Well – actually, I’m writing retroactively, from January 15th… I’ll explicate that in a moment…
So, I’m not sure how much I’ve mentioned it, but my mom has wanted to take me on a cruise for years. She gets to do a big trip roughly once a year as she helps head up a senior citizen activity program with the Prince George’s Community College – and has usually travelled with my Dad, until he got sick. This year, she convinced me to go, along with her father and her brother – so the next couple of entries will be taken from my Little Black Book writings. Some of them will be verbatim, but man, no-one gets to hear EVERYTHING in there (except for two mysterious creatures, and perhaps I’ll one day tell their tales) so expect a LEETLE bit of editing.
My mother wanted to go on a family trip. She wanted an excuse to be together with family post my father’s death, and I think also wants to have this last vacation with her dad, as my Grandfather is a lot further down the line of aging than I’d really realized.
In any case, this year the PGCC Active Seniors pointed their sights at the West Coast of Mexico. An 11 day cruise aboard the Celebrity Cruise Ship “Mercury”. I’m not a fan of water, and generally hate it when my Life is beyond my own strict control. It took some convincing… but knowing that no matter how unappealing something sounds at the time, my mom is generally right… about 20 and a half hours after leaving the College Perk’s New Year’s Eve party, I and my mom and my Uncle Marty and my grandpa got on a plane with 89 senior citizens and their keepers, and flew via Nashville, Tennessee to San Diego, CA.
And that, dear readers, is where our tale begins.
Leaving late in true pre-rob Hinkal style. My parents could NEVER get anywhere on time – it’s probably the reason that I’m always about a half-an-hour to an hour early for everything, and why my biggest pet peeve in the world is people who are late… In any case, leaving 45 minutes late for the airport nearly drove me insane… how can you stay up ALL night and STILL not be packed?!!?
It doesn’t matter.
We are calm.
Getting ready for theat sabre THRUST of acceleration to take up. Going to Nashville, kind of glad I’m not playing there this time, though my guitar is riding in the belly of the plane. (though assured multiple times over the phone that I could put my guitar in carry-on, at the gate they took one look and said “no” – arguing got me nothing but a couple of extra orange “fragile” stickers)
We’ll see if we all get to the same place. I have high hopes.
[leaving with the approach of dawn]
Not much to see on a grey day like today. Fade out into the mist of a world that might as well be Scotland.
Standing and waiting. Stand and deliver. Backing out of Nashville slowly. Nashville Airport where Charlie Daniels does the PA announcements. Really. Nashville, I miss you already. The pilot is using an English accent and telling us “007, prepare for your flight to London. Please close the windows…”
I don’t remember the last time I was this throughly exhausted. Plum tuckered, as they usually don’t say. My grandfather got the bed last night, and my uncle got the couch, which meant I got to stay up all night. Passing over snowfields and dead fields, I’m trying to figure out how to fall asleep in yet another middle seat on the 5 hour flight. I’m afraid that while slipping to sleep I’ll sort of thrash around. That would be embarassing.
A morning view out the window en route to San Diego. Pretty day up here. No hint of the obsenely violent turbulence that awaited us upon landing.
Though there’s a beautiful woman across the aisle but I’m distracted by the man who controls our fate. I have no comprehension of the forces he guides us through. The flight to San Diego is intense and shifting and turbulent. Invisible things. Djinn and sprites. They’re Lively tonight.
The pretty woman keeps her head low all through the landing. I wonder if she’s worried about a crash. The height lets up and we fall to San Diego – it looks like an unwashed wedding bed.
The idea that you can’t feel the boat move is absolute bullshit. Wow.
We’re moving a LOT… It’s pretty funny watching Grandpa and Uncle Marty get used to the movement. Perhaps not THAT funny. Grandpa’s really very confused by everything.
I do wish my mom didn’t feel so comfortable just walking around in her underwear. It annoys me. A lot.
Dinner was strange, the boat left harbour just as dinner was ending, and I’m coming to the realization that my Grandpa really hasn’t grasped the idea that we’re on a boat. He was quite upset when the “building” we were in started moving. I think he’s a lot worse off than I thought he was.
The boat itself – sorry “ship” – they get tetchy about calling it a boat – is called the Mercury – and it’s HUGE. Lots of excercise as long as you avoid the elevators. I spent a lot of time exploring… and a lot of time lost.
