George Clooney and community

I know that "Avatar'' is a wildly popular movie, but we thought going to the theater last night before dinner and three hours before the show was pretty slick and would assure us of getting tix.

Think again. The box-office lady told us it had been sold out since the day before.

Backup movie was "Up in the Air,'' which was terrific and actually had some relevance to the sermon in church today.

The movie is about a guy whose job takes him around the country firing people for execs who don't have the guts to do it themselves. He spends most of his time in hotels and airports and in the air.

More importantly (I'm putting on my critic's hat here) it's about the futility of much of life without loved ones to share it with.

In church today, our minister talked up joining various committees and other church groups as a way for people to increase their feeling of connectedness to the other members of the congregation. (I know this doesn't sound particularly religious on the surface, but this is, after all, a Unitarian-Universalist church.)

Sitting in the pew today, I got to thinking about a friend who almost can't utter a complete sentence without airing his disgust for New York State government and the taxes, fees, bureaucracy and other irritants we've all become familiar with.

Yet although he is now retired, he has no immediate plans to move out of state. He likes it here and wants to stay because he likes the people, he said.

And that, in the end, counts for more than anything.

Time to move on from adolescence

I guess you really know when adolescence is over when J.D. Salinger dies.

The reclusive author, 91, passed away Wednesday after living in seclusion in New Hampshire for much of the last 55 years.

I read "Catcher in the Rye,'' his classic novel published in 1951 of a disaffected 16-year-old who had just been kicked out of prep school, as a 16-year-old prep-school student in the mid-'60s.

I immediately identified with the brooding tone, the casual swearing, the irreverence toward authority.

One of the things that surprised me in the obits I read today was that today's adolescents, and those from the last few decades, feel the same sense of identification with main character Holden Caulfield that I and my contemporaries did. The book has sold 65 million copies overall and is still jumping out of bookstores at the rate of 250,000 a year.

Guess I just assumed that people who spend their lives twittering and texting and playing video games would have other symbols of angst to identify with, but apparently things have changed less than I imagined. It is still one of the most widely taught books in high schools today, my Google references tell me.

I don't know if that is necessarily a good thing, but I do know that it's too bad for the rest of us he largely withdrew from writing and the world not long after his early successes.

It would have been good to know what he made of becoming a man and then getting old.

Strong hands builds strong veins

Some of you who read this blog closely may recall the "port-no-port'' debate of a few weeks ago, when I was trying to decide whether to have a device inserted into my chest to make it easier to get a chemo and other needles into me.

The problem was that the nurses were having increased trouble finding veins that hadn't collapsed to use for my infusions. Seems that veins start to resist when you poke into them on a regular basis. Once in December, it took the most skilled nurse in the chemo center six attempts - each more painful than the one before - to get a good connection.

But my two oncologists (one here and the other in Boston) offered conflicting advice: guy in Boston said do it, but the guy here said no - there is always the risk of infections or other complications.

So I decided to try to use other techniques to build up the veins - mainly drinking lots of water and squeezing a hand exerciser to increase blood flow. Those ideas seem to have worked. Today I had the third and last in this series of infusions with no problem in finding a vein. (My 15th treatment overall, but who's counting?).

I don't think I had used the hand squeezers (don't know what you really call them - it's two handles with a spring in the middle to provide resistance) since I first developed tennis elbow when I was about 30 - I've been falling apart for a very long time!

But if only other physical problems could be so easily resolved. No chemo now for two weeks. Seems like a long vacation.

Lobbying 101

Short of giving them money, what is the best way to influence lawmakers?

Yesterday was the first official "lobby day'' at the Capitol since Gov. Paterson presented his budget last week, and at least one group was going by the tried-and-true formula.

Advocates for the mentally ill (full disclosure: they gave me an award yesterday) first held a mid-morning meeting with all of the people they had persuaded to come to the Capitol from as far away as Long Island and Buffalo, many of whom had boarded buses long before dawn. A series of speakers fired up the crowd, which the organizers put at 1,500.

They also learned a slogan, "Don't stop our recovery. Don't cut the (safety) net.''

Then after being further convinced of the rightness of their cause (more money for the mentally ill) they adjourned for a box lunch. Then they met for another rally, this one outside. They wore yellow hats and carried signs organizers had issued as they heard more speakers champion their cause. It was a made-for-TV event, and the cameras seemed to like it.

Then in the afternoon, groups split up into contingents to visit their local lawmakers. They were briefed first on being polite, on-point and insistent, then sent off to the Legislative Office Building.

