Still in the running

Well perhaps all the whining paid off as today I received some emails from the cruise ship speaking agency and basically the account manager is just back from her wedding/honeymoon and getting around to putting proposals together for the cruise lines. She asked for four or five topics for the Quebec to New York 10 day Sea Princess cruise (Classic Canada and New England) mid October, which I'd expressed an interest in so I certainly obliged on that. Figured I could pull off decent presentations on Quebec City, Cape Breton, Halifax, Boston or Rhode Island and threw in the lobstering and Duck Tollers for good measure (largely in part because I actually have those done) So, we shall see.

As well the shore captain came home today with the details on his US/Canada science/fishery meetings being held in Cape Cod the end of June and I'm invited to tag along. They're being hosted in Wood's Hole, Mass. and so we just get a chance to visit our summer neighbour in Vermont if all goes well. We were checking out prices/schedules for the ferry and it will be a fair investment to get two humans and a vehicle over and back but since the journey is funded (at least for himself) then it's a good start.

So I'm gradually picking away at my vacation but still have plenty left to play with and a fair number of airmiles as well. So lots of chances to scheme some absences from work. And it would sure be good for my mental health after today - enough said!

Mind you, I didn't start the day out in a good frame of mind as I was sleep deprived. I had scrapbooking here last night and three of my sister-in-laws and my mother-in-law came over for the evening. Lots of learning and visiting going on until late and then just after I crawled into bed at 11:30 p.m.and was completely unconscious by midnight...the phone rang. I attempted to answer it, no one there so I stumbled out to the kitchen to find the baby daughter filling her face with every light on in the house. I ask "who was on the phone?" and she says "oh, they hung up" with a smirk on her face, so I make my confused way to the phone to look at the caller ID and when my foggy brain registers that the number which has called is from her cell phone I tell her that I don't want to wake myself by assaulting her and go back to bed. When I describe the exchange to her father in the a.m. he suggests marching in and holding a repeat performance for her before I leave for work. So I do just that and I have to admit that it is funny, quite funny actually to see the look on her semiconscious face until as I'm driving up the driveway for work I remember....there is Febreeze in the house and I'm leaving her home with it.

A few years back I asked her to Febreeze in the living room and in a fit of pique she said "you want Febreeze, you'll get Febreeze" When I came down from the office I almost had an asthma attack but wouldn't let on of course. When the houseplants all started dying in the next few days I couldn't imagine why, then when I watered them and the foamy blue stuff in the pots and the smell of Febreeze filled the room as there'd been so much sucked in through the leaves into the soil, I realized what had happened. All the mud had to be thrown out and a friend donated new plants and I started over. Needless to say she hasn't been given Febreeze duties again.

Had a quick message (of course I was online with this dagnabbit dialup) from daughter # 1 and it appears she's surviving the training well. Never doubted that she wouldn't for a moment.

Well off to hit the sack as the morning alarm will ring early.