{"id":3337,"date":"2014-08-27T08:44:34","date_gmt":"2014-08-27T15:44:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/?p=3337"},"modified":"2014-08-27T08:44:34","modified_gmt":"2014-08-27T15:44:34","slug":"08262014-landings-and-take-offs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/?p=3337","title":{"rendered":"[08\/26\/2014] \u2013 Landings and Take-offs"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"11076890-beautiful-young-woman-sitting-on-the-splits-in-the-gym\"<\/a>Those who know me well, know that I am a sucker for a good chance at shock value. It\u2019s one of the many reasons that I don\u2019t talk about my voice to passengers before the chance I get to use it among other things. Amras knows this all too well, and it usually makes him laugh\u2026one of the reasons he calls me a sniper\u2026<\/p>\n

Anyway, every week we have a 50s\/60s Sock Hop upstairs in the main dance lounge, but only every other<\/em> week do we get the chance to host it with the live band, which trust me makes all<\/em> the difference. So, like most theme nights, the whole thing involves various contests and such, oldest married couple, youngest married couple, best at the twist, best at the hoola hoop, all sorts of things\u2026<\/p>\n

One of those, is the champagne walk. Since I go all out for the theme wear on that particular night, I always am the one who walks the walk for the champagne give away. It\u2019s a simple thing, the Cruise Director stands with his back to the dance floor, and gives me directions: take two steps left, three steps back, spin 180, moonwalk four times\u2026.and then he always makes the same joke<\/p>\n

Okay Shaughnessy, give me a backflip into the full splits\u2026.<\/em><\/p>\n

And usually I flash him a sarcastic eye-roll and make some snappy comeback about wearing the wrong shoes. But for weeks now, I\u2019ve been telling him that while I may never manage a backflip (never been a gymnasist after all) I am<\/em> a dancer, I can<\/em> drop to splits\u2026.now granted I hadn\u2019t done it in a very long time but\u2026the idea solidified in my head last cruise while I was sitting at late night with Amras<\/p>\n

So, I\u2019m gonna work to get my splits back<\/em><\/p>\n

And he pauses with his pasta fork half way to his mouth<\/p>\n

Oh?<\/em><\/p>\n

Yeah, I figure it might be time to spring a surprise on White<\/em><\/p>\n

Oh, that would be. So. Awesome.<\/em><\/p>\n

So, fast forward to this week, and I\u2019m standing in the middle of the dance floor, in my polka dot dress with my curled pigtails and my bottle of champagne\u2026and no one has noticed that instead of wearing my normal sky-high \u201cDorothy special\u201d red shoes, I\u2019m wearing little black flexible flats. And while, I didn\u2019t hear him do so, Amras nudges every single band member and tells them to watch. And the cruise director does the same line\u2026.and I give him the same look over my shoulder\u2026.<\/p>\n

Well, I can give you half of that request\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

And I set the champagne bottle down next to me\u2026<\/p>\n

And I drop\u2026.first time in about three years I\u2019ve dropped to full splits\u2026<\/p>\n

And the crowd just breaks into applause<\/p>\n

Did she do it? She DID it didn\u2019t she? And I missed it!<\/em><\/p>\n

Like I said, I\u2019m a sucker for a good chance at shock value. But as it turns out, that\u2019s not the only chance I got that night. Much to my surprise \u2013 which just goes to prove you never really know<\/em> your co-workers \u2013 our computer expert, who regularly slaughters me at Call of Duty \u2013 can lead<\/em>, as in swing dance lead. I knew this sort of, but I didn\u2019t realize exactly the extent of it\u2026until the band kicked into Johnny B. Goode<\/em> and half way through the dance? All I hear in my ear is:<\/p>\n

Are you ready?<\/em><\/p>\n

The follow part of my brain thankfully knew what that meant, because I only had a split second to plant my feet together and jump before he flew me. Which was, I admit, totally against traditional social dance rules because the floor was full and that usually exnay\u2019s aerials but\u2026at the same time, I just can\u2019t complain when someone flies me\u2026<\/p>\n

So, if my reputation as the quiet little librarian wasn\u2019t already<\/em> blown for this cruise? Pretty sure it\u2019s well on its way to being so now\u2026<\/p>\n

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

Those who know me well, know that I am a sucker for a good chance at shock value. It\u2019s one of the many reasons that I don\u2019t talk about my voice to passengers before the chance I get to use … 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":[23,77,15,75],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cat-chronicles","category-east-coast-adventures-2014","category-performances","category-summer-contracts"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3GtNE-RP","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3337","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=3337"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3337\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3339,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3337\/revisions\/3339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}