It’s six AM and I’m on deck, waiting for the sunrise but it’s so far a foggy, gloomy day and I feel like a fool, for while the sun will surely rise, its advent does not hold much promise for a great photograph to add to my collection. Too bad. I could have slept another hour and avoided sneaking around in my site so as not to wake Heinz. We’re due to dock at eight AM. But I wasn’t selected to chaperone a shore excursion and since so many guests will go ashore, I have the chance, instead, to try to bring this up to date. I am disappointed, though, for I had wanted to see and photograph the spectacular sand dunes for which this area is famous. Still, I may see some of Namibia – can you say that three times in quick succession? – tonight when most of the guests and Heinz and I will go ashore for what is billed as “Dinner Under the Stars” (and please take a wrap; it’s cold in the desert at night).
Yesterday was a busy one for Heinz and me. No Solos came to the family table where we were stationed at 9 AM for breakfast. I guess they preferred sleep to companionship. Or maybe they had both. At 10:15, we joined Sasha and Oleana for salsa lessons. Salsa is not part of my dance vocabulary but learning a few basic steps was easy and I partnered Carol, a pretty brunette who is traveling with her mother and her mother-in-law as well as the mother-in-law’s sister. Carol dumped the husband some time ago but the family relationship, even without grandchildren, seems to have survived. Among the other students for salsa lessons were Bob and Marty, a gay couple of a certain age, one short and Latin, the other taller, and probably older, with a very bad wig wound around his head, with pieces of it spindling off into space every here and there. Like so many wig wearers, he would look better without it. Vanity: thy name is well, vanity. Bob, the Latino, threatened to dance with me but n order to save face and not upset him, Heinz advised me to say that while I might like to do that, it was against my contract. Still, I told Bob that since he and Marty had paid for their cruise, they should feel free to dance with each other whenever they wanted. “We do it on Seabourne,” he said. Good for them! I approve.
After salsa lessons came the Block Party, held once each leg of the cruise, an event where guests gather in the corridors outside their suites, are served champagne and wait to see Lorraine and the captain literally run down the halls, trying to get to all the corridors before the time limit. In my assigned space – not outside my own suite – I met Kyle and Joe from San Diego. A gay couple – how do I seem to meet them all? – they’re both in their late 40’s and both attractive; Kyle,with matinee idol eyes and dark hair not yet going, but what I’m positive will be, even more alluring, and Joe, with a body and a brush cut. They seemed very nice and we had a pleasant, if short, chat. They’ve been on the cruise “from the beginning” and are “going all the way,” a designation of their superior (read wealthy) credentials. They established that I had joined the ship in Capte Town and was a dance host, which established mine. They were game but not much into block parties and we were the only people in my assigned area. They retired to their suite (a real one) and I moved on to another area where I met so many people I can’t remember: a couple from northern California who escaped from uncivilized civilization and live in the wood with no cell phone but a huge fireplace, a man from Scotland whose accent was so thick I could only nod in mute agreement while he was talking to me and Linda and her husband, a giant whose thick gray hair had a mind of its own, exploding around his head and on his eyebrows.
