two dolla

always jump at the end

Someone jumped off our favorite cruise ship!

According to a news release from the Coast Guard, the woman had been traveling with her boyfriend on the Costa Mediterranea when "she had become angry and agitated and then unexpectedly jumped overboard."

Knowing what I know about the Costa Mediterranea and being obsessed with each and everyone one of it’s cruising schedules, I’m 99% sure the lady was going on the same cruise we went on in January. And I also happen to know that if it was reported at 1:18 a.m on Sunday morning, that means they’d just left Ft. Lauderdale six hours ago!

Lady. You paid for that cruise, you idiot. Or maybe your boyfriend did, but still. Jump at the end, dumbass. Not at the beginning. You totally missed a day in Key West yesterday, and trust me, you would have loved it a lot.

And really, I hate to break it to you, but I don’t think anyone on that boat is concerned that you’re not there. Including your boyfriend. Unless he pushed you, because I don’t see any guy looking longingly off the back of the boat, waiting for you to swim by.

everybody clap your hands

In the midst of going between not being able to move my back and having chills so bad I think I might die, I’ve been editing vacation pictures in the hopes that I can soon right about everything and include pictures. But now that I’m on my Grand Cayman/stingray pictures, I felt like I needed to make a list of vacation things that I loved so much, I could possibly cry while thinking about them:

• being some of the first people on our ship
• watching Ft. Lauderdale fade into nothing when our ship pulled away
• walking through Key West before everything opened
• drinking Mojitos from a to-go cup while walking down Duval Street
• taking Italian 101 from an Austrian and using the Discotheque in the boat as our classroom
• learning dirty Italian words from my favorite waiter
• looking out the cabin window every night before bed
• my intense adoration for Mr. Pizza and his wife Maxine
• feeding squid to a stingray
• holding a stingray
• being knocked down by a giant wave
• sitting Indian style in the ocean
• the roller coaster/bus ride from the pier to Tabyana Beach in Honduras
• drinking booze in the ocean
• playing cards while at sea
• riding ATVs through the Mexican jungle (even if I can’t walk right now because of it)
• watching the sunset on the pier in Cozumel
• dancing to Soulja Boy with an Italian assistant DJ

I think that’ll do for now. It at least helps me forget that one week ago today, I was probably floating in the ocean, waiting for Matt and Jenni to come back from their kayak ride. And now it’s 2 degrees outside.

damn you technology

For the past 24 hours, I’ve been close to wanting to throw up. See, my brand new memory card that I took out of the box right before vacation seems to have had its way with some of the pictures I took on vacation. I’ve ran one program to fix the pictures and ended up with about 200 good ones, but there’s still probably 200 that are somewhere in between a corrupt pile of shit on my memory card and acting as just a beautiful vision in my head.

I did some reading on the internet and it seems like Windows Vista is somewhat notorious for doing this whole photo corruption thing on a regular basis. That’s super convenient, considering I have only one computer that happens to have Vista on it.

As of right now, I’m missing pictures of things like the most southern point of the U.S., our brunch that consisted of nachos and rum, many wild cock roaming the streets of Key West, and who knows what else that I just haven’t noticed yet.

It makes me super sad, that’s for sure!

i decided to come home

So, 48 hours ago? I’m pretty sure I was swimming in a pool. Filled with salt water. Aboard the Costa Mediterranea. In the middle of the ocean. Heading back to Florida.

Just now? I put on boots, jeans, two shirts, and the thickest winter jacket I own to stomp around in the ice while my dog peed. And it’s -13.

If it weren’t for Riley, I may not have come back.

I have hundreds of pictures to go through and hundreds of hours of sleep to catch up on. Oh, and a job to find and probably a place to live by the end of February.

HI GUYS

I’m not doing a very good job at posting, which is unfortunate, because I have a lot of fun things I could have written about in the past week!

Instead, I’m busy packing for the cruise that I’ll be taking tomorrow. Is it the most irresponsible thing I could do while unemployed? NOT REALLY. It’s been paid for since June, and the money to spend while on the cruise as been in savings since approximately the same time, so don’t think I’m financially immature. All other ways immature? ABSOLUTELY.

These links are primarily for my parents, but also for anyone else that’s interested!

This is where you can follow our cruise ship to see exactly where we are.

Here’s the webcam from the front of our ship.

And the webcam from the back of our ship.

Our schedule will go like this:

• Saturday: Boarding the ship in Ft Lauderdale
• Sunday: Key West, Florida from 8 a.m. – 5 p.m.
• Monday: A Day at Sea
• Tuesday: Grand Cayman from 8 a.m. – 5 p.m. (where we’ll snorkel with stingrays)
• Wednesday: Roatan, Honduras from 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. (this is beach day!)
• Thursday: Cozumel, Mexico from 9 a.m. – 6 p.m. (we’re riding ATVs through the jungle)
• Friday: Another Day at Sea
• Saturday: Back to Ft. Lauderdale and the real world

So, love you all long time. And now I have to go pack something other than underpants, a swimsuit, and gum.

hey, remember that time we floated in the ocean for hours?

