Views of the Monkeynut

by   Peter R. Lloyd-Davies

Peter

Louise

Madeleine

Antonia

New from the Monkeynut - Madeleine gets married, October 2019! Madeleine and Phil have been an item for over a year, so they decided that it was time to tie the knot. Rather than have a Grand Event in St. Patrick's Cathedral, with hundreds of guests, brass bands playing, dozens of bridesmaids in co-ordinated outfits, they thought they would just nip down to city hall and do it without any fuss or stress. Of course, there's no such thing as a wedding totally without fuss or stress - the families of the bride and groom had to be there, plus a few very special friends, and there had to be meals organized and of course everyone had to be on their best behavior. But this wedding went very smoothly and it was truly a joyous occasion. Pictures and details here. New from the Monkeynut - Lynch Reunion in Chicago, August 2019. It is three years after the last Lynch reunion in Texas, so it was time for another one - this time in Chicago. The locations were divided between the south side, with the Coglianese family, and George and Rick's appartment in the city. It was so nice to renew aquaintance with family members who came from all over the country and we celebrated by consuming large amounts of food and drink. > New from the Monkeynut - Trip to the great Nortwest, July 2019. A number of our good friends now live in the northwest and we haven't seen them for a while. Therefore, a trip was indicated. We flew to Portland, then up to Seattle, with a side-trip to the Olympic peninsular. A very pleasant trip, reliving old memories and creating some new ones. Pictures and details here. New from the Monkeynut - Cataract surgery, April 2019. When I have gone for my annual eye exam for the past several years, my eye doctor has been telling me that I have cataracts and that they can be fixed for free, courtesy of Medicare, with no pain, no fuss. I have almost no adverse symptoms - maybe it has got a little harder to read in low light, but - hey! - that's what lights are for. However, the prospect of being able to see without glasses for the most part is pretting appealing, so I finally told her to go ahead. Before the surgery, I had to select what kind of lenses I wanted. "Only the finest!" I said. Well, it turns out that Medicare only pays for them to put a piece of window glass in my eye, so that I should be able to see OK at intergalactic distances, but would need glasses for everything else. If I wanted lenses that would correct for the shape of my eye, with appropriate adjustments for astigmatism and focusing at a reasonable intermediate distance, it would cost me $10,000. (I would still have to wear reading glasses.) So much for free. But the surgery was as advertized - no pain, no fuss. I had them done two weeks apart and in both cases I was astounded by the change in my vision, especially color. My goodness - the sky really is blue! My blue-jeans which I had thought were grey are bright blue! Who'da thunk? I can see distances just fine and can even work on my computer without glasses. And a simple pair of drug store glasses works fine for reading. The only down-side of the operation has been that my eyes seem to be sore all the time. I consume gallons of artificial tears, but they don't seem to help much. New from the Monkeynut - Cruising the Caribbean, March 2019. Following our adventure in Tanzania, in March we had an adventure in the Caribbean. We signed up for a cruise of the Windward Islands - a series of smaller Caribbean islands, starting somewhat to the east of Puerto Rico and going south almost as far as Venezuela. The trip was sponsored by a number of University alumni associations, including Rice. The ship (boat?) was a modern sailing vessel called Le Ponant, holding only about 60 adult passengers, so this was not like a Carnival Cruise where you are stuffed in with a few thousand shipmates. We started in Grenada, heading north as far as Martinique and then turning south to St. Lucia, ending up in Barbados. Each day we could scramble off the boat and board a tour bus that would show us around whatever island we were anchored by. The weather was lovely and everything was just fine - except that I came down with bronchitis, was sick as a dog, and ended up missing about half the tours. So I can't say I got my money's worth, although it is definitely a trip I shall not forget. Pictures and details here. Le Ponant, our home for a week New from the Monkeynut - Tanzania, January 2019. In January, Louise and I had an adventure in Tanzania. Actually, Louise left before I did to do some screenplay research in Uganda, but then we met in Arusha, Tanzania, for a safari - the first time for either of us. We visited two major national parks, including the Serengeti, over a period of four days. We were signed up with Bobby Tours; they had no-one else wanting to do that same trip that same time, so it was just the two of us and the driver in a fine safari vehicle with a pop top so we could stand and take photos. And did we take photos, thanks to a new camera I purchased for the trip! We saw pretty much everything there was to see: elephants, lions, cheetahs, baboons, zebras, antelope, leopards and one rhino. A memorable trip! After the safari, we flew to Zanzibar for some relaxation. We swam in the hotel pool, sizzled on the beach and walked around Stone Town, the ancient capital of Zanzibar. Pictures and details here. Please send a quick e-mail to Webmaster to notify me of broken links or other problems on the site. Thanks! 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