After their meetings, they boarded buses and headed home.

Does it work? Hard to tell. But one of the organizers, Harvey Rosenthal, pointed out that as the groups' rallies and organizing efforts have grown so has their influence. This year, for example, the governor proposed no cut in the aid the groups are getting, when many other programs do face cuts.

Still, Rosenthal told the group, "We need a COLA'' (cost-of-living increase.)

Hopeful sign

In a perverse sort of way, an incident today showed I'm feeling better.

Walking through the Legislative Office Building near the state Capitol, I ran into Laura Anglin, the former state budget director, who is now head of the lobbying group for private colleges, the Commission of Independent Colleges and Universities.

It was the group's lobby day, and she was there advocating to reverse cuts in tuition assistance Gov. Paterson has proposed in his budget. Yes, taxpayers do help pay the tuition of some private-school students.

How much did tuition go up at her institutions this year, I asked her.

Net tuition actually went down, she said.

Net tuition, I repeated. What does that mean? She explained it's the sum of the sticker price (which I paid for both of my kids, and went up a little this year at most institutions) and discounts, like scholarships and grants.

Profs still working eight months a year? I asked her. Still having to teach as many as two classes a semester?

Wait a minute, she said. I haven't seen you in six months and you're giving me such a hard time. What's the deal?

Like I said, I'm feeling better.

Some things still work

Some good news from the Capitol today: my press pass still works to get into the building, I can walk most of the way under cover from the League of Women Voters office to the Empire State Plaza, the woman who makes sandwiches in the Capitol Deli remembers me, and some people read blogs.

The latter is probably most important since I am about to become a more serious blogger: I am going to help the League of Women Voters with communication, possibly with a new blog to keep its membership up to date with what's happening at the Capitol and on other political matters.

Since the league seems to be in the middle of the debate over a new Albany ethics bill (not an oxymoron) seems like there will be plenty to write about, at least for a while. Also have the weekly column for nysnys.com as an excuse to keep up on things.

Parking is a huge deal in Albany where there isn't much, so being able to get from the league office (maybe a half-mile away) to the Capitol mostly protected from the weather is a big plus.

Had a long talk with league lobbyist Barbara Bartoletti in the Capitol Deli, where I had my first delicious chicken-salad wrap from that establishment in more than seven months. Don't believe the bad stories you hear about the food there. Got some warm welcomes, which is always nice.

Also stopped by the Gannett bureau and found that they, sigh, seem be getting along without me. The desk calendar in my office is still on last June, and virtually everything else there is just as I left it. I threw out some old mail.

An enduring legacy?

I am killing time now waiting for the Jets-Colts football game to proceed enough so I can begin watching it (I am DVRing it) and fast-forward through all of the ads and halftime stuff without catching up and having to watch some of it live.

I admit that the DVR is one of the first things that occurred to me today when reading a Nicholas Kristof column about a family that sold their house, bought one to replace it for half the money and gave the rest to charity. He was challenging people to think about what they would give up. I think I would part with flush toilets before handing over my DVR.

I know that's not what TV advertisers like to hear, but that's the deal. Plus I'm not drinking much beer right now and am not looking for a new car so most of the ads on football games aren't aimed at me. Have to admit I'm nearing the stage of life where the products advertised on network news shows have more relevance for me.

Of course, I have already spent a couple of hours today going through the print editions of the Sunday papers, paying extra special attention to the ads, which play a large role in deciding what I'll buy. Plus the coupons are so great! And I would NEVER use Craig's list (which is killing newspaper classifieds) or shop at Wal-Mart (the company disdain newspaper ads). And it's so handy, now that the ads are often on the front of news sections, which used to be reserved for actual news. (The preceding was a paid political message)

A confession: at my behest, all members of my immediate family have answered "newspapers'' when asked by retailers where we heard about their products even if, strictly speaking, it was not always the truth. Or even if it was a lie. Now that my children are grown and away from my direct control, I can only pray that this is one part of my legacy that will endure (at least until newspapers go out of business.)

Medical update: For those keeping score, I'm getting around with less wincing. Am still complaining a lot, though.

Is good the enemy of the perfect?

I today wrote my first column since last June. It's scheduled to appear on the nysnys.com web site, run by my friend and former colleague Kyle Hughes.

