It’s Monday evening and I feel totally exhausted. Unfortunately, I’m working until 9:00pm tonight and have to get through the next few hours. I wish now that I had taken today as a Vacation Day and been able to get some sleep as Donna has. Oh, well….

Speaking of my wife I want to wish a very, Happy 8th Anniversary to my love & life, Donna Lee! It is not a figure of speech to say that I would not be here (and I don’t mean California) if this woman had not come into my life when she did. I will always be thankful that we met and fell in love.
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The Carnival Paradise is one of the lines older and smaller ships, but it was perfect for our weekend voyage.

To give you an idea of how the cruise was you should know that within an hour of checking aboard I ordered my first drink and had my last around 11:30pm last night in the ship’s casino. The first was the ‘welcome aboard’ special, the name of which I can’t remember but it had rum, pineapple & orange juice in it. The great thing about these ‘specials’ is that they come in plastic cups that allow you to get discounts on each daily special, simply by returning the empty to the waitress. The drinks themselves tend towards the fruity/frosted variety and with the cup come to around $3.00 each. Yum!

Donna, Fran (Donna’s long-time friend) and I had a great time over the three days. The ladies got to catch up on things and I enjoyed the food, drinks, pool and casino. There was some shopping along the way as well; including some things we’ll be giving for Christmas.

One new thing was attending the art auction presented by Park West Gallery, with Fran. She almost always attends these, but for me it was a whole new experience. It was a lot of fun, plus Donna and I have a couple of nice pieces of artwork for the apartment. We both love a small, Thomas Kincaid work called “Winter Memories”, which will go well in the living room. I picked up a terrific “Speed Racer” print with the entire cast of the old show, including Racer X and the Mach 5. No idea where that will go, but I plan to have it framed as soon as we receive it. The bidding part of the auction is certainly the most exciting, even with many of the pieces already requested and having a set price in place before hand. (That’s how we got the Kincaid for much less than you’d expect.) There were also some amazing works by Picasso, Dali and Peter Max that went for prices that make my head hurt. As a treat at the end of the auction they ran the Dali/Disney short film, “Destino.” Amazing if you haven’t had the opportunity to see it.

The cruise was way too short and we spent the trip back from the terminal talking about which cruise we’d like to take next year. Right now it seems like we’ll be going to Alaska for a week, but all of us would like to take the Panama Canal crossing one of these days. (Something I actually did while in the Navy, but the experience was a bit different as you can imagine.)