USS Austin Cruise (For Spouses) - Part 1 - by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

USS Austin Cruise (For Spouses) by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

We never went to truly fancy restaurants when Florence was a small except for holidays and when grandma visited.

I liked Pizza Hut for its salad bar buffet, various European pizza selections, air-conditioning, and jukebox selections for a quarter a song.

We usually ordered a meat and vegetarian pizza each with the salad bar and Diet Cokes.  I saved a change purse full of quarters, so Florence could listen to her favorite songs several times and try some new ones that mom thought might be good.  We sang along to the songs and chair danced to Madonna songs.

It was such a treat for me no matter where I ate to order food, have food magically appear, have my Southern iced tea full of sugar delivered, and watch the dishes go bye-bye.  I washed dishes at home.  Laurent did offer to do the dishes, but I was blunt and just said, “You don’t know how, so we won’t catch colds.”

I stretched out in the cold, air-conditioned restaurant and felt pampered and liked my juke joint.  Florence would eventually stop chair dancing and go play in Pizza Hut’s miniature kitchen play area while I sipped a coffee.  I knew Pizza Hut was a clean Naples (Italy) experience with easy parking. 

(Laurent and I visited Naples as one of our honeymoon stops.  I wanted all the beautiful buildings cleaned and loved leaving town for the Isle of Capri and Salerno.  There was obviously no trickle down money from the European Union to this town yet for development in the late 1980s.)

There was going to be a dependent’s cruise soon.  Florence could not go, because she was too young.  I found her a babysitter through church, who had references.

I called our ship’s ombudsmen after dinner, who said the cruise was still a “go” and that the weather looked fine for a deck top picnic.

I had a whole evening to myself and sat in silence reading Chicago cook Ken Hom’s book Fragrant Harbor Taste: The New Chinese Cooking of Hong Kong.  (There is a recipe for shark fin soup in the book, which put it on weeding lists in many libraries.)

My boss lent me the book, saying I would love the recipes.  I knew sharks were hated on the Atlantic Seaboard and wondered if people made the shark fin soup out there. 

Before it was outlawed, I had eaten it several times in Chicago at PRC functions.  I did not know what it was until I read the recipe in Hom’s book and saw the seasonings in this cookbook.  The Chinese probably view sharks as pests for their shrimp food supplies, too.

I liked reading about Guangzhou in Southern China, where most of the Chinese immigrants to the US came from who built the railroads here.  I thought all world citizens might like to know about “dim sum.”  That word means “touch the heart.”  These bite-sized morsels are the bistro fare of China.

You usually sample 6 – 8 dim sum for a brunch and drink a pot or two of tea with it.

Dim sum are sometimes called “yum char” for “drink tea” meal.  I slept well, dreaming of dim sum.  In Norfolk, we had Polynesian restaurants that served “pu-pu” platters that were like dim, but with more conch, coconut sauces, and spam sushi. 

Filipinos and Pacific Islanders form a large minority contingent in the US Navy, so we had Filipino and Polynesian restaurants in Norfolk.

I woke up at 6 am and drove to the Amphibious Base where I took an amphibious boat out to the USS Austin along with other dependents.

The overcast sky made it cool and perfect for a picnic on the blacktop landing pad of the USS Austin.

Laurent showed me around the ship.  The first place we visited was the bridge where the captain holds forth.  No joking goes on there – not when you were driving millions of dollars’ worth of ship through a bay like the captain was doing.

Triangulation is the order of the day.  Measurements are taken from both sides of the ship.  The officer with the charts (water maps) says exactly where the ship is.   Another officer determines whether or not they need to move the ship.

If the ship’s course must be changed, the following events take place:

-the triangulation officer explains where the ship is

-another sailor says if the ship should change course

-the captain approves the change or not

-then, the order is repeated three times before the change is made

I asked the man doing the triangulation, if he had maps for every bay in the world.

First, he corrected me by saying, “Maps are for land.  Charts are for water.”

Then, he said they had charts for every piece of water that they sail in.

“If we don’t have a chart, we don’t go there,” he said.

