Masculine

A while back a new term popped into existence. I instantly knew what it meant, and found it a useful tool in describing certain negative characteristics and behaviour within our culture.

I also found it strange that there was an almost immediate backlash against it.

Seriously, what the hell is wrong with some men.

In my life I have been a victim of toxic masculinity. As a kid, I got picked on and bullied once in a while. I bet you can guess which gender every single one of my tormentors was?

Picked on by a girl, or made fun of by a girl? I suppose it would have been theoretically possible, but it never happened. Not even once.

Well, maybe I’m just some kind of weak, victim kinda guy. After all, my military service, and time working in a shipyard, and 38 year marriage, 30 years as a student and teacher of Shotokan Karate, and my 8 years training in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu are probably all indicators of my lack of toughness, and therefore my lack of qualification to speak out about toxic masculinity.

Maybe you should say that to my face.

But I digress.

The argument that the term is somehow an attack on men is absurd. I am a man, and do not feel it attacks me. Does it point a questioning finger at some otherwise unquestioned behaviours and attitudes that I might have? I think it does.

Look at my argument where I listed some of my most masculine life experiences, and where I finished with what was clearly a chest-thumping expression of challenge.

What a ridiculous way to express an idea in a typed essay on behaviors that are both masculine and unacceptable.

Why would it matter if I am tough, or if I’m not, or if even if I’m male or not? However, I’m willing to accept that to a number of readers about this topic it does matter.

And therein lies part of the problem.

Not a problem with masculinity if we just do a little simple mental sorting. If I am correct in stating that there is a category of masculinity that should be labeled toxic, would that also not automatically require that there be another which should be known as non-toxic masculinity.

Let’s take a seemingly harmless example.

You are approaching a door at a mall at about the same time as a woman. You pull open the door and hold it open for her, with a smile. She smiles back and says, “No, after you.”

Do you hold your smile, accept that your attempt at courtesy has been courteously declined, and enter the doorway first, or do you insist that she pass the door ahead of you?

To have insisted would mean that you think you have the right to decide when a total stranger should have to pass through a doorway, and when they shouldn’t. They clearly stated that they didn’t want to pass before you, and yet it was more important to you that they honour your attempt to be nice than their right as an autonomous individual to move about freely.

You may well disagree that this is not what it means, but it certainly could to the woman in question, and for you to decide that it’s really all about you means that you are what many of us would choose to call an asshole. I agree that you would only be a minor asshole, but certainly one never-the-less.

How about if in the example, you try and insist, and she continues to refuse. Do you eventually give up, after several rounds of, “no, after you,” or do you finally get mad and display anger? Now you are a major asshole, of the first order; a Darth Vader of assholes.

I contend that you are now a glowing example of toxic masculinity.

If the confrontation had ended at her first decline, it would have been a fine example of non-toxic masculine behaviour.

How about another from the current news cycle?

An Irish UFC fighter, who acts like a douce towards other fighters, and fans, and people in general, and who is frequently in trouble with the law over it, goes into a bar.

We don’t know exactly what happens in the next part, but some older, grey-haired gentleman seems to have not been impressed. Perhaps words were exchanged. Somebody starts videoing. The older gentleman is no longer engaging with the young fighter, and is sitting at the bar with his back turned. The fighter approaches, and tries to pour the older gentleman a drink from a bottle of booze. It would seem that the gent refuses the drink, likely based on the athlete’s reputation as an asshole.

The fighter, who seems to have just been trying to mend fences and build bridges then proceeds to punch the older gentleman in the head, and is dragged away by bystanders.

A veritable shit-storm of behaviour that is clearly masculine, and is also totally toxic. Can you even imagine this same story sounding real if it were a female fighter involved?

And it isn’t simply that the character involved is an asshole, which he clearly is. He has been an asshole for a long time; at least for his entire public career. Society has applauded his antics, and egged him on. Not only has he gotten away with it, but has been rewarded with both adoration and applause.

Do we dare to be shocked when it turns out that he is actually exactly as advertised?

Why does it hurt anybody to call this guy an example of toxic masculinity?