Have to admit I did pick some low-hanging fruit today, criticizing Gov. Paterson for threatening to veto an ethics bill which, although far from perfect, would be a big advance over the current system and likely to be the best thing he gets from lawmakers. Besides, he could always go back and try for a better one after this one is passed.

What is it that football coaches say? Always take the sure points.

Anyway, what's a column for if not to kick someone when they're down? Seems to be lots of low-hanging fruit ripe for the picking at the Capitol, and it's fun to be in on the harvest again.

Also had a farewell lunch today with Albany Times Umion reporter and blogger extraordinare Irene Jay Liu, who is off to the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post to report about security issues. She only has to learn Mandarin Chinese in the next few weeks, she has to pick up her new beat as well. Sounds daunting, but then again as I recall when you're under 30 most things seem possible.

She's a big loss.

Also still limping around and grimacing from pain caused by my fall on the ice the other day. Hard to imagine many things worse while trying to recover from an injury than a dose of chemo, which I got yesterday. But hey, have to keep my eye on the real health problem here.

Time to suck it up

It didn't seem like a particularly dangerous thing to do: walk down our driveway, turn left and take my daily two-mile stroll around the neighborhood.

But before I even got to the mailbox yesterday, I found myself in the air, and on my way to a violent collision with the pavement. I had slipped on some black ice.

I landed on my left side, with my elbow tucked in close. The force of the collision drove the elbow into one of my ribs.

I scrambled to my feet, wet from landing partly in a puddle, feeling more humiliated than hurt. After all, I have enough health concerns without doing something as stupid as slipping on ice.

I felt a little sore on the walk, and more so as the day wore on, although I was still able to run errands, sit in front of my computer and go out to dinner.

But when I went to bed, I sat up for a while doing a crossword puzzle. When I went to turn out the light and turn over about 15 minutes later, I found any movement resulted in a stabbing pain at the point my elbow had hit my ribs. It was agony.

I got to sleep with the help of a painkiller originally given to me after the cancer surgery in June, and carefully took stock of my body when I woke up. I gingerly got out of bed, delighted to find there were some movements that didn't make me wince.

It still hurts like hell, but x-rays taken today were negative, and the consensus of my family is it's time for me to suck it up. Janice suggested the whole incident at least subliminally is an attempt to get rid of the tumor, since that's exactly where my elbow hit my ribs.

What? A GOP senator in the Kennedy seat?

I was only five years old, growing up in suburban Boston, when John F. Kennedy took his seat in the U.S. Senate in 1953.

Ever since, except for a brief interregnum in 1961 and 1962 and since this September, either he or his brother, Ted, held that Senate seat.

And it goes without saying that the men who kept the seat warm in those brief non-Kennedy periods were Democrats.

That's why maybe I'm a little more stunned than most New Yorkers that Republican Scott Brown will take over that seat after his upset win over Democrat Martha Coakley yesterday to fill the remainder of the term of Ted Kennedy, who died last August.

After all, New York, where Democrats control all six statewide offices as well as 27 of the 29 House seats and both houses of the Legislature, looks positively bipartisan compared to Massachusetts.

There, all 10 House seats in the Bay State are held by Democrats, and the party has an overwhelming edge in both the state Senate (35-5) and House (142-16, with one independent.) The state has three times as many enrolled Democrats as Republicans. (The Dem margin in New York is about 5 to 3).

Six weeks ago, Coakley was up in polls by 30 points over Brown, a little known state senator from Wrenthan, a small community southwest of Boston. But in the wake of his five-point win, he will be the first Republican Massachusetts has sent to the Senate since Ed Brooke (also the first African-American elected to the Senate since Reconstruction ended) retired in 1979.

My mother was part of the old Main Street strain of Republicans, who combined with the Brahman elite in Massachusetts helped to elect many GOP governors and kept most statewide races tight. But that group has shrunk appreciably over the years, with more and more Bay State registered voters (more than half now) opting not to enroll in any political party.

I remember in the '60s that Republican John Volpe, who was elected to two terms as Massachusetts governor, used the slogan, "Vote the Man, Vote Volpe'' to overcome what was viewed as the handicap of being a Republican with voters. It worked.

The most breathtaking part of this is the speed in which party fortunes have changed. Just a year ago the phrase "Northeast Republican elected official'' (just trips off your tongue, doesn't it?) seemed about to disappear.

But with the economy still in the tank and deficits soaring, voters have seemed to already have forgotten that they blamed the GOP for the sorry state of affairs just 14 months ago.

