Every week at the beginning of the new cruise we have a departmental meeting. It’s one of those things that’s required by head office even though we rarely have anything that we really need to talk about – the entertainment department on my current ship is one of the top (if not the top in some sections) in the fleet, and we work like a well-oiled machine. However, the meetings are required, and it at least gives us all a chance to see each other in one place, introduce new faces, and go over the previous cruise’s comments and ratings if anything needs addressing. Even if it’s just a “well done guys, we did it again”
It’s also announcement time. If any of you remember what it was like in home room in high school when you all had to sit and listen to the principal read out the day’s activities and postings over the PA, it’s much like that, only we’re all adults and hey – we’re all entertainers – which means we utterly talk back. We shouldn’t, but we do. Today perhaps more so than usual.
You see, the ‘Cats have this set…this set on Charlottetown day which everyone detests, because the darn thing hardly ever runs, it always gets cancelled due to weather, or technical issues or something, and I usually end up ordering Amras and myself lunch and just chilling out until official word comes down that once again we have all come back from port early for nothing whatsoever. Except a hot dog. Aaaanyway, there’s a point to this, and I’m getting to it I swear. The all aboard time for Quebec has been drastically altered this cruise in order to allow us to make clearance under the bridge that allows us to get out of the city, the day has been shortened by several hours. We were all sitting in the meeting today, listening to our supervisor explain the effects this was going to have on various people…and this is what brings me back to that troublesome “jinxed” Charlottetown set;
Soo…good news in the world of the ‘Cats, this means the Mussel Bake set is a no go this week…
And he’s completely unable to finish his sentence as every ‘Cat in the room, including me (hey, I’m still the ‘Kitten here), erupts into roof-rattling applause. Seriously, we cheered, as in full on whooped and hollered. I think at one point ‘Gale was actually praising heaven. The supervisor just blinks, laughs and looks at all of us
Come on guys, it’s not THAT bad a set
YES IT IS!!!!
Oh honestly…
So we have an unexpected near full port “off” in Charlottetown, I’ve no idea what we’re going to do with it, but we have it.
So that’s cool.
Since my computer was being held prisoner by the fact that Amras had taken it downstairs for me after our gaming session this morning and then promptly locked his key in his room, I had nothing to really do in the gap between the end of my afternoon shift and the start of dinner hour, so I hung around and watched the rehearsal for the opening night show. And laughed, and laughed and laughed…rehearsal for a show you perform every single week often leads to a special kind of insanity, not only are people marking (that’s normal), but people make up their own crazy variations on choreography, occasionally a singer will randomly lip-sync to someone else’s part while they do the actual singing off stage (such as what happened this evening), and all the while the band is standing in place at the back, trying ever so hard not to crack up…
Yes, out here we definitely put the fun back in dysfunctional…