Scheduled Mysteries – Havana, Cuba – [11/15/2018]

Someone keeps stealing my bible.

Well, not literally of course.

But someone keeps taking my schedule from my box in the office. All the time. Nearly every day. And it *isn’t me*.

This is incredibly annoying, because I obviously need my schedule. While I do schedule my classes myself, I do so nearly a month in advance and I do not have the whole thing memorized, plus, on occasion, it will change without notice (or at the very least vary from the draft I keep on my computer) because of little things like drills, trainings, extra activities etc. All of those are only noted in the official version of the schedule that is distributed to the team each evening and which I am supposed ot be able to pick up first thing in the morning.

Except that 5 out of the last 6 mornings (or more) I have walked into the office and seen that my box is empty whereas everyone else’s has a schedule in it.

I know the CD is making me one, as I’ve conferred with him on this. He’s even put up a note on the mail-boxes clearly stating “please do not take schedules that are not yours” (which worked for an exact total of one day) – but this morning, poof, empty  box again.

Someone has decided it’s funny to take my schedule every day.

So I’ve resorted to having to leave a note on my own mailbox, pleading that whoever is doing this stop…because it is annoying and I really need that schedule.

I’m sure they think that either no one is noticing, or that it’s harmless and funny…

Dude, not funny…just extremely aggravating…like stealing someone’s lunch from the office fridge.

 

Posted in Below the waterline, Cuban Dreams, Fall Contracts | 3 Comments

Accomplished…continued

Sometimes, until I actually look at it all written down – I can’t honestly believe that I have *done* all this!

Aruba:

  • De Palm Island (x2)

Ascension Islands/St. Helena

  • Jacob’s Ladder (up and down)

Africa

  • Survived ATM Fraud 😉
  • African Safari

Argentina:

  • Evita’s Tomb
  • La Casa Rosa
  • Argentinian Tango show (saw obviously, not performed :P) (x2)

Australia:

  • Sydney Opera House
  • Sydney Harbor Bridge
  • Melbourne Zoo (biked to, and got lost on the way)
  • Madama Butterfly (three rows from the front at the Sydney Opera House)
  • Outback Adventure Horseback riding (in the pouring rain)
  • Port Arthur Historic Site
  • Rocks Historical District (Ghost Tour)
  • Snorkeled the Great Barrier Reef
  • Sydney Tall Ships mast climb
  • The hunt for the disappearing Whiskey Bar!
  • Wheel of Brisbane
  • Peace Temple
  • “Wizard Of Oz” Australian Cast

Brazil:

  • Been in the middle of a swarm of beetles
  • Christ the Redeemer
  • Carnival/Sambadrome
  • Copacabana & Ipanema Beach
  • Hiked through the Amazon rainforest
  • Tekal
  • Swum in the Amazon
  • Wedding of the Waters

Caribbean

  • Margaritaville Grand Turk
  • Horseback riding through surf
  • Prop plane between islands (Grand Turk)

Canada

British Columbia:

  • Auditioned for Canadian Idol
  • Buchart’s Gardens
  • Circus Magicus exhibition (worked)
  • Eternal Egypt exhibition (worked)
  • Falconry day-course (which included flying a bird!)
  • International Fireworks of Canada
  • Lady Washington Sunset cruise (American ship, Canadian festival)
  • Mount Washington
  • Performed at Craigdarroch Castle
  • Titanic artifact exhibition
  • Toured HMS Bounty
  • Top of a Ferris Wheel

P.E.I 

  • Anne of Green Gables Museum
  • Anne of Green Gables House

Chile

  • Easter Island

China

  • Dule Temple (x2)
  • Great Wall Of China (x2)
  • Shanghai Sightseeing Tunnel
  • Forbidden City
  • Shanghai boat races
  • Temple of Heaven
  • Tiananmen Square

Costa Rica

  • Rainforest canopy tram ride
  • Ziplined down a mountain

Egypt

  • Camel Riding
  • Cairo Museum
  • Great Pyramids of Giza
  • Great Sphinx
  • Temple of Luxor
  • Valley of the Kings