Let’s keep the story equally masculine, and remove the toxicity. The fighter offers to pour the guy a drink, and when he is refused immediately returns to his own table and leaves the old guy in peace.

This new term is a great one as a descriptor for this kind of behaviour; much more accurate than the mere asshole label.

Turns out, that many of the men that feel attacked by the label react by denouncing it as a feminist attack on men. The implication is that radical, man-hating women are out to vent their hatred.

Nothing could be farther from the truth. The people that first started using this label, and others like it, were men. Does that matter? It shouldn’t, but it seems that it does.

The label arose from the work of a number of males reacting against the societal forces that promote and reinforce particular negative behaviours that western society labels as masculine ones.

Were these men also feminists? Who cares? Were they man haters? I seriously doubt it.

But let’s forget all of that for a minute, and focus on a few aspects of masculinity that are less than endearing.

If you flip back to my resume of manliness, you many notice that three of the five items listed carry a common thread. Military service, Karate training, and Jiu-Jitsu all are closely related to violence. Do you think that to be just a random fluke?

Why wouldn’t I have listed any of my other major life experiences? The answer is simple; I chose to use those that are the most masculine at a gut-reaction level. I have also attended university, taught history at a high school, and like to travel. While those things are not particularly female, they are not characteristically masculine either.

In both of my examples of toxic behaviour, violence is either implied (the angry door holder), or direct (hitting the elderly man).

Certainly, non-masculine individuals can be violent, just as they can serve in the Army, or be Karateka, or excel at Jiu-Jitsu.

I think a critical self-examination by men is long overdue, and it has nothing to do with feminism, or male-bashing, or hurt feelings.

Between 2003 until 2012 in the USA 88% of murders were committed by men. If you are a man and think that doesn’t matter to you, think again. 78.7% of murder victims worldwide are male, as are approximately half the victims of assault.

The evidence would also indicate that the problem isn’t one of genetics. It is societal.

Being assertive is considered a positive masculine characteristic. The meaner brother of assertiveness is aggression, and it is the first-cousin is violence. Men are often praised for being unwilling to take no for an answer. What an unpleasant characteristic? It is toxic.

People who are masculine are also expected to control their emotions. You shouldn’t ever show any emotion, but if you do, the only one that won’t get you shamed is anger. This is toxic.

If you don’t like the term toxic masculinity for behaviours such as these how about a somewhat less evocative label such as, “toxic behaviours that are not exclusive to individuals who self-identify as masculine, or present in all individuals who self-identify as masculine, but statistically more likely to be detectable in individuals who self-identify as masculine.”

I like the term toxic masculinity just fine, and understood instantly what it referred to when I heard it for the first time.

It isn’t an attack on me.

Small Training

It is a weird thing to be an old guy who trains in a martial art.

Training and experience makes a person a better fighter, but aging makes one worse. At some point, the downward slide begins.

It can be hard for anybody to recognize when this happens. Does it really matter?

There are days when I think I suck, but also times when I surprise myself at what I’m able to do.

I started training as a White Belt at age 55, and made it to a Blue Belt at 56. Purple followed in at age 59, and now I’m 63.

I would say that I’m still improving as a fighter. This doesn’t mean that age hasn’t taken a massive toll.

If up against an individual in their 20s, or 30s I’m faced with all sorts of disadvantages. Speed, strength, durability and endurance will all greatly favour my opponent.

If they also have as much experience and training as me then it really shows.

I rely on my training and experience to keep my body as effective a weapon as possible, and to give me the skills to counterweigh my deficiencies.

A funny thing is that there has been a huge shift in the type of training that makes me effective. Large classes are always great, but small-group work has become, on average, more important.

My group class training has been consisting of 4 sessions per week. It still does but, for example, this week I will also be spending even more time working within groups of from 2 to 4 people.

Sometimes the small groups will have somebody in the instructor roll, but just as often they won’t. By the nature of the dynamic, each student has to take more responsibility for their own learning.

I like that a lot, and it makes me think more. As even when we have somebody playing instructor, it isn’t with the certainty of a class leader.

