Another cruise ship claims a victim (no,not that kind)

Fanflabbertyjabbintastic, I say. Fanflabbertyjabbintastic !

From the instant my freshly polished toes stepped on the ground in Miami I knew I'd have a great time. The flight was longer than War and Peace and I don't fly well now that I'm of an advanced age but I was too excited to let that get me down. Hell, I'd just left 50 something degree weather for 80 something weather. That alone would have made my week. But it got better. Much better.

Simply entering the ship was wild. The NCL (Norwegian Cruise Lines) folks were dancing and carrying on as they welcomed us onboard. Cheesy yes, but we were headed to the Bahamas. I kinda wanted to do a bit of a jig myself.

Once on the boat we were told we could go grab lunch or drinks and hang out on deck (or any of the public areas) while our staterooms were being prepared. I'm sure you can guess what we did.



The deck quickly turned into one big old party (pic taken before said party because hey how could I enjoy the party if I was busy snapping pictures, gah!)

Bands were playing, people were sunbathing, dancing, swimming, getting nekkid. Wait, what? Anyway, you get the gist, the first day was one big old partay. It was also where I obtained the coveted fun meter:


I obtained this from some drunk self-proclaimed barflys that were already 3 sheets to the wind when we arrived.

Watching the ship set sail was surreal. I can't tell you how long I've actually wanted to take a cruise and at that moment when it was finally happening I shed a tear knocked back several shots to celebrate. (Ok none of that sentence was true but I did get all giddy like a kid the morning of Christmas.)

The day turned in to a long night where we met a younger couple we completely fell in love with and had an impromptu party on the deck after hours. The piece de resistance of said party was 85 year old Elaine who I was convinced was at any time going to pull the whole Scooby Doo ending thing and pull off her mask to reveal a 21 year old woman. That broad danced her ass off asking me many a time "C'mon girl, how low can you go?" as she was getting down low herself. When we finally,at 2:30 a.m. decided we'd partied enough, she said "Wait don't go, lets party some more , lets tell some jokes or stories or something". Man I loved her.

The next day we docked in Grand Bahama Island where we found everyone to be so laid back we almost called my mom and asked her to ship the kids to us because we'd decided to sell it all and take up residence on the island. We fantasized about chillin and proudly saying "I ain't got no job" as we watched our half nekkid babies run around and play in the sun. Aah..

Wait where was I...Oh yes: Grand Bahama Island. There we chilled with two multi talented dolpins who showed us how to moonwalk, spit water at us, jumped,frolicked and requested belly rubs. I was half tempted to pack one of those suckers in my suitcase they were so cute.

The remaining time was filled with comedy shows, dancing, parties, drinks, R rated game shows (in which my husband had to dirty dance with another dude on our team and dammit why didn't I have my video camera ready), sunning, shopping and exploring in Nassau, casino'ing,hot tubbing eating, eating and more eating.

I'm pretty sure I ate twice my weight in food. But good lord it was "free" (included in cruise price) and always around. And I...I have no self discipline.

So there you have it. Everyone we encountered was so nice I wanted to put them all in my pocket and bring them home with me - cruise staff and passengers alike.

My one complaint is not really even a complaint about the ship so much as it is a complaint about our complete and total disregard for the money we were spending on extras (read alcohol and anything other than water). Our room key doubled as our payment for those extras and even though we were given receipts each time we signed for something we paid little attention. Aannd eleventy bajillion dollars later...I'm happy, a little chubbier and excitedly planning another cruise for 2012.

And y'all this ship is Epic. (um that will be funnier to you when you click the link.)

I declare myself officially obsessed.

I'm on a Boat (well... almost)

For those of you that don't get that reference see (and note that I uploaded the "clean" version because I'm thoughtful like that):



In just a few days, I will get to take full advantage of that awesome suprise I bestowed upon my husband a few months back.

I am positively, absolutely, ridiculously 100% excited to the point where it's been hard to focus on much else.

My life, of late has been work and second grade math and I don't know which is worse. There's this whole strategy of ten thing that the twins are learning that is giving me nightmares. Oh and my mouth, or teeth rather are being assholes. Which translated means that at the ripe old age of 37 I've been told "looking in to braces would be a good idea". But no I don't want to talk about it.

Because in a matter of days I'll be on a boat, kissing dolphins , 10th anniversary'ing with the Mr. and knocking back several cocktails.

And at this point not a whole hell of a lot else matters.

*and while you wait for me to get back and regale you with my tales of awesome head on over to my review blog to check my latest giveaway(6 winners y'all). Mini chickenburgers mmm...

Public Bathroom PSA. You're welcome

I'm a little frustrated. It seems that every time I walk in to the bathroom at-the-place-that-shall-not-be-named-but-I'm-there-Monday-through-Friday, I encounter behavior that leaves something to be desired.

