Monday Mug Shot

B&B Riverboats
Port of Cincinnati, Ohio

The first thing you’ll notice about this mug is the handle. It has one of those spinny things I like so much. Last time I showed a mug with one of these, it was for the Football Hall of Fame, with a spinning football. This one has a spinning paddle wheel like the one one the riverboat. VERY cool!

No picking on me for the fascination of spinning things that I can flick with my thumb while I’m holding the mug. I am 42. I handed the mug to David, who is also 42. The first thing he did with it was give the wheel a flick and make it spin. Perhaps spinning the things on the mug handles is part of “the Answer.”

Okay, and sure, I have spun the spinny-things on mug that have them for many years, but practice, ya know? I mean, really, doctors give shots and stuff as interns before they become doctors. So, AS the Answer, I say that part of the Answer is spiny-things on coffee mugs.

Now back to how I came about owning this mug with necessary for enlightenment handle spinny-thing...

It was an August trip to Cincinnati, so that could only mean it was a baseball trip! Mom and I went to catch the Saturday night game and the Sunday afternoon games against the Montreal Expos. And I got to speak some French!

Yeah, I do know that they speak English in Cincinnati and that just like so many hockey players that play in the US are Canadian, a fair number of the baseball players in Montreal spoke Spanish... What? There are a LOT of very talented Latin players! But I still, with a smile, got to say a few French things. I don’t know if “Vouz sucez!” actually means anything in French, but the direct translation is “y’all suck!” hehehe

I’m kinda bummed that the Expos left Montreal before I got to go to a game where I could see un match de baseball avec une de mes equipes favorites as the visiteur, eating a Quebecoise hot-dog and washing it down with good Canadian biere! Mom and I had talked about possibly going to Montreal, but the air fares were so expensive! I had to settle for seeing the expos in the US and getting my yucks in at home!

The Reds won both games we went to and oh, but what a great game the Saturday game was! Aaron Boone & Eddie Taubensee both hit grand slams! I’d never seen two slams in one game before! A BIG bonus that they were both for my team! It was a very god baseball weekend!

We left early on Saturday morning for the 5-hour drive to Cincy. With an evening game on Saturday, we’d have some time for some fun before the game, so I’d booked us lunch passage on the Belle of Cincinnati, leaving Covington Landing at noon.

Mom loved boats, from watching the lake freighters in Sarnia or at the Mackinac Bridge or riding paddle boats or sightseeing boats, Mom loved them all! The summer before she and Dad met, they were both at the Hydroplane Gold Cup races in Detroit, but on opposite sides of the river. That was something she and Dad always enjoyed together. She had fond memories of sailing on the Queen Mary to Italy on her honeymoon and we went to Tall Stacks in Cincinnati in 1995 together. If it floated on water, Mom was sure to find a way to be there to see t or ride on it!

When the two of us made our Southern trip in 1989, we went on a dinner cruise on the Cumberland River in Chattanooga, so we were seasoned river diners!

When we boarded, we posed for the obligatory photo on board. If you resist having the photo taken, they’ll tell you it’s a photo record of whose on board, “should anything happen.” Truthfully, it’s a souvenir they’ll try to sell you as you get off the boat! I know. I have many of those purchased photos! Then were found our table number.

The table was by a window facing the Cincinnati side of the boat. Not that it matters, because the boat will turn around and you’ll see the other side after dessert. I don’t specifically recall what we had for lunch. It was buffet style standard big lunch fare, roast beef, a chicken dish and a very nice spread for a sandwich option. After dessert and coffee, we went upstairs to the open air portion of the boat. It was a beautiful day, not too hot and a nice breeze on the river. The view is wonderful on the part of the Ohio River that goes through Cincinnati. There is the city skyline on one side, and Cincinnati is one of the prettiest skylines, every building seeming to belong with the others, and the more quaint Covington, Kentucky side, with a smaller town appeal contrasted with some beautiful newer architecture. That appealed to me, the architecture aficionado!

After the boat,we visited the Newport Aquarium, in Newport , Kentucky and the dinner before the game. The Sunday game was an extra innings game that the Reds won. For a baseball nut and the woman who raised me to be a baseball nut, there’s nothing like free baseball to top off a fantastic Mother-Daughter weekend!