England

  • Bartending weddings of 100 people alone
  • Bath Abbey
  • Bath Circle
  • British Museum
  • Chalice Well
  • Cenotaph
  • Covent Garden
  • Glastonbury Abby
  • Glastonbury Tor
  • Hatfield House
  • Hertfordshire Theatre School (ha! Finished it!)
  • Hot air balloon ride over Bath
  • Kensington Gardens
  • Learned how to pull a proper pint
  • London Eye
  • My Little Pony Convention
  • National Gallery 
  • Nelson’s Column (Trafalgar Square)
  • Old Salisbury
  • Portobello Road
  • Performed on a West End stage (okay, so it was for HTS Showcase, but it was still a west end stage)
  • Peter Pan In Kensington Gardens
  • Ported out of Southampton…and did better this time
  • Roman Baths
  • Royal Shakespeare Theatre (backstage)
  • Salisbury Cathedral
  • Shakespeare’s Birthplace
  • Shakespeare’s Grave
  • Shreve’s House
  • Stonehenge
  • St. Paul’s Cathedral
  • Tower of London
    • Photographed Prince Charles
  • Tower Bridge
  • Westminster Abbey
  • Westminster Palace
  • West End

France

  • Disneyland Paris
  • Tunnel train from England to Paris

French Polynesia

  • Swum with sharks & stingrays (x2)
  • Fed stingrays (They’re soft!)
  • Bloody Mary’s Bar

Greece:

  • Donkey ride up (and down) the steps of Santorini
  • Parthenon

 Guatemala

  • Drank out of a coconut

Hong Kong

  • Hong Kong Disneyland (X4)
  • The Big Buddha
  • Hong Kong Light Show
  • Hong Kong Night Market

India

  • Chinese Fishing Nets
  • Gateway to India
  • Taj Mah Hal Hotel
  • Tuk Tuk Ride

Israel

  • Church of the Annunciation
  • House of St Peter
  • River Jordan
  • Sea of Galilee

Italy

  • Coliseum
  • Duomo
  • Galleria Accademia (Michalengo’s David, Stradivarius)
  • Leaning Tower of Piza
  • Pompeii
  • Fountain of the Four Rivers
  • St. Peter’s Basilica
  • Spanish Steps
  • Pantheon
  • Palazzo de Popolo
  • Trevi Fountain
  • Vatican City
  • Vatican Museum
  • Sistine Chapel

Japan:

  • Nara Temple
  • Toyko Disneyland (x2)
  • Omi Shrine
  • Toyko Music District
    • The most guitar stores I have ever witnessed in one day
  • Osaka Castle Park
  • Green Tea Ice Cream
  • Samurai Houses

Jordan

  • Petra…twice
  • Marvelous Middle Eastern Misadventure

Mexico

  • Parasailing
  • La Paroquia de Nuestra senora de Guadalupe (Puerto Vallarta Cathedral)
  • Eaten a fried Snickers bar

Myanmar (Burma)

  • Shwedagon Pagoda

Nagasaki

  • Shimbala Castle

New Zealand

  • Auckland sky tower
  • Auckland Sky tower SKY JUMP
  • Hobbiton Movie set (Bag End!) (x2)
  • Wildlife Center

Panama

  • Panama Canal (x…at least 4)

Philippines

  • Underground river excursion

Peru

  • Temple of the Moon & Sun

 Puerto Rico

  • The Butterfly People
  • Tomb of Ponce De Leon
  • “The Mezzanine”
  • HMS Bounty

 Madagascar:

  • Paddled outrigger canoe
  • Jungle safari (lemurs!!)

Sicily

  • Messina Belltower
  • Messina Archeological museum

Singapore

  • Universal Studios Singapore
  • Little India
  • Sentosa Cable Cars
  • Hard Rock Café Singapore
  • Sentosa Light Show

Spain

  • Cadiz cathedral
  • Roman amphitheatre
  • Guadi Park
  • Santa Famillias

 Thailand

  • Elephant trek

Turkey

  • Blue Mosque
  • Ephesus
  • Evening at Ephesus
  • Gallipoli (from a distance only)
  • Grand Bizarre
  • Hagia Sophia
  • Hippodrome
  • Grand Bizarre
  • Mary’s House
  • Wishing Wall

 United Arabic Emirates

  • Sandboarding
  • Hooka
  • Off-road jeep ride through the desert…twice
  • Camel riding

United States

Alaska:

