Carinval Glory - NYC to New England... A Memoir

[bragstarr]

I assure you, Delta Hotel is Vietnamese.:cool: In the racial/ethnic sense, he is 100% Vietnamese. But he was born here, in the U.S., to parents that had escaped the fall of Saigon in 1975, and had become American citizens. So he is 100% American, of course. That Cambodian reference he made in today's post was slightly random.

 

You see, that's what made the Don Ho link too perfect!:D:p So glad you enjoyed the Vietnamese pop-crooner music. Always glad to be of service.:):cool:

 

It's really too bad I don't know either of you in person, because you are as warped as I am...and I mean that in a good way!:eek:

[rnvattes]

Oy!:eek:

 

He calls me thoughtful, thanks me, and slaps me with that hateful moniker all in the same cyber-breath.:mad::rolleyes:

 

The very thought that crossed my own mind....

 

{{{{hug}}}} to you SB!

[rnvattes]

"Just for informational purposes, the menus are changing on the ships. I just got off the Glory last week, which now has the new menu. It has a "Today" side (left side) which is food choices that change daily, the right side is the "Everyday" side, which I am assuming by the name, means it's there every day.;) The "Everyday" side has the vegetarian indian dish listed. Maybe they had enough requests they decided to offer it to the masses!"

 

 

 

 

 

LIKE! I have never had Indian food, and would like to try it on our next cruise. But having never tried it before, certainly didn't want to make the request to have it brought to me nightly, risking wasting it. This way I can try it once or twice as the mood strikes.

[rnvattes]

Oh, unfortunately, it is not over, as I have just recently taken a break from cleaning your house and rearing your children to sit down at my computer and have seen your charming post...

 

 

 

 

My Darling Husband,

 

 

As you well know, it's about the intent with which the name is used. It’s not that one part of my chosen (admittedly silly) screen-name is offensive as a single word.

 

You originally called me Beef in the derisive tone (yes, I did hear your tone of voice in your post:cool:) which one might utter a different ‘b’ word. You remember well, you were quite pleased with yourself for “Eat it, BEEF!” You did it to rile me; and it worked, as you knew it would. Every time hence you have called me Beef has been to achieve the same adolescent goal. So for you to now be “wondering” why being called just that one part of my name offends me is yet another attempt to similarly rile. You’re not confused, you’re just sniping. As your long-suffering wifey, I am simply an easy target for you, as well as your daily target of choice. And really, the “any rational explanation” question? When have you ever thought me rational? Dork.

 

Tonight I’m gonna leave your yesterday’s worked-all-day-and-night-in-them, stinky socks on your pillow instead of the nice, clean sleep-socks since that gesture got me such a lovely reward from my loving DH.

 

BTW, shouldn’t you be moving servers or setting up firewalls or some such geek stuff that pays for our cruises instead of attacking your thoughtful, sweet, loving wife on a public online forum?

 

Do you really think all these people want to witness your shameful, continued, cruel attacks on your meek, devoted helpmate? They are here for the tedious details of a cruise they weren’t on, as experienced by people they don’t know. Get over yourself and get back to work.

 

Always,

Your Beef

 

Edited to add: I have no idea what I did to make his signature appear as a seperate quote, sorry.

 

:p :D :p

[rnvattes]

Sorry for the continued delay, folks.:o Due to DH having to work all day and well into the night for the last three days (yes, he's back at work again today), he just hasn't had enough time or functioning brain cells left with which to write. He did get some done last night, though. And once he gets home tonight, he'll be finishing that chunk and we'll get it proofed and posted ASAP.

 

In the meantime,

 

you know the drill...

 

 

I bet you didn't even click on that this time, did you?:cool:

 

If you did, Hi!:) You're new here, aren't you?

 

 

OMW! Such a wonderful way to start the day -- laughter abounds!

[rnvattes]

I assure you, Delta Hotel is Vietnamese.:cool: In the racial/ethnic sense, he is 100% Vietnamese. But he was born here, in the U.S., to parents that had escaped the fall of Saigon in 1975, and had become American citizens. So he is 100% American, of course. That Cambodian reference he made in today's post was slightly random.

