Denver Spring (??) Weekend

March 24, 2013

March 23, 2013

March 23, 2013

Cruisin'

We returned on Sunday from our first Caribbean cruise.   While the cruise was very relaxing and we came back totally refreshed, it was weird in so many ways that I want to share a bit of the experience for those who have never done anything like this.

First,  the positives of the vacation. We had a great time with perfect weather, especially considering that it was 10°F when we left Denver.  It was wonderful being at sea for a whole week as we were virtually unplugged except for brief email checks. Our stateroom was spacious and very comfortable with our own private balcony.

Now, for the more interesting stuff.  Our cruise was on the Ruby Princess - a great big floating city that houses over 3,000 passengers and 1,150 crew from 43 different countries.   Somehow, when I was making reservations for this trip, I didn't pay attention to the size of the boat but instead concentrated on when and where it was going.  So it was quite stunning upon arrival to digest the scope of the ship.  There were 17 decks, and we figured out that the ship was about as long as five city blocks.  Initially, this was off-putting but we realized that we would be on this vessel for a week so somehow had to come to terms with the enormity.  And we did.  While I don't think that I will ever take another trip on such a big boat again, it was interesting and entertaining to observe.  With so many people all around us, there was no pressure to talk to anyone and we could be as anti-social as we wanted to be (which resulted in exactly zero conversations with other passengers).  There is great anonymity in numbers, which actually made the experience more relaxing.

It was a challenge to find quiet and restful spots on a ship with so many people, but we were up to the task.  We found the Sanctuary, which, as its name suggests, was peaceful and populated by crew called Serenity Stewards who were available to meet your every need.  For the privilege of quiet, we had to pay what the cruise line called "a nominal fee" and what I call twenty bucks for half a day.  Even though it seems odd to pay for quiet, it was well worth it, particularly when we would walk by the always crowded pool areas where some awful, depressing and very loud band was always playing.  Not to mention the throngs of people by the pool, many of whom should never - and I repeat NEVER - put on a bathing suit.

For reasons that escape me, we had two television sets in our stateroom that were literally about six inches from each other - one faced our bed and one faced our sofa.  There were only a handful of channels with one of them being a station that played old Love Boat reruns almost 24-7 (now if that doesn't sound like hell, then what does?).  I never realized when I watched Love Boat decades ago that it was a Princess line ship, but the cruise line still seems very proud of that fact as evidenced by their constant showing of this very dated show.  Of course, the big difference between then and now is that the Love Boat Princess ship carried 600 passengers and the Ruby Princess was about five times as large.

Here are some photos with some commentary that will hopefully give you a little bit of a flavor of the trip:

The Vegas-like decor of the Ruby Princess

More gaudy decor

Ruby Princess Exterior

Why we sought out the Sanctuary

View of beautiful St. Martin from Fort Louis

I took a picture of the beautiful turquoise water in St. Martin, only to realize that Nude Guy was quite delighted to pose for my photo at the edge of the nude beach while facing the regular beach.  Quite a surprise.

Where the Magic Happens

Several months ago, I saw a poster in an office that resonated with me.  I replicated the essence of the message, but not the artistic content, in a notebook, which is pictured above.

Just thought that I would share this thought because I have come back to it again and again.  When I think about the events that have brought me the most satisfaction, they are often way outside "my comfort zone."  But, as the poster said, that's "where the magic happens."

Wishing You the Best for 2013

Hello Readers,

It's been a while since I've posted anything on this blog.  The original purpose of From Grits to Granola was to chronicle my transition from Georgia to Colorado and to keep in touch with friends who are far away geographically.  But lately, I have backed away from regular posts.  

Now that we've lived in Denver for over two years, I am accustomed to life here, for better or worse, so there are few revelations now - the transition is complete.  Colorado is a strange state - very divergent in almost every way.  Half of the state is flat, ugly and rather plain.  The other half is majestic, beautiful and breathtaking.  Half of the state is ultra-liberal and the other half ultra-conservative.

