It's hard to get Denise up and out for breakfast on a cruise ship, especially this one, since she's usually out late dancing. So I found a reasonable workaround - room service! I learned that if you fill out a room service breakfast request form the night before and hang it on your door by 3AM, they'll bring breakfast right to you. This way, Denise can sleep in, and I can get my eggs without having to wonder off to the Windjammer without her.
Breakfast could be delivered anytime up to 11AM, so I'd filled out the menu last night, requesting it be delivered between 10:30 and 11. Much to my surprise, I learned that this was too late for Denise, as she planned to be out early to buy cards for the Bloody Mary Bingo Bash, hosted by Modern English and Gene Loves Jezebel. OK then. So we changed our form and requested that breakfast be delivered between 9:30 and 10.
Today was a bit of a special day - my 65th Birthday! Denise was thrilled, because I'm older than her again. I was happy because I'm inching closer to my retirement day, knowing full well I'll probably drop dead the day before.
We ate our breakfast together, which was good.
My plan for the day was simple - as this was a working vacation for me (and a bit of an experiment to see if I could keep up with work from a cruise ship), I planned to stay in the cabin all day and try to catch up on my notes.
I did leave the cabin when Denise did in the morning, to try to pick up some supplies I hadn't packed - shaving cream, mouthwash, etc. - and to give the cabin steward a chance to clean the room.
I soon found myself on the 5th deck, where I picked up what I could (they didn't have shaving cream), and perused the special 80's store they had set up in the ship's library. Before the cruise, I had planned to buy myself a Mariner of the Seas hat. However, given my feelings about the ship, which I expressed to you in the last blog entry, I changed my mind.
While I was near the 80's store, I found myself next door to the 5th Deck Star Lounge, where they were having a special screening of the New Wave: Dare to Be Different documentary, the story of the WLIR radio station, hosted by Larry the Duck. Although Denise and I had seen it when it first came out, I popped in and grabbed a seat. The film had already started, and I was only able to stay for about a half an hour before I had to leave to use the restroom. I was sorry to leave, though. If you haven't seen it, it's a great film. Unfortunately, though, after I finished doing my business, I figured I'd better head up to the room and get to work.
When I got there, I found that Daniel the cabin steward hadn't started cleaning the room yet. This was to be a constant theme of the cruise, as Daniel's schedule and mine always seemed to be at cross purposes. I went out to the balcony for a bit to let him do his thing.
Once he had finished, I dug in and started working. There was a lot to catch up on, but I worked steadily, ordering room service instead of leaving the room for lunch. By the time Denise and I were ready to head out to dinner, I had actually cleared my email box. Well, mostly. Part of my job is that I also do some proofreading on reports for our Family Services division, and they had filled that box up for me today. But those are able to wait, so I'll worry about them when I get back next Monday. (Although I really wish I could go away for a week and not have to worry about them. But there's really no one else to do them unless it's an emergency, so they're going to be there hanging over my head until I get back.)
I had taken a sneak peek at tonight's menu, and decided to order the Chicken Cordon Bleu for my birthday dinner. And instead of the traditional birthday cake for desert, I planned to order Tres Leches, in honor of one of the kids with whom our agency works, who loves this desert like crazy.
Unfortunately, as I've said, the food on the ship has been been very hit and miss, and tonight they missed. The chicken cordon bleu was very dry, and while the sauce they prepared for it helped a little, there wasn't really enough to cover the whole thing. To make matters worse, we ordered coffee with the dessert, and it was burnt to the point where it roiled my stomach and gave me heartburn that lasted into the next day. (I think I've gotten spoiled by my Keurig at home. With a Keurig, you never have a pot of coffee sitting there all day getting burnt. You make it one cup at a time, so every cup is a good one.) The Tres Leches was good, though.
After that, I went back to the room and made a key error - I opened my work email box again. And what I found wasn't good. One of the workers had saved up a month's worth of notes and sent them to me all at once. I was angry, depressed and pretty freaked out. This meant that after working all day instead of enjoying the cruise ship on my 65th birthday, I was (much) further behind that I had been when I'd started the day. In fact, the likelihood was that I wouldn't catch up again for the rest of the cruise. Thanks a lot!
