There's No Place Like Home

We arrived home from our 34-day vacation yesterday evening, shortly after eight o’clock. It didn’t take long to recognize that we were back in the real world. Our daughters forgot to open the doggie door, so our beloved pets presented us with welcome home gifts number one and number two right in the middle of our dining room floor. Our girls also left us a sink full of dishes. Plus, the garbage pails have been at the curb since at least Monday, and for all we know, the trash cans might have been on the street the entire month we were away.

How Long Will This Be Going On?

“Kellie, how long until you’ll be ready to go?” I inquired.

“I just have to brush my teeth, get dressed, and put on some makeup,” she replied.

I clenched my teeth and counted to ten.  I’ve lost count of the number times that I’ve asked Kellie a simple question, often requiring a minimal but meaningful answer, such as yes or no, or “I’ll be ready in five minutes, dear,” only to get some useless, non responsive reply that requires me to be clairvoyant to figure out what she’s trying to tell me. Even if I could see inside Kellie’s mind, I would never venture a look.  Who knows what could happen to me? Medusa might reside there.

Kellie gets a cruise ship for that?

Day three after my fall at the hot tub aboard the cruise ship, Adventure Of The Seas, my elbow and forearm are still swollen and tender. It could be just bruising or it could be an infection; the ship’s Columbian doctors are not sure yet. I’m hope that their training is as rigorous as in the United States. I’m guessing that even if it’s a little substandard, they can probably handle a few stitches and an infection. They have me taking antibiotics, which should keep the situation under control. Still, I’m a little worried.

A Series Of Unfortunate Events

I can tell that some people, such as my younger sister Dina, are a little envious about all the traveling Kellie and I do.  Dina tries valiantly to mask her emotions, but my sister’s words betray her true feelings. I can’t tell you exactly what she said since those of you who are not acclimated to the idiosyncrasies of her speech might misinterpret her meaning.  For instance, when she says, “f#ck off and get a job,” that’s actually a sibling term of endearment in Dina speak.

I'm not negative, I just like to plan for contingencies.

Kellie is always complaining that I’m too negative; I don’t agree.  It’s just that after almost 30 years in the navy, I’ve been conditioned to consider everything that can possibly go wrong in any situation and then prepare a plan for every contingency.  So, when Kellie wanted to hike to the bottom of the gorge in Ronda, Spain, today, I suggested that conditions might not be favorable for that sort trek, considering the increased probability for mudslides and flash floods due to the rain, not to mention the general discomfort that comes with being cold, wet, and irritated. Kellie wouldn’t listen to any of it, we were going hiking.

Baby You Can Drive My Car

Kellie is not timid behind the wheel, as evidenced by the number of times she receives the middle finger salute while driving. She will go the wrong way down a one-way street if it is quicker; for her, stop signs are merely suggestions, and to get ready for driving in places where they drive on the left, Kellie will practice by driving on the wrong side of the street at home, which explains a good number of the special hand gestures just mentioned. She can also whip around blind corners on the precarious cliff roads of Italy’s Amalfi Coast without careening to her death, but if you ask her to drive through the narrow, building lined streets of an old European City, she turns into a quivering bowl of jello. 

Love and Marriage

It seems that every ship hosts their own version of the famous Newlywed Game.  On Royal Caribbean’s Adventure of the Seas it’s called Love and Marriage. They select three couples: one married less than a year; another married between 10 and 25 years; and for the third pair, they choose the oldest couple who are still able to climb the stairs to the stage.  Kellie wanted to play; I was not so eager. I tried to get her cruise husband to take my place, but Kellie insisted this was a job for the real husband, so I defaulted to my rote vacation response: “Whatever you desire, dear.

Topless Night

(Today’s post is a continuation of Monday’s story. Please read that post first if you haven’t seen it already.)

What happens at sea . . .

Kellie’s Cruise husband, Ron, wasn’t the only person to make significant sacrifices in our unsuccessful attempt to win the The Quest.  Susan took one for the team too. Just before the game started, we met a couple, Carl and Susan, who joined our losing effort. They had sailed on Royal Caribbean before and they came to game prepared.  Susan had a bag filled with some of the items she thought we might need: women’s underwear, a bra, the ship’s daily paper, kitting needles, and other assorted items.  Still, there were a few other necessary items that she didn’t have: dentures, a body piercing at a location other than her ear, and fruit. Luckily, the cruise director was sometimes rather liberal about what he accepted in satisfaction of a given task, and when he requested that we bring him two pieces of fruit, my team was given full credit when I appeared in front of him clutching my crotch.

Kellie's Cruise Husband

One of the things we like best about cruising is the opportunity to meet new people. During dinner, Kellie and I always request to share a table and we’ve made several new friends: John and Judy, from Canada; Mike and Barbara from Texas; Ron and Richard from Oregon; and the three traveling sisters, Joy, Toy, and Thelma from Missouri. 

Not What I Imagined

Whenever we travel, there always seems to be at least one nude beach somewhere along our journey. Like most people, and by most people I mean most men, I’m often a little intrigued about a visit to the naked shoreline.  However, the reality of a nude beach never lives up to the fantasy.  In my imagination, a nude beach is packed with hard bodied, athletic young women, skin glistening with suntan oil, playing volleyball in a wild Playboy mansion party atmosphere. In reality, the sand is strewn with bloated, lethargic, refugees from a cruise ship buffet who look like they fell overboard and washed ashore, sunburned in areas that were never meant to see the light of day, their body parts having long ago surrendered to gravity.  Nearly all who are naked should be clothed and, in some cases, tented.