sinking in all the wrong places

One of my first memories of Debbie Reynolds was as Molly Brown warbling "I Ain't Down Yet."

And that is as good as any anthem for today's essay.

As you know, I am in Oregon to visit my family before I fly off to Seattle and then to Dubai on Wednesday. Well, I will end up in Dubai on Friday. But you know what I mean. Or would have.

The cruise was originally scheduled to depart Singapore later this month with ports of call in Thailand, Sri Lanka, three cities in India, Oman, and end in Dubai.

Then came the coronavirus. Last month, the cruise line determined that any passengers who arrived in Singapore on a flight that had connected through China or Hong Kong 15 days before the ship set sail would not be allowed on board. Of course, my flight on Cathay Pacific from Los Angeles connected through Hong Kong.

That meant I had to cancel that flight and find a way to get to Singapore from the east. It took a couple of hours, but I was booked on Emirate Airlines from Seattle to Dubai to Singapore. I was irritated enough about the change that I almost cancelled the cruise.

Then Singapore shut down. The cruise changed itineraries eliminating Singapore and Thailand to start and end in Dubai.

Then Sri Lanka closed its ports to cruise ships -- undoubtedly taking into account the number of Flying Dutchmen that were plying the seas.

That was when I flew to Oregon. Even though the itinerary was getting as short as a menu in a Saturday Night Live cheeseburger-chips skit, I was still determined to go. After all, my best travel stories have never been based on shots of the Eiffel Tower, but on surviving fascist riots in Florence, avoiding being mugged in Recife, and dodging kidnappers in Alexandria. This trip was custom-made for me.

By Saturday morning, it became obvious that India was going to shut its ports to cruise ships -- and that would have removed the major incentive for booking the cruise. Though there had been no official announcement, I could see the train hurtling along the tracks of inevitability. (And the Edward Bulwer-Lytton Purple Prose alarm going off as a result of that sentence.)

So, I called my cruise agent and told her to start the cancellation process. Celebrity had finally seen that its "no-refund-for-cancellation" policy was hurting its customer base. The company announced it would give a full credit for cancellation, but the credit had to be used only on Celebrity and had to be used within the next cruise season. It was better than nothing.

As luck would have it, yesterday was my agent's husband's birthday, so she could not immediately act on my request. That was good. Because that afternoon, Celebrity canceled the cruise after India closed its ports to cruise ships. As a result, Celebrity would refund the cruise fare and pay a 25% credit for a future cruise.

I spent the rest of Saturday canceling my airline reservations both ways (I have nothing but praise for Alaska's customer service) and setting into motion requests to receive some reimbursement from the non-refundable hotel reservations -- about $2000 (US) -- I had made in Dubai and Singapore.

The result of all this is that there will be no travel tales. But Darrel and I did have a lunch with Mom for her birthday at a Chinese restaurant. That certainly counts for something.

My sole concern about the trip has been a concern that I might get stuck somewhere along the line in some sort of quarantine.

And that is the reason I have booked a flight back to Mexico on Tuesday. If I am going to ride out the vagaries of the coronavirus, I would much prefer to do it in Mexico. So, home I go.

I have no idea if I will ever get to India. But it is still on my travel list. When the coronavirus has become nothing more than a vague memory (like the much-dreaded swine flu outbreak in 2009), I can try the cuisine of Goa.

Until then, I will have to create Goa in the kitchen of the house with no name.