Despite my “map” faux pas, he continued to explain how ship traffic works:

-you stay to the right of buoys

-green buoys should be to your right when you head out to sea

-red buoys should be on right when are heading back into port

More about the USS Austin Dependents’ Cruise to follow….

By Ruth Pennington Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Touring the Virginia Beach Marine Science Museum in Virginia Beach by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Touring the Virginia Marine Science Museum in Virginia Beach (Virginia) by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

After our crêpe lunch, we set out for the Virginia Marine Science Museum in Virginia Beach.

Huge water-filled tanks that extended over our heads lined the entryway into the Museum.  Seals swished back and forth.

Florence tried to outrun them and squealed as she banged on the tank walls.  The seals liked racing Florence.  It took us thirty minutes to enter the museum.

The IMAX movie Into the Deep made Florence excited about visiting the rest of the museum.   The stingrays had a large, circular touch tank.  They had no stingers, so you could pet them as they wheeled around the tank.

Florence plunged her hands in the water and said, “ew,” when one of the rays slid under her fingers.

After Florence’s pioneering efforts, I tried my chances and had to agree that the ray felt like slimy velvet.  I learned that the small, black sacs that we found on the beach were called “mermaid’s purses.”  Their hard container covers contain the stingray eggs.

My favorite exhibit was a pair of giant tongs that you plunged down into a pool of water from above to go “tonging” for oysters.

I liked the exhibit on sand dunes as well, but found it hard to believe that the three- and four-foot high dunes in Virginia Beach were a true defense against hurricanes.

The Museum had lots of creatures that you could pick up and examine.  Florence tried to catch a hermit crab out of its shell.  She caressed the rough surface of a starfish and gently picked up a sea urchin.  She thought the sand dollars were boring, but, at least, she knew what they were.

Florence cringed when a docent knew what they were.  She cringed when a docent offered her a baby crab to pick up.

Then, the docent fished the horseshoe crab out of the tank and flipped it over, so we could touch the wiggly, spiny feet.

We learned that horseshoe crabs are scavengers, so they lack “fighting equipment.”

The Coastal River Room held even more treasures.  Florence watched turtles swim around and asked if she could have one.

Naysayer mom said, “No and stop that” when I told her not to rile the copperheads and rattlesnakes that were behind a glass case that she was lightly knocking on to see if they would move.

By this time, we had been in the museum 3 ½ hours.  Florence and her parents were losing patience with one another.

We would visit the marsh exhibit and the nature trail at a later date.  Fun and education collided in this museum.

Laurent slept in the next day and enjoyed it immensely.  We still had 4 a.m. mess duty.

I read magazines while Florence made chalk drawings outside with her friends.  They played other games, too, like Hide ‘n’ Seek, Red Light 123, Simon Says, and sang songs.

I cracked up when I remembered making the French Club at Cass Tech in Detroit (Michigan) play those games as a social activity when we did not have money.  We all speak French pretty well, because people in Detroit are often “short of funds."

By Ruth Pennington Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Visiting the Yorktown Victory Center (Virginia - Revolutionary War and Civil War Site) with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Visiting The Yorktown Victory Center by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

When the weekend rolled around, we all enjoyed sleeping in until 7 a.m. while mess crank on the USS Austin still required us to get up at 4 a.m.

The end of June was approaching.  The even hotter months of July and August were yet to come.  We took long, cool showers that hardly steamed up the bathroom they were so cold.

I packed a picnic lunch full of goodies.  We headed out to the Yorktown Victory Center.  The Center had picnic tables outside the entrance, so we decided to eat our lunch first before our visit.

One of the things that bothered me about picnics was ants and other insects that crawl on the table.

I solved this problem by putting a nice tablecloth on picnic tables whenever we went on a picnic.  I used an ironed tablecloth that had pastel-colored flowers on it to set off our picnic basket.

New and old fabric tablecloths can keep picnic area surfaces clean of bird feces and other animal waste products, too.  Tablecloths are easy to clean.  This is a health-before-etiquette practice.

I told Florence, “We look like we are characters in an Impressionist painting with a tablecloth on our picnic table.”

Inside the picnic basket, leather straps held real China dishes in place along with metal cutlery.  A built-in container held China cups.  There was room for two plastic containers that held sandwiches.  (I thought that we could make these items in the US, too.)