Seems the voters are getting impatient, and that's a good break for the Republicans in New York, Massachusetts and elsewhere, who are suddenly competitive with Democrats again.

My mother would be pleased, but my Dad, a classic New Deal Democrat, would not be. And certainly there must be a few Kennedys spinning in their graves.

We are screwed

I was right. We are screwed.

That was the essence of my "expert'' analysis of the governor's budget proposal on Syracuse public TV today, although I did stretch it out to 40 minutes or so.

Much to my relief, when I read the briefing documents before the show, the numbers made as much sense as they usually do. Then when I was asked questions on the air, the words tumbled out the way they have for years, in more or less coherent order. Good thing you don't need a healthy pancreas or gall bladder to understand budget proposals.

Gov. Paterson threw us a curve ball by starting about 20 minutes late. But that gave us time to preview most of what he was going say, including the bad news he delivered about aid to public schools (cut), money for health care (cut) and taxes on cigarettes and sugared drinks (increased).

It was also reassuring in kind of a perverse way to get home and read the e-mails from all of the affected groups, from teacher unions to hospitals to environmental organizations, expressing their outrage as I knew they would about the proposed cuts, without having much to say about how the state ought to deal with its financial problems.

One unusual note was one guy at the TV station who said that he was impressed by Paterson - that he seemed to be trying to the right, if unpopular thing.

"We must choose responsibility over popularity,'' Paterson told members of the Legislature.

Wouldn't it be amazing if they actually did that?

Still an expert?

SYRACUSE - I'm out here tonight in preparation for being on a TV show tomorrow to provide (expert?) commentary on Gov. Paterson's budget address. The question, which will be answered tomorrow, is am I still enough of an expert to pull it off?

TV station people have been great, and took me out to dinner tonight. When they asked me what Paterson will say tomorrow, I said, in a crude way, that "we're screwed,'' which has been the governor's message in budget presentations for a majority of the 25 such addresses I have heard before.

I might have to stretch out that basic message to fill half an hour, depending on how long Paterson talks. Since he can't read his speech but has to deliver it all from memory, he is a bit unpredictable, which can be troublesome for TV producers who have a set amount of time to fill.

But I figure I will always have the Red Sox and my childhood to discuss if time is hanging heavy, or if I confuse billions with millions (who, actually, is counting?) as I have been known to do. I'm sure the woman hosting the show would love that.

The fun of TV versus print is you instantly communicate with the audience. The frightening thing about TV versus print is you instantly communicate with the audience. That means once something is out of your mouth, it's too late to take it back (no copy editors on TV). Misspeaking in front of a camera is even worse than telling a joke that falls flat.

Anyway, it's fun to have something other than my health to worry about for a change.

The best night of the week (?)

My mother used to say that the best time of the week to be retired was Sunday night, when working people have to worry about returning to the daily grind in the morning while those with a pension don't.

After her children had moved out (no small blessing) and she retired from teaching, she used to revel in the chance to pick up a book in the evening and finish the whole thing the same night, if she felt like it, since she didn't have to get up at any particular time the next day.

The flip side of that, of course, is that the best time to be gainfully employed for many people is Friday night, when with a week's worth of tasks completed behind them, they have a couple of days of rest and recreation to look forward to. That feeling is harder for retired people to capture.

Maybe it's impossible for someone to feel a sense of well being on both Friday and Sunday nights, but it is a worthy goal. What I gather from retired people I talk to is the key is to a successful post-work life is to find worthwhile and satisfying things to do that you don't get paid for without overscheduling yourself.

Needing a sense of accomplishment and fulfillment isn't something that disappears when the paychecks stop coming, even if it does remove the easiest (if not the most gratifying) way to measure what you've done.

Two perspectives on Haiti

Maybe the most sobering appraisal I've read of the Haiti disaster was the one in today's NY Times written by my favorite columnist, David Brooks.

He points out that while this earthquake killed as many as 50,000 people, one of equal force that hit the Bay Area of Northern California in 1989 killed only 67. So many more people died in Haiti because of flimsy buildings and other results of poverty, he says.

He talks about the "hard truths'' of a place so poor despite a dense concentration of aid agencies. "We don't know how to use aid to reduce poverty,'' he says.

We also don't know how to reduce corruption and also don't know how to change a culture that apparently contributes to the misery of its people, he says.

He draws a far different conclusion from Tracy Kidder, a writer who published a best-selling book, "Mountains Beyond Mountains,'' about an American doctor who has done much to improve health care in Haiti, Paul Farmer.

