As you read this I will be somewhere over the Atlantic, winging my way to Europe where I will be joining the ROYAL PRINCESS. Probably not sleeping. I don’t know why. I envy people who get on a plane, close their eyes after the safety briefing, sleep soundly until the flight crew shakes them awake just before landing. I’ve tried pills, alcohol, meditation, neck pillows, yada yada yada . . . and nothing. I can start dozing as soon as we start pulling out on the runway, but once we are airborne I’m wide awake. So hopefully KLM will have some good movies.
Kudos to Princess for not flying me to Rome via Atlanta, Detroit, Newark, London, Rome – typical Holland America routing - but putting me on the DIRECT flight from Panama City to Amsterdam, and then on into Rome. You didn’t know KLM flew direct to Panama? Well, it does! Tocumen Airport in Panama City is becoming a major hub for the Americas as more and more people want to avoid the hassle of connecting in the US.
KLM is a funny airline in many ways. The flight crews for their flights always arrive all at once and march through the airport like 25 or 30 soldiers in lock-step formation dressed in their baby blue outfits. Corny, but people notice, so I guess it’s a kind of advertising. I used to think KLM flight attendants were kind of curt, until I spent more time in Holland and realized that it’s a language thing. If you know a language, but don’t really know the nuances and tonal variations, saying the correct thing, with a slightly off tone can come across totally different than intended. I was on KLM when I was in the travel business and going to Holland to become a “Dutch Specialist” on a travel agent familiarization trip sponsored in part by KLM. We were flying coach (it wasn’t that good of a trip, to be in business or first class) and all seated in the forward section of one of the rear cabins . . . where there is more leg room and often where folks with babies end up because they can hook little cribs into the walls of the rest rooms. So, typical fam trip, two or three guys and a ton of women. KLM is doing their best to make us happy . . . translation, lots of booze . . . and one of our gals notices that the hole where the crib locks in opens directly into the rest room and gives a head-on-view, so to speak, of gentlemen using the rest room. So our people, having already enjoyed what amounted to an open bar, are queuing up for a look, taking measure, and like Olympic judges scoring . . . when the KLM crew comes over to find out what is going on . . . and they are lining up and giving scores. And the poor people in the front cabin didn’t have a clue!
The last time, I think, that I was on KLM to Schippol (and to pronounce it like the Dutch do you have to clear your throat like you are collecting a great gob of phlegm to spit out) we had just landed and I was semi-comatose from sleep deprivation. As I was in the great line filing out from seat 312 E I heard what sounded, I thought, like a Dutch attempt at my last name. When I asked at the jetway they said that yes, they had a message for me, I was to call my wife as soon as possible. My heart dropped and I thought, “Something’s happened to one of the kids.” When I got Nikki on the phone she quickly informed me that she and the kids were fine, but . . . as she put it, “This is something you need to deal with. I can’t make the decision.”
When I was a young pastor in the South Bronx I became surrogate father to a number of kids and the one who was most “my” kid, was a kid named Efrain. I met Efrain when he came into our drug program . . . totally strung out on heroin, with tracks up and down his arms. He was 11 years old, and looked more like 8. Back then a kid that young strung out on heroin was somewhat of a novelty. He didn’t really fit in any program, so he became like my son. I remember crawling over snaking fire hoses and pushing past NYFD guys into the tenement where Efrain’s family lived to find out if they were still alive, coming under the not-so-friendly fire of NYPD (actually with Luther Van Dross’s mother, Mary Ida) to try and find Efrain when bullets were flying, and smuggling Big Macs into the hospital when Efrain almost died. Somehow he survived. For a year or so he lived with us in Milwaukee, and then went back to New York. When he was twenty-two he landed a very responsible job managing one of the old porn shops in Times Square. He sent me a picture of him at the counter, looking very proud and important. He had to manage the staff, which was more demanding than you might think. This was one of those places where you put a quarter in and the window slid up and you could watch a live girl . . . so he not only had to manage security, inventory, money, but also a staff of working girls. So Efrain made his twenties . . . and as has happened with all my Bronx kids, you lose track of each other.
Unfortunately Efrain, like a lot . . . maybe most . . . addicts, went back on drugs, unbeknownst to me. My wife was calling because somehow one of Efrain’s brothers had managed to track me across the states through the churches I had served to California. Efrain was in the hospital, dying of AIDS and he wanted to see me before he died. After all these years it is still tough to think about. I called his brother and they didn’t think Efrain would make it through the night. There was no way I could get there and all I could say was, “Tell him I love him . . . and I’ll see him someday.”
