Having just returned from an 11 day cruise down to the Panama Canal, I now find myself in a rented beach house with no phone or internet connection. The beach house is short on other amenities as well, such as pots and pans, knifes that cut, glassware, and any sort of toasting appliance. Fortunately, I will not be here long (God willing) since I am searching for a house to buy. (I saw a wonderful house in early November, before I accepted the job, but it’s no longer on the market. I can now only hope to find another I like as much.)

The cruise went well, and would have been even better had my luggage not chosen to take a separate tour. I think it might have gone to Charlotte, then possibly to Aruba and beyond, though it’s hard to tell – it isn’t as communicative as I would hope, and tends not to send postcards and such. Our first hint of trouble came immediately after boarding our US Airways flight to Florida, when the pilot addressed us using the dreaded F word – “Folks…” – to tell us that he had just learned that none of our luggage had been loaded, and we would need to wait for it. Since we had all promised our luggage a nice vacation, no one complained much during the hour we sat at the gate. Eventually, our bags ostensibly loaded, we took off for sunny Ft Lauderdale. Upon landing, the pilot again came on the intercom using the F word, this time to tell us he had just learned that none of the luggage had been loaded after all. A few of us used a different F word as we herded down to the baggage claim office to provide a description of our luggage along with our itinerary, so that someday, when US Airways’ Philadelphia baggage handlers decided the time was right, our luggage might be sent to the right place.

We made it to the cruise ship with minutes to spare, and perused the contents of our carry-on luggage. I was delighted to discover a spare pair of underwear, some black pants, sandals, a pair of shorts, and a golf shirt. Ann was not so lucky, though she claimed to have spare underwear. We wore our plane outfits to dinner that night.

The next day dawned in Key West where, instead of touring Hemingway’s house and the bars He frequented, we toured the local K Mart and Sears. Surprisingly, swimwear was not plentiful, and neither of us scored. Finding no evening wear either, we did manage to grab some shorts and casual wear. Ann also shoplifted a large plastic hair clip from K Mart. (She claims she paid for it, yet is unable to produce the receipt despite swearing she has it.) Since it was Formal Night on the ship, I wore my Formal Black Short-Sleeve Sweater, and Ann wore her Formal Black Golf Shirt, with her stolen hair accessory. The ship’s photographer took our picture that night, and we looked fabulous. (Really. I was proud of us.)

Day Three took us to Cozumel. We had been there before, and were feeling out of sorts anyway given our apparel situation, so stayed on the ship. Shockingly, Ann’s luggage and my garment bag showed up in late afternoon, and I thanked God I always pack my swimsuit on a hanger. (People who travel with me often raise their eyebrows at this habit. I just think it’s easier to find my bathing suit this way, but what I tell them is that it prevents the swimsuit from wrinkling. They seem to believe I am capable of caring about this, which is a whole other topic.)

Much cheered, we sailed on toward Costa Rica. Once there, we rode a bus for two hours into the mountains, in order to then tour the rain forest in a ski-lift style, six-person open air gondola that floated through the rain forest treetops for an hour and a half, with a guide pointing out the different types of foliage and wildlife. The area of the rainforest we saw was part of a private reserve, abutting a national park, and our conveyance had been built less than ten years ago to allow non-scientists the opportunity to enter the rain forest safely and easily. The builders had carved out just enough of the foliage to allow the gondolas through, and in areas we could see the plant life reasserting itself into our path. Every cubic inch of space seemed to contain something living, and while we mostly saw plant life, we also saw butterflies, bullet ants (so named because of the sensation of their sting), and a pair of sloths hanging casually from a tree.

