Everywhere we go, it’s the same thing: we run into people
who say “You’re the people from TV!” I
always preen and strut and offer to sign autographs and tell stories and
whatnot. Angela just cringes and hides
in the background, hoping that the people will go away.
I like to think that it’s my dashing, movie-star quality
good looks, or my awesome comedic timing, that attracts attention. But I think it’s mostly because the TV has
three channels: fire safety drills, reruns of things taped during the cruise
(which so far is that game show and our first-day fire safety drill), and a
channel called “Upcoming Fire Safety Drills: what you need to know.”
Oh, and the shopping channel.
Out here at sea, there’s not really anything else to
watch. I’m actually thinking of hosting
a showing of the Newlywed Game, perhaps have people dress up as their favorite
couple, kind of like Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Maybe they can throw things at the screen, too, and boo every time I get
an answer wrong.
This morning was our couple’s massage, part of the romantic
getaway for two package that I’d bought.
I wasn’t really sure what to expect, since I’d never had a massage
before, and since Angela didn’t just want the short massage but rather the
whole magilla massage.
But first, we had to eat, so we forged our way up to the
restaurant for breakfast. We’re in
Glacier Bay today, so it’s a full day on the boat, so there were tons of people
around and lots of pushing and shoving and whatnot. We managed to find a table (spotting both our
good friend the alcoholic and Mr. Grumpy, who was sitting alone and scowling)
and proceeded to eat. Once we’d both
finished, we decided that we were in the mood for another cup of coffee (me)
and another chocolate bun (me, but also Angela).
I ran and got them, knocking over three old ladies, two
maids a-dancing, and a partridge in a pear tree, and just as I sat down I asked
the guy next to me what time it was.
“It’s five to eight,” he said.
“Oh, then we gotta go,” I said. “Sorry, hon.”
“You gonna eat those chocolate buns?” he asked.
“No, you have them.”
“You gonna drink that milk?” he asked.
“No, you can have it.”
“You gonna drink that coffee?” he asked.
“No, you can have it,” I said.
Then Angela and I hurried off, having served the guy his
second course. Halfway to the spa, I
began to smell a trap, and decided if it wasn’t eight when we got there I was
going to go punch that guy in the head.
Alas, it was eight, and soon enough we found ourselves in
the massage chamber. And I was left to
wonder: did Enya set out to record the world’s greatest massage CD, or did it
just turn out that what she recorded was the world’s greatest massage CD?
The massage went just about like massages always go (I
guess), although the heated table made me feel somewhat like one of those hot
dogs in a Quickie Mart on the roller things.
After they’d finished they tried to sell us all sorts of ointments and unguents
and what have you, while you sit there in a towel covered with grease. I don’t know what that does for other people,
but it doesn’t put me in a buying mood.
Soon enough, we were done with the whole “couple’s massage”
thing and ready to go watch some glaciers.
Sometime over the last few days, our boat was boarded by a
gaggle of rangers from Glacier National Park, a breathless group of ninnies who
get overexcited about large sheets of ice that move at literally seven feet per
day. No, really. Here’s a sample of the dialog:
“Over on the right you can see the Mumbledyfordicus Glacier,
which is eight hundred and nonnety-doo feet long and sixty-whompus feet
wide. Its base extends all the way to
the ground, and it’s moving so slowly that sometimes parts of it fall off, but
other times, they don’t. Perhaps we’ll
hear some white thunder from it when pieces of it fall into the highly corrosive
salt water.”
On and on this woman droned, in a voice of breathless wonder
that you typically reserve for babies’ first poopy.
It’s not like we saw a bear wrestling an alligator or
anything, either. It was just big chunks
of ice, with some dirt. Or, if you like,
bit wads of dirt held together by ice.
Yes, yes, I get it, glaciers are big. And cold.
But I still didn’t quite get why everyone crowded the railing and
elbowed old women in the face to snap picture after picture of large chunks of
crud that you could, if you really wanted to, assemble in a biggish freezer.