  • Mendenhall Glacier
  • Anchorage Zoo
  • Glacier Bay National Park
  • Hubbard Glacier National Park
  • Juneau Zip-lining
  • River Rafting down Juneau River
  • Sitka National Park
  • Sitka Raptor Centre
  • Tracy Arm National Park
  • Husky Musher Camp
  • Skagway White Horse Railway
  • Set of White Fang
  • Skagway “History of…” show
  • Skagway Red Onion Saloon tour
  • Mount Roberts Tramway
  • Totem Heritage Center
  • Red Dog Saloon
  • Great American LumberJack Show
  • Creek Street
  • Dolly’s House
  • Ketchikan Museum
  • Ketchikan Salmon Hatchery

California:

  • Disneyland
  • Golden Gate Bridge (sailed under it!)
  • Universal Studios Hollywood
  • Winchester Mansion
  • Alcatraz
  • Hard Rock Café San Francisco
  • Haight-Ashbury
  • San Diego Aquarium
  • Pier 96
  • Medieval Times (Black & Yellow Knight/Black & White Knight/Red Knight/ Green night?)
  • San Diego Maritime Museum
  • The Kiss Statue
  • Bob Hope tribute

D.C.

  • Smithsonian Air & Space Museum
    • Buzz Aldrin’s space suit
    • Spirit of Saint Lois
  • Smithsonian Art Gallery
  • Smithsonian Natural History Museum
  • Smithsonian American History Museum
    •   Worked a rivet gun
    • Ruby Slippers
    • Lunch Counter
  • Lincoln Memorial
  • Vietnam Memorial
  • Declaration of Independence
  • Library of Congress
  • Martin Luther King Memorial
  • Korean Memorial
  • World War II Memorial
  • Caught in a downpour wearing white linen
  • Washington Monument
  • Reflecting Pool

Florida

  • Daytona Beach Shores Pier
  • Daytona Beach Amusement Pier
    • Most rickety rollercoaster ever
  • Titanic: The Artifact Experience
    • Home of “the little big piece”
  • Universal Studios
    •  Most terrifying rollercoaster ever
    • Harry Potter World
  • Disney World: Magic Kingdom
    • “I want all of my tomorrows to be with you…”
    • I said yes….
  • Disney Hollywood Studios
    • Fantastmic (with light up ears)
  • Disney Animation Resort
  • Ripley’s Believe it or Not
  • Medieval Times (Green Knight)
  • Pirate mini-golf
  • Universal Plaza

Hawaii

  • Aloha Tower
  • Hawaii harbor fish
  • Pearl Harbor
  • Snorkeling
  • Atlantis Submarine

Idaho

  • Sun Valley Jazz Festival
  • Ice Skating on Sun Valley Rink

Kentucky

  • Bible Mini-golf

New York

  • Hop on/hop off bus tour
  • Photograph with statue of liberty
  • Sailed under the Brooklyn bridge
  • Hard Rock Café New York

Virginia

  • Cold Harbour National Battlefield
  • King’s Dominion
  • High School reunion that wasn’t mine 😉

West Virginia

  • Applejack’s birthday

Washington

  • Seattle Underground Tour
  • Seattle Ghost Tour
  • Wings over Washington
  • Seattle Observation Wheel
  • Pioneer Square

Vietnam

  • Vietcong Tunnels

Wales

  • Canal boat to Llangothlen
  • Cardiff Castle
  • Chester Cathedral
  • Chirk Castle
  • Pont Cysyllte Aqueduct
  • Port Marion

While At Sea:

  • Crossed the equator (at least seven times)
  • Snorkeled in Pago Pago
  • Transatlantic crossing (thrice)
  • Three murder mystery performance (with three different accents)
  • Radio Dinner Theatre (solo)
  • Palm Cabaret performance
  • Saki under the stars

Shows (seen):

  • Mary Poppins
  • Lion King
  • Spamalot
  • Nutcracker (Royal London Ballet, Seattle, Victoria)
  • Chicago
  • Mousetrap
  • We Will Rock You (twice)
  • Spring Awakening
  • 39 Steps
  • Peter Pan (In Kensington Gardens)
  • Wicked (twice)
  • Mamma Mia
  • Legally Blonde
  • Phantom of the Opera
  • Les Miserables
  • Anne and Gilbert
  • Wizard of Oz

