Condo Clean -up Day

Tuesday, June 19, 2007
It’s been a busy week—I participated in a benefit with Gayco (in the most minor of ways—singing in the final number with a chorus of 20), had a few breakfast dates with friends and Andy and I had condo clean-up day.

We moved into our place in October, but with both of us soon departing for boats, we never completely settled into our place. Consequently, there are weird areas of storage with weird things in them---need plastic cutlery? Look in the picnic basket high above our refrigerator! Wondering where the toolbox is? Look under the leather ottoman in the dining room!

The day was a success—we got a lot done and also learned a bit about each other. As it turns out, Andy doesn’t like cherry cloth tablecloths on the dining room table or any items on the bathroom sink. I don’t like mannequins or life-sized stuffed dummies in our home, or cups with remnants of protein-powder shakes and oatmeal-encrusted bowls left next to the kitchen sink, unrinsed. But, we both love having balanced checking accounts and are giving away our extra computer monitors.

Any takers?

The Lakefront of Chicago is very nice

Tuesday, June 12, 2007
I went walking on the Chicago lakeshore with fellow shipmate, Jeremy Sosenko.
Jeremy and I are both suffering from the boredom of post-ship life--neither of us are working, and are just...bored.

To alleviate the boredom, and save money, we went on a long-ass walk on the lakefront.

It was a stunning day with lots of sun.

Later, we went out for cheap beers with Amy P.

I am fake jogging in this picture. I don't run.

I need to get back to work.

Party like a Swede

Midsommar fest in my neighborhood, Andersonville.

http://www.starevents.com/mid_fest.html

Hello, that there is my first link in this blog. Please tell me how to make it prettier if you know how.

I’m a true Midwestern gal, because my instinct in starting this entry is to talk about how lovely the weather was. But dude, it was such great weather! It was like a freakin’ day in St. Thomas in February—blue skies, puffy clouds, sunshine and in the 80s.

Since I’ve come back from the cruise, I’ve been very protective of my base coat tan. I’ve never been much of a tanner—more of a burner. In fact, when people who know me see the tan—they are literally shocked and then amused at how bronze I am. It amuses me, too, and I’m trying to keep the tan rolling along. And on Saturday, at Midsommar fest, in a tank top and skirt, I got some more color. End of self-indulgent tanning paragraph.

Dori swung by and picked me up at my pad, then we met up with Margaret, John, Starks, Ross and the McGarry brothers. We ran into Colan, Sniffers, and several other lovely improv peeps.

Sniffers twirls with ROTC, an all-male Rifle twirling group. For some god-forsaken reason, I always miss their show by 5 minutes. I’ve tried to see them at Pride, or Market days, but I always get there just in time to see them packing up their big gay rifles and greet their adoring fans. Same thing happened on Saturday. Though for this one, I blame Sniffers who kept the show on the DL for some reason and didn’t tell me they were performing.

Later, we watched one of the Denny brothers perform greatest hits of Dave Matthews and then headed to Andersonville’s long-standing Simon’s for copious amounts of beverages.

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Thanks for Amy and Sean and Ross for assuring I got home safely and for letting me march and sing along the way.

Now the underdogs have overcome, hop hop. They got their funding and they had some fun.

Hello Chicago!

Wednesday, June 6, 2007
Out of the house for the first time since Saturday.

I finally did it. I left my house. Now, keep in mind, I LOVE my house—it’s airy, filled with sunlight and sits on a bustling corner where I keep watch on the neighborhood from my second floor office. So, by staying in my house, I’m not holed up away from humanity…plus, Andy’s around, too. But, it was time to venture out to see the world.

I met up with my friend Lis at Mystic Celt, a bar on Southport. We then went down to Lange’s, an old-man bar, down the street.

Lis has a new job, so she went home at a decent hour while I traversed the wilds of Cornelia to go meet up with Jeremy Sosenko, formally of the Spirit. We went to Twisted Spoke, a pseudo-biker bar in Wrigleyville.

We chatted about the boat, his trip with brother to Atlantic City and general impressions of our return home.

Jeremy kept saying “No one exists. No one knows so and so, or this person. They don’t exist in Chicago.”

It’s true—you just entirely leave the Spirit world behind (and by Spirit, I mean the ship, not celestial plain kind of stuff). I have pics of these people, but no ongoing encounters with any of them. It’s so strange….and so liberating.

A few of our mutual friends came up to the Spoke, and in what seemed a blink of the eye, I had spent $40 on cabs, beers and general revelry.

I do miss $1 beers and no cost for transportation and food.

I do not miss Raffles Buffet.

Home again home again diggity dog

Monday, June 4, 2007
Home again home again, diggity dog.

Back home. The last week on the boat was really fun—we had a rocking Stardust show, a good scriptless show and a really fun Karaoke party on Thursday night, and then a long, luxurious last night dinner at Cagney’s Steakhouse with the cast. Final event was a bizarre last night in crew bar and then departure for home.

I always knew that the cruise was like a machine---every week, the same parties, events and shows. But I didn’t realize how non-plussed the crew would be on our last morning. We, too, were like cogs in the machine. Upon reflection, of course it’s that way---and I did make some nice friends. But, there’s a certain amount of cynicism that has to exist. I’m sure you get used to saying goodbye if you are on the cruise for a while…but it’s still fresh and new to me so it pained me a bit.

But, thankfully, Jeremy’s brother, who I call brother, picked us up and took us to lunch in Queens and then LaGuardia. Once I was in the air, I shifted from feeling melancholy to enthusiasm for my home.

