Erev Purim

Tonight we will head to shul for the Purim Schpiel and Megillah Reading.  It's Purim!  A time to give gifts of food and money, dress up in costumes, take a shot and make noise when you hear Haman's name, eat some Hamantaschen, and just have fun!  With any luck, Mark and I are going to do all of that tonight.

Meanwhile, it is Weigh-in Wednesday, so here's the report.  Under any other circumstances, this would be a GREAT report because I've lost FIVE pounds!  How amazing, right?

WRONG.  I'm still four pounds up from Feb. 1 when I took off for the vacation, and this week I lost eleven pounds, gained eight the next day, and then dropped three for this net loss of five in the week.  What a crazy weight rollercoaster ride this week has been!

OK,  I'll try to be happy for the five pounds.

Today we have the AC repairman coming.  He's not scheduled to get here until 3:30 despite my talking to two other people to try to bump us up in the rotation.  We are the last one on his schedule, and he gets off at 4 p.m.   Hopefully, he doesn't fall behind as the day goes on and can fix it in half an hour.  I was pretty outraged about this early this morning.  Sigh.  I'm more calm now, but it is going to hit 90 tomorrow, so if it's not fixed today and we have to reschedule for next Monday, it's going to be a little uncomfortable in here.

Also Mark is going grocery shopping while I prepare Shlaloch Manot bags to give out tonight and iron his NARFE shirt for tomorrow's meeting.  I also have two baskets of clothes to fold, some checks to write, and some deliveries of checks to people's houses to make for various ticketed events. Finally, I need to go pick up my red winter coat from the lady who put in a new zipper for me.  All before 3:30 when the repairman should be here, and we have to leave at 5 p.m. ourselves because the Purim festivities begin at 6 p.m.

Crazy day.

But now for the fun report about last night's dinner at Victoria and Albert's.  It was every bit as elegant, delicious, amusing, and expensive as we had expected.  Mark and I had specially prepared 7 course menus that included no meat or shellfish.  We also each ordered the wine pairing of seven wines, and there was a rose and chocolates presented at the end.  Our bill with tax and tip, $730!

Once we got home, we felt that we had done something very special, but it's definitely a once-in-a-lifetime event.  We cannot imagine doing it again, but we are very glad we did it this once.

In the lobby of the Grand Floridian before it was time to head upstairs.

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With Al and Barbara at the entrance doorway.

My personally prepared menu, which we got to take home as a souvenir.  We all chose the 7 course dinner.

Course three was Alaskan Halibut on a bed of artichokes with Parmesan foam on top.  This was one of my two favorite dishes.

My second favorite was the leek tart with truffles.  Spectacular.

The harpist added a very elegant touch.  She played Disney songs as well as other classics.

Mark's cheese board with a port wine.

The coffee service seemed like magic.

My creme brûlée

A few alcoholic chocolates to end.

Each lady received a rose and a box of chocolates to take home while the men just received the check.

Amy and Matt were our exceptional wait staff, keeping us fed, informed, and amused for over four hours!

On our way out of this lovely, elegant evening.

Victoria and Albert

Tonight is a big night for us!  We are dining with Barb and Al N. in the premier, five-star restaurant inside the Grand Floridian, Victoria and Albert's.  We have already called to confirm our food issues, no meat for us, no mushrooms for Barb, and nothing spicy or too weird for Al.  For a 7 course meal, the price is $185 each.  For a wine pairing it's nearly $100 per person, plus taxes and gratuities.  We don't expect to walk out of there with a bill under $500 per couple.  But, hey, why not?  Just for grins, I'll report the actual bill tomorrow.

Barb and Al asked us several years ago to start going with us to high end restaurants.  We have done many delightful ones, maybe one or two per year.  Last year we decided to throw it all in and hit up the most expensive, most elegant, most amazing restaurant of all.  In fact, Victoria and Albert's is the ONLY five-star restaurant in Orlando.

