four days, forty dollars

Last summer, I vowed I would never work on cruise ships again. Boring. Had lost the appeal. Didn't get the same perks we used to. Lot of work for very little money. Just not worth it, ultimately. I decided to quit while I was still ahead, somewhat.

So of course, when Princess emailed in March and asked if I could work a weekend "repositioning" cruise in May, I said YES!

BECAUSE-- Only four days, one to embark, two at sea, and then fly home... Los Angeles to Vancouver... earn a little extra cash for summer... be at sea, which I LOVE... earn some frequent flyer miles and fly for free... get to buy Canadian Wunderbars in the Vancouver airport... keep myself on the Princess books (in the books?) just in case I decided I DID want to work more cruises in the future... and get to wear my sweet navy-pants-and-turquoise-polo uniform, again. AGAIN.

Guess what, though? I was right the first time. NOT WORTH IT. 11-hour days, $40 per day and a buffet in the Crew Mess just isn't enough to compensate for puking 3-year-olds and being at the beck and call of teenagers needing to check out a new Playstation game. Working in the kids and teens program is better than a lot of jobs on the ship, but... yeah no.

There WERE, however, some bonus perks nonetheless. There was the excitement when I first got on... it IS a pretty cool and unusual thing to do... the fact that I got an officer's cabin this time with portholes! PORTHOLES!... a great cabinmate, and a lot of great views and things that make me happy. Here are some of them:

cabin porthole view of the cruise ship terminal in San Pedro.

Which is a dump, but through a porthole? ...AWESOME.
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porthole view mid-day, going north up the Pacific Coast.

Somewhat rough seas, fun for me and great to sleep during,

but not when it means we have to deal with kid-puke in the Fun Zone.
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double-porthole view at dusk. I really, really love portholes.

I don't mind cabins without them, since I prefer complete and

utter darkness when sleeping, but to get to watch the sea

go by anytime I want--? Special Treat, for sure.
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hanging out in my window-seat (I decided), wearing my uniform. Startled my

cabinmate when she realized I was behind the curtain. What.
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crew stairways. Markedly different than passenger stairways, but cool.

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crew main thoroughfare, nicknamed the M-1 (which won't make any

sense unless you're from England, or also crew, of course)
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This was the first thing I saw when I walked into the Teen Center, where I

would end up spending half my working time... and therefore happily. Sigh. Daniel...
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crew deck. I love to be out there, whether sun or rain or, in this case, fog
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crew pool. Covered. Sad. :(
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Canadian teens at the Mocktail competition. Ohhh, teenagers. Most

fun I had all cruise, though. Well, "working"-fun.
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Indoor Lotus Spa pool and hot tubs, site of the Farewell (after 2 1/2 whole days)

Teen Hot Tub party. Fortunately, these were marching band kids.
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very cold windy deck on my way 'home' from work. There's another cruise

ship off in the distance there, which is always comforting as potential rescue

in the chance we hit an iceberg. Which has happened to me. Albeit in Alaska,

but it happened. (another story for another time)
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best for last...

I love love love flying. Where else do you get to see clouds like this?

Oh and by the way, I am done with working on ships. Again.

JUSTICE

...is about to be served! Or hopefully sometime very soon!

MY PASSPORT WAS FOUND in the possession of a man picked up for car theft!!!! I was tracked down by a detective through my brother (uh.. apparently, I hadn't filled out the "please keep these entries up to date" contact info section of the passport??) this afternoon and I just went to pick it up-- the man who had it is in custody, and I saw his picture-- he is a scary scary looking man. I said to the detective, "No, I don't know him... but he doesn't look very kind". She said "He's not". Gross and scary that he (or his friends/partners in crime) were in our house.

BUT-- how amazing is it that they actually have a LEAD, then, on who could have burglarized our house! If it's not him, this dude MUST have some info to share. But the fact that they also found car keys on him for the same make of cars as Eva's and Erin's, gives some pretty solid evidence! (and lets them breathe easier! Once a car thief, always a car thief, after all... it could have been just a matter of time before he decided to come take theirs...)

