Well HELLO there. Long time no see.
I’d like to say that I was all zen and “well, there’s nothing I can do about the total and utter absence of communication with the outside, Internet-having world” that I probably should have expected to have for the past few days – being, you know, in the MIDDLE OF THE OCEAN – but nope: I was a lunatic about it, and spent a minimum of two hours every day wandering aimlessly around the ship and riding glass elevators up and down from the bar at the bottom of the ship to the bar at the top of the ship, desperately seeking a spot that would let me do anything at all other than watch the rainbow wheel of death take another spin around my screen. Every time I saw a person whose WiFi appeared to be working, I hated them, even if they were a sweet old grandma.
I tried to be all chilled-out and it’s good to get off the grid; I’m on vacation!, I swear – but every time I got even a whisper of service all it did was let me see tiny glimpses of things like important client emails, or contractor updates, or massive Anthropologie sale alerts (kidding, kidding; Anthropologie’s sales are never massive). So I’d see these glimpses and become vaguely aware of their existence…and then, like the devil himself, the Oceanic Internet would SNATCH THEM AWAY.
Anyway. I’m back. (Or docked, in any case.) And I have all the things in the world to tell you about, including my first experience on a cruise ship, my first experience with acupuncture, my first time wearing orthopedic-ish sneakers (but my last? NOPE), this amazing red dress I wore for “Elegant Night” (which is a thing), what happens when you wear a very small bikini in a very rough ocean (similar, interestingly enough, to what happens when you wear a different very small bikini and your friend places a crab on your back), and what happens when married parents of a six-year-old and a three-year-old put their kids into the camp program after dinner so that the husband can “give his wife a massage.” (Spoiler: he actually gives her a massage, and then she passes out three minutes into it, leaving her husband to deal with the picking-up-children-and-putting-them-to-bed situation, and literally does not wake up until morning, when she discovers herself face-planted on the daybed wearing full makeup and an extremely wrinkled dress.)
One story at a time.
First, I should probably let my mother know I’m still alive. (Hi, Mom!)