2004-08-21 - 4:12 a.m.
Day 5 continued:
Tonight�s menu was special�I should have asked if I could keep one as a souvenir. Apparently the chef on the ship had been the chef of the White House for several presidential administrations. Now, I think that�s pretty hot and is something I can fly in the face of those who want to convince me that this was a bad ship on an inferior cruise line. At the reception desk, they were even selling a �White House Cookbook,� and now I know why.
All the dishes were dishes the chef had created for a particular president or first lady. It ended up that every dish I wanted had been created either for Ronnie or Nancy Reagan, that�s just how it worked out. The appetizer, the soup, the entr�e, even the dessert, all Reagan dishes. So when Junior came to take my order, I said, �I want all Reagan, tonight, not that I particularly liked them so much, but I sure like the way they ate!� Now that stopped him for a moment and he laughed and I figured I probably was the only one (or one of the few) tonight who had even noticed or acknowledged the �Presidents� connection to these dishes. He seemed to relax a bit, but then a few moments later, somebody else was hassling him over something.
He brought me my appetizer, but then said, �The soup will be a little slow, tonight.�
I said, �Pfffft, don�t worry about that, I�m perfectly relaxed.� What did I care, I was in no hurry. Instead, I sipped my water and surveyed the other diners�that�s when I noticed my pyramid lunch companion sitting at a shared table with others. Well good for him, he didn�t have to be alone tonight.
My soup and everything else came when they came and then when Junior brought my dessert, I said, �I sure bet you sleep well at night.�
Next time I saw him pass by, I said, �I mean, since you work so hard, you must be tired and therefore fall right asleep.�
�I knew what you meant,� he answered, �and to show you how I appreciate your acknowledgement, I�ll share with you something my beloved father always said to me: �The sleep of a busy man is always sweet�.�
I nodded appreciatively, said, �Your father knew how it was,� and then before I left the dining room, I said, �Sweet sleep tonight!�
The show tonight was a female vocalist who would sing �all the standards,� and I was really looking forward to that, but unfortunately �all the standards� meant all the standard country & western songs, very few of which were standards to me. And, to make it worse, she succumbed to that �medley� gimmick, which I thought was particularly bad when it came to country songs, which at least had a whole meaningful story to them, so abbreviating them was just wrong, wrong, wrong.
When I got to my cabin afterwards, there was a folded towel animal in the shape of a sphinx. I thought it was so amazing that I almost, (almost), reached out to grab somebody from the hall to come in and look. Of course, they would have a folded towel animal of their own, possibly the exact same thing.
I liked the �sphinx� in connection with today�s �pyramid�, even though today�s pyramid had been Maya instead of Egyptian. I carefully picked up the sphinx and put it on the desk so that I wouldn�t wreck it, and got all cozy into the bed.
I hadn�t worked all that hard today, but in a moment, my sleep was sweet, too.
END OF DAY FIVE
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