With a group of 20 eager students, instructors tend to cover things that are not only suitable for the group, but that are also secure in the instructor’s knowledge base.

In our little groups, that’s rarely the case. We are forever figuring out what to do with that unused leg, or hand, and can the opponent find an easy counter for what we’re doing. It’s great.

A weird thing it that in order to pursue this fully I am holding back my progress in rank. My next step is to a Brown Belt, and in theory I could test anytime. In reality, it would take months of preparation.

To do that, I’d have to pull time and effort away from the training that I’m currently hip deep in. Test preparation would make me better, but not by as much what I’m doing now.

If I were a kid of 20, or even one of 40 this wouldn’t matter. There would be plenty of time for all sorts of things.

Instead, I am a geezer of 63. I have less years, and so need a more selective approach.

Rank will have to wait.

Fear the Young

There is currently a first-term member of Congress in the United States that is scaring the hell out of the old guard.

Her name is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and it’s actually pretty funny.

She was elected last November, and took up her seat in the new year.

In the American system, the entire House of Representatives has roughly half the power of the legislative branch. The house therefore carries 1/6th of the government’s power. There are 435 voting members in the House of representatives, so Ms Ocasio-Cortez wields 1/435th of 1/6th of government control, or less than 0.04% of the power.

Strangely, they react with great anger to almost everything that she says or does, or has ever said or done in the past.

Of course, the old timers see a lot in her that they don’t feel comfortable with. She is both a woman, and a member of a visible minority. Somehow, I don’t think those are the issues. Over the years, they’ve had to get used to people like that.

I contend that the real problem is her age. She is only 29; a mere 4 years above the minimum age allowed for members of the House, and currently the youngest member of that body.

There have been kids like her elected before, but in general they have been good little regular politician clones, generally from pampered backgrounds, and quite willing to go along with the older politicians.

Ocasio-Cortez is none of those things. She is aggressively radical compared to other members of the House, and vocal about it.

The geezer brigade find themselves staring at their worst nightmare. If she were of Puerto Rican background, and a woman, and radical, and vocal, and 50 years of age they would mostly ignore her, with perhaps a little half-hearted ridicule.

What they instead find themselves faced with is someone who seems to represent the future, and it is a future that terrifies them. They react as if she will destroy the country, all by her self, and react like a pack of rabid dogs.

Will there be 10 more like her after the next election, and 100 after the next? How long until young hot-bloods control the House? How long until the incredibly stodgy Senate also becomes infected with youthful determination?

The math of time can’t be fought. Many politicians fear that they will lose power, and become redundant as their outdated ideologies fall apart under pressure from younger minds.

Not all feel this way, just those who are unable or unwilling to change and grow.

A funny thing is that the outrage over everything related to young new-age politicians is exactly what is giving those like Ocasio-Cortez more power than they should logically be able to wield.

Reacting to the over-reaction against the young, inspired them to band together to try and maximize their tiny legislative power. Ocasio-Cortez and three other young, minority women have started working as a team. Somehow, they became known as “The Squad.” This new formation gives them a joint voice equal to almost 1% of the power of the House, or 0.15% of the total power of government.

If seen another way, the Democratic Party controls the house with their 235 total votes. These 4 women therefore approach 2% of that total, which doubles their government power upwards towards 0.30%. Of course, in reality, they still have no real power at all.

But their power continues to grow.

Just today, a fellow member of the Democratic Party reacting to a racist attack on the 4 women by the president, has asked the 4 ladies if he could join “The Squad,” and they welcomed him in. He also just happens to be an 82-year-old man.

This is not to say that these young (and old) members of Congress will gain any real power anytime soon, but the entire House goes up for re-election every two years, along with 1/3 of the Senate. Every time, the number of non-traditional young members of Congress will grow.

The rate of change will be determined by things such as public awareness. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is the one who has grabbed the greatest share of attention, and is now universally known to both sides as AOC. Her face is probably better known than that any other member of the House, or any Senator.

She and the others have become a rallying point for all of those opposed to the Trump regime, and there are plenty such voters around.

