Starting Radiation October 2019

petite1: The holidays are stressful and even more so when you have a sad anniversary. I'm always happy to hear that you have some relatives and friends that are there for you. Yes, each year will be easier but even then, there will be times that it feels like it just happened.

petite1: I must have missed your message about a new lump. Hope the test come back negative.

I'll be traveling back to the USA on Friday—32 hours—if no delays. I have three appointments on Monday.

I forgot to mention that I drove back from TN to FL last weekend. I spent the night in Montgomery. Got up to leave and discovered that my rental truck had the window broken out. Another man had the same issue. The police said that four other trucks had been broken into that night at another hotel. It was a seemingly decent location. That set me back four hours as I had to try and find a rental agency to change out the vehicle. The Montgomery agencies did not want to do it so I had to drive over to Columbus GA. This is not the world that I grew up in. Sad, and sad about the New Orleans attack.

Sorry for the long delay in checking in. I hope both of you are okay.

I have had a whirlwind few weeks. I had my cruise to the Panama Canal on 1/29. Two days before I was to leave, my engine light came on and I got fired! I'm one of the folks from the infamous USAID. I have to say that as a taxpayer, I was appalled at the waste. On the other hand, I did mainly health (AIDS, malaria, etc) and didn't see quite as much craziness. I'm a contractor so not entitled to any severance. They just didn't renew my contract which was up on the 29th. Needless to say, that cast a pall over my vacation for the first few days. By the end, I was better. The canal was an amazing engineering feat and I enjoyed the other six stops along the way. Then I came home and started filing for Medicare and Social Security. Luckily, I can Cobra the health insurance but it just costs more than Medicare. I am actually lucky since many of my colleagues were younger and don't have that cushion to fall back on. However, I will admit that the govt is completely inefficient. I'm still fighting to get my final payments which amounts to a few months of upkeep for me. I had planned to work a few more years so I'll see what else I can do. I had already been planning to sell my house so I don't know where I'll be living after that. Ideally, I'd get something remote on a part time basis. My car is old and the light has been reset and the problem is not major—so I'm still mobile.

The ship, NCL Jade, was dark and dreary compared to the Celebrity ships I've been on—or it could just be that I felt dark and dreary. :) They did not have a very active cruise director or activities. I found myself bored in the afternoons and on sea days. There were at least 40 solo travelers on board and only 22 children. Luckily, they had satellite TV so I had some news channels and a few with shows and movies. I had seven ports and they were all new to me: Key West, Cozumel, Grand Cayman, Ocho Rios, Columbia, Colon Panama, Port Limon Costa Rico and then to Panama City. I had a cheap bus tour at each place. The canal took about 10 hours to transit so I'd so outside every few hours to see us go through another part of the canal. I had a small cheap inside cabin but it was okay as I just would go outside. It was never crowded outside as I guess so many folks had balcony room and could just stay in their rooms. We got to go through the old (original) canal with their six locks since our ship was small. The big ships and freighters have to go through the new canal which was build in 2016. For the price I got the cruise, I guess I can't complain.