Part of the reason that I haven't written lately is that I'm reluctant to bore anyone with the details of my day-to-day life.  Having moved a fair amount during my adulthood, it is somewhat sad - but I realize true - that as time goes by and there is rare opportunity to see friends, the friends are still precious but the relationship changes.  There is not the intimacy of knowing what each person is doing on a regular basis - it's more the occasional catch-up that includes only the highlights and low points, but not the mundane.  Yet often it's knowing the mundane that bonds the friendship.

My blissfully boring life has created a blogging quandary.  I am thankful for many things - health, family, friends and a beautiful view of the Rocky Mountains.  I now realize that I will never feel totally comfortable here in Denver, but that's o.k.  My complaints, like cold, dryness and altitude, are really insignificant in the big scheme of things.  While Barry and I may be the only two Colorado residents who do not partake in what appears to be the primary pastimes of all other Coloradans - skiing and drinking beer - there are some positives.  I found watching the Presidential election close-up in a swing state to be fascinating, and I am interested to observe as the state tries to enact Proposition 64, being one of the first states in the country to legalize marijuana.  That said, it is my hope that we will not be living in Colorado to view the next national election close up.

My plan for the blog is to continue to post occasionally when I have some pretty photos or on the rare opportunity when I have something to say that I believe will be of interest to others.  By far, the best thing that has come from this blog is that I often hear from many of you in response to a post, and I don't want this dialogue to stop.  The blog has definitely done what I hoped when I started - kept me in touch with friends who are distant in miles but not in my heart.

A new year is always a new start.  So as the new year approaches, I will continue to make resolutions that I may or may not keep.  As always, my top two are:  1.  Have more fun and 2. Lose weight.  I would have thought that losing weight would be the universal resolution, but, to my surprise, I recently read that the number one resolution is in fact "have more fun."  Go figure.  The problem though is that my resolutions #1 and #2 can be contradictory at times.  My other goals for the year are to get involved with some new projects, one of which will definitely be gun control (even in a state full of cowboys).  I would love to hear what some of your resolutions for the new year are.

I wish you all a very happy and healthy 2013.

Shedding Tears for Jersey

I grew up in a blue collar community in industrial New Jersey, just 16 miles from Manhattan but worlds away in day-to-day life.  It was gray, drab and polluted in our town.  There were petrochemical refineries as well as large plants from just about every chemical company that existed then.  One of the reasons is that my hometown, Linden, was on the Arthur Kill, which separated New Jersey from Staten Island, and eventually made its way to the ocean.  I rarely have anything nice to say about Jersey and have on many occasions commented that it's a great place to be from because every place else that I've lived seems so nice in comparison.  Well, that's still true.  A calamity like Sandy certainly doesn't make me nostalgic for Linden.  It was a hole then, and it still is.

But the Jersey Shore is another matter.  My happiest memories of my childhood are on the Jersey Shore and that seems to be true for a lot of other Jerseyites who I've seen being wistful on television.  The biggest thrill of the summer would be to get into our un-airconditioned car, sit in steaming traffic for a couple of hours to go about 30 miles, and eventually be rewarded by being able to claim a blanket-sized piece of sand on the beach.  The Jersey Shore beaches weren't like the beautiful empty beaches that I've been fortunate enough to visit in my adulthood - they were wall to wall people.  But that's not so surprising in the most densely populated state in the country.

My parents' beaches of choice were Bradley Beach and Asbury Park.  I still remember riding the merry-go-round in Asbury Park.  My dad loved the boardwalk, and we'd usually spend as much time there as in the ocean.  He'd make me stop and watch the salesmen demonstrating the vegematic slicer as if this was serious theater.  He loved that stuff.  We'd all get hot dogs and custard and, even though we'd leave with sunburns and sit in another couple of hours of hot traffic to get back home, the beach was magical.  When I was old enough to have friends who drove, we did exactly the same thing - headed for the shore.

As an adult, I still love the beach - any beach.  I've never thought about it much, but I guess this beach attraction is a result of these happy childhood memories.  That may be why I can't exactly embrace land-locked Colorado, which is about a thousand miles from a beach.