Her increasing visibility will also do much to inspire younger voters to cast ballots. They historically have the lowest voter turnout of any demographic. Many of them consider voting futile, as there are few if any politicians that reflect their values and aspirations in any way. This, in turn, causes voting results to be all out of whack.

The minimum age for US Senators is 30. The youngest currently is 42 and the oldest is 86. In fact, there are 9 in their eighties, 24 in their seventies, 37 in their sixties, 20 in their fifties, and only 10  youngsters in their forties. How can such a legislative branch fully represent the best interests of a demographic that they are not even close to matching? Why would they even want to try with such weak young voter turnout?

Think of a person who has just graduated from high school this year. How similar is their reality to that of the oldest Senator? He graduated in 1951. Truman was President then.

The youngest Senator is much closer; he graduated in 1988, but the average graduation date of all the Senators is closer to the 86-year-old than it is to the 42-year-old.

Even the young guy is pretty old at 42. He only were there no smart phones when he graduated, but there was no internet, and Reagan was President.

AOC is closer still. She graduated as recently as 2001. Google already existed, and George W. Bush was President.

AOC clearly feels much the same way about the existing political structure. 

Like many, many of young people today, she has absolutely exemplary educational credentials, and yet has had to hold a number of ordinary, real-world jobs to get by. Her last job before her election to the House of Representatives was as a waitress.

The old guard ridiculed her for this. How dare they? I wonder how many of them ever had to work with their hands, hard, for low money. They repeatedly vote against increasing the minimum wage, and always try to insert rules allowing businesses to pay below minimum wage for wait staff. Somehow, I don’t think most young people feel that way. I suspect AOC reflects their views in such matters.

The environment? Worker rights? Universal medical care? Net neutrality? These are just a few knee-jerk issues that young voters are overwhelmingly concerned with. The existing hierarchy generally wants to push back against the way that the young want these issues handled.

You could easily disagree with me, but that isn’t the point. It is a fact that the youngest voters exercise their vote the least. Even if I am wrong about how they would actually vote if they did, my view is exactly what the entrenched power structure is afraid of.

They are afraid that AOC is a glimpse of the future, and that the bigger she gets, the more the young will vote, and there will be more AOCs, and then more. The power will shift.

And the power will shift.

Levels not Belts

I’ve figured out where I want to take my Jiu-Jitsu training.

Most schools work in a similar fashion, but that doesn’t work well for me.

Students show up for a night’s training. They are shown a technique, and then practice that in pairs. There is then another demo, often related to the first, and practice again. There might be only a few such slices, or as many as a half dozen.

Students are expected to try them all, and then latch onto those that fit what they want to add to their personal bag of tricks. More get discarded than adopted. Those cast aside are soon forgotten, or only poorly recalled.

I enjoy such classes, but don’t like having valid techniques fade away.

In this, I am extremely fortunate to be part of the Gracie University system. There is a preset curriculum. Every chapter, technique, and slice has detailed instruction available online. It is all available in a logical and coherent manner. The only problem is that there is such a huge amount included.

Instructors are expected to master all of it, and to pass rigorous exams to prove proficiency.

It is all divided into 4 levels, and I have already passed the first such exam.

Doing so takes a huge amount of drill outside of class time. Right now at our school we have two people working on these technical exams. Rob is doing level 1, and I’m playing the role of his partner. It takes two to do this tango.

Shawn is our instructor, and is finishing up his level 4 with Rob and myself as his partners.

Both of them should be finished soon. It will have taken them each roughly 10 months.

Anyhow, it is my intention to train for and test on each of the 3 levels I have left to complete.

Level two, shouldn’t be too bad. Rob has said that he wants to carry on past level 1 into level 2. We would be each other’s partners.

The good news is that it won’t take anything like a year. Most of our current spare training time goes towards Shawn’s test. If we just swap that over, we will cut a ten month amount of work down to 3 or 4 months. With the amount I travel, we’d best expect the longer end of that scale.

It will get trickier after that, as no partner is currently lined up. Somehow, things often work themselves out, so I am optimistic. I’m going to say that at the rate of 4 months per level, I should be done in a year.