In a Times op-ed piece Thursday, Kidder looked at Haiti's history - and sees it as a country of former slaves first victimized for throwing off cruel French rule in 1804, then suffering under American occupation from 1915 to 1934 and American meddling in its politics since. He also complains that many of the 10,000 aid organizations performing humanitarian missions in the country haven't done enough to strengthen Haitian institutions.

Kidder's solution is giving Haitians more say in how their country is redeveloped. Brooks has a different but related slant: he wants us to help find "self-confident local leaders'' who will create a culture "of middle-class assumptions, and achievement ethos and tough, measurable demands.''

They both agree that whether Haitians themselves are more to blame for their plight than the outside world, or vice versa, a tragedy like this does present an opportunity for change. Neither seem optimistic that it will happen, though.

Back to ol' chemo routine

It was back to the ol' chemo routine today, and this infusion went better than the last few did.

Whether it was because I took three weeks off from treatments (as I suspect) or spent much of the last 24 hours drinking water and squeezing a ball, (Emily's theory) my veins have recovered somewhat, making finding one into which to insert a needle today easy and painless.

My Albany oncologist doesn't like ports (a permanent entryway into a vein) to deal with the collapsed-vein problem because of the possibility of infection, while our guy in Boston thinks they're fine. Plan is to try to do the chemo without a port for as long as possible.

The chemo cocktail was changed a little today in an effort to reduce side effects. Tradeoff is between nausea and sore muscles and joints, and we changed it to deal with the sore-muscles problem. We'll know in the next 36 hours how it worked.

There was a morning after

We joked on our cruise that neither "Titanic'' nor "The Poseidon Adventure'' would be among the movies shown on our ship's giant outdoor screen. Neither were.

But I still got an unsettled feeling in my stomach reading today about the earthquake in Haiti that set off tsunami warnings around the Caribbean.

As I recall, it was an earthquake in the Mediterranean that set off a tsunami that flipped over the "S.S. Poseidon'' in the first version of the movie from the '70s. (The more recent remake told the same story, but with better special effects.)

I remember a closeup of the horror on the face of the captain in the movie as a giant wave bore down on the hapless ship. In the movie, the wall of water capsized the vessel, making Gene Hackman, Shelly Winters, Carol Linley and the other stars of the show climb up to the bottom before being rescued. Fortunately it didn't sink until they were safely off. Whew.

I wouldn't have wanted to try to climb up through the 17 decks of our ship to get to the bottom. It was hard enough to figure out where to go when it was right-side up. We only got fore and aft straight on the last couple of days we were aboard.

Turns out there wasn't too much for cruise-ship passengers to worry about this time. The tsunami warnings were canceled pretty quickly. It seems that for some reason the phenomenon is more prevalent in the Pacific than in other bodies of water. One web site said that in any event in the middle of the ocean the waves typically pass unnoticed under ships and don't do any damage until they break onto shore.

So the misery caused by the earthquake was limited to many of the 9 million people who live in Haiti, who had enough trouble to begin with.

The most wonderful time of the year

It's budget season in Albany, which has always been one of my favorite times of the year. This year looks like it will be the usual mixture of fuzzy math, posturing and bare-knuckle politics.

Gov. David Paterson will propose next week how he intends to close a budget gap anticipated to be about $7 billion. He is already making dire predictions about budget cuts and maybe some higher taxes on cigarettes and maybe some other increased levies. Wall Street, he warns, won't bail us out this time.

Lawmakers can be counted on to to absolutely horrified that the governor would propose any cuts or any higher taxes or fees. Most of them, of course, will be against higher spending in general, while fighting hard for more money for schools, hospitals and other state programs that have effective and well heeled advocates. They'll urge a reduction in those always popular straw men, waste and bureaucracy.

Public-employee unions, whose members are scheduled to get a 4 percent raise in April, will decry any attempt to save money by cutting jobs or deferring raises.

If the budget debate follows the pattern of the last couple of decades, there will be much posing about the need for spending restraint without any commitment to meaningful changes, and something will be cobbled together at the last minute that will allow the state to stagger along, with its high taxes and other fiscal problems intact.

Maybe the most interesting thing to watch will be Paterson trying to champion less money for education, health care, roads and other purposes while at the same time trying to build support for his long-shot election campaign. The usual way politicians make friends and influence people is by signing checks and cutting ribbons, not touting a balanced budget.