That night was New Years Eve, another formal night (God bless the garment bag!), and the midnight party was up on the pool deck. At a quarter to twelve, it started to rain, though we’d had enough champagne by then not to mind standing next to a swimming pool in the rain in our cocktail dresses. At one point, I ducked under an overhang and found myself chatting with the comedian who had performed the previous night. He made a comment about the dry ice machine, which was puffing dense gray clouds right in front of the band, and I replied that I was glad to hear it was dry ice  – I thought perhaps we were electing a new pope. He arched an eyebrow and informed me that it was his job to be the comedian – and then it was midnight, clink-clink, and a few minutes we dispersed for bed. En route, I lost Ann briefly and paused inside a doorway, just in time to catch what appeared to be Round Ten in a Mother-in-Law/Daughter-in-Law smackdown – neither one taller than five feet, both bent forward with index fingers waving in the others’ face only inches away, both speaking rapidly in raised voices. Since Daughter-in-Law was facing me, I could only hear her side – “I have apologized to you up and down the east coast and I’m through with it. You are a nasty, horrible woman…” This went on for a while in an entertaining fashion, until DIL turned her back and huffed off. After a few paces, she whirled around and said (apparently in response to a comment from MIL that I didn’t hear) – “That would be my deepest hope. You are a nasty, nasty person!” and then she left for good. Just then, Ann showed up, and I gave her my best finger-waving, hip-swiveling impression. She was bummed to have missed the show.

Morning hit us early, since our tour of the Panama canal left the ship at 7:15. (Why, God, why?) This time, we only traveled an hour inland before boarding our tour vehicle – today, an open-air ferry boat that held about fifty of us and went two of the canal’s three sets of locks. The opening and closing of the enormous doors that create the locks was perhaps the most fascinating part of the trip, though in slower moments I looked across the canal to the shoreline and could easily imagine the thousands of men laboring under the hot sun as the canal was built. Because the ferry’s sides were open, we were able to actually touch the walls in the locks at a couple of points, and we returned to our ship in late afternoon feeling we had really experienced the canal. I should note that the ship’s newsletter, delivered to us daily, provided a briefing on each port of call so that we could feel a little bit – but not too – knowledgeable. Regarding Panama, the newsletter said, “Panama has been home to many different peoples over the last few centuries. The first of these were the indigenous people.” Well, yes.

As sometimes happens on a group tour, one of the more interesting features of the canal expedition was a fellow tourist. During the bus ride to the ferry, a black-clad woman in the front row distinguished herself by peppering the tour guide with questions about the real estate. “How much would THAT house cost?” as we drove by, and then the follow up “Well, how many square feet does it have? Oh, it’s in metric? Wait, let me pull out my Palm so I can convert it…” etc. She was clearly from Manhattan, and after we hopped off the bus and I found myself standing next to her, I mentioned I was moving to Red Bank, NJ. “Oh, that’s really far away,” she said disdainfully. “I mean, that’s right next to Atlantic City.” Well, no, not really, but who was I to argue with someone from Manhattan? Ann attempted conversation on the return trip, as the Woman from New York was telling the tour guide how much she and her husband, Jack, hated Costa Rica. “Oh,” interrupted Ann, “we took a fantastic tour through the rain forest canopy!” The WFNY barely turned her head and snapped “My friend did that and she hated it.” Well, OK then. Most interesting of all, however, was the relationship between the WFNY and her husband. Like the WFNY, Jack appeared to be in his late sixties, but unlike her he was using a cane. After observing her for the day, we kept waiting for her to actually say “Jack, heel! Jack, sit!” but she never quite used those words. Instead, she did things like hopping off the bus ahead of him, standing ten feet away, and then, as Jack was having trouble getting himself and his cane down the steps, yelling things like “Jack! Get out of the way! People are trying to get off the bus!” She was quite a treat, and we continued to enjoy her for the rest of the cruise.

In Aruba, we breakfasted and then took a taxi to a local hotel, where we spent the day on the beach. Aruba truly is where happiness lives – I fantasized about getting a job there, with my luggage stopping by to visit from time to time as it completes its world tour. Ann has made it her life’s mission to find a way for us to return for a week.

Curacao was a nice surprise – not on our original itinerary, and filled with gorgeous, colorful houses. Like Aruba, Curacao is part of the Netherlands, and the natives are proud of the number of languages they speak and of the Queen’s frequent visits.