A major value to all of this is that I will be reasonably proficient with every movement in the curriculum. It is also a different, fuller type of learning. It isn’t just the body movements, but also includes great detail about when they are appropriate, and how to handle common counters.

About the only thing that I foresee slowing me down would be if somebody else starts this same kind of journey, and wants a partner for their training. Anybody at our school other than Rob, or Shawn, or me would be starting at level 1. I would happily become their partner-tutor, as doing so is about the finest kind of review in the world. It would also me a good method to build up good will in potential partners for my own level training. Sneaky, don’t you think? I’ll do it even if there is no chance for payback, because it’s fun.

A weirdness in all of this is that although it will be the very best kind of training I could be doing to improve my brand of Jiu-Jitsu, I will actually be facing a penalty in rank progress.

I currently wear a Purple Belt with 4 stripes as decoration. The next step for me would be the big jump up to Brown Belt. Normally, this is done by means of an exam.

A date is set, and a meeting with an authorized Black Belt is scheduled. The candidate is called upon to perform about a half-hour worth of technique, and then there is some rolling. To make the exam meaningful, the student is made aware of what will be covered, and they then are expected to practice this stuff to quite a high level.

The gentleman that would be administering my exam would be Marc Marins, the instructor at the nearby North Vancouver school. He has told me that the material that he would want to cover in the exam would be all of the specifically self-defence material in the curriculum. This makes good sense, as it both very important while at the same time being the part that students typically tend to ignore.

There has been no chance for me to start working on defence-specific technique. Since learning what Marc would require, I was away for two months, and then off of training for two more due to an injury. Every other bit of training I’ve had outside of class time has been devoted to Rob and Shawn’s exams.

Shall I postpone level 2 training for Rob and me in order to work for a few months on Brown Belt test preparation, or put off the test prep until we’ve completed level 2? There’s no way I want to delay level 2, as having a ready and willing training partner doesn’t come along just anytime.

So shall I do level 2 for 4 months, and then get ready for a Brown Belt test? That might be the way things go. That would put a Brown exam to around Christmas time. But what if Rob wants to keep going on into level 3? I’d be nuts not to jump on that. Level 4? Same thing.

My priority will be the level exams. If they become impossible, then I would worry about a Brown Belt. I also have a bit of a secret hope that my instructor Shawn will decide to recommend me for promotion anyhow, and that Marc will agree without any exam at all.

Marc has said that for any self-defence test, we would accept the corresponding level exam as a demonstration that the techniques covered were done. If I am able to get all the levels, I guess my exam would turn out to be just a bit of free-rolling, or maybe not even that.

A downside to putting off a promotion by a year or so is that all subsequent promotions will be moved a corresponding amount farther into the future. This isn’t really a big deal, as future stripes will come when they come, as long as my old body can still handle on the mat.

That only leaves one more potential belt colour change; that from Brown to Black Belt. As I understand it, this is an extremely taxing event spread over 5 days, done in Los Angeles at Gracie University, and administered by the Gracies themselves.  If I were handed a Brown Belt today, the absolute youngest I could possibly face a Black Belt exam would be when I’m 67 years old.

I don’t think I could physically handle such an exam process now, let along when I’m that much older. Don’t think this is like some skinny woman complaining she’s fat just so that her friends will tell her she’s not. This is like a short person saying he’s short. I’ve never heard that the Gracies ever take it easy on the people they give Black Belts to.

I can imagine going to such an extended grading, and after a couple of tough days having to drop out to keep from doing myself harm, even assuming I don’t get hurt in a more obvious, bone-snapping fashion.

So if a Black Belt is out, it doesn’t matter when a Brown Belt happens. I suppose it doesn’t even matter if Brown happens either, although one would be very cool.

Therefore, it’s the level exams for me.

Slippery future

The future sometimes moves farther away.

I started doing Gracie Jiu-Jitsu back in the fall of 2011, at the spry age of 55. Back then, there wasn’t really much of a path for advancement for students who lived far away from the centre.

