What fun we have been having lately! As usual on Wednesday we went on our dining adventure with our good friends Alma & Jim. Then on Friday night we went to Sidesplitter's Comedy club the headliner for the night was a hypnotist. Several people from the audience provided us with a good show and the consensus was split between us whether the participants were really hypnotized or just putting on a good show. In any case we had a fun evening. We also had dinner at Chili’s before the show so it was a full evening.

Last night Jim & Alma came over for a fondue & Pate’

party. Alma made a great fondue and I made pate’. We had some really good wine to wash it down and lots of laughs for dessert. After we ate we had our extension entertainment and it was once again the Gals against the Guys in a bowling match. The Guys beat us again. We have just got to do something about that Jim. He is turning into quite a bowler and Lee’s game is much improved. We just might make a bowler out of him at last. As for me I am in a terrific slump.

Don't look TOO close at that score with the boys celebrating I had to work real hard to break 100 on the game and then just did.

But we keep on having fun with it.

As Gomer Pyle used to say, "Well Gaaollly." Didn't write anything for a month then bingo here I am writing again.

I always thought these things only happened to me until I talked to other people and found these sorts of things just abound. You may remember the story of the "Great Clam Caper" whereby some dastardly person sneaked into my house and stole my clams. Well He is at it again! I once had a pair of slippers that I liked to pack when I travel because they folded down to just nothing. Well somewhere along the way, one went amiss. I kept the other one thinking someday this horrible person would sneak back in trying to steal the other one and I would catch him/her. Well time passed and one slipper stayed in my drawer all by its lonesome. Then we went on a cruise some years back and the cruise line furnished some slippers so I started packing those when I traveled. Well lo and behold the sneaky thief got one of those also. He must be one legged cause he only steals one slipper. Well this went on for quite some time with two odd slippers in my drawer. Yesterday Lee was doing the wash when he gave my P.J.s to put away. I opened the drawer and there they were! The dastardly thief had once again snuck into the house and this time replaced what he had stolen. There in my drawer were two pairs of slippers.

Now I'm just saying! Go Figure!

Hi Friends and Family

It has been some time (actually over a month) since I posted anything on the blog. Not too much exciting going on here at the moment. Mostly we are getting ready for out big trip (to Alaska) trying to think of everything we will need to pack and take with us and things we will need to do before we go. Every day I seem to think of something else that will need to be done, gathered and packed etc. But as the days get shorter and shorter we are getting more and more excited.

Here on the home front we are entertaining ourselves watching our Boxed DVD sets. Currently we are watching NCIS and really enjoying it. Of course I have always loved JAG and found NCIS is created by the same people so it is tops with me. Just love the characters especially Ziva David (pronounced Da Vee) and Abigail (Abbs.) Also we are re-watching Lost. Along with our TV we are busy reading whatever book we can download on our kindles. Lee is finishing up the Rizoli and Isles series of books and I am currently re reading Roots. I read this book over 30 years ago when It first was published and am enjoying it more and more this time. The most amazing thing happened a couple of days ago. As I was reading the book the name of the family popped out at me. I went to the computer where I keep all my genealogy records and lo and behold the family who owned the salve Kunta Kinta was some of Lee’s ancestors. Lee’s sister Nancy always told me that some of them were prominent

plantation owners but had no idea they were connected with that particular family. Small world it is.

Here is the other thing we have been having fun with. Every Wednesday we go with our friends Jim and Alma to a different restaurant to eat. Every week a different one of us takes turn choosing the restaurant and of course it is a big secret where we are going until we get there. So far along with the old tried and true Red Lobster, Olive Garden, Cheddars, Jessie’s, Willies, Angelina’s, The Cheesecake Factory, California Pizza and the Oaks, we have tried some new places such as Dunderbaks, Four Green Fields and The Melting Pot. This past week it was Lee’s turn to take us somewhere new so we went to J. Alexander’s on Dale Mabry. A good choice, they had really great prime rib. At Dunderbaks we sampled the German fare and beer which was very good and at Fou

r Green Fields we were treated to the live entertainment of and Irish singer along with good Irish grub and Guinness beer. This week it will be Jim who chooses so we are waiting anxiously to see where we will go on our Wednesday adventure.

Last week we tried something else new and had a lot of fun. We invited Jim and Alma over for a Wii party. Alma and I whopped Lee and Jim at bowling but the guys (thanks to my horrible game) whipped us in golf. We were going to have a repeat party last Friday but something came up but we will definitely have to do this again and I must practice my golf. For those of you who may not know. Wii is an electronic game you p

lay in front to the TV. Very realistic and lots of fun.

