Delayed…Again… – Victoria – [08/13/2017]

Posted on August 13, 2017 by GypsyShaughnessy

Ah, airports, no matter how many times I walk your halls you do not get any more particularly pleasant, and I do not seem to have that sense of adventure associated with you that so many of my loved ones do.

Well actually that’s not quite right, I do have that sense of excitement when I’m going for a vaction – like when Amras and I went to DC (was that really over a year ago! God/dess how time flies!) but when I’m flying out for contract? Nerves are already on edge, already feeling a tiny bit jangled…and you – dear airport – are not my favourite locale in the world.

Particularly when it seems that every commute I make, something goes off-schedule. Granted, a two hour flight delay is nothing along the scale of my Marvelous Misadventure of a few years back, it is none-the-less annoying, and vaguely frustrating, if only because it seems to happen all the time, Perhaps I’m just more exposed to small snafus because I fly so often.

But ah well, nothing to be done about it now, the flight will be here when it gets here. In the meantime, I have a book, and a laptop that has a very good battery life…and an airport shop that sells chocolate…so…I’m good. For now…

Applejack remains discontented that she is still in my bag instead of out adventuring somewhere..

I don’t’ think AJ quite understands the concept of flight delays….

 

Posted in Below the waterline, Travel | 1 Comment

Bits and Pieces – Victoria, BC – [08/07/2017]

Posted on August 8, 2017 by GypsyShaughnessy

So, here I go again. How can it only be under a week before I head out? I’m all packed, which is nothing to sneeze at….now if only I could find my nametag, I swear I just had it…

Air Canada’s drastic damage to my luggage has left me without a duffle bag, instead I’m using my smaller hardsided case to carry my “cabin”, which thankfully is all very light. Hey for once I’ll be underweight on my luggage fees! Now if I could just find something to hook those bags together…

So my flight is on Sunday, I’ll have a few cruises in Alaska and then…then I’ll start the Grand Asia.

To say I am a little bit nervous would be a bit of an understatement. I did almost this exact same itinerary last season but it wasn’t an official grand cruise, and I was nervous then. This time it is official, and I find myself being paranoid that I haven’t prepared properly that I may have missed something. And the last time I did a cruise like this it…was a challenge for me…but that was a different job, a different circumstance, a different me.

I can do this, I can totally and absolutely do this.

The hours are lighter, the days shorter. I have time in between shifts. Enough time to do things like…learn the guitar!

Oh right, progress report: um, there isn’t any. I managed to wrench a muscle in my shoulder and the doctor said (and I quote) “your rock star career can wait for a week, no picking up the guitar”. But, my guitar does have a new case (thank you Amras, for finding it for me) and seems quite happy there until I can get her on the ship to actually start practicing again. Thankfully calling in Victoria once every two weeks means that I can pick it up later. Then all I have to deal with is figuring out how to do plane-side check in as I’ve never…done that before. But hey, one carry on, one personal item…one guitar, one carry-spinner, technically I’ll be within the restrictions.

I think…

Oh well, deal with that when I come to it..

Now, where did I put that nametag…

Posted in Guitar, Travel, Vacations/Shore-Side | 1 Comment

Callous Building – Victoria – [07/31/2017]

Posted on July 31, 2017 by GypsyShaughnessy

Progress report:

I still can’t easily play a D-chord. Reading chord fingerings (until now I haven’t read anything, I’ve just listened to Amras tell me carefully where to place each finger on each string) makes my eyes water…and…I can still only play two chords with any amount of confidence

But I can kind of strum a basic rhythm…kind of…on…one chord at a time…

Take things slowly, my instruction book tells me, don’t rush your fingers….it says. Develop good habits…it says.

Have any of you noticed that patience is *not* my strong point?

But my guitar now has it’s strap attached (thank you Amras) and is properly tuned. The only downside of which is now it’s not just my fingertips that are complaining, it’s my shoulder. Because the strap puts the weight on my left shoulder, which is notoriously weaker for me (I am so right-sided), I never really thought of learning an instrument as a strength building exercise but…I guess I should have?

One tiny little string at a time

Posted in Guitar | 1 Comment

Guilty Giggles – At Sea – [07/29/2017]

Posted on July 29, 2017 by GypsyShaughnessy

I know I shouldn’t laugh at someone else’s insecurity, particularly someone younger than myself. But in cases like this I can’t really help it. I giggle. Thankfully I giggle inwardly.

Every night this vacation I have been up in the upstairs lounge, working while I listen to the band. Occasionally I take a break to play a round civ 5, but for the most part I’ve been doing everything from putting together handouts and powerpoint presentations for my upcoming contract to creating my extremely detailed packing list (89 day cruise, formals permitted plus Halloween, a packing list is not optional), to pouring myself into the novella I’ve been working on for the last year and a half (got more on that done this last two weeks than I have in the entire year). I find it a beautifully supportive work environment, when I’m worn out I get up and dance, I sing along to the music, and before I know it an hour has passed and I’ve got another powerpoint slide deck ready…

Anyway….