You could be a White Belt, or could earn a Blue Belt. With an incredible amount of work, you could also add a single swanky stripe onto your Blue, but that was as far as it went. It didn’t matter, as I was mostly just trying to absorb the curriculum that we had available at the time. It was fun.

Then, in 2014, the system for rank advancement in the outlying schools kicked in for real. Things became much like they were at the Gracie’s own school. We had access to all the colour belts; White, Blue, Purple, Brown, and Black. Each of those below Black Belt had 4 stripe levels. We were set.

To get any of the belts above Blue, a student had to have completed all 4 of the stripe levels on their current belt, be recommended for promotion by their instructor, and be evaluated by one of the Gracies or a Black Belt authorized by them.

The road was long, but there was a map.

Being as old as I was, Black seemed out of the question, and Brown almost as unlikely. Purple, however, seemed a real possibility.

I trained. Time passed.

My Blue Belt stripes came in due time, and in 2016 I went down to the Gracie Academy in Los Angeles to be evaluated for a Purple Belt. I passed.

I trained on, and more time went by.

Stripes were added, one....two...three...four....

Magically, I found myself on the doorstep for a Brown Belt.

By this time, I was training three days a week at my home school, and once a week in the city at another academy. Both instructors kept talking about upcoming promotion. The consensus seemed to be late in the summer, or in early fall.

Then I got hurt. I don’t even know what caused it. There seems to be a herniated disk in my neck. My thumb and a finger are usually numb, and there is often tingling in my right arm, and sometimes an ache. For some reason, a section of my central back seems to like going into spasm. I don’t think Jiu-Jitsu caused it, but it aggravated it really badly.

This is the kind of thing an old fart of 62 years shouldn’t mess with, and when the doctor said to give it at least 6 weeks of recovery time. I did nothing much at all physically for two months.

It is all still there, but it is much, much better.

I have returned to training, but do nothing that risks my neck. There is no rolling forward or back, or getting choked, or any sparring. I treat myself as very fragile, as one good yank could put me back to square one, or worse.

This all puts any thought of a Brown Belt evaluation on hold, perhaps permanently.

This is all most annoying. If it had happened after getting a Brown Belt, I would be able to collect Brown stripe ranks without difficulty. Maybe in the three or so years that would take, my neck would improve to the point where I could eventually go for Black.

As it is now, my rank is stalled.

In a way, it isn’t a surprise. Way back in 2014 when the process for promotion came into effect, my dream was to get to Purple before some injury sidelined me, and then to eventually collect the 4 Purple stripes. That’s exactly what I’ve achieved.

It’s just that I was so close to exceeding my expectations in a very stellar fashion.

So now I work on healing, and training as I can.

Maybe Brown can still happen, just pushed off some distance deeper into the future.

Can’t trust futures.

Day 2

Day 2

2 day at sea

Woke up at almost a normal-person hour for my first morning on my sea bed.

Snuck out like a cat burglar so that Helen could continue her rest. It was about 5am.

Bernie is also an early riser, and some years back we developed our cruise pre-dawn habits. We gravitate to where the earliest coffee can be found, normally in the buffet area. That is also where the earliest breakfast becomes available. There is also always a lovely sea view from there; not the best on the ship, but darn near.

Bernie beat me there by about half an hour. Some ships don’t start the coffee until almost breakfast time, but this one had the urns in operation already. Perhaps it is one of those that makes sure java is available to the late celebrants and early risers 24 hours a day. I like those.

We sat and chatted about nothing and nonsense. Helen always asks me later what we’d talked about, and I never have a very satisfactory answer that I can give.

After about an hour of this, the food stations started to open up. I fetched a plate of potatoes with a couple of sausages and some pastries. Bernie had a full breakfast with bangers.

By then, the skies were bright, and we could see land on both sides. To our right was North America proper, and on our left Vancouver Island. We were passing Port Hardy, and soon passed Cape Scott; the northernmost part of Vancouver Island. Open ocean after that.

We headed back to our rooms to pick up the girls, and Phyllis for a dining room breakfast. For Bernie and I it was in reality second breakfast.