Meanwhile the meeting yesterday was excellent, but as I predicted, I ate too much for lunch.  Breakfast and dinner were at home and normal, even low calorie.  Then there was the lunch.  It didn't seem that bad.  I made a cheese sandwich on rye bread with some cole slaw, macaroni salad, potato salad, chips.  There was King Cake, so I ate a piece of that.  During the meeting there were hard, wrapped candies on the table.  Since my throat was still hurting, I sucked them periodically because they were soothing.  For that, I gained a WHOPPING EIGHT POUNDS IN ONE DAY!  That's in all caps because I just cannot believe it myself.  Over night I dropped three of the 8, leaving me a total of up five from yesterday.  Now I can NOT say that I have lost all of the vacation weight.  UGH and double UGH.  Even I NEVER remember a day like that.

Now I will have breakfast and lunch at home, take Mark's car to All Cars for some repairs, run a two hour rehearsal with the Cove Singers, and then dress up and head off to a huge dinner at V and A.  So....tomorrow, for the official Weigh-in Wednesday, I am sure I will have to report a weight that will not make me happy.  Sigh.

Meanwhile, Mark's car needs an oil change and the AC checked.  It doesn't really cool the car, so we made an appointment to drop it off this morning at 10 a.m.  Ironically, the AC in the house died Sunday night.  The repairman is coming tomorrow, and we are hoping he can fix it in one visit.  Luckily for us, the temperatures are sort of moderate and going down.  There will be highs of only mid-70s with lows in the mid-50s over night, so that will make it quite comfortable in the house.  We opened all the windows last night when we got home from the meeting, and it was fine.  We are just glad this didn't happen in the worst of the summer heat and humidity!

Tomorrow I plan to post some pictures from the dinner tonight.

NARFE District 3 Meeting Today

A few months ago, Mark was invited to give two presentations at the District 6 NARFE meeting.  It went very, very well.  Today he is doing the same thing up in Leesburg, FL for District 3.  It's about a 90 minute drive, so not worse than the other one, maybe a little closer even.

Yesterday went well.  I went out to the theater and the trivia game and survived.  In fact, our team, which we named The Whole Megillah in honor of Purim coming tomorrow night, WON!  We got 24 out of 26 answers correct.  YAY for us.  Each couple won a triple candle set, similar to one I gave Evey years ago.  I probably will just save it to give away next year at the Chapter 1224 White Elephant sale.  It will be a nice gift.  The play was funnier and weirder than we expected.  It certainly had us laughing in amusement and groaning in horror sometimes.  Not the usual type of show we go to, but we were glad we went.

The best thing about yesterday was that I endured.  I did not get too tired to do everything I wanted to do.  Unfortunately, the sore throat is still raging and making it hard to swallow.  I have taken 3 out of the 5 doses of antibiotic, so I'm hoping it all kicks in soon.  Today and tomorrow are the last two pills.  If I'm not great when I get up Thursday morning, I'm going to call the doctor again.

On the plus side, still eating at home and eating less, I have now dropped all of the 9 pounds that I gained while away PLUS two more!  I'm now two pounds LESS than when we left on Feb. 1.  I am excited for that, but today we are eating lunch out, and tomorrow we are eating dinner at Victoria and Albert's at the Grand Floridian. Frequently, once eating too much at certain meals just sets me off into a binge-eating episode that can last for weeks.  Intellectually,  I do know this to be true, but it is just SO HARD to stop it.  It's really better to prevent it by not eating out, but as a retiree in Florida, that is virtually impossible.  HAHAHA!!  Anyone who has read my blog for awhile knows that's the truth!

Strep Throat

The sore throat never improved, although the fever went away after Wednesday.  So Friday morning I went to the doctor, who confirmed that it was Strep Throat.  She prescribed five days on a Z-pack and a special mouth rinse called Magic Mouthwash that includes benzocaine and prednisone.

I am doing both faithfully, but here it is Sunday morning and my throat is still sore.  UGH.

The good news is that while staying home feeling like crap, I binge-watched the final 7 episodes of this season's Amazing Race as well as all 10 episodes of the second season of The Crown.  I also love the new recliner we bought.  It's very comfortable when you feel sick.

Yesterday Mark went to the synagogue by himself because he wanted to see the try-out of one of the several new Rabbinical candidates.  I would have liked to see him, but I was afraid that I was still contagious.  Also I cancelled going to the Purim Schpiel and Casino Night last night, too, for the same reason and because I just felt sick all day.  The good news is that I later found out that they are doing the Purim Schpiel again Wednesday night for the actual Purim evening service.  That's nice. I will definitely see it then.