Shows (performed)

High School

  • Hello Dolly
  • Me & My Girl
  • The Pajama Game
  • Fiddler on the Roof
  • Oklahoma!
  • Bye-Bye Birdie  Fame

Semi-Pro/Professional

  • Charlotte’s Web
  • Rocky Horror Show (lead)
  • Circus Magicus (lead)
  • Play With Your Food Dinner Theatre (lead)
  • Split Milk Comedy Troupe

Am Dram

  • Me & My Girl
  • Evita
  • Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
Posted in Below the waterline, Reflections | 1 Comment

Here Comes the Sun – Georgetown, Grand Cayman – [11/12/2018]

I’m sure it hasn’t completely escaped notice that I’ve been quiet this contract. That’s mostly because I don’t really have all that much to report! With the exception of Cuba, I’ve been to all these ports before, so I’ve been staying in for the most part and getting used to the ship, figuring out what’s where and such. And I have a project I’m working on that is taking up a lot of time (nope, not telling, at least not yet) – so I guess I’ve been a little bit withdrawn.

Being in the Caribbean is a lovely change from Alaska. Don’t get me wrong, I love the Last Frontier, it remains one of my favourite places on this little marble we call a planet – but it does get cold and wet by the end of the season.

Definitely the opposite of what we have here!

It’s an interesting batch of students this cruise, most of them are really sweet – there’s a handful that are…a handful…but then there always are. Numbers are up for the most part, although there’s the occasional class that, surprisingly, only gets two people. And it never seems to be the one that I expect! The greeting card class is one of those, it either has one or two, or …twenty. But this cruise it’s definitely leaning towards the first of those two options.

And so off we go, just bouncing around in the sunshine, with water that’s so blue it reminds me of the video game ‘Riven’ I used to play as a kid. I even managed to get at least a little bit of my Christmas shopping done.

There are worse ways to spend a day 🙂

Posted in Below the waterline, Cuban Dreams, Fall Contracts, Ports of Call | 1 Comment

All Falls Silent – [11/11/2018]

Oh my name is Francis Toliver, I come from Liverpool – 2 years ago the war was waitin’ for me after school

~ Christmas in the Trenches

They were all just kids. They’re always…just kids. They grow up too quickly and they’re taken from us too fast.

100 yeas ago it was supposed to be the war that ended all wars. On this day 100 years ago, people cried and kissed in the street, because it was over….it was finally finally over.

Except then it wasn’t.

Except it never is.

I sometimes wonder if humanity knows how to be at peace, or if we always have some point we have to prove that renders us incapable of simply letting each other be. Instead we send our children to the slaughter, and we have now done it so often that it no longer is cause for celebration when they return, there are no more ticker-tape parades, there are no more “PEACE” headlines in the papers. It just …keeps going.

It’s hard, in that light, to be the lark above the guns, to keep faith.

I still don’t understand, I never will. I understand no more now than I did when I was that little girl standing in her party shoes in the mud. Perhaps I’m not meant to. Perhaps I have simply…become too naïve in thinking that anyone could ever understand it, could ever change it.

But no. I can’t think like that. I won’t. Because for one thing, if I thought like that too long my Gran would come back and haunt me.

People gave up everything. Mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, they gave up everything. So that we could have what? I’m not sure exactly. But I don’t think they sleep. I don’t think that this…whatever it is we have…I don’t think this is what they wanted. I don’t think they would be happy with us. I don’t think they would be proud. They died to end it all, to end the conflict, stop the bloodshed…and yet…

Today is important because we remember those we’ve lost. They will always deserve that honour, and I will hold to it until the day I go through the veil. But you can remember their sacrifice without upholding the institution that required them to make it.

War has long since proven that it serves nothing. It solves nothing. Death does not stop death.

100 years…it’s long past time to hammer our swords into plowshares…all of us, everywhere, not just in the western world.

Else, they will never rest, and their sacrifice will have been for naught.

But I know that perhaps, that is a dream that is not meant to be..

Just as I know that no one ever will be able to explain “why” to the little girl with the mud on her party shoes in the rain.