There is always a lovely selection of meals in the dining room. The buffet food is just as fine, and faster, but there is no rush onboard. Phyllis, at age 96, doesn’t do that well fetching goodies at the buffet, so we have ourselves waited upon. It is no hardship in any way.

Most of us had versions of American or British breakfasts, but I went Asian, and had soup, rice, and salmon. They cook the fish perfectly every time.

Our next group even would be lunch, and we are all together again at dinner. Those meals consist of what would be supper in a land restaurant, with a salad/soup/appetizer round, a major entree, and desert or two.

I don’t recall what everybody got up to during the day other than myself. After breakfast, I attended a salmon cooking presentation in an area called Test Kitchen. It has some sort of relationship with an American TV series of the same name. Their hook is that they check various cooking methods and procedures with Scientific analysis. I like that, as a lot of kitchen lore seems like nonsense to me. It was very interesting, and now I want an instant-read meat thermometer for my next birthday.

I also squeezed in a morning nap.

After a wonderful lunch, I had another sleep, and not much else. Supper was wonderful, too. In the evening, Lola and Phyllis hit the casino, Bernie went exploring, and Helen headed to the comedian show. I walked about a bit, and then watched a movie in our cabin.

By bedtime, we were all finally on the ships messaging system. It works a lot like texting, but there is no ring or buzz to let you know a message has arrived. You wouldn’t think that would matter much, but it is actually a very big shortcoming.

The big headline of the day was that Phyllis managed to have a fall in her room. There doesn’t seem to be much lasting damage, but at the time she couldn’t get up. She was smart enough to crawl over to the phone, and call the desk for help. They sent three people at a run to rescue her, and tried to get her to visit the infirmary. She wouldn’t, of course.

Lola took her to the front desk and they made us a couple of extra room key cards for Phyllis’s door. That way any of us can check on her anytime if she doesn’t answer her door. This year she is using a walker all the time.

Cruise Eve

On the Eve of a Cruise

Time to head north on yet another Alaska cruise.

Helen and I did this route back in 1996 with family, and then twice more in the decade that followed. It was never a first-choice for us, but it was by far the best for travel with our older family members.

Then, in 2009, we did it again. That time it was with our best friends Lola and Bernie, and Lola’s mom Phyllis.

Phyllis was in her upper eighties in age, and the cruise option to Alaska was the perfect fit. There is no nonsense air travel getting to the cruise vacation area. She lives in the Vancouver area, and that’s where the ships pick us up, and drop us off at afterwards.

Bernie was willing to try a cruise, but had issues with motion sickness in his past, and so this was definitely a test run.

He had no problem with motion at all; none. Everybody loved the whole thing, and so we made it into an annual event.

We’ve done it every summer since. That’s actually a bit of a stretch, as Helen and I had to bail out on the 2017 run due to the scheduling of cataract surgery, but we were back for 2018, and again now in 2019.

In fact, we leave tomorrow.

This year I am the one with a health issue. My neck got injured somehow at about the start of April, and still isn’t right. It’s a lot better, as I’ve been babying things along. There has been no Jiu-Jitsu at all for almost a month-and-a-half, which has been absolutely awful. This cruise will be the test. I’m hoping it will be a continuation of my healing time off-the-mat, and that I’ll come home even more healed up than I am now.

You’d think a pile of eating, shows, and window gazing wouldn’t be much of a challenge, but I’ll have to let you know.

A cool thing about cruising is that the lines don’t care at all how much baggage you want to bring aboard. We’ve never taken much advantage of this, and normally travel quite differently.

My bag is 21” tall, including wheels, and 15” wide, and a very skinny 8” thick. This is my carryon that fits every airline’s regulations, and I like it. We live this way a lot, so why would I take more.

Helen’s bag is bigger. When we fly, it isn’t, but we are not flying. We will be busing, ferrying, and walking through downtown Vancouver.

It makes us careful about every little item we take. If we find we can’t fit everything in, I can easily go up a level in my bag size to make room.

Anyhow, with Helen at music tonight I just have a little TV watching to do, and then bed.

When we awake, things start to get serious.