 

You see, that's what made the Don Ho link too perfect!:D:p So glad you enjoyed the Vietnamese pop-crooner music. Always glad to be of service.:):cool:

 

Winner, winner, chicken dinner! Read the comment about Hotel ( :p ) being Cambodian and actually said out loud -- I believe he is Vietnamese

 

Score one for the RN!

[ShakyBeef]

It's really too bad I don't know either of you in person, because you are as warped as I am...and I mean that in a good way!:eek:

 

Awww, Robin, that's the sweetest thing anyone has ever said to me.:o Thank you.

[ShakyBeef]

 

Oh? No… no, she didn’t actually knock some kid in the face with the car door. That was just an example of something that could happen, not something that did happen. And if this little scenario did happen, it’s much more likely to involve me instead of Wifey, and the kid’s more likely to be a teenage boy, and his mouth would most likely be at car-door height because his pants were too loose and fell around his ankles causing him to trip and fall near my car, and he wouldn’t see my car door coming at his face because his girly-stupid hair style is swept across his eyes which renders him legally blind in 38 states. But like I said, none of this ever happened.

 

This is one of the funniest passages yet! LOL as I am reading this. :D

 

Were you picturing Justin Bieber getting whacked in the face with a car door? 'Cause I was.:cool:

[Delta Hotel]

Awww, Robin, that's the sweetest thing anyone has ever said to me.:o Thank you.

 

Hey! what about that time I said that you kind of look like your mother minus 10 years? That was pretty sweet, wasn't it?

[ShakyBeef]

The very thought that crossed my own mind....

 

{{{{hug}}}} to you SB!

 

THANK you! See, DH, it wasn't just me!

 

Thanks for the support, rnvattes. It helps just to know I've got witnesses to the terrible emotional abuse I take from this man. This whole thread may end up being evidence for my justifiable homicide defense. After the jury sees the heartless way he routinely treats me, I'm sure they'll let me off.

 

Of course, I'll have to have this particular post scrubbed from the record before it's presented in court.:cool:

[Delta Hotel]

Hey! what about that time I said that you kind of look like your mother minus 10 years? That was pretty sweet, wasn't it?

 

Sorry, sorry... I am mistaken. I said that about your sister, not you. My fault.

[ShakyBeef]

Hey! what about that time I said that you kind of look like your mother minus 10 years? That was pretty sweet, wasn't it?

 

Oh my gosh, see what I mean?!

 

Your timing as always, is perfect, Darling.:rolleyes:

 

THANK you! See, DH, it wasn't just me!

 

Thanks for the support, rnvattes. It helps just to know I've got witnesses to the terrible emotional abuse I take from this man. This whole thread may end up being evidence for my justifiable homicide defense. After the jury sees the heartless way he routinely treats me, I'm sure they'll let me off.

 

Of course, I'll have to have this particular post scrubbed from the record before it's presented in court.:cool:

[leaski]

You guys are just too funny!!! Thanks so much for the daily laughs!!!:D

[ShakyBeef]

You guys are just too funny!!! Thanks so much for the daily laughs!!!:D

 

You're welcome. It helps to know that my suffering at DH's hands is bringing amusement to someone other than just DH.

[U2FanHFX]

As she puts the bottle into the “Solar Compactor”, I listen carefully. It’s a plastic bottle, so I knew that I wouldn’t be hearing the metal crushy sound or the glass-crushy sound, but I was hoping for something in the crushy-sound family. We heard nothing… very sad. I listened for a few seconds, then kept waiting, hoping that it would slowly register the new bottle and begin its mini-solar-powered-crushing-mayhem. Didn’t happen. We walked away with a defeated, miserable feeling. Well, I think that might have just been me. They all seemed chipper enough.

 

I am from Halifax (enjoying your review btw as we are on Glory in Feb) and can tell you the solar compactor part is for the trash only. Sorry to burst your bubble.

[Delta Hotel]

I am from Halifax (enjoying your review btw as we are on Glory in Feb) and can tell you the solar compactor part is for the trash only. Sorry to burst your bubble.