We drew a lot of interested looks from passers-by with our nifty picnic gear.

We had humble food to eat, but we all liked it.  Nutella sandwiches with sliced bananas on French baguettes.  We drank chilled water and the French soda Orangina.

Once we were all well fed, we lingered by the entryway and read the panels about the important events that led up to the Revolutionary War.

One of the most interesting facts was that the expense of winning the French-Indian War prompted the English government to impose a series of taxes on the thirteen colonies.

The colonists wiggled their way out of paying most of these taxes; England’s Prime Minister Pitt seems to have been rather dull.  However, the tax on tea was the one the colonists could not find their way out of.  Revolt against the tea tax led to the Boston Tea Party.

This information bored Florence.  As soon as we arrived inside, Florence wanted to go back outside where cannons were going off.  The guide dressed in brown breeches said that a cannon should be called “a gun.”

Our guide wanted to debunk the myth that cannon balls shoot up high in the air.

“They fired at a level height,” he said on his mission of enlightenment.

“They also do not explode on impact and were used not much to kill as to disrupt lines of advancing artillery,” he said to develop our military prowess.

We went back inside to a play center where Florence:

-could dress up in colonial clothing

-play with computers that had quizzes about American history

-practice saying her letters with hand-held planks called “horn books” for practicing letters

-play with a mancala game board

-play a ball and cup game

-read picture books about colonial times

-play with mystery boxes requiring you to reach in and try to describe objects like turkey feathers

-play at a table where children could do rubbings of colonial objects

I read a few books to Florence and then helped her make some rubbings.  That activity fascinated her.  Rubbings are like magic.  People in England get rubbings this way when they rub their ancestors’ effigy faces on tombs.

After visiting the kids’ section, we went back outside and visited the farm.  The most interesting place to visit was a reconstruction of a colonial kitchen located in a building separate from the main house.

The guide said a fire had to be kept going at all times to dry food and protect the dried food from mildew.

Eating only dried foods in winter did not seem appetizing to me.  Summer and its resplendent gardens and orchards (called fruit tree gardens sometimes), full of juicy fruit take, on a whole new light when you think about eating dried fruit all winter long.

The guide also said the colonial kitchen had a tendency to burn down every three to five years.

Outside the kitchen was a garden with flax growing in it.  An exhibit next to it described women’s work with flax.  Once the flax matured, the women of the house spun it into thread, wove it, and made it into fabric for sewing.

Colonial women had their work cut out for them.  Technology makes some tasks easier like washing dishes, but creates others like getting oil changes, chauffeuring children and husbands to school and work, learning new computer programs, and learning new language every few years in the modern era.

Our visit would not have been complete without a visit to the Yorktown Battlefield.  I discovered that warfare during the Revolutionary War and during the Civil War was all about digging trenches and trying to enclose the enemy’s trenches.  It reminded me of Chinese Checkers that you play on a star-patterned board.

On the way home, we stopped at an ice-cold, air-conditioned Kentucky Fried Chicken and ate a fried chicken bucket dinner.  I took leftovers home and bought a chocolate cake and a gallon of lemonade, too. 

I was having ton of fun in Hampton Roads.  My family thought Norfolk (Virginia) just a harbor, but it was so much fun that they started visiting, especially when they found out that it was the North American headquarters of NATO.

By Ruth Pennington Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Hampton Roads Living (Virginia) by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Hampton Roads Living (Virginia) by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Work at the focus group firm was going well.  We had cool clients.  It was hush-hush, but I think we worked for the Red Cross, a big radio conglomerate, auto repair stores, and grocery store chains among other clients.

I learned how to change engine oil, windshield washer fluid, and anti-freeze if I had to when I found out how cheap it was to buy those products and do it yourself.

I even know how to measure air tire pressure, fill tires with air, and pump my own gas.  (Laurent and I taught Florence how to do these things and research new car prices in Consumers’ Reports and then compare prices online.)

When Father’s Day rolled around, Florence and I set out our cards for daddy on the dining room table.  We went to the NEX department store and bought Laurent another pair of Dockers Khakis to wear.  Florence got a kiddy sailor’s hat, and I bought a nice pitcher and glasses for lemonade or iced tea.

