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When I saw the ad, I couldn’t resist going to a bug fair.  How many times do you get to handle creepy-crawlies?  My daughter, Shannon, was game and so were her two children.  So off we went to the local college campus to get up close and person with insects.  Unfortunately, most turned out to be in specimen jars or photographs, but we did meet an Australia praying mantid.  I couldn’t wait to get my hand on, or rather under, it.   It was BIG, too; the full length of my hand, and beautiful in a bizarre alien sort of way.  I’m sure Aussie Mantid wondered about me, too.  What is that big bug-eyed thing staring at me?  It’s baring it's teeth!  It’s cackling!  Is it going to eat me?  Aussie Mantid rocks and sways harder, trying to convince me he’s a stick with a few leaves blowing in the wind and nothing edible.  He need not have worried.  I wasn’t that hungry!

Shannon by-passes the hissing cockroach....

Upon our return from the Panama Cruise, Rick and I learned someone we love dearly had disappeared.  We knew what that meant and our hearts sank.  Some knew where he was out there in the night going through his own private hell.  All we could do was wait and pray and hope the turn-around would come quickly and he wouldn’t die this time. 

I’ve been told by recovering alcoholics that it’s the first drink that kills you.  An alcoholic doesn’t start back at the beginning.  An alcoholic starts where he/she left off and accelerates.   Think of being on a slide.  If you stop partway down and stop yourself, you’re still there.  Lift your hands and down you go.  Without the strength of God working in a person, giving up the things that kill us is impossible.   To sum up the 12 step program:  I can’t, God can, I think I’ll let Him. 

Years back, I’m embarrassed to admit I didn’t pay close attention to the...

Ah, the hot steamy air of Aruba, shopping only a block from the dock, so convenient.  I was on my usual quest for postcards and coins, and found both quickly. Rick and I pant in the heat, our clothes sticking to us.  Jewelry stores line both sides of the street.  If one is in the market for diamonds, tanzanite, pearls, and emeralds, Aruba is the place to find them. 

I duck into every other jewelry store, peering into the glass cases with their displays of expensive rings, bracelets, earrings and necklaces.  Sighing contentedly, I smile at the clerks closing in on me like seagulls spotting a beached fish.  “Just looking”, I say, pausing here and there, and then ducking out the door again to be slammed against the wall and swallowed by the sultry humidity.

Rick is having memories of his tour of duty in the sweltering tropical heat of Vietnam.

Crowds are weaving in and out of stores, eyes bright, faces flushed; everyone on the hunt...

After a night in the Bay of Panama within sight of Panama City, the Island Princess lined up for her turn to go through the Miraflores Locks.  Rick and I spent most of the day hanging out and over our balcony, snapping pictures of the ingenious lock system of the Panama Canal.  A fully loaded freighter was in line for the lock beside our ship.  We could see how the lock doors opened, the “mules” (powerful engines with ropes fore and aft to the ship) pulled the ship forward into the lock, the doors close and the water rises.  The ship moved from one level to the next, like a giant water elevator for ships.  The freighter and Island Princess entered the Pedro Miguel Locks to rise again and then sail through the infamous Culebra Cut where thousands of workers died. 

Men have dreamed of a passage way from the Atlantic to the Pacific for centuries, but it was “Le Grand Francais” (Ferdinand de Lesseps), builder of the Suez Canal who made the first...