Another reason to hate terrorists

We got what seemed like a good break yesterday when our San Juan-to-Philadelphia flight got in about a half-hour early, giving us a chance to catch an earlier plane home to Albany than the one we were booked on.

But the federal Transportation Safety Administration thought it was too risky.

US Airways employees told us that there was space on the earlier flight for us, but they couldn't let us on because our bags were checked onto the later flight. We'll just pick them up the next day, we said. Nope, we were told, "you must always travel with your bags.'' So we had to hang around the Phila airport for an extra couple of hours.

The fly-with-bags rule is apparently to prevent people from putting a bomb in their luggage set to go off on a connecting flight, while they're not also on it.

That might make sense, except that there could be fewer safer bets as an airline passenger than us, a 62-year-old American couple who have flown scores of times over four decades with no incidents. It's not like we had paid cash for a ticket to the U.S. from Nigeria and didn't have any bags or winter coats (which was the case with the would-be bomber who tried to take down a plane near Detroit on Christmas Day.)

I must admit to thinking what a mess our security system is also when, for the second time yesterday, I was patted down by a security agent. (We exited the passenger area briefly in Philadelphia to look for a pair of glasses that Emily lost on the flight down and had to go through security again to get back in. I always get the extra attention from security because the cobalt and titanium in my artificial hips sets off metal detectors.)

At any rate, we got into the Albany airport at midnight and felt the blast of our first Arctic wind in nine days as we waited for the parking-lot shuttle. As one of the passengers on the airliner that skidded to a halt on the runway in Newark yesterday after one wheel on the landing gear failed to deploy said, any landing you walk away from is a good landing.

We wuz robbed

SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO - An investigation was sought today after a tourist from upstate New York apparently had the coveted "Princess Popstar" title stolen from her last night.

Janice Gallagher, a native of the Albany area who now lives in Ithaca and describes herself as a "professional student," gave a rousing rendition of Janis Joplin's "Me and Bobby McGee" in the Caribeean Princess' talent search contest.

Despite the fact that she was far and away the best act, an apparently packed audience voted narrowly for some woman from Great Britain, who sang a relatively lame version of "Black Velvet" by Alannah Myles.

The concentration of British accents in the crowd gave away the obvious bias of the audience, some of whom apparently still hold grudges from the War of 1812. Gallagher's performance was strengthened not only by the fact that she has a good voice, but the showmanship and, let's face it, the chutzpah and hammy-ness that she obviously inherited.

The night before, Gallagher had won her preliminary round contest with a soulful performance of Bonnie Raitt's "Something to talk about."

There was no immediate comment from Princess officials, who seemed too preoccupied with unloading 3,600 guests and boarding an equal number of replacements to be bothered with this blockbuster scandal.

Time Goes By

ABOARD THE S.S. CARIBBEAN PRINCESS, CARIBBEAN SEA – Top 10 things we’ve learned from a week of cruising around the Caribbean:
- Even if you order two appetizers, a soup, a salad, an entrée and dessert for dinner, there’s always room for soft serve ice cream later.
- Being waited on hand and foot doesn’t get old, in fact it will be a hard thing to give up.
- It’s possible to live for a week without cell phones or Google. It’s also possible, but harder, to live without a daily English language newspaper.
- The Titanic wouldn’t be a big ship by today’s standards. With 3,600 passengers and 1,200 crew members, this 952-foot-long ship, which displaces almost 16,000 tons would have dwarfed the ill-fated Cunard liner.
- The natives “get” the hospitality thing, except for some overly aggressive salespeople in Grenanda, everyone we came in contact with was unfailingly polite and helpful.
- Many tropical fish are far less scared of us than we are of them. Off a beach in Bonaire, we swam right through the middle of numerous schools of fish that didn’t seem to take any notice of the presence of large white-bodied mammals swimming among them.
- There isn’t an SPF high enough to really protect delicate Irish skin from the tropical sun.
- From a male’s perspective, the shrinking of bathing suits that women wear is not always a good thing.
- Dancers in a show on the ship can still do intricate flips, splits and other moves even when the deck below them is rocking. You just get used to it, they told us.
- If we’re interested in mending fences with our Caribbean neighbors, Dominica seems like the biggest challenge. It’s part of an anti-U.S. trading group that also includes Venezuela, Nicaragua and Bolivia and the local newspaper touted a recent aid package from China.
- Bonus: philosophical lesson – not matter how hard you try, you can’t make time stand still.