Lunch, more salsa lessons – we actually had six or seven couples this time and Sasha worked up a sweat trying to get them all to count, one-two-three, one-two-three to music so fast that even I had trouble with the twisting and turning. “Take smaller steps,” he yelled. “Take smaller steps. One, two, three. One, two three.” A short nap and then into my tuxedo for the captain’s welcoming party where I acted as a host, positioned n an aisle of the theater so I could greet guests by saying, “Good evening,” over and over again. I felt like a modern day vampire. “Good evening, my sweet. What a lovely neck.” I know now why Stacy said I had to smile, smile, smile. A big notice came to all the cabins saying that no one should be offended, but contrary to usual practice, we should not shake hands. Hand sanitizers are everywhere and there are rumors of people in sick bay. Then on to the lounge for a pre-dinner cocktail (which I never have; keeping track of all those names is a full-time job not helped by alcohol) with the Solos. There I met Malcolm and Anne Marie from Cape Town. She was really big and so were her diamonds. She wore two rings on each hand and the stones on the right side were the biggest I’ve seen since The Smithsonian. I was also introduced to Henry, a legend on Regent ships, a reputation he’s earned by traveling, like the Flying Dutchman, almost all the time. When he leaves this cruise in Lauderdale, where he lives, he’ll spend Christmas with his family and then depart for the Caribbean for a New Year’s cruise, and then four days after he gets back, he’s leaving again on Regent for a cruise “around South America.” When I commented that he’d have little time even to get clean clothes, he said he never worried about that’ “they” took care of everything. Henry’s wife died some years ago and I gather he’s done nothing much since then but travel. He’s also partial to diamonds and wears them on both hands, one ring loaded with stones wandering around the middle finger on his right hand like a clinging vine. When one of the women admired them, he said, rather dramatically, “They’re not for sale.” He also sports lots of gold jewelry: three humongous chains on each wrist and several around his neck. Do I need to say that all members of the crew treat him with extreme deference? Not! He’s a little feeble and foggy around the edges and “Elsa made it my responsibility – “he has a tendency to lose his way” – to help him safely from the captain’s reception to cocktails and then on to dinner. I didn’t mind. He’s very nice and cooperative and helping him is not so far from helping Mom for all those years. And I wouldn’t want Regent’s prime customer to have a problem on my watch.
Which is a great segue into how I’m doing and feeling and would I want to do this again. While it’s a little early for critical evaluation, doing this is hard work. And somewhat confusing. At times, I’m treated like a guest. But at other times, I’m just another cog in a giant wheel aimed at spinning more cruises, which, quite aside from the attractive distractions of places and shore excursions and events on board, is what every member of the crew (read me) is focused on. Go there. Do that. No messing around. No humor about it. Just smile all the time and do it. Greet everyone. Suffer fools gladly, over and over again. Remember everyone’s name. Rush to the side of single women “across the crowded room” and give them lots of admiring attention. While this is not hard for me, as I anticipated, it means summoning an effort to which I am somewhat unaccustomed. I knew all that going in, so no problem. But would I want to do this again? More on this subject after I’ve had a little more experience.
At a table for eight, I sat next to Gabrielle, my flirt from Florida. Like me, she keeps a diary of all her trips. Like me, she loves taking photographs. Like me, she uses Picassa to edit them. And like me, she has a large camera with two lenses – the same as mine – and a small camera without a view finder, its only drawback, which we agreed makes it somewhat difficult to take pictures in bright sun. She’s traveled extensively, mostly on Regent cruises, and is very particular about her food, insisting on using a desert fork for dinner because as a small person, she needs a small fork. On my other side was Chrissy, the IT person on board who offered to show me how to add photographs to my blog (at least one of which you’ve now seen; she showed me how to do it but I’m not sure I can do it alone). She’s also a self-professed great cook and offered to trade me the recipe for her famous Tira Mi Su (shared with her six gay friends, who know good food) for mine of Nancy Hernke’s onion soup (made with chicken stock and dry vermouth). At the other side of the table, Henry made jokes and flirted with Elise (who’s becoming my friend). Heinz, humming Christmas songs to himself, stirred the pot whenever it seemed it might burn. It was a very interesting dinner.
The show was a big production number featuring the dancers and singers and what can I tell you? They danced and sang. Sasha and Olena were the headliners. He has amazing presence and an incredible, flexible body, moving with the grace and concentration of a leopard across the stage. It’s impossible not to look at him – not because he’s beautiful (which he is) but because he devotes every ounce of his body to his dancing art. Usually it’s the woman who commands attention and Olena, his partner, was also very good. But the show was his, as I’m sure he wanted it to be. Seven costume changes in an hour? Please.
Again there were no Solos in the lounge for dancing. I sat in the background, humming to the tunes played by the combo and moving my feet around on the floor, trying to remember the cross over breaks in rumba. I only really danced once, when Robert, the black half of a mixed couple, went to the bathroom, and Lola wanted to swing. She’s a little heavy for that. But what Lola wants, Lola gets. Stay tuned. And guess what? I’m up to date. And I found my nail file.
No comments:
Post a Comment