Arriving at my condo, I was just relieved and thankful. I walked around and touched everything and chatted a mile a minute with Andy and was just happy.

We met up with Heather and Judy and the baby, and had ice cream and a long walk through my beloved Andersonville. Beers on the roof deck, overlooking the skyline and early to bed.

Sunday morning, I woke up, had coffee in a souvenir mug and listened to NPR. I was so thrilled to be in my pad and listening to my beloved NPR. Oh, Bob Edwards! I am not immune to your charms.

Cyn and Andy had a bbq for me Sunday afternoon, and it was positively great. Just the right amount of friends to visit with and hang out and drink sangria, eat burgers and relax.

Today, unpacking and laundry and activity planning. And now, sitting on my couch, Andy’s gone and it’s my first moment alone since I’ve been back.

It’s good to be home.

Kennedy Space Center, exploding nuts and it’s all about thrust…

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

NASA was amazing! Amazing!
Jeremy and Dave are into space, so I could ask them questions about the stuff I should already know about, and they’d answer my questions without me feeling dumb.

My favorite part was the rocket garden. Just all these old rockets from the Gemini program, Apollo and other missions. Also, that the #2 section of the parking lot was named #2 for the Democratic Senator from the great state of Ohio, Mr. John Glenn.

At one point on the tour, we heard about the threat that exploding nuts pose in the space program.

We came back and tried to find an astronaut movie to watch, but the only thing in the crew dvd library was Starship Troopers and Armageddon. They also had Virgin Suicides and Jarhead, neither of which I’ve seen, but I opted not to check those out.

Just another day at the daily grind

Monday, May 14, 2007
Sea day oh Sea day.
Today represented a very typical sea day on the Spirit. I woke up at 11, worked out to Judging Amy (Amy is having trouble with her teen daughter Lauren, but her mom, Tyne Daly, provides wise council just in the nick of time to prevent Amy from making a big parenting mistake).

Then, I ate at the Bier Garten with Jeremy, and attended a lecture entitled “Mysteries of the Deep”. A professor debunked the myth of the Bermuda triangle and other legends of the deep. I like debunking, but I always have a compulsion to debunk their bedunking, just to keep it balanced. In this case, I questioned one of his slides that referred to “A Lake in Africa”. He couldn’t recall the name of the lake or the nation, but did say he had read it in National Geographic, turning to the audience of the Clipper conference room. Now, who’s the debunker and who debunked?

Next, I snuck into the boardroom, a fancy, seldom used conference room with wi-fi, and really comfy chairs. I stayed there writing until 5, when the Friends of Bill W came in for their meeting.

I wandered over to the main lobby, and caught the tail end of the taping of “Live at Five”, as I wrote the running order for our “Scriptless” or improv show on Thursday. Live at Five is the Cruise Director’s live tv show where they promote events and shops on board, give out NCL-themed merchandise as prizes and inject lots of cruise-style zaniness when possible.

Next, I chatted with a friend or 2, and then headed up to check in with Carly in our room. She wasn’t there, so I decided to go sit outside and read on deck 11. Jeremy joined me, and then we spotted a tiny boat off the port side. We watched it for a while, and then read some more. There was a really nice sunset, so we watched that for a while. Jeremy doesn’t like sunsets as much as I do, but will tolerate watching them.

Then, we decided to eat at Raffles, and ran into Carly and Brian. We all sat outside, watching the Cavs game (Cavs won!) I came back to the room to read some more, and catch up on the blog.

Tonight, we’ll go to crew bar around 11pm and hang out for a bit with our friends from the NCL production team, Crew Excursions and Cruise Staff.

Tomorrow, we are going to see the Kennedy Space Center.

This is a really great job.

Please proceed with less caution

Wednesday, May 9, 2007
Carly, Amy and I headed out to Virgin Gorda, a gorgeous gorgeous beach in the British Virgin Islands. We hung out at the first beach, and then hiked through some caves and coves to a second beach. We floated on our backs, soaked in the sun and just chilled out. Then we hiked back to the parking lot to catch “Speedy’s” shuttle to the ferry back to the main island where we port. There’s a lot of taking a bus to a boat to a bus down here in the Caribbean. And it’s always on open-air trucks and ferries with noxious fumes. If one was worried about safety standards, you could easily get freaked out. But, that stuff doesn’t bother me, so I’m usually just fine.

Brother

Monday, May 7, 2007
Jeremy’s brother Ben is also on board. At different points, we were calling him a cousin, and I thought his name was Sam for a bit. In the end, I just called him brother. He took to that and embraced it fully.

Today, Amy, Brother, Jeremy and I walked around Bermuda. It felt like one of those days when you are backpacking, and meet up with another set of travelers and just go out and about exploring. Part of you knows that the easy travel camaraderie is only for that day, and that you probably won’t keep in touch beyond this day. But, it’s fun while it lasts. Plus, we had bloody marys at noon, so that makes for a nice vacation day for both Amy and brother.

Dave, new guy, good guy

Sunday, May 6, 2007
Sea day! We had rehearsal for our new guy, Dave. And then I played Scrabble with Homer and Carly. Amy snacked nearby but didn’t join us in Scrabble.

We had our Stardust show with our new guy, Dave. He did really well.

That is all.

Amy Day

Saturday, May 5, 2007
Amy day!
Amy came on board today…and it’s been a rocking fun time. I walked her around and showed her the highlights, including the multiple bags of baked cheetos and yummy cans of pop I bought for us to snack on. Oh, and the pool, too.