The remainder of the cruise was spent at sea. This meant that all 1,950 passengers wanted my deck chair at the same time I did. Ann devised a plan such that passengers in odd numbered cabins had to remain in their rooms on the first at-sea day, with even numbered cabin occupants doing their part the second day to keep the ship livable. No one else thought this was a good plan, though, and it failed to catch on. Ann also attempted to amuse herself by renting an I-Pod from the personality-challenged ship’s librarian. (Note here that I have a strong love of many librarians and find them, as a group, entertaining and wise people. My comment is therefore not to be read as a slam against the profession, but rather, this one, very special individual.) The I-Pod would have been great except that Ann was not allowed to pick her songs – only artists – and the I-Pod was then loaded with all the songs the ship owned by the artists Ann selected. In some cases, the librarian had difficulty locating the chosen artists, and substituted different artists. This explains the New Kids music I heard coming through Ann’s headphones, or at least so says Ann.

On the first day of our cruise, we met Phyllis and Ruth, two friends from New Jersey who cruised together a couple of times each year. Due to my luggage situation, the books I had packed and had looked forward to reading were instead touring Istanbul, so Phyllis loaned me a couple of hers. One was a James Patterson, which was so annoying bad I would periodically read passages aloud to Ann. As an aside, I would seriously like to understand the process by which a good author (Kiss the Girls, Along Came a Spider – both suspenseful, decently written beach books) becomes unreadable. The same thing happened to Grisham – The Firm was good, though I thought his previous work, A Time to Kill, was a bit better, but he went downhill so fast I had to duck to miss the sonic boom. What I really want to know is how I, an unknown, can get on this gravy train, since I must believe I could quite easily write something similar to the Patterson I read on the cruise. (Believe me, it was BAD.) What I need to do is author a best seller and then coast on my brand name, confident that the reading public will buy it and LIKE it just because it has my name on it. But I digress.

We then proceeded to see Phyllis and Ruth every ten minutes, and I continually assured Phyllis of how much I was enjoying the books. (Actually, the second book was Triangle, about the famous New York fire in the early 1900’s, and was quite good.)

Our final day came around much too quickly, with the happiest disembarkation moment arriving immediately after we cleared customs, when we handed our luggage to FedEx. Reasonably confident we would someday see our belongings again, we headed to the airport for a comfortable and on-time arrival in Philadelphia that afternoon.

The next day, I packed up whatever I’d left at my parents’ house, and we all drove up here. Dad was pleased to find that I am now only 98 miles from their house, versus the 345 miles away I’ve been for the last ten years. This house has zero curb appeal – it’s a little pinky beige cape with a gravel front yard – but once inside it’s kind of cute. As Mom put it, though, once you live here a day or two, you sort of see where the place has issues. Like baseboard heaters that have been painted shut, and rooms where none of the curtains match – all are stained and faded in different ways. (Joan was also distinctly not pleased with the blankets, and will be mailing me a comforter. Along with some dish towels.) My parents work like a little team – Dad does all the heavy lifting, making sure all the boxes and luggage get to the right rooms, etc., while Mom does the actual unpacking, bed making, and organizing. Since that takes longer, Dad is also in charge of figuring out how the TV and any other electronics work, figuring out how the front door lock works, and taking a look in the basement. I almost feel peripheral to the process, but like to pitch in a little bit so I can feel needed.

I am also borrowing their car, since mine is still under repair in Boston. (I think my luggage might be up there, visiting it, but my car doesn’t write much, either.) I am trying to figure out some other things my parents can do for me, but it’s tough. I’m sure I’ll think of something.  They headed for home this afternoon in Dad’s minivan.

Tomorrow I start my new job, and I’m looking forward to an empty email box and a blank calendar. I’ve got my first-day outfit selected and pressed, and I’ve double checked directions so I won’t get lost. I imagine myself in my new office, with a big desk, a phone, a computer, and, best of all – an internet connection. I might just decide to move in there.