{"id":815,"date":"2012-01-18T23:01:59","date_gmt":"2012-01-19T03:01:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.wordpress.com\/?p=815"},"modified":"2013-06-17T19:41:00","modified_gmt":"2013-06-17T19:41:00","slug":"815","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/?p=815","title":{"rendered":"Of Silver and Black Extremes \u2013 At Sea \u2013 [01\/14\/2012]"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Welcome to the first ball of the season. Well of this cruise anyway. The show lounge glittered in its coating of black and silver and so did we.<\/p>\n

As I\u2019ve said before, balls are a job of work. This time though I wasn\u2019t actually involved in the prep work. Because there are no shows before the Grand Balls on this cruise, they decorated during the day instead of at night, which meant I was on library duty while the others were clambering around hanging silver fans and glitter walls. They put the whole thing together in an hour and a half, and it looked truly amazing. I wish I had<\/em> been a part of it.<\/p>\n

As it was, tonight was a princess turnout night for me. Our CD on this cruise insists on full length gowns for the balls, so black chiffon it was, straight to the floor and trailing behind me, with silver accessories glittering in my ears, on my feet and in my hair. My hair has gotten so long now that its length curled equals the length it once was straight (I have to braid it when I sleep, and the tip of the braid touches between my shoulder blades), and there\u2019s not much I can do for it except apply a curling iron and a few bobby pins and hope for the best. Between that and my seldom-worn contact lenses, I had more than one guest come up to me without realizing who I was. I\u2019m never quite sure how to take that \u2013 I mean I certainly don\u2019t look poorly put together during the day\u2026<\/p>\n

Anyway, the night progressed as usual, all staged elegance and glittering smiles. All \u201cproper\u2019 all \u201ccorrect\u201d.<\/p>\n

And then of course, the trailing black gown gave way to the short black cocktail dress, the silver slippers were kicked off for the jazz shoes and I headed upstairs for the after party. There may not have been many of us, but we sent that after party off with a bang, from clinking martini glasses to flaming shots (yes I downed a flaming shot, not something I\u2019m sure I\u2019ll be doing again, but I did it), from the electric slide to hitting the floor with \u2018Shout\u2019 to easing into \u201cLow\u201d (\u2018I can play it\u2019 the DJ says, \u2018but let me mix it in, you have to lead up to that song\u2019).<\/p>\n

There are many people I wish were here on nights like this. Those who top the list know who they are.<\/p>\n

Also, nights like this are ones that I don\u2019t need to drink, (though the little bit of alcohol that\u2019s in my bloodstream will probably help me sleep better) because it\u2019s just a good night, with good friends and good music and a decent outlet for so much of the tension that\u2019s been hanging around me for the last three weeks.<\/p>\n

And I so very much needed it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Welcome to the first ball of the season. Well of this cruise anyway. The show lounge glittered in its coating of black and silver and so did we. As I\u2019ve said before, balls are a job of work. This time … 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":[27,40,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-grand-balls","category-grand-world-voyage-2012","category-theme-events"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s3GtNE-815","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815","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=815"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2330,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815\/revisions\/2330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}