{"id":2712,"date":"2013-11-04T16:35:26","date_gmt":"2013-11-05T00:35:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/?p=2712"},"modified":"2014-09-27T05:32:35","modified_gmt":"2014-09-27T12:32:35","slug":"welcome-to-wonderland-st-thomas-virgin-islands-10312013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/?p=2712","title":{"rendered":"Welcome to Wonderland \u2013 St. Thomas, Virgin Islands – [10\/31\/2013]"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"716855a0811be5849131ca314cc25b1a-d6hoin7\"<\/a>Cause everybody\u2019s crazy here in Wonderland
\nYou simply won\u2019t believe your eyes
\n\u2018Cause if you haven\u2019t been you\u2019ll never understand
\nYou couldn\u2019t in a million tries
\nYou\u2019ll see some combinations no one ever sees
\nThere\u2019s nothin\u2019 even normal \u2018bout a swarm of Bees
\nAnd I sure hope I can, get back to wonderland\u2026
\n~ Care Bears In Wonderland<\/i><\/p>\n

At the beginning of the contract when it was roughly decided what theme the entertainment team was going to dress to for Halloween I threw out Alice in Wonderland<\/i> as an idea for the purely selfish reason that I already had my amazing Cheshire cat costume in my drawer (thankfully I always pack it with me, as it\u2019s been my go to ship-side Halloween Costume for ages now). I had no idea the team would prove to be so enthusiastic when the time came. We had a fully fledged Alice (Techie), Queen of Hearts (EM), Mad Hatter (CD, and the poor guy must have been baking in that outfit), Tweedle Dee (DJ), White Rabbit (Kitchen Host who looked SO awesome!), plus me, and my costume was actually the least elaborate, which is saying something because I put so much effort into Chesh down to the last chain on her punk-style earrings.<\/p>\n

Seriously, if we don\u2019t at least place in the fleet wide costume contest this year the judges need their eyes checked!<\/p>\n

Though my supervisor\u2019s reaction to Chesh was amusing<\/p>\n

That looks\u2026amazing. Seriously, I didn\u2019t expect sexy Cheshire, I saw your curled hair earlier and wasn\u2019t sure but\u2026whoa\u2026.<\/i><\/p>\n

Oh yeah, I did the hair again. Once a year I submit myself to sitting in a salon chair for an hour having my stubborn tresses yanked and twisted into about a billion tiny tiny Shirley temple spring-like ringlets. It takes a full hour, and a half-can of firm-hold hairspray and even after I shower my hair is in soft waves for a day afterwards, but it\u2019s worth<\/i> it.<\/p>\n

Overall, the night was a success, more so and in different ways than anticipated actually. I was scheduled to attend the Monster Mash costume ball, which I felt rather hypocritical having do as \u201cmy\u201d boys were stuck playing the ballroom lounge which is supposed to cater to pretty much only the dance snobs.\u00a0 But one must do as the schedule demands, so I dutifully trooped across the stage with the rest of the team, danced the requisite first song with them and the guests and lingered for about a half an hour on the fringes watching the guest costume contest (the Flintstones won) and once it became obvious that I was last team member on the floor (so to speak) I cut out to the ballroom lounge.<\/p>\n

Now, the ballroom lounge is supposed<\/i> to cater to the \u2018regulation\u2019 dancers that occasionally come on board. But this was<\/i> Halloween, which only comes once a year, and the new rules for the lounge actually state that it\u2019s supposed to be \u2018ballroom only\u2019\u00a0 for the first set<\/i>, so after that set was over? Amras started playing the fun stuff, which was taking a risk but paid off big time as the big group of professional dancers that\u2019s on board LOVED it. In fact, I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever seen the floor in that lounge that packed. Chalk one up to bending the rules for the sake of my brother\u2019s intuition.<\/p>\n

And the most important part of that paragraph for me is this: there are professional dancers on board<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Which means that there are leads<\/i>. REAL leads, people who know how to lead more than a stumbling basic, people who can test<\/i> me, who can actually work<\/i> my abilities.<\/p>\n

Which led to:<\/p>\n

Excuse me sir? Do you swing dance?<\/i><\/p>\n

I would LOVE to!<\/i><\/p>\n

First time I\u2019ve been able to really dance in nearly half a year. \u00a0And I worked<\/i> ; as in it feels like you\u2019ve hit the gym for an hour after you do just one dance. There hits a point in a swing out where you can nearly hear your muscles screaming that you are SO going to feel this in the morning, especially when you\u2019re still knocking off the rust so to speak, but there\u2019s not much you can do about that in the middle of a dance. And it feels GOOD, if there can be such a thing as good pain\u2026<\/p>\n

Four dances like that went a long way to burning off some of the bizarre amount of energy I\u2019d had all day (seriously, if I\u2019d been a cat I would have been claws-dug-in-to-the-ceiling-back-arched hyper). By the end of the night I still had a few claws in the ceiling so to speak, but most of the worst of it had gone.<\/p>\n

Amras would say later that I looked like I was in my element. This is true. There is a joy to really dancing that I just don\u2019t get often enough. You\u2019re putting yourself completely in the hands of your lead, and if the lead is good enough you don\u2019t even have to think<\/i> your feet simply move.<\/p>\n

Also, swing dancing in a costume that has a tail leads to many fun things, especially with a song like \u201cHit the Road Jack\u201d\u2026<\/i><\/p>\n

Ahem\u2026<\/p>\n

Of course this morning I feel like I\u2019ve walked into a few brick walls and may well be black and blue from the neck down (\u2018you have more bruises than a pro football player\u2019 \u2018yeah, I\u2019ve got a harder profession\u2019) \u2013 but again, it was worth it.<\/p>\n

At one point I was standing in line to get my picture taken, and one of the guests asked me where I was going after the party was finished, to which I responded<\/p>\n

Change costumes and go to the OTHER party<\/i><\/p>\n

What? It was true! Come on really, after all this time are any of you really surprised?<\/p>\n

The quick-change to Green Faery from Chesh is something I\u2019ve only done once before, and I honestly didn\u2019t think I could pull it off as quickly as I did. Especially since it requires a full make-up change (out with the whiskers in with the vines), which, thanks to Amras and Alasse\u2019s success shore-side I was actually able to do right (they found me jade green eyeliner, do you know HARD it is to find jade green eyeliner??).<\/p>\n

Although I always say I have to be in exactly the right frame of mind to wear my green fairy costume, the truth is I don\u2019t really have any other costume I feel as comfortable in. The Absinthe Fairy was built to use for dancing in the nightclub back home, it\u2019s constructed on a capizio forest green dance leotard so it\u2019s like wearing a one piece bathing suit. It looks<\/i> a lot less sturdy than that of course.<\/p>\n

That said, I didn\u2019t stay at the after-party very long, it was fun, but it was smoky (the OB really is too small for a smoke machine) and loud and over-crowded and once midnight hit the insane charge of energy that had been carrying me all day finally died and I found myself suddenly unable to keep my prettily done-up eyes open.<\/p>\n

I hope everyone had a safe and happy Halloween.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cause everybody\u2019s crazy here in Wonderland You simply won\u2019t believe your eyes \u2018Cause if you haven\u2019t been you\u2019ll never understand You couldn\u2019t in a million tries You\u2019ll see some combinations no one ever sees There\u2019s nothin\u2019 even normal \u2018bout a … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,48,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-below-the-waterline","category-med-2013","category-theme-events"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3GtNE-HK","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2712"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2712\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3402,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2712\/revisions\/3402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}