Trying to Get Away on a Getaway

12-24-10

   Merry Christmas Eve!  I am on Deck #11, I think.  I am at the back of the ship.  The sun is to my right.  The churning water from the ship’s engines mellows and fades away like a cone as the ship moves farther away from the tip of the cone.  I see a stray ping-pong ball hiding below the windowed railing.  It looks like a mouse scurrying back and forth afraid to be discovered. 

   I thought for sure I had found a place I would not be discovered by my family, but as soon as I sat to write at a table...Bev and Daryl came right out from behind a partition.  I asked if they had just seen Curt because he had just told me a good place to go was down one level towards the back.  No, they hadn’t.  How did they find me then?  Not that I mind.  Bev and I got a chance to figure out the group photo we are planning with all three families later tonight. 

   After they left, I moved farther back and sat on the beach chair I am on now when Eric came along behind me and teased me by saying, “Sir, this is a restricted area.  You need to move somewhere else.” 

   That was fine, too, because I got to tell him also about the group photo plan.  He told me he is getting an acid test on his body tomorrow, so he got to explain why he was doing it and what he hopes to find out.  Honestly, if it weren’t for this cruise, I would not get these private, albeit short moments with Bev or Eric.  It’s nice.  I actually get to look them in the eyes and have a conversation.  Now, he is off looking for the children, and I am alone again to write.

   I’ve been doing an excellent job (if I do say so myself) with working out and eating fairly well on this cruise, which I am very proud of considering the amount of food at the Windjammer, and because the food choices are not all healthy.  I don’t think I have gained weight, but I don’t think I have lost either.

   *Song tangent!  Awesome!  “The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies” just popped up on iTunes; I am listening with my headphones.  Earlier when I was working out at the incredibly stocked spa at the front of the ship, the song “Let It Snow” came on.  Ironic.  As I write, I am playing the Sugar Plum song over and over again.  It is Christmas Eve after all!

   Today, I worked out again. I have worked out every day while on this vacation so far.  I will probably take tomorrow off since it is Christmas.  After the workout, I was asked to play dodgeball with Eric and some other guys in an all-out brawl with the Royal Caribbean crew.  We were team #3.  We beat them both times, once with skill and once more when one of the RC guys accidentally threw a ball out into the ocean.  If anyone did that, according to the rules (and he was the only one), they automatically lose the match and the culprit is brought center stage and booed by everyone in the area. 

   Poor guy.  I nailed him in the back later when he didn’t see me coming.  He was trying to get a ball.  I wasn’t trying to get him back for throwing a ball overboard; it was just a matter of wrong time, wrong place for him and right time, right place for me. 

The whole thing was all in fun, of course.  Everyone was smiling, and I thought it was great that the crew members, who have to be extremely nice to cruisers all the time, get this one chance where they can take out their frustrations and aggressions, and who better to take those out on but the customers?