Perhaps my life in the frozen wasteland of Wyoming has jaded
me to such an event.
The biggest thrill of the whole time came when I lost
Angela. I went upstairs to see if I
could get a better picture of the big chunk of ice, and when I turned around
she was gone. I searched the entire sun
deck for her, but didn’t find her. I
began to get worried, since I had watched the angry crowd swirl enough to know
that it was fully possible somebody jettisoned her to get a better view of yet
another sandy beach, pointed out by the amazing breathless idiot for the
thousandth time.
Thankfully, she reappeared, in the cutest moose toboggan you
ever saw.
“My ears are freezing,” she said.
“Great. Let’s go in.”
“Not yet,” she said. “I
want to see the glacier.”
“We’ll swing by the ice machine,” I said. “I’ve got some crud on my shoes and I’ll
build you model glacier there.”
Alas, she didn’t accept that as a reasonable substitute.
Once we were done glacier watching, we went to grab second
breakfast in the greatest of hobbit traditions.
Unfortunately, we discovered that there were no more chocolate
biscuits. Argh! The clever SOB had taken the last ones from
us, and we didn’t even know!
Second breakfast out of the way (I had sausages, rice,
bacon, a biscuit, a piece of fruit, and two cups of coffee; Angela had
chagrin), we went to…THE TRIVIA GAME.
I was spoiling for a rematch. There were two trivia things back-to-back,
and I was ready to kick some major butt at it.
First up: landmark trivia.
Name these great natural landmarks.
No problem, right?
Well, it’s kind of a problem if their idea of “landmark” is
either:
-Something in Australia
-A photo of a part of the earth from space
That’s it. Nothing
else. Really?
Despite this, Angela and I managed to score 8 out of
20. Far from the best, but respectable
amongst the other teams.
After that, though, it was another “Crazy Trivia” game. And joy of joys, our teammates from the other
day showed up!
Well, not the drunk lady, which was okay. Angela took the pencil, he started reading
the questions, and we were off.
Up first: “How many
academy award nominations did Avatar receive, and how many did it win?”
Ugh. Movie
trivia. I suck at movie trivia.
Question two: “What
won best picture in 2010?”
Oh dear God! Was it
going to be all movie trivia? I was
prepared to leave – there’s nothing worse for me than movie trivia, unless
maybe it’s music trivia from the 50’s and 60’s (which is tonight, which I’m not
going to).
Question three: “What
is the element Sn on the periodic table?”
My heart leapt for joy.
If this was gonna be hard-core nerd trivia, then my bacon was saved!
(It’s Tin, by the way; I’ve always remembered it by calling
it Snubnium)
When it was all said and done, we tied for first with 16
points, with every member of our team having contributed some knowledge along
the way. What a team!
Having finished with that, it was time for lunch (Trivia
makes me hungry). Back up to the
restaurant we go, and I quickly claimed a table when Angela went to get her
food. As I sat, an elderly Japanese man
dressed like an Eskimo asked if he could share our table; I said okay,
whereupon his wife arrived and began yelling at him in Japanese.
“She already has a table,” he said.
“You want to sit here anyways?” I asked as she yelled at
him.
He did, but didn’t want to say so, so off they went to sit
together.
Eventually Angela returned, and I went off to get
lunch. I found all sorts of delicious
things, including stuff on a stick, but when I came back I discovered that
Angela wasn’t alone: she was with our lunch companions from Monday, the two
elderly ladies.
Or at least, one of them.
The one that’s not quite all there.
I mean, she’s a nice lady, but she must have asked us three
times if our trip got cancelled, and what did we win for being on the game
show, and all sorts of other things. It
made for kind of a long lunch.
When social propriety allowed (along with a full belly), we
made a run for it. On the way out I had
to stop to talk to several more adoring fans, including the woman who was watching
the door.
Finally tearing myself away from my throng of adoring fans, I
was off to my next adventure. Given the
high-action, high-octane individual that I am, that adventure turned out to be
a nap.