HAH HAH HAH, thief-man!!! I hope you rot behind bars, at least for a while. And I hope that I don't have to go into the Witness Protection Program to keep myself safe when you get out. Haven't exactly gone to a line-up yet or testified against him in court as he gives me Pit of Hell looks from across the room and memorizes my face, but you never know.

AND-- I got my PASSPORT back!! Never mind that I just picked up my new one, yesterday... or that, now that I look at it, all those stamps/visas aren't as great as I remember them, huh... but-- I GOT IT BACK!! And it didn't get sent to the National Passport Center, where it would have been destroyed and not returned to me. Good thing he/they took it, actually, the detective said that the only thing with any identification on it when they searched his house was my passport and two pieces of paper with my name on it... how would they ever have known to connect him with us?? And hopefully-- HOPEFULLY-- we'll be able to track down some of our stolen stuff, especially Erin's laptop!!

HAH. Seriously hope he rots, and/or rehabilitates. By the look of his face in the mugshot, though, he has NOT been reading my stolen scriptures.

Sooooo grateful.... a lot to be thankful for, today... :)

I'm no Tyra Banks, but...

On this gorgeous stretch of raw coastline up the central coast of California, there's a disgusting infestation of elephant seals. At first they're kinda cute, little content smiles and furry pelts and all, and then you get a whiff of the smell (stench) and hear the braying of angry males, and the romance is just gone.

Fully entertaining to watch, though. Check out this dude trying soooo hard

to drag his gut up the beach--

Stacy and I had spring break the same week, so we spent a few days in the central coast area, visiting Solvang, San Luis Obispo and surrounding areas, including Hearst Castle in San Simeon. Near the castle is this beach, where a bajillion elephant seals congregate for some unknown reason (baffling to scientists, too) and about a gazillion tourists come to observe, standing behind a protective clothesline barrier. And take a bunch of photos of a bunch of fat seals.

I think I'm going to title this one "Friends Forever" and send it out as a greeting card to all of you, at least those of you who are my friends. Because nothing says friendship like lying there fat and happy in the sun, spooning face to foot. And smelling like elephant seal poo.

Or this one might be a better depiction (if I were to name the seals on the card), because some of you are kinda mouthy.

but now, the real purpose of this blog:

ELEPHANT SEAL POSE CONTEST 2009

Here I am doing my best impersonation of an elephant seal. Pretty spot-on, I'd say.

Here's Stacy being an excellent sport. I said, "Get down

on the ground and lie there like an elephant seal," and she did.

That's a great traveling buddy... and quite a good imitation of

those seals. Maaayyybe a little better than mine.

I think the big winner, though, is definitely this little seal here.

He did a freakishly accurate imitation of this beached tourist I photographed in

St. Maarten a few years ago:

I mean, WOW. UN - CANNY. How did he know??

But who am I to decide who wins?? Take my poll and vote for your favorite!

(If there was another poll to take, asking "who is more annoying, Tyra Banks or

an elephant seal", I would vote Tyra Banks, btw. Ugh.)

the new It Girl

... is DANA!!

It's no secret that I love It's-its, the San Francisco Treat (not to be confused with Rice-a-Roni) that is a delicious scoop of ice cream, mint-flavored if you're lucky, sandwiched between two thin oatmeal cookies and enrobed in a thin chocolate coating, and frozen to perfection. If you've never had one, you're missing out, and you've probably not participated in one of our yearly treks to Yosemite, because that's when we always get them-- they ain't low-fat, but you toooootally deserve one after a 14-mile hike.

So, really I only eat them once or twice a year (depending on how many times I go to Yosemight)... which means, maybe my tender love for them IS a secret... maybe I've only ever once mentioned them on this blog... and they are super-hard to find here in the Southland... but still, somehow DANA KNEW. And what did she do??

She brought over a "Sorry you got robbed" gift to us of precious, rare It's-it(s)!! How much do we love her???

(by the way, I didn't get a whole package and Eva just one... the package was a 3-pack, one for each of us, Eva is just really piggy and wanted to eat hers right away, never mind the photo.)

.

