July 4, 2011

SEADAY en route to ST THOMAS

Well, I may have a new nickname…Typhoid Michael…No sooner had I been listed as Fit For Duty than not one, but TWO of our team went down. One with Tonsillitis, which I had nothing to do with, and one with some unnamed thing that left her throwing up in the Medical Facility. One thing as a woman you don’t want, is a doctor with a sense of humor. When a woman starts feeling poorly and throwing up the first test they do is pregnancy. Apparently the doctor came back and said “Congratulations…”, whereupon Lisa almost fainted and threw up again….”you are not pregnant.” Lisa has since been declared FFD, and not a moment too soon. Yesterday was a day from hell.

It started with holiday decorations for the Promenade at 8AM. My day started waking up at 0758. I am still not used to not having windows. Luckily my inner clock still works. 0800 sees four of us blowing up helium balloons. No, not round ones, sausage shaped ones. What red, white and blue sausages have to do with July 4th I couldn’t tell you. But there we were with 40 red, white and blue sausages. All floating upright….

These forty sausages we were to take to the Promenade Deck and decorate the ENTIRE place with….forty balloons, thousands of square feet….

In the end we decorated the cupcake shack. Four collections of nine, or so, balloons, all floating upright…indeed some were so upright they floated right to the top to the ceiling. Luckily there were no cameras to record this Keystone Kops routine, and lucky too that we had already tied long ribbons to the ends. I dutifully hoisted Alison, one of our British team members who is all of five feet tall, on my shoulders and we were able to secure some of them. T.T., (initials since he is Turkish and no one can pronounce his name…or spell it), came up with the idea of a long pole with tape, sticky side out, wrapped around it. With this brilliant idea we were able to secure the last few and bring our helium filled, patriotic sausages back to the terrace.

The only saving grace of this was the fact that the Cupcake Cupboard had already decorated the front of the shop with red, white and blue bunting, so our sausages did not look entirely odd…just somewhat odd. In spite of our exertions, the helium was limp by 10AM, and our tired sausages hung somewhat worse for wear in a reclining position. The musicians playing in the afternoon were happier about that anyway…they weren’t hidden.

That being the extent of our patriotic decoration, the day began. I would like to tell you more, but it was a blur that went on until 0230 the next morning! Two days out of my sick bed and I had Escape Party Duty. As many people know, the ships have theme nights. Every night is something. I remember the White Party on the Navigator of the Seas when Ralph and I were in the Mediterranean. It was an amazing dance party under the Aegean night skies. The Escape Party is held in The Solarium, a large multi-storied section of the forward part of the ship on Deck 16. Surrounded by glass, with hot tubs and fountains and plants and a large terrace, it is the great location. Decorations go up, (more professional than our sausages), and a DJ comes, and people dance under the stars. It is really impressive…but I didn’t really want to get all hot and sweaty…oh well, duty called. I did my best boogaloo until 0100, took a brief break, where I looked longingly at my bed, then back at 0200 to break it all down.

While at the Escape Party I met a family, the Bradshaws, a group of 18, who were traveling with their widowed mother. The father had passed away a couple of years before through a botched surgery and there had been a malpractice suit they had won. The father, before he died, had made them promise to spend the money by taking a family trip every year. This year it was on the Oasis. Scott, one of the sons and a father of three himself, and I struck up a conversation. He was a stocky man in his fifties with close cropped hair that reminded me of a retired military officer. He and I hit it off, and he introduced me to several of his family members who were up late dancing and drinking. At the end of the conversation he said “Michael, if you see us around ship, just yell out “Bradshaw” and we will do anything you want.”

I said, “Anything at all?”

“Absolutely.”

“All right”, I answered, “but you might regret this!”

During the earlier part of the day I got to host another round of Trivia Games. These I really like. They are held in the Schooner Bar, which I always end up calling Schooner Wharf, after the bar of that name in Key West. Habits are hard to break. It is a piano bar with cushy chairs all around, and people flock to these games! It’s always fun, and it is where I feel my skills shine best…well that, and hosting karaoke. I always end up getting people for the rest of the cruise who have been at my Trivia Games calling out to me to say hi.

At this Trivia Game I had a family who wanted me to make the announcement that they were there with their Grandparents whose Sixtieth Anniversary was that day! I happily did so, and inquired of the Grandmother what was the secret of the longevity of the happy marriage. She smiled and said, “lots of love and understanding”. Everyone aahed appropriately. I then asked the gentleman his secret. He looked me square in the eye and said, “luck!”.

Sixty years...wow. They reminded me of my Grandparents. Grandmother has been gone since 2001, but I have to say, yet again, how much I have been thinking of her lately. Of the two of them. I don’t think I have ever seen a couple as much in love, or with such a joint love of travel. May we all have the “luck” and sixty years to share it!