaring sound brought us to attention.  We both looked at each other and agreed that it sounded like something being launched across the river, maybe something like a rocket (if we knew what a rocket actually sounded like).  We kept scanning the sky, but it was overcast and we couldn’t make anything out that was headed to the heavens.  So as we listened to the news last night, sure enough they said that a rocket had been launched, and this morning, Ken, the Marina Manager, confirmed our curiosity, and he also told us that if the weather is clear, launches can usually be seen from the marina.  Unfortunately, we have had overcast weather for a couple of days now.  It made us realize that an actual space launch would have been a spectacular, memorable sight.  And I will say again, that I think it’s a shame that we don’t have the space program anymore.

            Well, this morning I was able to print our boarding passes without a hitch.  The little printer spit them out pronto with just one click!  It didn’t even think about arguing with me!

            So we are all packed and ready to go.  Poor kitty knows something is definitely up, and she knows whatever it is, she isn’t going to like it.  The minute she saw a duffle bag come out, she took off and hid in her little “mouse house”, and she didn’t really want to come out for lunch, but her Pavlovian brain took over the minute she heard Bob and I having lunch; immediately after she ate a couple of bites, she headed at breakneck speed for our cabin and hid under the covers for the rest of the day.  Maybe she’ll forget by tomorrow morning that anything is up, and

I’ll be able to give her that little pill that is supposed to make her not realize we are putting her in the cat carrier, into a taxi, through check-in and security at an airport, and on an airplane for a two hour ride and then in a car with a four-year old.  I wonder if she’ll ever recover.  I always told her she was going to be an “adventure cat”.

            I will probably write one more blog when we get home, because I just know you all want to know how kitty-cat’s airplane adventure went, but, then, seriously, no one wants to read about our month at home!! I want to thank everyone who sent me comments both encouraging and threatening (ha ha!), and I will start the blog up again as we continue on our journey on January 15 down the coast of Florida and maybe to the keys, or the west coast – we still haven’t decided!

            Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah, or whatever holiday you happen to celebrate – and we hope everyone has a wonderful year ahead of them.   Thanks again for reading!

Tuesday, December 11, 2012 – Cocoa:

            Woke up to fog again or was it that I just had a little too much fun last night?  No...I think it was definitely foggy weather!  After a breakfast comprised of strange things from the refrigerator, and lunch the same, the most exciting part of the day was doing laundry.  Well, actually it got a little more exciting when I couldn’t make the printer work, and we needed it to print our boarding passes.  Bob almost had to fish it out of the water, but he saved it and me just as I was about to pitch it out through the door.  We bought this printer back in Annapolis especially so it would fit on the shelf in our cabin, and it was wireless, and it looked like we could actually figure out how to make it work (especially after assurances from the nice salesman “that, oh sure, this is a piece of cake”, and it would be really convenient, etc., etc., etc.  Well, let me tell you, it has been nothing but a pain in the “engine room.”  Half the time, the wireless connection is no good, half the time the computer says it can’t find the printer, half the time I get a message that says, “You are too stupid to work this thing…” oh wait, that’s more than a whole isn’t it…oh well...and half the time it finally prints what I asked it for three days later when I least expected it.

            Well, anyway, we decided that it would be much easier if we just went back to the office supply store and bought a USB cable and connected the printer directly to the laptop.  The helpful salesman looked at us, and said, “You didn’t buy a cable when you bought the printer?”  Whereupon, I wanted to reply, “No…why don’t they just put the d@#$ cable in the box when you buy the printer?”…but I just meekly said, “I guess not…”

            So boatward bound we went, and the first problem occurred just trying to get the cable out of the packaging.  Honestly, you need an industrial chain saw to get through this stuff.  So after about 10 minutes of both Bob and I hacking away at this plastic thing with scissors and other tools we finally get the cable out of the box.  So I am now happily hooking everything up, knowing that this is going to work, and I will be able to print our boarding passes tomorrow morning.  WRONG!

            I couldn’t print anything! Nothing! Nada! All I got was this message that said the computer couldn’t find the printer.  I must have hit every button I could find on both the computer and the printer, and answered every stupid question it asked me, and I even very nicely told the computer that the printer was sitting right next to it, and please print my document.  (and…no…the cd that came with the printer would not work either).  Nothing!  It was at that moment that I got the bright idea to delete the printer altogether from the computer and reinstall the software from Epson.  Don’t even ask me to explain how long that took and that that course of action didn’t work either.  That’s when I rather angrily pulled the USB cable out of the laptop, and was in the starting position of throwing it out the door when Bob wrestled me to the ground and took the printer away from me.  That option being taken away from me, I decided to call the Epson customer service number, knowing full well, that I would never get through, and I might as well be calling Mars.  Well Glory Hallelujah! I got right through, a really nice man helped me that I could actually understand (well, pretty much), and he had the printer up and running in a couple of minutes.  I thought I had done everything he told me to do, but go figure – it worked and that’s all I cared about.  His last words to me were, “Thanks for calling and don’t hesitate to call again if you have any more questions or problems.”  He didn’t even ask for a credit card.  What planet am I on?