I won't lie, this totally ruined my night. The main stage show of the night was DSL: Dire Straits Legacy (which was basically a Dire Straits tribute band made up of first-rate musicians, but without Mark Knopfler). I kind of felt like I could see them or not - I own a couple of Dire Straits albums, but I rarely listen to them, and it's not like I'm a huge fan. But I did like some of the guys in the current band, including Trevor Horn (formerly of The Buggles and Yes) and Mel Collins (formerly of King Crimson). And I certainly wasn't going back to work tonight. So I headed down to meet Denise (who had gone to see The Sugarhill Gang at Studio B after dinner.)
She was in a good mood. She'd enjoyed Sugarhill Gang. She commiserated with me about the notes, but what can you do?
We tried to go down to the uncomfortable Royal Theater (You suck, Royal Theater!) to take seats for the show. But some Show Nazi's who either worked for the ship or for ECP smilingly but firmly told us they only open the doors 15 minutes before the show, so we had to go back upstairs. I almost just went back up to the room and forgot about it. I was that sore and disgusted. But I knew that that wouldn't have helped my mood any.
We waited a few minutes and went back down to the Theater (this time going to the 4th deck and the balcony, thereby avoiding the Show Nazi's on the floor below.) We got ourselves seated on the right-side balcony (opposite of where we'd seen Modern English from yesterday).
The show soon started. Or should have. Mark Goodman and Alan Hunter (the former MTV veejays) came out for the intro and wasted our time shooting a promo for next year's cruise that they kept screwing up. If I could have, I'd have tossed them both overboard.
Then the show finally started, and not a minute too soon. I needed some rock! The band came out and opened with "Private Investigations," possibly the slowest and quietest song in their repertoire. Thanks guys.
For their next number, they went into "Walk of Live", and the crowd livened up a little. But apparently not quite enough for the lead singer, who asked, "Are you guys OK out there?"
Well maybe if you hadn't fucking put them to sleep with your first song!
Then they did a slow, jazzy number. It was like this the entire night. Every time they rocked out a little and got the crowd going, they immediately slowed it down. They even did that in the middle of "Sultans of Swing". It drove me crazy. I understand the concept of dynamics, but Jesus! You guys have all been around long enough to know better.
Meanwhile, the people in the row in front of us spent the whole first part of the show having conversations with one another instead of letting everyone listen to the music. I was so drained and depressed that, to be honest, I didn't even notice it until Denise pointed it out to me. But it was getting her upset.
I realize that my reaction to Dire Straits Legacy was as much about my own mental state as it was about what they were doing. On another night, I might have been really into it, and, for example, totally loved "Private Inestigations". But I just wasn't capable of digesting any subtlety tonight. They were being way too artsy for me.
I did enjoy certain songs, like "Walk of Life", Trevor Horn's rendition of Yes's "Owner of a Lonely Heart" (which he co-wrote with Trevor Rabin) and of course "Sultans of Swing" (at least until they slowed it down). They closed with "Money for Nothing", but I've never been a fan of that one. On the other hand, I was sorry they hadn't played a couple of the Dire Straits songs I do like, such as "Lady Writer" and "Once Upon a Time in the West". Oh well.
I trudged back up to the room after their set, still feeling lousy from the bad dinner and the burnt coffee. I told Denise I might go back down and meet her at Studio B at 11 for the toga party with Trial By Fire. But once I got upstairs, I decided to stay in for the rest of the night and lick my wounds. This experiment of working on a cruise ship really wasn't working out. In fact, I was so discouraged, I was wishing I could cancel our May cruise on the Celebrity Summit.
I went up on the Sputnik Music website the next morning. I've been driving these guys crazy for the two years of the pandemic, talking about cruising and describing the ships sailing in on out of the Miami Cruise Port on the port's YouTube Channel. But this morning, I posted on our casual conversation music list, "Do you guys want to hear something sad? I'm not sure I like cruising as much as I used to."
