The Cruise Is Over

Ah, the eve of July 1st, when the fireworks begin in earnest within the narrow subdivisions of our cozy little neighborhood. Time to forget what sleep at a reasonable hour is, whilst the cat learns again about irrational fear. Hopefully they'll stop before midnight tonight...

And we are back from our yearly cruise to the Great North. It was marred somewhat by Connor's taking ill after the first full day, and again on the last two days before returning to our home port in San Francicsco. Bookend illnesses! At least he tested negative for Covid, there's that small comfort anyway. But unfortunately the poor chap spent a good chunk of our vacation hunkered down in our little interior stateroom watching old episodes of Bob's Burgers on the TV and sipping from the little plastic shotglass cup of children's ibuprofen. So much lost time at the ping pong table! And the kids club!

But aside from that it was really a lovely trip, as my YouTube video will attest to. We were blessed with the clearest, sunniest weather anyone could wish for. It was almost...too sunny. But we had some adventures, built some new memories, explored some new land (on bikes no less) - all in all it was a productive use of our summer time. 

We finally got close enough to see Dawes Glacier! That was a rare treat indeed. Thanks global warming!

Though cruises are expensive times to be sitting in your stateroom nursing a child's cold. Maybe we need to transition a bit to doing more land based vacations, where crowds of people are far more dissipated and germs do not run as rampant. I don't know. Maybe we need to do another cruise just to prove we can do it and stay healthy (Connor came home with Covid from last year's trip). 

Well, next week we'll do a little overnight trip to Santa Cruz, perhaps that will make up for some of the lost time. Have to use up some free Boardwalk passes, which I'm sure my little buddy will enjoy.

And of course returning to the real world after sailing through forests and mountains and ice means getting back to work and all of the real-world tasks I temporarily left behind. Mostly for me that means doing score study of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas I'll be conducting towards the end of this month and into the first half of August. Trial by Jury and The Sorcerer. And of course Connor is starting on his new soccer adventure of his competitive team here in Natomas, and before we know it it will be time to get back to school!

Is it ever not busy?

And just to add a little cherry on top, I got a jury notice for standby service the week of July 17. Sure, why not? Add one more thing on to the pile. But really it's not so busy right now, at this very moment, despite all these things. Not really. I found some time today to go for some walks and even a bike ride, to do some shopping and some reading and to watch some TV, and I reviewed my scores a bit and filled out a post-cruise survey (yeah, that took an hour and a half out of my day). And here I am writing a blog post, the first in two months. So it was a productive day today, Saturday, the first of July. A good start for the month!

I mean really, I'd rather be back on the cruise though. No matter how much you see, no matter how much you experience, you always leave wishing you had found time to do a little more. To eat a little more. To drink a little more. To explore a little more. To just sit and watch the world float peacefully by a little more. The trips go by so quick and there's never enough time. 

But alas, the cruise is over! And reality must step back in.