So until the next blog, a very Happy Valentine to all, be good and be safe. Well be safe anyway, no

fun being good ha ha.

The Blue Ray Player Saga

Well when people ask me how I like my Kindle and would I recommend it I emphatically DO recommend it. I love my Kindle. One might ask, What does all this have to do with a Blue Ray Player. Well If you ask me "Do I recommend a Blue Ray player" I will just as emphatically say not only NO but H...L NO! We have had the Blue ray for some time now. Usually just watch regular DVDs because the Blue Rays are so much more expensive. Well when the latest Harry Potter movie came out we bought the Blue Ray version. Got instructions that we had to do something on the computer and download something yadaity ya yadity ya. Well all this sounded way too complicated so we returned it and got the regular Harry Potter DVD. Last week we wanted the final episode of 24 so we went to our trusty DVD store, Movie Stop where we buy most of our DVDs and found the 8th season of 24. We found that we could get a copy of a Blue Ray for half the price so foolish us we bought it. Brought it home and BINGO! It wouldn't play. Thus began the saga! I called Best Buy and found I could take the player to them and they would upgrade it for $65. Well that was totally unacceptable to me. They said I could go to www.esupport.com, download the latest edition of "firmware" software then just extract the file, put it in the player and it would upgrade the system. HA! First of all when I downloaded it I had to have some sort of unzipping software to extract the file. Found all the software and found that it was free but had to buy business cards. I forget what they wanted for the cards but NO I didn't want business cards. So after fiddling around with this for a bit I decided to call my Grandson Travis who is very smart and electronically savvy. Travis came over and we worked on this all evening. Couldn't get the damned program to burn properly so it would play on the Blue Ray player. then he found a link that they would send me a disk for FREE. I said go ahead and order the free copy and I will just pop it in when it comes. Today I get an email from Sony systems support that my order has been cancelled due to credit card issues. HELLO? What happened to FREE. So after ranting and raving around a bit I notice a number in the email I can call. Why don't i just read the whole damned thing to begin with? Anyway I called the number. It tells me "for extended hour assistance I should call this other number" So I called the other number and had to go through at least 10 levels of Menes where I had to push this number and that number. After a bit I got in touch with Gerald from El Salvador who tells me not to worry. I said yeah right Gerald I have heard that one before. But anyway happy ending (I hope) Gerald is sending me the disk and it is on the way as we speak supposedly. And in 7 to 10 days I will be watching season 8 of 24. We will see!

What a Week!

This has been a busy busy week. Some of it good and some of it just downright hellish and busy. We started out by getting home from our Transatlantic Cruise on Saturday the 20th. Saturday was the day from Hell to begin with. We landed in Miami at around 6:00 am Sat morning, disembarked and after standing in the "Line from Hell." I can't imagine what took us so long to get through this line and get our suitcases but finely made that hurdle. We got a porter to take our suitcases out the bus which was another adventure. Had trouble finding our bus but finely saw our people getting on a bus so we figured this is our bus. When we got there they put our suitcases in the bus but some guy standing there kept telling us it was not the discovery travel bus. Don't get on! Well I finely just got on as our suitcase were there and everybody else from our group was there. We got to the airport and found another porter who helped us with our suitcases then walked around to our gate. We decided to get something to eat but all that was there was a pizza place so Lee & I, Jim & Alma caught a people mover and went to another gate. Had a wonderful meal of an American Burger, fries and a beer. We were standing by the place to catch a people mover to take us back to our gate when some of our people came by telling us that they had changed our gate and here we were right by it so that was lucky. Then we had a long wait. Our plane wasn't until around 4:00 or sometime thereabouts. So we settled in for the long wait. Then a very short flight to Tampa and another bus to Strawberry Ridge.

Since Thursday was Thanksgiving we decided not to put up any Christmas Decorations this year. That was until I talked to Linda. Seems some of her friends want to come around and visit every ones villages so ......... that is what we did for the rest of the week. We drug heavy boxes down from the shed, cleaned the floors in the living room, moved around all the furniture, and set up the village. What a job that all was.

Mingled in with all the Village activity on Monday evening we discovered the dishwasher wasn't working so we called our trusty faithful and speedy repair man, Brian who came right out on Tuesday morning. Brian said it would cost almost as much to fix this dishwasher as to get a new one. Well I said to Lee "Gee we won't be able to get it by Thanksgiving. You will have all those dishes to wash by hand Why can't you Brian says? We can??? I asked in amazement. Sure Let me see what I can do and I'll call you back." Well long story short. Brian was back on Wednesday Morning, brand new dishwasher in tow and I was just finishing up my village. Then we had a wonderful meal and visit with all the children, and grandchildren who were in town and not committed elsewhere. Yesterday and today we have been chilling out and recuperating. So ends the week.