            So that was pretty much it for the day.  As far as I was concerned, that was enough!!

            We are now making packing lists and more to do lists, and tomorrow will be really busy as we prepare to head home for the holidays.  Here are some pictures of sunset at the marina, and Haulover Canal where we saw everything but manatees.

            Will write more tomorrow.  Ciao!

Sunset at Cocoa Village Marina

Looking over Haulover Canal with egret in background

Little lizard on the rocks at Haulover Canal

Monday, December 10, 2012 – Yep, we’re still in Cocoa:

            Happy Birthday to Aunt Marion who is 98 years young!!  She still travels the world, cleans her own house, and walks like at least a mile every morning!  I wish I had her genes!  Aunt Marion, we hope you had a great day!

            So, last night Bob and I were playing cards, and he (for some reason unknown to me) glances up at the panel above the helm station where there are some mysterious lights that if they come on, warn you that some untoward event is about to happen if you don’t do something RIGHT NOW!  And he sees this particular light brightly glowing, and says, “hmmmm….wonder what that is?”  So this, of course, causes us to cease playing cards immediately, and a check of all engine systems becomes necessary.  Actually, the light indicated that the forward bilge pump was unhappy, and that could be a cause for concern.  So a cursory check of the engine room yielded nothing amiss, and the mid and aft bilge pumps were ok – so, of course, the only thing left was naturally the forward bilge pump.  Now - the forward bilge pump is not easy to find or get to.  Bob opened the hatch in the floor in the forward cabin, and you could hear the bilge pump working away, but in order to actually get to it, you have to completely tear the forward beds apart and I don’t mean just unmaking the beds.  You have to take the beds out.  At least you have to take the mattresses out and remove the “hatch” covers under the mattresses and climb down into some space I don’t want to know about.  But, before we did that, Bob, proactively, asks me to check the electrical panel and see what position the bilge pump switches are in.  Good idea – and it so happens that the breakers are all in the “on” position, but I discover that there is some discrepancy about the bilge pump switches.  Everything on this boat has at least three systems to check before it works correctly.  There are three positions for all three bilge pumps, “off, manual, and auto,” and it so happened that the forward bilge pump somehow had gotten into the “manual” position and was constantly running it’s little self like a hamster on a wheel.  I switched it to “manual” and it shut off, no mechanic needed to be called in the middle of the night, and all was well with the world (boat) again.  Phew!

            So we woke up again to foggy, but we are going to rent a car and check out the wildlife refuge on Merritt Island, and buy ice cream at the Publix.  It’s going to be a good day.  This time we get a Chevy Malibu (sorry, I wouldn’t go out and buy one), but it’s a nice car, and we head over the bridge to Merritt Island and turn left on Rt. 3 towards the Kennedy Space Center and the Wildlife Refuge – big mistake.  We thought we were taking a short cut to the Wildlife Center, but unfortunately, the Kennedy Space Center is in the way, and it’s restricted, and the nice, but very firm, lady at the guard station says we have to turn around and she actually gives us pre-written directions (because other idiots apparently do the same thing) from the space center to the Wildlife Refuge which takes us back over the Indian River and through Titusville.  It took us a few days to get there – no, no, but it did take us about an extra 45 minutes. 

            When we finally did arrive at the wildlife center, it was getting very overcast, and I was thinking there wouldn’t be many good photography opportunities, and I was right.  The Visitors’ Center was very nice, and the guides were very helpful and gave us directions to the manatee observation area, which was what I really wanted to see.  Unfortunately, there wasn’t a manatee in sight, and I stared at the water for over half an hour.  We were starting to run out of time as we had some errands to run, and we were having a couple we met at the marina over for drinks at 5:00 p.m.  There were many other wildlife sighting opportunities there, including a 7 mile drive that was highly recommended to us, and a drive out to Playalinda Beach which is supposed to be one of the only completely natural beaches left on the east coast – or thereabouts (I can’t really remember!)

            We had quite a drive to get back to Cocoa, so we decided to go back to Merritt Island, have lunch at the Olive Garden again, hit the Publix, and we needed a USB cable from Office Depot. 

            Finally, all errands completed, and we arrive back to the boat deciding that we really need to go back to the Wildlife Center and see more of what it has to offer – maybe when we come back in January.  But I don’t think we will see any manatees unless we head farther south to warmer water.  Our new friends came over at 5:00 and we spent a lovely evening talking boats and boating adventures, and believe, they had some funny stories to relate, especially about anchors getting wrapped around their wing keel.  Yikes!  I’m glad I didn’t have their experiences!

            Just like when we left home for this trip, I find I am now making “to do” lists to go home for a month.  Tomorrow, we start checking things off the lists!  I am looking forward to going home for awhile.