As a result of my constant – but somewhat invisible presence here (working behind a laptop is a lot like being buried in a book, it somewhat renders you part of the background)…I hear a lot. And I see a lot.

Including the – okay extremely annoying – band of teens (and almost-teens) who have taken to hanging out on the opposite side of my little corner. Typically loud and over-energized they have not proved the most entertaining people to share my space with, but occasionally they prove entertaining to listen to…

Ah to be young…

See, there is one guy who clearly has a crush on someone up here (goddess but I hope it’s not me), and the rest of his little group have been spending the entire cruise trying to get him to talk to her (at least I presume it’s a her, I could have misheard). This ongoing teenager-angst-ridden drama has proven both awkward and also highly amusing to listen to. I swear I’m going to start taking bets, because they keep coming back, talking about it (loudly, right behind me), and the slightly awkwardly-while-trying-to-be-cool hanging around trying to work up nerve, and then leaving, and then coming back, and then leaving…

For goddess sake kid, just ask her already! Get it over with!

Unless it’s me of course…please don’t ask me…

Posted in Leisure Lady | 3 Comments

Progressive – At Sea – [07/29/2017]

Posted on July 29, 2017 by GypsyShaughnessy

Progress report:

I have almost mastered the D-chord. And I’m getting better and changing through the three chords I actually do know. Which of course prompted Amras to teach me two more…A, and C, only one of which I currently remember.

But the good news is my fingers are feeling better.

Slowly.

Okay so my left index is still complaining more than a little. But less than it was.

Of course there will be no more practicing for me this cruise, as tomorrow I’m heading home and Amras heads off contract the day after, so the telecaster is already packed away ready to be trundled onto a plane on Sunday.

The trick is going to be continuing this when I get home. I’m not the best in the world at practicing when I don’t have a teacher there to watch over me. That said, Amras is planning to restring my guitar with strings that won’t hurt my fingers as much as the current ones, and making sure that it is properly tuned. I do finally know how to tune it myself but considering a snapped a string the first time I attempted it? I’m a little bit gunshy. So we’ll see how that goes.

But hey, at the beginning of this week I didn’t have any chords at all, now I have four. Still not with a great deal of ease and still without any grace whatsoever, but at least there. That’s something, that’s a start.

I’m cautiously pleased with myself.

But only cautiously…

After all there is the more-than-slightly daunting task that will be required to even try to play lead one day: I have to re-learn how to read music.

Okay, breathe Shaughnessy, walk before you can run…

Four chords are good…for now, four chords are good..

 

Posted in Guitar, Leisure Lady | 1 Comment

Chorded – At Sea – [07/26/2017]

Posted on July 27, 2017 by GypsyShaughnessy

Progress report:

Today I managed to progress between an E chord, an Eminor chord and  D chord…with relative confidence. Not with any degree of speed or grace mind you, but with relative confidence. This is good, this is a start…this is better than yesterday.

I’ll develop callouses, eventually right? I mean the slight tingling pressure/pain in my fingertips is going to go away one day right?

I’m still learning on Amras’ telecaster, with the strap adjusted to as small as it will possibly go so that I can manage it properly. I do have a guitar strap of my very own (it has betty boop on it) but I’ve been told not to use until it can go on my own guitar to avoid any unnecessary wear to the fasteners.

But at least I’m being loaned the use of something to learn on…which is more than I thought I’d have…

But I feel good about this, I actually have faith that this is something that I will be able to do..

If – that is – I can ever get my hands to do what they’re supposed to with some version of reliability!

 

Posted in Below the waterline | 1 Comment

Tin-Can Alley – At Sea – [07/25/2017]

Posted on July 27, 2017 by GypsyShaughnessy

Sometimes things change so gradually that you have no idea they’re changing at all, until you look back and you wonder…when did that happen? Where did that go? When did that stop?

The mainstage show tonight was a cabaret style production of big band style music; not a true big band of course, as we only have a 6 piece, which always makes things a bit sad (it’s never the same when the brass is tracked in…and it never will be). I’ve seen the show before, I had even seen it earlier this evening. But at the late night show, there was the tiniest bit of a shift in my normal circumstance. As a crew member you see, I’m restricted to sitting at the back of the theatre – by the time the sound reaches me back there, it’s slightly muffled, slightly muted, and I can’t feel anything. Appreciate certainly, but not feel. However, since I’m on this cruise as a (semi) guest, I was able to slide into a seat three rows from the front for the second show.