Ingleby Village

Ingleby Village
By Jeannie Lewis

The village of Ingle sits high on a cliff in the northernmost area of Maine overlooking the ocean. In the town there is a high meadow pond where the townspeople skate in the winter and fish in the summer. In the lower valley farmland is a beautiful little stream runs through with a mill house and pond. Ingleby maintains its early American charm with its quaint old buildings and early American Dress. Progress has passed Ingleby by in many ways. Mr. Ingleby still rides around in a horse and buggy even though motor vehicles have been on the market for quite some time now. Ingleby is run with the iron fist of Norman Ingleby who is the banker of the town and holds mortgages on all the properties. Norman is the descendant of a Frenchman named Guillaume Couture who came to New France in 1641. Guillaume has quite an interesting story of his own but for now we will concentrate on Norman Ingleby. Normans’ family has always had wealth and privilege but Norman who was the rouge of the family has quite a few skeletons in his closet. In the early 1920’s young Norman went to New York City where he met a young man named Santos Trafficante. Since his Fathers death Santos was the head of the Tampa Mafia in Florida. Santos and Norman hit it off from the start. The young Mafia Don told Norman of his rum running and drug dealings with Cuba. Norman had never imagined going to Cuba but became convinced this was the thing to do. He and Santos made plans to form a partnership and off Norman went to Cuba where he experienced the high life of the Cuban clubs. Norman spent many hours roaming from club to club with Santos and his friends. Norman hand a romantic fling with a dark eyed beauty in Cuba forgetting all about his family at home. After 3 years of the high life Norman Senior arrived in Cuba dragging his son home to settle down and get married to the town beauty and take over managing Ingleby Village.

After his fling Norman settled into the quite life of Ingleby but still maintained his wild life. He had an affair with the beautiful housekeeper Lyla who became pregnant. Lyla married the postmaster who had always loved her and they had their child who they named Jamie. Jamie was always the town clown. Everyone said he would never amount to anything but the year of the big fishing tournament came and Jamie entered the tournament. Jamie rented a small rowboat and rowed out to sea. Toward the end of the day Jamie snagged onto a fish. The fish was the monster of all fish. Jamie fought and struggled with the fish for two days being dragged further and further out to sea. On the third day the fish gave up the fight and Jamie pulled him in onto the boat. The fish was so big his head hung over one end of the boat and his tail over the other end. Jamie rowed and rowed and was finely spotted by the lighthouse keeper who had maintained vigil throughout the ordeal keeping watch for Little Jamie. Jamie won the contest and bought his mother, who was now a poor struggling widow, a Bed and Breakfast with the winnings. Jamie settled down and married the little girl who sells Christmas wreaths in front of the town cafe.

In the meantime Mr. Ingleby had maintained a running feud with a local farmer named Trent Carrillo. Ingleby felt the farmer was encroaching on property that belonged to him. Ingleby did all sorts of dastardly deeds such as cutting off the water supply to the farm. Trent built a mill house and diverted the creek to water his crops. Still Ingleby persisted. Trent hired some help from a close by village of Peyton Place in Riverview and they managed to fend off Ingleby. Little did Ingleby know but young Trent was his son by the dark eyed Cuban beauty. Trent had stowed away on Ingleby’ last rum ship out of Cuba. Trent sailed into the port of Tampa and set about becoming an American. Trent worked on the railroads up and down the coast. Trent was an avid gambler and made his fortune playing poker in the caboose of the trains. When Trent was well established and had money in his pockets he arrived in the town of Ingleby and bought his farm land. Ingleby was outraged that this interloper had gone behind his back and laid claim to the best farmland around. Inglebys’ wife had made the deal while Ingleby was laid up with a bout of the flu.