Today we have two things that we are going to do no matter how I feel because I know I'm no longer contagious.  We have tickets for our season at The Garden Theater.  Today's show is a play called The Lieutenant of Inismore, a show we know nothing about.  Then we will rush home for a TV dinner and then meet friends at The Palms for games of Trivia.  We are on a team of six, and we all have different strengths.  We think we are a good team, but I also thought I'd be healthy. LOL

One bit of good news is that I have lost all but 1 and 1/2 pounds of the 9 that I gained on the vacation.  I have lost 7 1/2 pounds in four days by just sitting around being sick.  LOL  Helps a lot when everything you try to swallow hurts like hell going down.  That really curbs your appetite.  Also some of the weight gained quickly on a cruise is just water weight which leaves as fast as it arrived.

Have a good day no matter where you are or what you are doing.

So much has happened!

It's nearly four weeks since I wrote a blog.  For those who read regularly, I apologize.

I was on the cruise ship for two weeks and Sunsport for another four days, but then I just got home and got busy and got SICK.

This morning I'm going to to the doctor because I woke up with a terrible sore throat on Wednesday.  The body aches, fever, and extreme fatigue hit me like a ton of bricks about noon.  I just slept all day. The fever hit 99.8.  I had told Mark if it went over 100 I'd go somewhere, but it never did.  It went down by night and never went up again, but the sore throat is as bad as ever.  Three days of not being able to swallow is enough.  I'm suspecting Strep because it has not turned into a cough and cold type of thing.  It's just sitting in the throat causing pain with swallowing and even without, just all the time.

I should have reported my weight on Wednesday, but I was too sick.  I gained 9 pounds during the three weeks that we were gone.  I have lost 3 of those pounds already, so hopefully I can continue with that weight loss before Passover, which is always a bad time of year for losing weight, at least for me anyway.

I probably have over 700 pictures from the cruises, and thankfully for you, I'm not going to post them all.  Here are a few of my favorites.

An embarkation shot on Feb. 2 that I just loved.  We also bought one of the two of us, but this one was unique.

Sail Away drinks Feb. 2.

Half Moon Cay

In the beautiful Irish Seas Piano Bar

I scratched the top of my foot so much that the skin came off and got infected, so  here I am in the Med Center getting antibiotic ointment and band aids, which normally I take on vacation.  The one time I forget to pack those....

Willemstad, Curacao, a beautiful place.

Walking over the swinging bridge was something we both wanted to do this time.

Flamingos on the lake in Bonaire

All the Dutch Antilles are windy and desert dry with plenty of cacti.

Harvesting salt in the south of Bonaire is big business.

Mark by slave quarters where they slept after harvesting salt all day.  Terrible conditions.

Climbing some boulders on Aruba.

Aruba has a rough northern coast.

Standing out in the middle of the natural bridge.  Very cool.

A cashew...the fruit looks like a pepper and the nut is at the top.

We took this cruise with lots of Solivita friends.  Six of us were on the same Aruba tour.  Here we are at the lighthouse.

At Eagle Beach by the famous Fofoti trees.

Enjoying a sea day.

Starting the second cruise, Mark is taking a picture of the poster that we posed with.

We got the drink package for the first time ever on Carnival, so we had lots of interesting drinks for four days.  LOTS of drinks!  This is Mark's expensive tequila and my frozen margarita, our third round of drinks on this trip, in fact on day one of this cruise!  Don't judge.

Mark got up to dance for the Sail Away party.

Key West, always a favorite stop.

We walked to Ripley's Believe It or Not and enjoyed the exhibits.

Enjoying the obligatory Key Lime pie slice, which we shared.

 Formal Night, and we loved this picture.

At Cozumel, we stayed on the ship and explored the "secret decks."

Then I beat Mark at mini-golf, 29-34.  My score was only one over par.  Usually he beats me, but he wasn't feeling well.  Sad for him.  Good for me!

Valentine's Day!  We had our complimentary bottle of wine while he ate  at the specialty fish place, the Seafood Shack.

Valentine's Day toast to more cruising!

Our final day was a sea day and Groove for St. Jude.  Finally NEW SHIRTS!  I like these shirts very much.

Dmitry was one of our waiters, a very nice young man, only 23 years old, from Belarus.  He has only been working on a ship for a month.

Our three waiters, an excellent team.