Friday, November 27: Still at Sea

I was up early, as usual, to photograph the sunrise but, as usual, there was none to photograph. Only clouds. What a disappointment. A good breakfast was a good remedy and then I was required to go to the coffee bar where there is a mini-breakfast buffet and about five tables for four where people gather for lighter fare and to meet their friends. I was asked to mingle with the crowd, introduce myself, get to know people. Heinz and I are, after all, ambassadors for the cruise line and as such, getting to know as many people as possible is being a good ambassador. This is somewhat contrary to my nature but when pushed, I can do it.
So I met Ramona, a sad, 60 year old lady with too much eye make-up (at least for so early in the morning) who told me immediately that she’d gained ten pounds since Athens but just couldn’t stop eating. Hmmm. I tried, really hard, to cheer her up but she wasn’t having any. She had another sweet roll instead. George, from Pebble Beach joined us and wanted to talk about his Bridge game, what he’d learned and how much he enjoyed it. I’ve learned not to volunteer anything; people really don’t want to hear about you. They only want you to encourage them to talk about themselves. So, although I know a lot about Bridge, I did the male equivalent of batting my eyes at George and asked him to tell me all about his fascinating times playing Bridge, thinking all the while that some of my Bridge experiences would put his to shame but not daring to interject them. Otherwise, he might give me a bad evaluation. (Not that I really mind, mind you. I’ll probably never do this again anyway. But it would be nice to have said, even then, that I did my best to do my best.)
Leaving Ramona and George to their own cups of coffee and croissants, I hightailed it to the Lounge for lessons in slow waltz. And wouldn’t you know? Just as in Samba, Sasha and Olena do the waltz backward from the way I’ve always done it, going forward on the right foot instead of the left and back on the left instead of the right. Anne, from South Africa, a very thin lady of about sixty, with glasses perched high on the bridge of her nose and with her chin lifted as though she was about to lose them, agreed with me that this was a backward way to learn the slow waltz but then, when we got on the dance floor at night, we could do it any way we wanted. She was so thin that I could have steered her by using her shoulder blade like a rudder. Still, she was pleasant enough, and game. We enjoyed the lesson.
Lorraine, our peppy cruise director, had organized a James Bond evening. All the entertainment staff was formally dressed, the men in tuxedos and wearing shades, the girls in long dresses. Lorraine had squeezed herself into strapless black velvet number with a slit skirt, long black gloves and a microphone. The dress was so tight that not only her breasts but also her upper back threatened to overflow. Not pretty. She managed the evening like a drill instructor and it came off pretty well, with trivia questions about Bond movies, their themes played by the orchestra and the actual movies going on in the background. It was a little confusing. She told me…no ordered me…to dance in two specific places, at the ballads. I chose Margot (with a T) for one dance – like hauling around a Mack truck – and Melanie, a reluctant participant, for the other. It was okay.
Dinner with Margot (with the T), Elise (who’s very sweet, despite her wandering eye), Diane, Nancy and Donna (who has now recovered) was as it might be expected: the same conversations about where they’d all been in the world and if they have enough miles to have their laundry done free. Elise has five cruises already booked for 2010 and I heard, again, how Margot (with a T) was thrown out of the country at eight because she was German and didn’t have a proper visa. Her view of Obama’s uplifting speeches reminds her of Hitler’s speeches in the thirties. So you can imagine how far that conversation went with me.
The show featured an aging gay star, who played the piano and sang, working the crowd for all the applause he could garner. Let’s just say that grinning like a maniac showing perfected teeth, winking and pointing at the audience, and sticking out one’s tongue to lick those pearly perfect teeth are not so enticing after fifty-five. I felt like shouting out, “Oh, please, Mary. Get a grip.” At one point, the screen behind him showed a picture of him 35 years ago with some famous actress – it was to establish his credentials, you see – and when he referred to himself, some one from the audience shouted, “WHICH ONE IS YOU?” He recovered pretty well, saying, “Oh, it was going to be that kind of evening, was it?” My answer (entirely to myself) was a quiet yes.
There were no Solos in the lounge and I couldn’t wait to get to bed. Tomorrow is St. Helena, an island in the South Atlantic in the middle of nowhere, which is about how I feel. Stay tuned.