 

[head in hands with eyes closed] I was so close... so close...

[usafchick1980]

Yes, it should. My girls know that if we didn't "chepper" each other (a yiddish word that mean to nudge, or bother in a loving way) something would be wrong. An outsider would think we bicker - but it is definitely not. It is more like a comedy routine once we get going!:D

 

Good..so my fiance and I are not the only ones. My family always says would you guys stop fighting. We really aren't. Just "Loving Bantor"

[usafchick1980]

Sigh.

 

Don't you know it's the editor's job to make sure it is quality work the grunt is putting out?

 

Hoping something is posted soon to read... I'm working all night, and it's ... well I've got some time (we don't use the "q" word around here, or it suddenly isn't anymore)

 

You aren't some kind of public servant as in Police..Fire or EMS are you? I am a 911 Dispatcher and we consider the "q" word a swear word around here.

[rnvattes]

You aren't some kind of public servant as in Police..Fire or EMS are you? I am a 911 Dispatcher and we consider the "q" word a swear word around here.

 

I'm a labor and delivery and postpartum nurse. Use the Q word and 1) eye daggers will be shot at you from all around the room and 2) the bus with laboring women and women with pregnancy related emergencies will pull up, and all hell will break loose

 

:D

 

Definitely a "swear word"

[bragstarr]

More! More! More! Waiting for the latest update from my new demented friends! I'm leaving two weeks from Monday and I hope this is finished by then!

 

ShakyBeef, this odyssey definitely could be used in a court of law as an excuse for doing something to your DH...

[usafchick1980]

Well..I just finished page 19..this is the second day in a row that everyone in the room here at work looked at me like I was crazy as I have tears streaming down my face..but so worth it. I LOVE this review/memoir

[CRUISE4JANE]

OK maybe better than The Guiding Light... Ooooh that was cancelled too.:pCome on Delta keep it going, your FANS are here and waiting.:D

 

I think this review should be called Days of Our Lives. That one is still on................at least for now :eek:.

[Delta Hotel]

For background filler/noise, the comedy club plays contemporary music. On the left side of the stage is a little blonde girl that’s dancing on the stage. Her parents/legal guardians/kidnappers are sitting just off-stage clapping and encouraging her. My girls both see this girl (about 6-7 years old) and have the look of, “Uh… is she allowed to do that? Because if we’re allowed to, I’d like to do that.” I look around the mostly empty room and don’t see any harm in letting the girls dance on the stage with the other little girl.

 

As the rest of us wait in the comedy club for Wifey to return, we sit and watch the girls stand at the edge of the stage. They’re just standing there because they want to go onto the stage and dance or play, but they’re afraid to. The 9-year-old periodically looks up at the sparse crowd in the room, and wonders if they’re all going to be watching her. Whether they actually look at her on stage or not, doesn’t matter… she thinks they will, so she freezes. The 5-year-old doesn’t care so much about the crowd of people in the room, but rather waits for the other little girl on the stage to notice her, and (I’m guessing) give her some kind of invitation to come play with her.

 

I see both of them standing there waiting, and I try to break them out of their temporary spell. [Fun Daddy voice] “Hey, will one of you go up there and do one of your ballet moves? I want to take a picture of you on stage!” The 5-year-old looks at me, and decides that what I’ve just said qualifies as “permission” to go on stage. She jumps up there and begins dancing.

 

Her dancing is heavily choreographed, and doesn’t really match up with the modern, fast-paced music that’s playing. After a few seconds, I realize that she’s performing the only dance that she really knows – the ballet routine that she most recently learned for her dance recital a couple of months earlier. It’s cute, and I get a little teary watching her dance on stage, performing the dance that she learned for her recital… the recital that she didn’t get to participate in because of a family trip that was planned a year earlier.

 

Both of our girls went to their ballet lessons last year, practicing for a recital that they knew they would never dance in. Here is my 5-year-old girl on stage now, performing her recital just for me. She looks me in the eye through every careful move, and is clearly concentrating on her moves so much that she’s unable to smile or frown. The 9-year-old has sat down next to Mom and Dad, and they’re talking about something else. For just a few seconds, it feels like everyone in the room has disappeared, and it’s just me and my 5-year-old ballerina. I take a deep breath and try to take a picture or two so that I don’t forget the moment.