You know, not for me, but more for Angela, who is now forty.
Once the nap was out of the way, it was time for us to go to
our romantic dinner. I’d paid for this,
along with the massage and some other stuff, as part of our “Romantic Holiday”
package. Oooh-lah-laah!
The free dinner that came with the package was at Le Bistro,
the fancy French restaurant. As anybody
knows, having spent many years over in Europe, I was quite certain that we didn’t
like French food. In fact, it’s fair to
say that of the major countries that can be identified with food, only Yemen
ranks lower for Angela on the food scale.
So I’d come up with a daring plan to get Angela to the
French restaurant: I didn’t tell
her. Whenever she ask, our dialog went something
like this:
“Where’s our special dinner?”
“Somewhere special.”
“But what is it?”
“Special.”
“Never mind.”
See what I did there?
When we came into the restaurant, I knew immediately that
there was going to be trouble. You know
how in fancy restaurants they always have some kind of bread that comes along
with the meal while you wait?
Well, in this one, it was sourdough fish-oil bread with
salmon paste spread that you put on with a knife made out of a fish, all served
on a fish plate with fish water to wash it down with. The only thing that Angela hates more than
fish is Yemeni food.
“I don’t see anything I can eat,” Angela says.
“I’ll make you a deal,” I say. “After dinner, if you don’t find anything you
like, I’ll take you up to the café.”
“Oh, boy. Thanks.”
“No problem!” I said cheerily. “Happy to help.”
“Hello, sir and madam,” the waitress said. “As part of your romance package tonight, you
have a choice of red or white wine.
Would you like-“
“Red,” I said.
“But-“
“Red,” I repeated. “Bring
us red wine.”
She looked at Angela, like I need her permission or
something, but when Angela only shrugged the waitress brought us a bottle of
red wine, a merlot from Chile.
You know how they say after you’ve been married for a long
time you start to resemble each other? I
always thought that was bunk. But
tonight, I learned something important: I have come to resemble Angela in some
ways.
Specifically, in her cheapness.
When the waitress opened the bottle of Merlot, the one that
we received free with the dinner, I decided that it would really be a waste to
drink only one glass. And seeing as how
the waitress poured us two glasses (one each), and I made a big show of being
able to taste it, I figured that I’d just drink both Angela’s glass and my
glass to keep from wasting any wine.
But then, after I’d polished off Angela’s glass and two
refills on my glass, something weird happened: the boat got hit by the most
enormous waves you ever saw in your life.
It was just rocking back and forth!
Boom! Crash! Pow! I
almost fell out of my seat. It was all I
could do to polish off another glass of wine.
After I’d managed to drink ¾ of the bottle, Angela finally
cut me off, giving the waiter the bottle and telling him to take it as far away
from me as possible. By then I was
singing “will you call me sweetheart” and dancing, and I’d not only eaten my
asparagus and her asparagus but the asparagus from the plate of the guy across
the aisle from us who recognized us from the newlywed game (I think I also
signed his napkin, but I’m not so sure).
We had chocolate fondue, too, which was delicious.
Even worse, she spent the whole dinner telling me how it
looked like I was having an allergic reaction to the wine and that my eyes were
swelling up. “Uh-oh,” she’d say. “Looks like you’re getting puffy!”
As I staggered out of the restaurant, the boat tossed and
turned by the terrible storm raging outside, we encountered our good ozzie
friends from Bingo the other night, and sat down to have a nice chat with
them.
Most interestingly, we watched the totally bombed guy
sleeping it off at the bar. “At least I’m
better than him,” I said.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Angela said. “Your eyes are all red and puffy.”
“Aargh!”
We told jokes and laughed and had a good time, until finally
it was late enough that we needed to toddle off to bed.
But I’m still worried about how much the ship is rocking and
rolling. Angela assures me that it’s
okay, but just as a precaution, I’m sleeping in a life jacket.
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