Ship Happens: Sea Blather

Here I am, on a 10,000 plus ton hunk of iron, complete with room service and mini bar, hauling ass in the Caribbean. Currently, somewhere just north of Cuba. Tomorrow is a "sea day", which means all 4200 of us are trapped on the ship, surrounded by water, with only the Hairy Chest contest to keep us from being bored.

We arrived in Florida on Thanksgiving, went to pick up the rental, found out we needed something bigger to accommodate all the luggage we brought. Luckily, the GPS didn't work so we had a good excuse to upgrade. Not to mention we couldn't figure out how to start the car with the push-button ignition. It's trickier than it sounds.

After switching to an SUV, and finally figuring out how to program the GPS, it proceeds to get us lost right away. After numerous U-turns, we finally make it to the interstate, and to our hotel, where we will spend the first three days of our vacation.

Highlights of this part of the vacation include: not having to cook a turkey, getting lost, going to a butterfly house and having a lorikeet bite my boob (he managed to slop nectar out of the cup and down my cleavage), going to a porn store with my mother, and not getting killed driving in Florida.

We board the ship on Sunday, which is magic. I love cruising for the simple fact that you get to visit lots of places, and your hotel room goes with you wherever you go. What I hate about cruising is the masses of asses that also travel with you. I've learned that I hate large groups of people in little places. Mealtime on the Lido deck is the worst. I swear, by the end of the week, I'm going to completely lose my shit and cause an international incident.

Today, we visited charming Key West, which is well known for it's magical power of recharging old people and making them run circles around you. Rather than do the traditional pub crawl, we opted to do some shopping. We did manage to walk down Duvall street, which is their big pub hub, and got to see folks drunk before noon. We had lunch at a place called Red Fish Blue Fish and I finally got some delicious calamari and probably the best mojito ever.

Initially, the weather was overcast, dreary, and somewhat rainy. By the end of the day, when I have blisters on my feet and I'm perilously close to becoming a raging bitch because it took Indy 2 hours to decide on which watch he wanted to buy, the sun was shining and the sky was blue.

Yes, Indy did come with me, and he is my cabin mate. It would appear that his main goal for this trip is to gas me out of the cabin and into my mother's cabin. Now, I can belch with the best of them, but I lack talent when it comes to farts. So, for 6 days, I get to try to figure out how to shove a dryer sheet in his crack without him noticing.

Dinner has been entertaining, and I have developed a small crush on our Turkish Matre`d. What can I say? I have a thing for the dark-haired male persuasion, especially when rocking a sexy accent. The uniform helps, too.

Now, it's another evening winding down. Tomorrow is formal night, and I will be doing something that few people get to witness, and that is me wearing a dress. It's not that I don't like to wear dresses...it's just that I don't have a lot of opportunities to wear them.

I'm told that temps will be in the 70's-80's. I also hear that there is snow waiting at home. I try to bring a little sunshine in the lives of friends and family back home by sending little messages via cellphone. I think the collective response can be best summed up by Redneck Brother when he responded with this simple phrase:

Kiss My Frozen Ass.