Laurent wanted burritos for dinner, so I made myself busy putting boiled black beans, grated cheddar and Swiss cheese, baby lettuce greens, and chopped tomatoes on large, warm tortillas in my Tex-Mex rendering of this dish.

After dinner, Laurent made crêpes, which we ate with a little Nutella and sliced up bananas.

I told Florence, we were going to have quiet time when we dropped Laurent off at the ship.  He had duty as one of the new “guys” on the ship.  I made sure he had a nice Father’s Day anyways.

Florence amused herself with Dr. Seuss books like Hop on Pop and the Cat in the Hat.

“This rhymes,” Florence kept saying as if she had discovered gold.  I read her the stories of David, Elijah, and Solomon from her Children’s Bible. 

I was reading the Bible myself, but not the kiddy version.  I was working on the doom-and-gloom prophets.  With those books out of the way, I had achieved a lifetime goal of reading the entire Bible.

The historical books were my favorites, reflecting my love for history.  I wanted to read some analytical studies of the Bible and be like our parish priest at St. Pius.

Our priest’s homilies always retained my attention, because he explained passages in their historical context.  I had to admit that going to church with him as the priest reminded me of going to a class at the University of Chicago and discussing how Biblical historical passages could be used as metaphors as well.

We decided to go to a beachfront crab house restaurant in Virginia Beach (Virginia) when Laurent got off work the next day.  (This was an independent restaurant, but the chain Joe's Crab Shack retains the ambiance - steam pots with key lime pie for dessert.)

They had a gazebo right on the beach, but that was mostly for cocktails.  The fine, white sand oozed through our toes as we walked along the beach.

Six crabs were netted while we were walking along the beach, making me leery about swimming in the water.

When we sat down in the restaurant, we luxuriated in the cool, air-conditioned interior.  The humidity in the hot air just made me want to sit in a chair and refrain from all movement.

I always felt like someone was pressing a warm washcloth all over me in Norfolk (Virginia) during the summer.  Air conditioning lessened the feeling, but every time you had to take your broiler-like car somewhere that feeling would return.

A sweet, corn aroma filled the cool air in the restaurant.  Would we be eating complimentary cornbread or hush puppies?

My question was answered as our waitress arrived with a bowl of steaming hush puppy balls to nibble on as we decided on our order.

Hush puppies, made from corn meal and onions, are deep-fried to make a crunchy crust.  To truly appreciate them, you must dunk them in melted butter.  (Obviously, you do not eat these all the time.)

Laurent ordered a seafood platter of broiled shrimp and scallops along with a crab cake.  I ordered a platter of broiled sweet scallops.

Laurent gave me the crab cake on his plate.  He was missing out on one of the Southeastern seaboard’s true delicacies.

Crab cakes are made with breadcrumbs and seasoned with mustard, Tabasco sauce, parsley, mayonnaise, cayenne pepper, and crab meat.

Despite the spicy ingredients, crab cakes taste sweet due to all the crabmeat.  Florence called the crab cakes “crab hamburgers” and ate them with glasses of Southern iced tea.

I was beginning to understand why “sun tea,” or Southern Iced Tea was popular due to its pick-me-up, caffeinated punch.  People in short-sleeved, Hawaiian shirts all around us were drinking gallons of it.

Beating heat-induced lethargy is a way of life in the southern United States.  Florence could not even finish the crab cakes, because she was so tuckered out by her ocean walk.

After dinner, we discovered that the temperature outside had subsided.  A cool breeze caressed our skin.  We walked along the ocean again and watched the skies fill with cherry-colored and yellow-colored bands as the sun set.

We let Florence cool off some more when we arrived home.  I filled the bathtub with some cool water and let her splash as much water as she wanted.  I would clean up the swimming area.

Laurent and Florence also played with snorkeling equipment the next day to cool off.  They both had snorkeling equipment and were walking around the apartment with it on and pretending to be Star Wars characters.

While the Hollywood-in-the-House skits were going on, I began to read The Koran, which was another one of my lifetime reading goals and just blocked out the big eyed, tube-nosed people.

By Ruth Pennington Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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