 

 

 

These are (by far) not some of my better pictures, but they’re two of the few that came out clear. I wasn’t ready to take pictures, despite the fact that I told her to go on stage for the expressed purpose of taking a picture. By the time I had thought to begin adjusting settings on my camera, she had stopped dancing.

 

Daughter #2 comes back to me with a smirk and says, “OK, I’m tired of that now,” and stands beside me. We sit and wait for a short while longer, and Wifey returns from the restroom. She briefly tells us of the round-about journey that she took in order to find a restroom. The nearest restrooms to the comedy club are in an unlikely place – right off of an elevator lobby around the corner. Apparently Wifey had walked back toward the Casino and Salmon Sushi bar to find one.

 

Right as we’re getting up and preparing to leave the comedy club, a small Carnival employee comes by and tells us that the children cannot stay for the next show. We nod and smile, and tell him that we’re leaving, and not staying for the next show. He nods and smiles back.

 

We leave the comedy club and walk into the nearby elevator lobby (where the restrooms are) and stand there for a few seconds while trying to decide if we want to go up, down, across, or perhaps just stand in the elevator lobby. While we’re standing here, Daughter #1 notices that this is the same elevator lobby that we’ve been in several times. Right next to where we’re standing is the stairwell with the glass window that lets you look into the White Heat dance club. Through the slightly tinted glass, Daughter #1 sees teens and pre-teens dancing and having fun, so she wanders closer to the window.

 

Mom, Dad, Wifey, and I are still discussing what to do next. I’m not really in this conversation, but I’m standing here half-listening for any suggestions that I might strongly object to such as, “Hey, let’s go up to Deck 10 and sit outside in the cool breeze for a while”. This is something I would object to. Rather than participate in this conversation, the majority of my attention is on the girls. I’m watching the 5-year-old to make sure she doesn’t run off, get hurt, or maybe step in front of someone that doesn’t see her, causing an accident. I’m also watching the 9-year-old staring wistfully into the window at the “big kids”. Every 5 or 10 seconds, she glances back over her shoulder to make sure that we don’t walk off without her.

 

 

During our conversation in the elevator lobby, Wifey and I mention that we stopped by the photo gallery earlier and found our pictures. Mom and Dad perk up and say that they want to go see the pictures of the girls, and seeing as how Wifey and I already know where they are in the racks, we decide to go back to the photo gallery.

 

We all walk forward on Deck 5 through the casino and to the shops surrounding the atrium lobby. We take the curved staircase down one level to Deck 4 where the photo gallery is. We point out some of our pictures to Mom and Dad, and the girls try to spot our pictures before we point them out. After a minute or two of looking at pictures, we all decide to split up, and head back to our cabins. It’s almost 10PM and the girls have had a long day in Saint John… bah… I’m not fooling anyone – the girls have no idea what time it is and they’re not showing signs of fatigue, but I’m freakin’ tired.

 

We mosey back home for the night. I drag my tired body (part of which is covered with shiny, ribbed socks) into the cabin and go through the motions of undressing enough to lie down on the bed. We find our new towel-friend on the bed as usual.

 

 

For the next 10 to 15 minutes, we all change out of our evening wear and into our jammies, squeak-squeak our hands, brush our teeth, and whatever else we do to get ready for bed. Wifey turns on the television to see if there’s anything interesting on. Much to our surprise, we find the movie “Tangled” on television! I would’ve never guessed!

 

By now, I’m sitting on my side of the bed, wearing my t-shirt, lounge pants, and sleep socks, leaning up against the wall, with my laptop making backups of the pictures and videos that I’ve taken today. The girls have finished brushing their teeth and come over to my side of the bed for their inspection. Most nights after brushing their teeth, they come to me to have their teeth inspected.