Seems like Ingleby constantly has his share of woes. Now came the year of the Gypsies. One dark night a group of Gypsies came into town and set up their carnival without permission or permits. Ingleby was to say the least outraged. He went into town shotgun in hand to confront the Gypsies and shut them down. Well Norman had a change of heart this Christmas. He came down on his buggy and looked around. "His People" were having such a great time at the carnival that he put away his shotgun and negotiated with the Gypsies. He had a piece of land way down in the hollow and if they would promise to give him a 75% cut of the profit he would lease the land to them for 99 years. The Gypsies being pretty shrewd agreed to a 50% cut and a 150 year lease. Since he (Ingleby) figured he may lose a lot of business in the town by the townspeople who threatened to go to Peyton Place to do all their Christmas Shopping, agreed to the Gypsies terms. Ya know Ingleby is a finagler anyway and always looking for a way to line his pockets. Also by doing this deal with the Gypsies he doesn’t have to deal with all the County’s red tape and put out all that money for the big Urban Renewal project he planned for next year. He is saving a bunch PLUS pocketing 50% of the Gypsies take. The piece of land he leased to the Gypsies is pretty ragged looking right now we had to wait for a big snowfall to hide some of the debris left by the construction of the Carnival. But the carnival is up and running and everyone is having a grand time. As for Ingleby he is up in his mansion drinking eggnog and counting his take from the carnival.
All was going pretty well until this shyster Mayor of Peyton place decided he wanted the carnival so he hired a lawyer to stir up the Gypsies. The lawyer came into town in a hot air balloon well can you imagine Mr. Mayors surprise when the lawyer landed and found some of his own relatives from the old country were the Gypsies in question. The lawyer was Jewish and the Gypsies are Jewish Gypsies. So the lawyer Mr.Linskey severed his contract with the Mayor, joined his kinsman and set his balloon up as a ride. His is now representing the Gypsies pro bono.

Final Installment of Cruise

November 11, 2010
This is the 5th day of our cruise at 6:00 am and woke up early for a change. I decided to order room service coffee and try a bit of writing. We have had a wonderfully restful cruise. Lee and I have not stepped off the boat since we got on. We had decided that this was going to be just a cruise with no ports of call. The ship stopped at three ports and so far a day at sea. We have done nothing but eat, drink (in more moderation than we expected) and gambled. So far the machines have been very good to me. I have already put my money that I brought along to gamble with and $200 extra in the safe. And I have in my pocket $135 to gamble with now. Lee hasn’t been so lucky this trip he is feeding the machines. That is normally the reverse with us. Yesterday, our day at sea, we had a fun filled day. We enjoyed breakfast with Jim, Alma slept in) then played bridge with Lucille and Norma, hit the slots a bit then went to a wine tasting. By then it was time for Lunch. After lunch tucked into a quiet nook to read a bit, gambled some more then time for dinner. Ah what a “chore” shipboard life is. After dinner we did a fun thing. Lee and I. Jim and Alma went to the Martini Bar and had a flight of martinis. A flight of martinis is a sampler of 6 of their different martinis. You get a small glass of each. The drinking of it is not what's fun. It is the watching of the mixologist prepare the drinks. He takes all the shakers, mixes the drinks in each then stacks up 12 of them together. Then he hops right up on the bar and tips them over so that the drink pours into each of the glasses. It was amazing to watch. I wasn’t all that fond of the drinks but it sure was fun to watch.
We have had some really rough seas. Waves were up to 18 feet. Really difficult to walk around. Good time to find a quiet nook to just sit. Or a good hot machine in the casino. As I am writing this we have pulled into Funchal Portugal. It is just beautiful! It is still dark and the mountainside is like a black velvet cloth strewn with jewels. It is spectacular. The sun will be rising shortly and we should have a marvelous sunrise. The weather is cool and clear. But not so cool you can’t step out on the veranda without a sweater. I am sure Lee with have to wrap up like a mummy as he tends to get colder than I do. As for right now I am just sitting here with the door open and enjoying the morning.

Adendum
The remainder of the trip was pretty much the same every day. I would get up early, order my coffee on the veranda then wake Lee up to go to breakfast. Many people like to go up to the buffet but we enjoy going to the main dining room, sitting and be waited on. So much easier than carrying those trays to the table. After breakfast we would play bridge until time to eat lunch. Again in the main dining room. After lunch time to read a bit then maybe a movie if they had something good. Not a real good selection of movies on the ship I have found. I also spent time watching Grey’s Anatomy season 6 on my iPod. Next is afternoon cocktails, sometimes on our veranda with Jim and Alma and sometimes in the Martini Bar. Then Dinner, a show, maybe some gambling then to bed to read. On the cruise I read 6 books and Lee read 5 so the Kindle really came in handy. Surprisingly enough I gambled away the $135 that I kept out of the safe but the rest I actually brought home. So unlike me.

Once we got out into the Atlantic the seas became calm so smoothing sailing all the way across the Atlantic. It was just so beautiful every morning I would get up early and watch the sun rise over the ocean. I will be posting some pictures later as soon as I download from the camera.