And suddenly I was crying…

At first I had no idea why I was crying, and then it came barreling into me like a brass-tinged freight train.

I was homesick.

Not homesick for home exactly, home is still there after all, I’ll be back there in a few days. No, homesick for…something that went away…something I was suddenly back with.

When I was growing up, there was always always music. The radio was always on, my family was always singing, practicing, humming something. Growing up I do not remember a time when music was not a simple day to day fact of my life. I came home from the hospital to a full big band rehearsing in my living room, I grew up listening to my Mum singing while she cleared up the kitchen, to my Father practicing in the upstairs bedroom, to my ‘Uncle’ strumming a guitar in the guest room (though that happened rarely, he wasn’t exactly the practicing type). I didn’t learn music, I absorbed it. It was all around me. And in the evening, we used to sit in the sunroom and Dad would hook up the stereo; at first it was records, later CDs, and he would put the giant heavy ‘tin can’ headphones on my head. Those headphones were heavy, I remember how the top of them pressed into the top of my head and they almost fell off my ears…but he would put them on my head and he would turn up the volume and tell me to listen. Listen to how the bass felt, listen to which part was which, listen to the vocals. He taught me how to listen with just one headphone so that I could sing properly without learning myself out of tune…forget my hours and hours of lessons and expensive training, those headphones were how I learned to sing. And we’d sit there, the three of us, for hours…for hours upon hours, and just listen. Miller, Midler, countless broadway and movie soundtracks, even 50s classic rock. I traveled the world through those tin-cans long before I ever set foot on a ship…

And then…I don’t know…something happened. A series of things happened…the radio stations went off the air, my uncle passed away, the stereo broke, the record player wore out…I went to England…I came back….I don’t know…I can’t remember. At some point, something stopped, something changed….and music the way I’d grown up with it…it just kind of…slowly disappeared. I don’t know when, it seems very important that I should remember when, but I don’t. And I’ve tried, but…I don’t remember.

And sitting in that audience this evening, it came pouring back in on me. What it was like. And I suppose that memory spilled out of my eyes…

Because dammit…I miss my tin-cans…

Posted in Below the waterline | 1 Comment

Bleedin’ Frustration – Homer, Alaska –[07/25/2017]

Posted on July 25, 2017 by GypsyShaughnessy

I got my first real six string. Bought it at the five and dime. Played it ‘till my fingers bled….

Well, they aren’t bleeding…yet.

I will tell you this though: they hurt.

I have been blessed in my life with a good ear and a good sense of rhythm, which has meant two things: I never truly had to learn how to read music (much to the chagrin of my family) and…I never had to practice. I was a good enough dancer that I could skate by with being lazy when I was a kid (although looking back I almost weep to think how good I could have been if I’d pushed myself beyond my comfort zone), and as for being a vocalist…well, I was a good girl and ran my scales most of the time, but I don’t remember a time when I wasn’t singing, so I don’t remember a time when I couldn’t do it. It was something I was gifted with, not something I truly had to work for. As much as I intrinsically know the importance of practicing…I’ve not had to buckle down and learn something completely from scratch since I was 3 years old in my first dance class. Instinct has kind of always been my friend.

Until now.

Because this isn’t something I’ve a natural talent for, or any background in. After barely mastering just two chords (and struggling with a third…D-major is currently my worst enemy), my fingertips feel as if they are burning and I still am not getting it right

Goddess but I forgot how frustrating it is to start at the beginning.

But I am not going to give up on this dammit. I want to do this. I haven’t really wanted to do something just for the sake of doing it in a really long time. I haven’t been excited about learning something in a very long time. I am not going to let this be another one of those things that I “almost” did.

When I first mentioned that I was going to learn guitar, many people assumed (I suppose naturally so), that I was only doing it because Amras plays guitar himself. Allow me to clarify something: this has nothing to with Amras. He bought me the guitar yes, which is fantastic, but he would be just as happy if I hung that guitar in a shadow case and never laid a finger on it. He bought me the guitar because he knew how badly I wanted it, how much that particular instrument went “hey, I think I’m supposed to go home with you”, and that’s where that part of it ended.

My actually trying to learn to play? That’s mine. That’s coming from several places, and only one of them is that I cannot bear to have an instrument in the house that isn’t played because no instrument deserves to just hang on a wall. The other reasons are more personal: no one in my close family has ever played guitar (save for my Uncle, who was actually a close family friend, not a relative -and even then, he played acoustic), I am not doing this for anyone, or because of anyone. This is mine, just mine.

This? This is something I am taking up just because I want to. Because I can. And because for once I want to be able to prove myself that I can actually follow through on something.  And because there are only two real instruments in the world where if you can sing and play you are almost guaranteed work: one is piano, the other is guitar.

I keep reminding myself of that, especially when my fingertips are almost too sore to type..