 

Posted in Reflections | 1 Comment

There’s Gotta Be More… – [11/08/2018]

Call me blind but I didn’t see it coming
And everyone was running
And I couldn’t hear nothing
Except gun blast
It happened so fast

Maybe this kid was reaching out for love
Or maybe for one moment he forgot who he was
Or maybe this kid just wanted to be heard
Whatever it was, I know it’s because
We are we are the youth of an Nation… ~ P.O.D

I don’t think we will ever learn. Or perhaps, I just don’t think that some people will ever learn. I’m lost as to whether or not some people don’t want to, or if we have simply become just that blind….

The world has become a terrifying place. I’m lucky enough to live in a country that is peaceful, that – for the most part – gets a lot of stuff right. We are not perfect, and Canada has a lot of work to do on not being too smug. But I look at the rest of the world? I look at what’s happening out there, and I shrink back behind our mountains and grizzly bears and socialist health care and I hide.

And when I wake up in the morning, I find that there is yet another person who has tried to solve yet another rage with yet another gun. And now there has been a call to arm churches, and teachers are being told to carry…because the best way to defend against violence is with more violence…because that apparently is supposed to make sense.

Why do people not get it? How is this okay? How is this still okay.

Attitudes are catching, they spread and spread like some strange infection, and right now hatred and violence is infecting the world, and it is running rampant and we are doing nothing to stop it. And those of us who try, are shouted down and called petty and fragile, and perhaps some of us are…but many of us are not, many of us are just flat out terrified.

I understand the history behind the “right to bear arms”, I understand its historical significance and yes I understand it’s importance. No one is clamouring to disarm the States. Such a thing is impractical and impossible. But asking for control, for an outdate law to be updated and shifted so that people stop solving problems with an automatic military grade rifle is not the same thing as “they’re coming to take my guns”. Instead of that, what are people doing? Demanding more guns, more violence, to stop the violence. Does no one see that this is sick? That this is broken? That there is something drastically terribly wrong here, and that something needs to change.

There are those that try to tell me that well, these people are crazy and they would “do it anyway”. But does that mean we have to keep making it easier for them? That we have to keep tacitly saying that it’s a fine way of dealing with things? Because that’s what we do. Every time this happens, there is outrage, there are calls to action, and nothing comes of those calls, nothing changes…nothing shifts, nothing is repaired…until the next time when it all starts again. By not altering anything, we are telling the world that it is all right to violence through your problems, because it’s not like it will actually meet with any major consequences, nothing will change because of it.

We are being bathed in blood, and fear, and we are feeding it.

We are coming up on Armistice Day – the day that was originally the celebration for the war to end all wars…

Is this what they died for? Is this what they would have wanted? Did people sacrifice themselves on the alter of the glory of war so that people could go out and slaughter each other, slaughter kids, whenever they feel they have a grievance? Did they die for our right to kill?

The world is broken, and even in my little corner of it, as I walk through it, I feel like I am cutting the soles of my feet open on the wreckage.

Please, please stop …just…please make it stop. Someone make it stop.

Posted in Reflections | 1 Comment

Time Travel – Havana, Cuba – [11/05/2018]

After all the trouble of getting here, all the hassle of the last few days. I didn’t know what to expect….

And yet…the world sometimes totally surprises you in the best possible way.

When you first step out into Havana the air wraps you up like a blanket, it’s wet and sticky and laced with the taste of cigar smoke and you feel somehow like you should be able to take a bite out of it.

And then you turn the corner into the Plaza, and your heart – if you’re anything like me – skips a beat.

I have never…seen anywhere like this before…

Never.

The guide books say that walking into Cub is like stepping into a time machine.

They’re right.

Here, there is no doubt that we are the foreigners, and there is no ‘stamp’ of us on the place. No chain stores, no fast food, no over priced souvenir markets. I saw a grand total of one person on a cell phone. Here, we’re the odd ones out. And it’s wonderful. And no one cares. The people are friendly and polite, but they don’t go out of their way to harass you or even really speak to you. There is no noticeable tension, although I am always aware when I’m in a foreign country, especially one where I don’t understand a word of the language (well, I can say hello and goodbye in Spanish, but that’s about it) – I never once felt in danger. Instead I just felt an overwhelming sense of …fascination.

Old Havana – and I’ve only seen a tiny corner of it – is a winding twisting maze of narrow alleyways and cobbled streets. Brightly coloured buildings shouldering up against crumbling churches like plants reaching for the sunlight high above.