When we got back from our cruise last March, Jenni and I had this glorious plan to put together a book with all of our favorite photos. But I’m a giant slacker and never got around to scanning the two pictures I ended up buying on the cruise, because I absolutely could not live without them. I just got around to scanning them this morning (after staying up way too late watching the live feed of Britney Spears being driven to the hospital via ambulance) and this right here? This is what made me heavily consider moving to the Caribbean:

It’s a rough life, but someone has to live it.

We’re going again from Jan 12-19. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned that. Nine days from now, we’ll be in Key West. Enjoying some fine weather, some glorious drinks, and the luxury of not worrying about anything but how much time we have left until the cruise pulls away from the dock.

easily distracted by awesome

Dear Costa Mediterranea SS Razzmatazz,

I’ll enjoy seeing you again in January 12th, and I can only wish that we would have left ourselves a note very securely hidden somewhere in the ship, so that we may have ourselves a little treasure hunt upon embarkation Saturday afternoon, just less than one month away.

I know this may be a bit much, but I’m packing as soon as I get back home from Christmas. If it weren’t for my upcoming travel plans, I would be packing my new bandanas (for ATV riding!) right alongside my $1.97 Old Navy board shorts right this very second and not feeling bad about it at all.

Today’s purchase of undershirts, a fancy pants shirt, some capris, and a pair of tennis shoes pretty much have me set to jump on board and settle into cabin 1199 for eight days and seven nights of PURE AWESOME. Four new places! All new adventures! Dancing in the disco until dawn! (We should actually try that!) New BFFs to show around! More afternoon canasta and breakfast by the pool!

I’m looking forward to it greatly. Maybe you’re hiring? We’ll talk about it in January.

Love always,

Wendy

P.S. I already have a chiropractor’s appointment scheduled for January 10, just to make sure my back can handle all of the afternoon naps, laying face down on the deck of the boat, and floating in the pools and/or ocean I plan on doing.

it’s countdown time

While they’re few and far between every once in a while there are days like today when I don’t care that Britney Spears is being investigated for child abuse charges or that Brad Pitt wants to turn Angelina Jolie into a baby-making machine. I don’t care that there’s 97 feet of snow on the ground and people are going to have to start eating each other if the weather gets any worse. I don’t even care that I’m having a bad hair day.

Why you ask:

Little things remind me that I’m less than two months away from waking up and eating breakfast while overlooking the ocean all around me. Today, I finalized puppy care for Riley and got Cindi’s passport information that I have to send to the cruise folks. Two more necessary things out of the way!

I may need some more board shorts, and definitely a new pair of sunglasses. Other than that, I could pack right this very second and not feel bad about it. At all.

(I also wanted to make one of these damn ticker things, but I thought they were only good for people trying to get knocked up.)

whizzing on by

For the biggest part of today, I’ve spent my time scanning pictures from my mom’s and grandma’s photo albums. What a trip. I wish I would have had this idea almost a week ago when I rolled into town, because it’s gonna be awesome having copies of these pictures all to my own. As soon as I do some organizing and all that jazz, you’ll get to see some of them – the ones of me in a tutu, the one of my grandpa sticking his false teeth out at me, and maybe even the one of me wearing nothing but a Mork & Mindy sweatshirt. I’m not kidding about any of those.

Tomorrow, I head back to my joint. Ever since I was welcomed back from last year’s Thanksgiving trip by human feces on my floor, I tend to get a little paranoid when I come back home after any amount of time away. I’m not sure what could be worse that a shit soaked floor, but I can’t help but be just a little nervous.

I was supposed to get my final commission check from my former employer today, but it came as no surprise that it didn’t get automatically deposited. Rumor has it that everyone’s commission checks were screwed up and were going to be mailed out, but I’m not exactly holding my breath on that one. I just want the check to come, so I can be over and done with that piece of shit company.

I have a ton of pictures to sort through that I’ve taken and a bunch of stuff that I know I haven’t written about, and probably a bunch of TV to catch up on when I get home. And then I’ll head back down here in about three weeks to do the Christmas thing. Three weeks after that, I’ll jump on a boat to have another best week of my life, and then guess what? I’ll have a job again. Man, that’s kinda crazy!

ready to cruise

Stingray Sandbar Snorkeling in the Grand Cayman.

ATV Jungle Adventure in Cozumel.

Tabyana Beach Break in Roatan, Honduras.

This is how I will be spending three glorious, glorious days in the Western Caribbean in January.

Which reminds me, I still haven’t written about last year’s cruise!