Tuesday, September 8, 2009

All things cruising

It appears that this is the week of all things cruise related. Not only am I getting ready for a fall cruise but the local town (according to our weekly rag) is going to host a medium sized cruise ship on October 25th. The Fred Olson Cruise Line, Balmoral will be moored in the harbour and any of the 1300 passengers who wish will be tendered in. This will be a test drive to see if we might become a regular port of call. It has occurred to me that this may be a good opportunity to market myself as entertainer sans agent to make the agency fee disappear – as recommended by my cohort on the first cruise speaking gig in Norway. I’ve sent off my info to the mayor to take to the meeting as I have plans to attend a writing workshop this p.m. which the writer in residence at the library is organizing and you just can’t be in two places at the same time no matter how hard you try, or in my case no matter how much you’ve practiced.

Yesterday we did the Freddy marathon which meant leave the house at 6 a.m. and return at 9 p.m. totally exhausted! And that was with things going pretty smoothly – good weather, no major road incidents and only stops for fuel for both the vehicle and us. I was really lucky that the shore captain took pity on me with my rotten cold and rearranged his day to drive; I only had to do the Truro return leg. It gave me about six hours to work on the presentations up and back as I charged the netbook at the baby daughter’s apartment and so edited the talks to the Celebrity line plus had the attention of the shore captain to add some photos and info on the lobstering presentation. So a productive run but it was still hard to drag these bones out of bed this morning.

In fact the entire weekend was beautiful weather and on Sunday afternoon I had the unexpected pleasure of a friend who I hadn’t seen for a long time dropping by on her bike – one of those wildly active types you know – and we got caught up on all our news. She’s always just one step ahead of me and although I’m glad for her I have to admit that I’m envious as well.

With the good weather the shore captain had been hurrying to get home and enjoy some of the sunshine and had one of his employees put a large wharf box of used salt on the back of the truck so he could spread it around his lobster traps as the weeds are growing up through them. Apparently it wasn’t tied down, or so he found out when he took a corner about 2 km from home and heard a loud bang. He was just shoveling the last of the stuff back into tote pans when two fishermen who sell to him came along and helped get the box back on the truck. Hurrying was not the answer and thankfully there was no one following him or the outcome could’ve been bad.

Mister did manage to do some work on his ‘sneak boat’ in between chasing boats. How to describe it? Well, think homemade fiberglass kayak and you’re not far off. So the plan was that I hold onto the metal loop on the outside while the shipwright crawled inside and up forward to tighten the fittings. Well, you couldn’t pay anyone enough to do these maneuvers. As he was grunting and wiggling his way towards the front I asked if he had confined space training and then told him if I had to call 911 and the medical first responders arrived that would make a good photo for the newspaper. His only concern was that I instruct them to haul him out by the feet and not cut the boat. When he discovered he needed a longer handle on his wrench his ruddy face appeared after he backed out to locate one in the barn. A labour of love which thankfully was successful.

Speaking of successful enterprises - this morning with less than 30 minutes of effort the feline hunter in the grey tuxedo managed to bag a large, really large mouse and offer it to me on the doorsteps as I headed out to work. Stop, find the gloves, throw the carcass by the tail into the tall grass, try to avoid the really ticked off over the shoulder look from himself as he waddled into the house with a long sigh. Guess that was because him and his two buddies had been resting up most of the weekend - quite a bedroom full of cats eh?

Work has been rather….intense lately and certainly could be described as unfun! Not going to get myself ruminating on that situation as I head off to bed. But when a work colleague who had hosted the last meeting at her house emailed to say she had a ‘lethal weapon’ as I’d left my Grohmann ($2 yard sale bread knife) which belonged to me I advised her it was best out of my hands with the way things were going. Got to kick those retirement plans into higher gear.