Maybe if the robbers come back, we can give them a "sorry the 10 pairs of sunglasses you took were crap!" gift. Oh, but again-- don't come back. Unless you want a punch to the face. Etc.

IMPORTANT NOTE, by the way--

for those worried parties... my signed Robert Pattinson photo

was NOT taken, fortunately it was in another drawer. Whew!!

Addendum to earlier post

Apparently, honesty is crap. And now is a really good time to use my swear words about a certain two or three people out there in the world:

because those BASTARDS BURGLARIZED OUR HOUSE!!

A note to these burglars or others hoping to profit: Don't come back. All we had was crap anyway, and there's nothing of worth left. You already took my passport and scriptures. Bastards. (Is it wrong to put those two words close to each other? Probably)

I also blame Stacy. I came home to a broken front window, glass on the ground, and this note from the police--

while she was outside snoozing on the hammock, oblivious.



 Until I ran inside FREAKING OUT, seeing everything ransacked and banging on the window "WE WERE ROBBED! WE WERE ROBBED!" and then forgetting to let her inside because I was pacing back and forth from room to room like a mouse trying to find the cheese in a maze. Thanks, Stace.

So.... here it is a few hours later, and here's the end result:

TAKEN:

-my Scriptures (my little ones, the kind they don't make anymore... SUPER sad about that)

-my passport and my three really cool passport wallets. This might be the worst-- I had a "Kingdom of Cambodia" huge visa sticker in there, come ON!! Sooo many memories, so many stamps from so many countries. Plus I need it in two weeks, oh shoot.

-my iPod touch that my dad gave me for Christmas

-my super-cool and expensive leather duffel bag that I bought for myself for my birthday gift last year

-bunch of other stuff

My roommates lost cameras, a laptop, a gym bag (what??), and a bunch of costume jewelry (hah hah hah, suckahs! Try to sell THAT!), and some other stuff. It's pretty sad.

REALLY SAD, TOO-- they busted the stained glass window my Grandpa had made. RAT bastards.

On the up side...

NOT taken:

-my school digital SLR (I thought they'd taken it; it was the one day I didn't take it to school with me, and it was on the floor by my bedroom door... but when the police came again, they appeared to have dropped it in the hall!

-my jewelry (all fake anyway--) --my mini jewelry box was dropped by the front door

-any other thing of worth, including my other cameras

-my LAPTOP-- I hide it every time I go on a trip anyway, and am always mocked for it... and my daily hiding apparently did the trick today to, BIG PHEW on that-- that would have killed me, there's so much of worth on that.

ALSO  on the up side--

The locksmith that came tonight was really hot, and he had a really sexy Eastern European accent, couldn't quite place it but it sounded Russian/Ukrainian. He said his name was Mike, THAT was probably a lie--  I'm sure it was something sexier like Yuri or Serge. Maybe Sascha. 

(I'm holding the emergency crowbar/hatchet that I keep under my bed in case of earthquakes, and/or intruders. It will definitely be clutched in my hand under my pillow, tonight. Along with an array of my five largest kitchen knives just a duck-and-roll away, on the other side of my bed)

And we're all hanging in there pretty well, we've got some pretty good fodder for jokes, or at least a good anecdote in the near future every time someone asks, "Hey, what's new?"

Eva's facebook status says that she would like to find whoever did this, lick her hand and slap them. In the interim, Stacy was a good proxy (since she didn't do a very good job of guarding us, sleeping on the hammock)

Erin's facebook status says that our house was broken into today and she was robbed, thankfully not of her virtue. But she did lose her computer and keeps trying to snag Eva's, now.

My facebook status mentions that, according to the policemen, apparently random strangers DON'T call up the station and say, "hey, was anyone robbed today? Can I contribute some cash to them?", so, I'm figuring we're going to have a benefit concert here pretty soon, or maybe just publish a benefit CD. "Feed the World"??  Soooo last century. 

In the meantime, I might put up a sign in the front yard that says "hey, return my scriptures, jerks", and to help up with possible future self-defense, we'll be watching this video daily until memorized.

(click here)

Seriously. Click there :)