Homeward Bound

ORANJESTAD, ARUBA - We figured out from the local papiamiento language newspaper that cold weather had come within about 1,000 miles of us in Florida. That sounds too close.

This former Dutch colony only 15 miles off the coast of Venezuela had perfect weather today with highs in the mid-80s. In fact, we were told that there hasn’t been a drop of rain here in more than a year. Glad we didn’t break the string.

We cast off late this afternoon for the last time heading northeast to Puerto Rico, and on Sunday, back to reality. I don’t know the next time I’ll sip champagne at sea while watching the sunset with my whole family, trying to decide between lobster and Beef Wellington for dinner, and then watching a Broadway-class dance revue, but I hope it won’t be too long.

Menage A Trois in Bonaire

BONAIRE, NETHERLANDS ANTILLES – The Dutch seem like such nice people that it’s hard to believe that in the 17th Century they imported thousands of Africans to work as slaves in the salt flats here.

But tour books tell us that’s what they did in their imperialist phase. This island off the coast of Venezuela thrived until slavery was abolished in the 19th Century and the salt- making industry collapsed.

We can also blame the Dutch for my not recounting any local political gossip. The only newspaper we could find today was written in Papiamento, a local dialect that’s a blend of Dutch, English and other languages.

Now the semi-arid island, which is part of the Netherlands, is known as one of the world’s premier diving destinations because of close-to-shore reefs and water that is as clear as Lake George.

We took advantage of the water and reefs today as we snorkeled from a beach that had schools of brilliantly colored tropical fish within a few feet of shore. It’s the first time I’ve done something physical for recreation, as opposed to exercise, since my cancer diagnosis last June.

Another highlight of the day was partaking in a ménage a trois that my wife approved of. This one was a fancy dessert consisting of raspberry panna cotta (flan), a layered chocolate opera cake and Nutella-flavored mousse. It’s hard to imagine going back to life where meals consist of only one or two courses and there aren’t any waiters hovering to refill my water glass or clear the crumbs off the table.

I had a surprisingly easy time in not feeling guilty about missing my first State of the State address yesterday since 1983. Somehow I bet that whatever Governor David Paterson said wasn’t that well received by the legislature.

Grenada Ready This Time

ST. GEORGE’S, GRENADA – The natives seemed better prepared for the invasion of tourists from our ship today then the Grenadian army was in 1983 when the U.S. Marines invaded their country.

As soon as we cleared security, we were assaulted by vendors for everything from ground and water taxis to crappy jewelry and packages of spices. (The island is a big producer of spices.) Then when we arrived at a beach via water taxi, vendors aggressively tried to elbow each other out of the way to offer us what they called “extra-special deals” on beach umbrellas, lounges, beers, foot massages and even use of a bathroom and shower. They were by far the pushiest sellers we’ve encountered so far.

Normally, I would insert here some relevant details about the America invasion of this independent island of 100,000 people in the first Reagan administration. However, Internet access is so expensive out here in the middle of the ocean that I have to forego Google and therefore about 90% of my normal expertise. Mostly what I remember is there was a coup that we didn’t approve of and we sent in the military to install a government friendlier to our interests.

The local newspaper wasn’t much help in providing insight into the island except an editorial complained that a value-added tax (a wholesale sales tax) takes effect next month and people aren’t happy about it.

Our only regular source of current information is the “Princess Patter,” the daily newsletter the ship publishes mostly to tout things like art and jewelry sales and wine tastings. As far as we know, no one from the Patter’s staff has been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.

Unfortunately we actually had a short day on this island, which has beautiful beaches, because we’re now embarked on a long leg of the trip to Bonaire, which is off the coast of Venezuela. The white sand beach and warm green water were what I’ve always thought of when considering a Caribbean vacation.

Questions About Dominica

Janice, Jay and Ellen overlooking Dominica

ROSEAU, DOMINICA - You have to love a country where the political opposition posts question-mark road signs along major thoroughfares.

This is one of the things we noticed on a tour of this island, an independent nation of 71,000 people tucked between the French islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe in the Eastern Caribbean, that was the second stop on our week-long cruise. The island isn’t well known in the U.S. because it lacks an international airport and white sandy beaches. The craggy isle is best known for its rainforest.

The signs are remnants of last fall’s apparently bitter political campaign where the incumbent prime minister, a good friend of Venezuelan leader and American irritant Hugo Chavez, won re-election to a second term. I say apparently bitter because according to a news summary in the local paper, the opposition accused Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit of handing out diplomatic appointments in exchange for cash and banning them from the local radio station.