And music everywhere, people dancing in the streets. Everything smells different, feels different. There is a … vibration here that I simply haven’t felt anywhere else.

The place is full of plazas and tiny hidden courtyards that spill over with fountains and greenery. And the whole city seems full of bells, small, enormous, cracked and whole, if they were all to sing out at once you would be deaf to the world ever after.

And then…there the San Francisco Basilica.

It’s a museum, which sadly is only open tomorrow, and we are only here today and this evening – I would give a lot to see the inside of it. Because the outside…I couldn’t stop staring at it. Nearly overrun with vines and crumbling in every corner…but still, if these walls could speak. I could have sat there, on the sunbaked  courtyard, surrounded by stones of monks long left this world…and just…stared…

There is so so much more that I would like to say, but…I don’t know that I can even find the rest of the words.

But this place…this…is worth it. Something about this place is worth everything.

Posted in Cuban Dreams, Fall Contracts | 1 Comment

Expectations – At Sea – [11/04/2018]

So far…I’m afraid to say that this contract has not precisely lived up to my expectations. This is a nice ship, but she’s much older and smaller than I’m used to (the flagship is one size up from this one) – and the room I’ve been assigned is small and tucked up out of the way. Which is not really so bad, if I look at like the Little Princess living in a garret room (that’s actually not a complaint, I quite like playing Sara Crew). I’m hoping to get another poster for the wall, fill up some of the blank space.

This is still proving to be a hard team to crack as far as getting ot know people goes. With my job and schedule being the way it is, I see people only rarely – and this team has obviously been together for a really long time. Whether they mean it to or not, that makes them hard to get to know, they aren’t seeming that big on welcoming the new kid on the block. And since I missed the crew party, there hasn’t really been an opportunity for me to break in on my own, not that I’m that forceful socially anyway. I’m okay with that for the most part, since I usually prefer my own company, but it’s not necessarily easy.

There have been 4 time changes in as many days and another one coming this evening, which has led to the guests being confused and showing up to things either either late or early, and then getting quite irritable when I can’t pause class to catch them up when they finally wander in a half hour late. We only have three sea days which means I have to offer classes on port days, and everyone complains about that because it “gets in the way of their tours”. Hard to make people happy when things are actually out of your control. I had someone storm out of the room this morning because she had arrived a half an hour late, disrupted the class (because apparently she couldn’t figure out how to get the door open, though it isn’t locked and opens easily), and then didn’t want to wait for the machine to start up.

Rough start…

But that would all be fine…really it would, none of that is anything I haven’t dealt with lots of times before. The disappointing thing is, that the whole point of taking this contract was a) so that Amras and I could stay together on the same ship and b) so we could see Cuba, which neither one of us has ever seen. The thing is, there is some bizarre US law (recently put into play by…an administrative individual that I am far from fond of) – that says that cruise ship crew must work a full 6 hour shift before setting foot in Cuba for leave. This doesn’t effect me so much, I can teach extra classes – but Amras is a muso, he doesn’t work 6 hour stretches, and only works at night. We have no idea how we’re going ot make this work…or if we can make it work. We can escort tours seperately, but we might not be able to do any exploring together…

And me with a brand new camera..

 

Posted in Below the waterline, Cuban Dreams, Fall Contracts, Reflections | 1 Comment

Purple Stripes and Shadow’d Hearts – Cozumel, Mexico – [10/31/2018]

“Come little children, the time’s come to play.” ~ Hocus Pocus

I will say this: once a performer, always a performer.

Having Halloween fall on the second day of my contract is not, perhaps, the easiest thing. The truth is, all I really wanted to do tonight was stay in, watch a movie, order room service and enjoy my Samhain in peace.

But…I’m part of the entertainment department, so quiet isn’t one of the qualities of the job. Especially when you’re the new kid on the block so to speak.

I’ve never been one to do things by half measures, so in between classes I wrestled my hair into some semblance of waves and coated it with about a half a can of purple hairspray and after my final class of the day I dug into my closet and pulled out the rest of my ever-faithful chesh costume. I could have gone big, I could have done T.A.R.D.I.S, but when my suitcases were already too heavy to carry my grounding stones (which I regret, and have actually ordered some more) – three pounds of satin wasn’t in the cards. Besides, I love my Chesh costume. I didn’t have my pink & black mary-jane’s with me this time (again, space in the luggage), so I paired the whole thing with high-top purple converse – which proved to be very easy ot dance in. Note to self : costumes that don’t require high heels for the win.

