That's short for "Cruise, minus 16 days."

I haven't talked much about the cruise, I know.

Part of me feels an obscure guilt around not inviting my mother to go. She used to talk about taking a cruise like this, but I know she can't afford it any more, we didn't have the extra $4k or so to pay for her ticket and expenses, and I'm not sure we could have gotten her on a plane to go anyhow. She's become very reluctant to travel in the last few years. (Or, very reluctant to visit us, maybe.)

Anyway. I finally told her we were going last night. I got the distinct impression she would have said, "yes" if invited to go but she also admitted, with some reluctance, that her health problems would have made the excursion tricky.

Nothing serious (I'm hoping madly), just that she's 73 years old. A few digestive problems, high blood pressure, and a heart murmur. I really must go visit my mother some day soon. Maybe over the Labor Day weekend.

Anyhow. Cruisin'!

Tonight's task: Go online and book shore excursions. We've been debating and arguing what to do for a month and we have until Saturday to pre-book. Since the R.C. is leaving for a business trip on Saturday, we're going to do it tonight.

They do have 'presentations' the first night of the cruise and you can pick what you want then, but I have no intention of spending my first night on the ship sitting in a slideshow, listening to canned sales pitches.

(Bernie's such a geek. He just came and asked me if I have another blade for the paper cutter. It's a $10 paper cutter. You don't replace the blade. You sharpen it or buy a new one.) (Besides, what did he think? That I, for some psychotic reason, had a spare paper cutter blade in my back pocket?)

Anyhow. We know what we want to do.

We have, as you might expect from us, been shopping madly (I mean, we shop madly anyhow, but with an excuse like this, we've been extra-mad in some ways.) over the last couple of months. Raincoats, clothes, toiletries, insect repellent, umbrellas, binoculars, travel gadgets, books, younameit.

Actually, that sounds worse than it is. :) We've been shopping madly, but we haven't really been buying madly. There's not really anything we've purchased (besides the insect repellent) that we can't use normally.

With 16 days to go, it's time to start watching the temperatures along the Alaskan coast and laying out sweaters, putting them away, and getting them out again. Medication refills, getting my roots touched up, reminding Bernie daily that I'll not only be out of the office but completely out of touch for 10 days, sending my mother and L-i-K-S the shipboard phone info in case of emergency....

(Okay, now he sent me an e-mail, then ran in from his office to ask if I'd received it yet and when I hadn't, he ran back to his office and sent it two more times, yelling out to ask me each time if I'd gotten it yet, then coming into my office to check for himself the last time, that I wasn't lying to him.)

I really can't focus on writing blog entries with these kinds of lunatic interruptions.