In fact, in December the publisher of the paper reproached Skerrit for “corruption in government to an extent never seen.” In response, Skerrit accused his political opposition of hacking into his email account. He also said he had nothing to do with him getting French citizenship, which seemed to disqualify him from holding the prime minister post. He blamed his parents.

Sounds like a good news town.

The tour of the island was exciting in part because the roads are narrow, twisting and hilly and it’s hard to get used to the custom of driving on the left-hand side of the road.

It’s unclear whether we should have worried about crime. Our tour guide insisted that it’s not much of a problem and pointed out that local policemen don’t carry guns.

That was offset to some degree by a perusal of the newspaper’s news summary, which listed several murders among the year’s highlights.

In addition, it was also unsettling to read that when a 15-year-old girl was crowned “Miss Dominica Teen Queen” in February, some members of the audience started throwing bottles and food boxes at her.

At any rate, we made our escape and are now on our way to Grenanda, which has not been invaded by the U.S. since the Reagan administration.

Rigors of Cruise Life

ST. THOMAS, U.S. VIRGIN ISLANDS - What recession? So far, this cruise is coming across as a great ad for a higher top marginal tax rate.

Talk about every whim being met: when we came back to the ship today after a hard day on the beach, we were given chilled face cloths to help revive us for the rigors of a filet mignon dinner followed by a champagne reception. Semi-vegetarian Emily didn't have the beef but managed to sweet-talk the waiter into bringing her three desserts. We all have our weaknesses.

The ship is actually under way now but it's so huge it feels almost as steady as if we were lying on bedrock. It's a bit of a change from sailing on my 14-foot Sunfish.

The biggest challenge for the rest of the week is going to be making up excuses why we deserve to eat so much.

We are almost absurdly tied into the rest of the world. Not only can I blog from the middle of the ocean, but I saw several replays of Patriots wide receiver Wes Welker tearing up his knee yesterday on an open-air tv screen at least 12 feet high and 20 feet wide.

I am not a nun

There are many reasons I thought I would never sleep in a convent. Most importantly, I am the wrong gender, and not a big fan of celibacy.

But last night was probably the closest I will ever come. We stayed in a hotel here in Old San Juan that is a converted convent known, logically, as "El Convento." There is apparently more demand for tourist accommodations these days than aspiring members of religious orders. Among the many nice touches: a free NY Times today, which a local told us cost $11 on the newsstand.

We arrived here yesterday after the best kind of trip, which is one without incident. We quickly shed our winter gear and soaked in the warmth as we walked around the city and had dinner at an outdoor restaurant.

Today is blazing hot, though friends of Janice's who live here assured us this is the coolest time of the year.

They live in a starkly beautiful house, parts of which date back to the 16th century, in Old San Juan. Its most dramatic feature is intentional openings in the roof, which allow the rain and cool breezes to enter the house. For some reason, bugs are not a big problem.

We are about to get on our cruise ship. I was amazed last night to see one moving out of the harbor. "Gigantic" wouldn't do it justice. It seemed like a skyscraper tipped over on its side. We'll see what life is like for the next week aboard such a craft.

Ports calling

Looks like a few different ports are in our immediate future.

First, we leave tomorrow for our Caribbean cruise, which will hit several other ports after we depart from San Juan Sunday. St. Thomas, Grenada, Dominica, Bonaire and Aruba are the others, before we head back in a week.

Next, many of you have suggested that getting a port inserted into an artery is the best solution to the problem of finding new veins to use in my chemotherapy treatments it seems likely I'll get one put in before we start the next round. The risk seems minimal and the advantages obvious.

The first kinds of ports, I'll admit, are a lot more fun to think about.

Blogging for the next week is up in the air, since it's not clear we can connect to the Internet from the ship for a reasonable price and we don't know about wifi in our ports of call. I can't spend too much money on connection fees since advertising revenue for the blog has taken a hit with the recession. I've already squeezed the overhead down as low as I can.

Finally, I forgot to pass along the most poignant remark I heard during Christmas. When I mentioned to my nephew Pat Pramas that treatment I had gotten in Boston seemed to be successful and could lengthen my life, he said, "Boston owes us one.''

That was a reference to his mother (my sister) who was hospitalized for nine months at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston (right next to Beth Israel-Deaconess, where I have been treated) before dying in July of 2008 from complications resulting from what was supposed to be a largely routine kidney-transplant operation.

May she rest in peace.