The party went off without a hitch, and at least once I was mostly responsible for cracking an empty dance floor (someone has to be brave enough to start). Also, I remembered just how much more fun both the Wobble and the Cupid Shuffle are to dance when you have a tail attached to the back of your dress.

Yup, still doing line dancing…goes with the job. Made me very very glad I was wearing flats.

The thing is though, this is only my third night here…I don’t know anyone. The actual crew Halloween party was held last week, well before I arrived; I wasn’t here for the rehearsals for the “thriller” flash mob. And I don’t know a soul except for my boss and maybe one other team member. And sadly, this team is not proving the easiest one to crack…

So this kitty spent much of her evening standing watching other people have a great deal more fun than she was having; and really missing her friends, and her family, and her silly furball of a cat.

It felt good to get back to my own space, wash off my black nose and purple hair, and curl up with a movie as I originally planned.

As we drift through the ocean this All Hallows night, I have to remind myself that this isn’t just a holiday that’s hard pushed by the candy companies. The veil is thin tonight, and if you listen the right way you can hear it, you can feel it…

Be careful out there…and treat those around you with respect, and those Beyond you with care…

A blessed, blessed Samhain to all of you.

Posted in Below the waterline, Cuban Dreams, Fall Contracts, Reflections, Theme Events, Transitions | 1 Comment

All Aboard – At Sea – [10/31/2018]

It always feels a bit strange melding into a new ship; but at the same time, it often feels like I never left.

There are, thankfully, few glitches in the workshop this voyage – with the exception of a completely terrible filing system for the handout notes – that’ll probably be my project for the next few days.

The first batch of guests is always the strangest one when you start a contract; they’re your opening night crowd- they deserve a good show. But in reality you’re still learning your lines!

But they seem to be nice enough to far. Time will tell, as it always does.

We’re heading towards Cuba, and as it turns out there is much, much more going on with getting to Cuba than I could have anticipated. All kinds of different bits of paperwork, permissions, things that need signatures. But in the end I think it will definitely be worth it.

Something else to take pictures of.

Now, if I could just get my voice adjusted to the fact that it has to be used all day again! And if I could just convince the onboard carpenters that yes, they really do need to make me that stepstool I asked for – and that the pre-made set of stairs they gave me won’t turn the trick….(I’m not short, I’m fun sized!).

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Maybe Tomorrow – Seattle, Washington – [10/27/2018]

Flying does become much easier when you have decent people helping you through it. I’ve had flights in the past that have been completely ruined by terrible  customer service – but, so far this trip, I’ve had the opposite.

Alaska airlines not only allowed me to keep Strange in the cabin (they usually prefer planeside check for larger items as it’s a really small plane from YYJ to SEA), but actually helped me get her into the overhead bin (it’s not the weight, it’s the height! I’m really quite tiny heightwise and the overhead bins sometimes feel like they’re miles above my head). Security at both YYJ and SEA was a comparative breeze, with even the woman who had to double check Strange being super friendly and actually commenting on just how cool a guitar I had.

Also they all fell in love with my carry on. Of course, that could be because my carry on is a Racheal Hale design with a fuzzy white kitten sitting in a martini glass on the front…it tends to draw eyes, and “awwwww”s…and has been threatened with suitcase-nappings on several occasions.

So now, here I sit at the Seattle airport, having security a place with a counter and a plug in (my phone battery just doesn’t last long these days), as ready as I’ll ever been to board the long haul to Miami. It’s a red eye, but at least I was able to secure priority boarding, which means I’ll have a good chance at getting Strange into an overhead bin where she belongs, and once she’s there, they can’t make me check her.

Airports are such strange places, everyone here has a story, but at this particular point in their lives, every story is in transition. Everyone is either going somewhere or coming from somewhere. I can’t help but wonder where those stories are leading…

I’m really not good at this part. Not the flying part – it’s true that I may physch myself out for flying – but the leaving part. I’m not good at it on the other end either. It should get easier after all this time, but it never quite seems to…

But hey…ready or not…Cuba here I come

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