Showing posts with label hot tub. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hot tub. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Day 1 of the Cruise

Right now, there is a couple in front of me dancing in the atrium, probably both like 28 ish, somehow he looks meathead-ish and she looks like she’s done a lot of dancing. Directly in front of me is a table of 4 Chinese people talking in Chinese and laughing about something.

Next to me on the left is another Chinese woman with her feet on a chair, sitting next to her crutches. I can hear the lounge singer, who plays piano and a recorded accompaniment with flutes/drums/what is needed—ooh, that was just trumpets. He sings, currently we are hearing “Fly Me to the Moon.” He is great, sounds great. He looks nothing like his voice. Just saying.

In case you were curious if anywhere is quiet, the answer is no. I can see: 24 people in my line of vision. A bunch more have just entered. I am now leaving the vicinity. This is the night where 0 places are quiet. There are roving humans from New Jersey everywhere, most of them teenagers getting in fights. STIMUL-TRAP!

We met a delightful gentleman from Pennsylvania in the hottub who did not kill us. He is from a town very close to my parents and informed me that Camp Hill, PA is a “big trucking town” and named a bunch of road numbers, because clearly he drives all the time. He is a driver from UPS and has been for 16 years. Apparently, “they are rough on their people.” When asked how Day 1 of his cruise is going, he said “f*cking great.” (I bleep for you Michelle). He then proudly told us he had 2 quarts of rum and 3 [some impressive word] cigars, but that we better get there quick, because the first quart is already half gone (they got on board around 3 p.m., p.s.). He then corrected us on the proper prison recipe for vodka (“slice the potato and put in a little bread, so the yeast activates”). Then he mentioned his “6 f*cking years in the Navy” that taught him how to make bilge wine. I wanted to geek out and talk about bilge wine, but he was terrifying and he did not know he was in a hot tub with 4 actors, a musician, and the musician’s gay brother from San Francisco. We vaguely said “we work on the ship” so he didn’t catch on and skin us and just said “this is the life!” a ton of times.

Also, the visual present from today:
I have no idea what part of the country does this (probably New Jersey), but there is a thing amongst teenage boys to get a) incredibly ripped in the chest region, b) aggressively sculpt their eyebrows—I mean, clearly wax them, and wax them pretty far apart in the middle, and c) get weird, very short haircuts that look like they are from the 50’s or something—almost bald along the bottom hairline, then a very gradual fade. These two jokers had a bunch of designs carved into that gradual fade section. And diamond earrings. They did laps on the first floor with no shirts on and kept getting lost. We walked by and caught them talking about their reps, very concerned if they should do 12 or 16. Fascinating.

There is a lot of the very long wife beater over very baggy basketball shorts look here.

My parents came to visit and check out the ship.

Monday, April 14, 2008

Meatheads and

Meatheads with Hearts

When you go to the hottub, it’s like this: “oh nooooo, there are people in there. Nooooooo.” (very persecuted) Then you get in anyway because you have walked a few city blocks to get there and when you live here, that feels like Commitment. We met 3 guys who looked like doughy Nascar 40 year olds who would be loud and drunk and talk about upsetting things. One guy was bald and had a very crafted/specifically shaved ½ inch beard, one had short hair and a tattoo on his shoulder, 2 were smoking Cuban cigars and all were drinking Coors Light out of a helmet. Heather and I are Smart and Funky Looking. I thought we were dead.

The first thing they said was “are our cigars bothering you” and offered to put them out. They then proceeded to be absurdly friendly and nice, the three of them were on the cruise as a part of the ½ inch beard guy’s 60th birthday. He was being too cool for school about how “yeah I got a cruise for about 20 people in my family to celebrate my birthday” which is kind of hilarious because it is like bragging about how you helped an old lady. They were a father, his son, and his son in law. They wanted to know all about the shows (without seeing them) and one pronounced “Versailles” “Ver-silly’s” which made it sound like a comedy club and not a hilariously decorated huge gaudy dining room. Then the son in law was just too concerned that he was getting smoke in our faces and leaned over the back of the hot tub to puff really fast on the little stump. Two worked for a bank and one worked for a uniform company in Seattle where they have “I call it pissing rain. Never enough to put your wiper blades on so they don’t squeak.” The son in law was subtlely trying to impress his father in law and we all talked about Rancho Cuchamonga in LA and what ports we liked and how Cabo is so fun at night because the uniform company sends all of it’s people down for a weekend once a year and they all go crazy “as crazy as you want to go in public.”

The son also told us not to go snorkeling in Acapulco (which is obvious because the water is a chemical filled dump, but he didn’t know that. It’s like sight seeing in Gary, Indiana. Bold, Mexico! Bold!). He went on a trip on a boat and said “we saw two fish. One was dead and floating on top of the water and the other was a blowfish that he had to go and get. I mean you couldn’t see sh—nothing.” This made me laugh and laugh and laugh. The son in law said he was thinking about taking his daughter to see dolphins but he thought it would scare her.

We went on a royal dolphin excursion yesterday which means we got in a giant pool with dolphins and hung out with them, which is insane. The best part was hugging them because they don’t make any sense and are warm. They said we could hug them as long as we want, but that was a lie because I wanted 10 minutes. They are strange and it is hard to understand that they are not plants or synthetic or will not kill you.

One other note on the meathead chronicles: we ate dinner in the French restaurant (Le Bistro—go figure). All of the waiters came out and started to sing “Let Me Call You Sweetheart” in varying keys with a selection of accents because a hugely ripped Nascar looking guy just proposed to his girlfriend at dinner, with one of their parents. He then kept crying and trying to get it together via deep sighing and rubbing his eyes and nodding. He could not stop rubbing his eyes like a little kid because I think he kept crying, which was very wonderful because he was ripped and had artfully arranged facial hair and an earring (correct me Heather). I mean he kept crying for about 5? 10? minutes and breathing deeply and nodding at people while the cruise staff came over and took photos of him that he will have to pay for later. Solid gold meathead. You are solid gold.