 

They stand (almost at attention) in front of me, look up at a 45 degree angle and show their teeth. I inspect their teeth for plaque and other stuff. If I find any plaque or stuff on any of their teeth, I send them back to brush their teeth again. This process sometimes results in them brushing their teeth 3 and 4 times in a single night, but tonight, they’ve both done a good job and all they get is a kiss on the cheek and a, “Good job” from me. I return to backing up my pictures.

 

The girls are finished getting ready for bed, and they’ve both climbed up onto the “top bunk”, nestled into the blankets, and are watching “Tangled” for the 10th time… this week. Wifey is ready for bed as well, and she’s on the bed next to me reading the Fun Times for tomorrow, and doing her nightly planning for the next day.

 

All is going well, and the night is beginning to settle down. And then, I hear the sound that I’ve been dreading. It’s the sound that I had forgotten about for almost a full day. Only about 23.5 hours earlier, I was holding in the kind of rage and anger which might lead some people to commit homicide, murder, or even kill someone. Yes, I know they’re all the same – thanks for not pointing that out. The reason I used all three is that I didn’t want to give too many choices to the “some people” that I was referring to. I’m trying to make a clear point here, which would only be diluted if I said, “which might lead some people to homicide, drinking, or throwing something… really hard!”

 

The sound that I hear is a slamming door… it’s… “The Neighbors”. They’re back in their room now. Each night, we notice them come back late at night, seemingly just to torment us and all of the people that share a wall, floor, or ceiling with them. Tonight’s next-door-neighbor extravaganza has all of the normal festivities, including slamming children against walls, one screaming boy, one “T – yler” alternating between crying about nothing and then screaming about his mother not paying attention to his crying-about-nothing. A new addition to this evening’s “party in a thin-walled box” is the father’s loud rendition of “Who let the dogs out?” and several notable occasions of, “WHO’S THE BEST DAD EVER?!” yelled at full volume. Right… no mistaking that one. I think that even if he had placed a pillow over his face and yelled this line at the same volume, I would have still clearly understood every word. He’s apparently that good of a Dad, that it needed to be known on Deck 4.

 

I sigh, set my laptop down on the bed, swing my feet out from under the turned-down sheets and blankets, and carefully set them on the floor, making sure not to step on anything that might snag my sleep socks. I trudge over to the phone on the desk and pick up the receiver. I hold it for a long second, sigh, hang my head a little and dial Guest Services.

 

[Romanian accent] “Guest Services…” the woman answers almost cheerfully.

[Monotonous voice] “Hi. I’m calling to report my neighbors… again. They’re yelling and banging on the walls again, and it sounds like they’re trying to kill their children.”

“Yes, Sir. Are you calling about cabin 12-37?”

“Yes, I believe that’s the number.”

“I will contact security and ask them to visit the room. I believe they’re already in that area. If the disturbance does not stop in a few minutes, please call back.”

“Thank you, I will.”

 

I hang up the phone slowly so that I don’t express any obvious anger in front of the girls. Wifey is now standing near the foot of our bed looking at me and listening to the noise next door at the same time.

 

“What did they say?” Wifey asks.

“They’re sending security. Should be here soon.”

 

I trudge back to the bed, sit down, swing my feet back into the blankets and sheets, and slide down into the bed while I pull the blanket and sheet up to my chest. Realizing that my laptop is still on the middle of the bed, I shut the screen and pick it up with my right hand, then set it in the little cabinet in my night-table and leave the door to the cabinet partially open. I lie my head down on my pillow and wonder what’s going to happen when security gets to the door… but I never find out. I’m out for the night.

[crusing_guy]

Thanks for the new installment.....I was about to go into withdrawls....I really enjoy your writing style......I can't wait to hear if you ever see the neighbors......

[atravellingman]

DD (darling daughter) and I are going on our third annual Carnival Canada run in about 10 days. I am enjoying every moment, and it makes me feel like I'm already on the boat. She just turned seven, and is sitting here on the sofa asking me what's so funny. Don't ask why we're up at 5am - we're both early risers and I'm tapping on the laptop and she's on her new birthday DSi. Mom and the annoying little brother think we're nuts.

 

Thanks again to both of you for all the writing, editing and pictures. Can't wait for more!

 

Brian and Kathryn