So KLM memories are definitely mixed.
When I leave on a trip I like to leave everything in order. Clean house. Clean desk. No unfinished business or projects. I work hard to have schedules, countdowns, so everything is in order. But it doesn’t work out that way! Ever. It seems I always leave a swirl of chaos in my wake which my poor wife is generally left to sort out and clean up. Last year when I left for my winter cruise trip the house in Palmira was still unfinished. This year, some of my projects are unfinished. Yes, partly it’s because I tend to bite off more than I can chew, although this year we’ve had some big and unexpected (and unwanted!) surprises.
What I need now is someone to feed me, clean my clothes, pick up after me, shine my shoes, give me fresh towels and put towel animals on my bed. When I got married I thought that was what a wife did . . . now I know better and know that’s what a room steward does! I’ll talk to you from the ROYAL PRINCESS!
Then then need to be washed by hand to remove the sticky “honey” and then dried . . . hopefully in the sun. In the commercial beneficios they are put in big revolving drums like a huge clothes dryer for about eight hours. These are usually fired with dead wood or gas.
I leave for the ROYAL PRINCESS for 4 months in 40 days. All my presentations for that trip have been done for a while, but I need to get at least two thirds of my stuff done for the world cruise on DAWN PRINCESS. I have only month’s vacation . . . translate: working time to prepare for the next cruise . . . when I get back from ROYAL, before I’m off on DAWN. This weekend it was a port talk for Los Angeles . . . really a talk for Aussie’s about California, since there is absolutely nothing to do around Los Angeles Harbor. You either take a shore excursion, or sit on deck and watch the seagulls poop! Now I’m on to Bali!
Since I’m deathly allergic to shrimp . . . not that I didn’t consume more of my fair share of the world’s shellfish before developing this allergy . . . I wrote off the appetizer, “Grilled Prawns with Tuscan White Beans” with a Placido Pino Pino Grigio 2008. I like Pino Grigio, so I drank my appetizer. Nikki gave the prawns an unenthusiastic, “OK”, and she’s the shellfish fan.
Speaking of blogs, our friends Dave and Cora Kent were there, and Cora told me that she has started a blog . . . 
The pasta as far as we were concerned was the hit of the evening . . . I think one of the best pastas I’ve ever tasted! “Penne with Roasted Butternut Squash, Toasted Waltnuts, Brown Butter and Sage” . . . superb! The wine Placido Montepulciano D’Abruzzo 2007. 
The main course was “Pesto Fillet Mignon with Sun Dried Tomato Demi Glaze and Grilled Polenta Cake” . . . excellent, except the fillet was way overdone. I realize with a group there are different preferences, but I think it would be safest to do a medium on the rare side, than to overcook the fillet. The demi glaze was excellent, adding to, but not overpowering the other flavors. The salad was “Grilled Eggplant Salad with Pine Nuts and Capers” and this being Boquete, you always need a “Plan B.” Pine nuts it turned out were not available right now, so Lauretta substituted peanuts, but it worked. Wine: “Banfi Centine 2006″
By this time I was remembering cruise ship inaugurals where the wine and conversation is flowing so quickly that you forget just how much you are drinking. The trouble is I liked the desert wine, Banfi Brachetto Brachetto D’Acqui 2008, a delightful rose wine “made from Brachetto. This extremely aromatic, complex and historical grape variety grows only in the area of Acqui Terme, in southern Piedmont. The cold maceration of the grapes, followed by a soft pressing, allows the extraction of the typical intense aromas from the skins and gives the wine its characteristic light ruby red color. Very pleasant and extremely elegant . . . berry flavors and a touch of almond and nutmeg.” Translation: excellent! I liked it and could still taste. 
The desert was “Chocolate Cherry Cassata” which Nikki was too stuffed to eat, so brought it home. And this morning, as I write this, I’m eating her desert. Goes great for breakfast!
The Archbishop of Trinidad decided that he, too, needed a place to lay his head, a place that reflected his own perception of his importance and prestige, so he built himself a palace with church funds. A few years later the Anglicans of the island decided that if the Catholic Archbishop had a mansion, that the Anglican Bishop deserved one too. All of which, of course, was essential to the mission of the church to the poor and needy and to win the world for Christ.
Naples/Capri, Italy- Tapedfor TV: Port Talk: “Palermo: Forget The Godfather”
Casablanca (Marrakech), Morocco
Mindelo, Cape Verde Islands