Damn D chord…

 

 

 

Posted in Below the waterline, Leisure Lady | 1 Comment

Patience, Little Sister – At Sea – [07/23/2017]

Posted on July 25, 2017 by GypsyShaughnessy

Patience little sister, patience, little brother…it’s gonna take some time

Learning a new instrument is…kind of like learning a new language. No, scratch that, it’s exactly like learning a new language. And I perhaps know…two verbs. Maybe less.

But here I am, for only the second time in my artistic life, chopping my fingernails down to only finger length (bye bye to my natural almost-french-tips…the last time I did that was for my piano teacher when I was in my twenties, to prove to her that I was focused enough to come back to lessons), and wincing slightly as I am sure that by the time this is over, my fingers are going to bleed…

But I am truly determined to learn this…

So this afternoon – being as how I have considerably more time than usual on my hands right now – Amras sat me down on the edge of the bed, handed me his telecaster and helped me loop the strap around my shoulder.

Okay, so…how do we tune this.

And so it starts.

My fingers hurt (a lot, though I suspect not as badly as they will in days to come), but I can at least now play a chromatic scale. I won’t be breaking out into Chuck Berry riffs any time soon, but I have to walk before I can run (this is not easy for me, I’ve never been a particularly patient person).

So here we go…at least I can climb my way up and down a scale (slowly, and not with any kind of grace, but hey)…

Okay guitar: remember our deal, you don’t break my fingers, I learn to treat you right. Okay?

Posted in Below the waterline, Leisure Lady | 1 Comment

Wisdom – Juneau, Alaska – [07-21-2017]

Posted on July 22, 2017 by GypsyShaughnessy

We do not stop for harbour seals when they’re in the water because they are terrified of everything (rightfully so, they are near the bottom of the food chain), and we are not here to stress out our wildlife. ~ Onboard Marine Biologist

It has been a very long time since I went whale watching. At home whale watching is kind of something we tend to only do when we have family visiting, and despite having done several seasons in Alaska, the only whales I have ever seen while working have been from the vantage point of the promenade deck railing.

But…that is when I am working. Which I am not currently doing. So, ha!

Since at the moment I am not working, and since Amras is saddled with IPM today it seemed the perfect opportunity to go and chase some humpback whales.

These are such beautiful creatures, and they are so massive! The scale of them is almost impossible to comprehend. And of course, they go where they like, so there is never any actual guarantee that they’ll be where we are. But we did manage to get extremely lucky as the day went on; hanging out with two solitary whales, once at the beginning and once much further out where a ‘local celebrity’ by the name of Flame (known because of the distinct patterning under her fluke) came close enough the boat that it felt as if we should have been able to touch her

Given all that we have done to their home it is amazing how much these gentle giants seem to trust humans.

Leaving the whales to themselves, we turned about and started to head back to where we started, with the onboard marine biologist providing occasional commentary as we went along.

We got a couple of bald eagles on our port side, a glacier over on the starboard side and a working fisher-boat right in the middle, this is what it’s like to live in Alaska. No big deal!

Fun side note that I was not aware of: Bald eagles do not scream or caw, they chirrup! Seriously! So, all those adverts that have a bald eagle emitting a majestic screech, have actually been dubbed over with a red-tailed hawk. The eagle’s natural call is not considered ‘masculine’ enough for commercials!

There is an irony to that that I’m sure will strike me much harder later on.

Our whale watching adventures over for the day we had an hour of free time to explore Mendenhall Glacier, which is as stunning as I remember it being seven years ago…except…except it is shrinking. It is substantially smaller than it was several seasons ago, and as much as you try not to see it, you can’t shut that knowledge out. It is a victim of humanity, like so much else. Perhaps, just perhaps, we will be able to become wise enough in time to save it; but at the current rate of melt the entire Juneau ice field will be gone by 2200. That sounds like such a long way off, it sounds like an eternity, but it isn’t, it’s a flicker, a blink. Wisdom has been too long delayed and cannot come fast enough.

But the glacier, with it’s tragic shadow, is breathtaking ,and the landscape it has carved perhaps even more so. I wish I could capture properly the way it smells, somehow cleaner and clearer than anywhere else I’ve encountered. Despite it all, places like this give me hope that….that there is hope. That maybe, just maybe, on this whole planet, there may be somewhere we haven’t completely screwed up yet.

It’s late in the evening so there are not many people in the park save for those few of us who are there on tour. I was the only one on the trail in may instances. Just me, the trees and the sense of feeling oh so very small…

Just a flicker, that’s all any of us have…just a flicker.

Be wise with it my friends, be wise with your light.

Places like this are few, and they are getting fewer.

And there is no Planet B

 

 

 

Posted in Alaska, Leisure Lady, Travel | 2 Comments