So looking at the devastation of the Jersey shore is heartbreaking.  I've actually shed some tears, thinking of those beaches of my youth that won't ever be the same and of all of the uprooted residents who, like me, felt the draw of the ocean.  If someone had told me two weeks ago that I'd be crying about New Jersey, I would have thought them crazy.  But Sandy changed a lot of things.  

A Traveling Circus

Denver City Park, October 24, 2012

OK - I absolutely promise that this is my last post on the presidential election.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to go to a speech by President Obama in Denver's City Park.  It was a huge production - truly the political equivalent of a traveling circus - with about 16,000 people attending. Yes, one of the perks of being in a closely contested state is that the candidates are constantly here. You almost feel like they will stop by your house if you promise to vote for them.

I usually try to avoid these crowded types of events, but I made an exception and went.  I tried to take in all of the hoopla around me.  This is such a huge effort - everyone had to go through security and there were more gates to go through than at most airports that I've been to.  The guards looked through my purse in a lot more detail than they do at the airport, even opening my sunglass case to see what was inside.  They handled the crowd well, and the lines moved quickly.  Very impressive.  After the event, I watched them roll up all of the security gates into the many waiting trucks and move on to the next location.  

While putting together the logistics of a "quick stop" for the President is mind-boggling (the stage, the acoustics, the crowd control barriers, etc., etc.), what affected me much more were the people who came.  Many came with wheelchairs, walkers, crutches, canes.  From babies to the very old.  A more diverse crowd than I see in my normal day-to-day in Denver and all very excited that they had the opportunity to see the President of the United States.  I was touched by the man who told me that he drove from Wichita, Kansas to see the President.  Even more touched by the elderly African-American lady who told me that she wanted to save her ticket to add to her collection of souvenirs from the 2008 election when she had all of her election paraphernalia laminated.  I'm sure when this woman was a girl she could not have imagined that she would see an African-American President of the United States in her lifetime.  Her pride in him was palpable.  There were also many children there, taken out of school to attend this event.  It made me happy to look at their faces and to realize that they would remember this day for the rest of their lives.  

Seeing all of the excitement of this visit was fun, and I got to shake hands with the Mayor of Denver, the Governor of Colorado, and the President of the United States. Cool.  By the way, his hand is not calloused by the many handshakes;  it's actually pretty soft.

Here are some photos from my day:

What can I say? It's definitely a fashion statement.

Colorado Governor Hickenlooper and my friend Jill

. . . And I Approved This Message

Hello from Ground Zero of a very close presidential race.  As I write this, Colorado still remains one of those handful of states that is too close to call for either candidate two weeks before election day.  The most recent poll I looked at today showed a difference of .2% between Obama and Romney, obviously well below the margin of error.  So the craziness here continues.  It has given me brain damage, I'm afraid, and consequently have been unable to accomplish much at all, including posting on this blog.

Soon after I first moved here, I did a blog post about mail-in voting in Colorado.  You can find that post here.  To avoid repetition, I won't go into the details of mail-in voting again, but I recently read that 70% of voters in this state get mail-in ballots.  Also, I learned that Colorado has the fourth best percentage of eligible voters who actually vote (Minnesota is the best and Hawaii the worst), so there are some definite advantages to this system.

I've already voted and dropped off my completed ballot yesterday.  I'm hoping that this will stem the barrage of contacts since it is a "done deal" for me now.  What surprised me when I looked at the ballot was the fact that there were 16 candidates for president and vice president listed on the ballot.  I had to search among the long list of candidates for the two whose faces and names have become constant companions to everyone in this state.  I did see Roseanne Barr's name as a presidential candidate (somehow she doesn't have all of the qualities that I look for in the leader of the free world), but other than that, who are these people and what are these political parties about?  I wonder if all states have so very many presidential candidates or if it is only this state.  As you vote, please let me know, just for my own curiosity.  Here's what the presidential ballot looked like here:  

2012 Colorado Ballot