Since I can't put out a memo, or post rules in the bathroom itself I feel compelled to write this down somewhere in hopes that those filthy buggers might see fit to change their ways.

So in no particular order:

Don't moan. I mean really I get that sometimes business is a little tough to do. But hearing someone one moan (or groan) creeps me out. I feel like shouting "Dude, it's called fiber!"

If you funk up the bathroom and air freshener is anywhere in the vicinity : USE IT. Maybe you can run away from your smell but the next person that walks in to said bathroom I'm sure would much rather be greeted by the scent of garden rain rather than assaulted by the odor of ass

Remove your pubes from the toilet seat. There is nothing worse than going into a stall and finding that little surprise.

FLUSH THE TERLIT - need I say more. I don't want to know that you need to drink more water or had corn for dinner last night (I know I even grossed myself out on that one)

and last but certainly not least

Wash your damn hands. If I even catch you leaving the bathroom without washing your hands I will stop you, ask you for your phone number and call your mother because clearly you lack home training (and yeah I went there)

Y'all got anything to add ?

Someone is laughing their a** off right now

First, please sit down. Oh and you better put your drink down too because what I have to tell you will surely send you in to a fit of laughter and we wouldn't want that Diet Coke/wine/beer coming out of your nose. Trust me it doesn't feel all that good.

Now then, just moments ago I found that someone (I have no clue who) nominated this blog for Best Parenting Blog on the 2010 Best of Western Washington deali-o. (I'm not even linking to it because I honestly think this really is someone's idea of a joke)


If you're here from there, welcome and feel free to stay awhile (note that I'm attempting to soften my use of expletives just for you) but I say that with this caveat:

This isn't really a parenting blog.

Yes, I am a parent and sometimes I write about my children but this is not that blog. If you're looking for cute and fuzzy stories about what my children did yesterday you won't find (much of) that here. This is more of a crazed rambling humor blog with a side of parenting.

For those of you who already knew that - let's just let this sink in and laugh our a**es off. Together.

P.S. Because I'm not a completely ungrateful hag: To that person who nominated me I say "thanks I think". I "blush" in your general direction.

Drag Queens, broken phones and barf oh my

I don't even know where to begin. I suppose I should start when the night was still good- at a time when I was at dinner with friends enjoying a nice glass of wine preparing to head to a club to meet up with even more friends(one of whom was in town just for the weekend and I was eager to hang with her).

At some point the bride to be, oh wait did I mention this was a bachelorette party ? It was and I suppose that gives you some clue as to how the night ended because those things never seem to end without somebody waking up wondering what the fuck they did the night before and where their pants are.

Anyway, where was I... yes. The bride-to-be imbibed so many tehkillya shots she barfed up things I'd never seen come out of a human.

But let me back up, there was the moment when I broke my phone. That was awesome. I didn't do anything spectacularly klutzy, I merely dropped it on the ground and it was dead. The screen went white and in an instant I lost all my pictures, all my numbers, er'thing. I was not happy. In fact, I'm still not happy. I've since found an activated an old phone but I'm pretty sure it was from the first run of cell phones and it's a dinosaur. It's gets me fired up thinking about it now. Because that little mishap was responsible for me missing the friend who'd come in to town. I kept missing her texts and me calling from a friend's phone... well that was just disatrous. Suckass doesn't even begin to describe how I felt about missing her.

The night wasn't completely without fun though. I hadn't been to a drag show in some time and I'd forgotten how much I enjoy them. And this one? Was like none other because one of the drag queens mimicked giving birth on stage - like with a real doll coming out of her nether regions - while lip syncing to a song called Baby Mama. And no, I'm not making this up.

How did all this madness end? My feet in severe pain because my super cute Charlotte Russe wedges are the kind of shoes that were designed to be cute and nothing else and holding back the bride's hair while she barfed at our feet.

I know.

You wish you were there don't you?

The one where I pull off the surprise of the year and pat myself on the back until it makes you sick

A while back, I posted that I needed to figure out whatever the hell I'm going to do as far as a fitness regime because later this year I will be doing something where I have to wear a swimsuit.

At that point, I didn't reveal why I'd need to wear a swimsuit so much but y'all are sharp. I'm sure you figured out that I'd be going on some kind of vacay. And if you didn't duh well that's what's up.

In just 1.5 months I will be taking my VERY FIRST CRUISE. I'm one big ball of excitement because OMGSQUEEE I'm going to the Bahamas, betches!

But here's why I couldn't say anything about this before. I, master of all that is awesome, planned this cruise months in advance and surprised my husband with it on his birthday last week.

I know, I know you want to marry me don't you ?

Hell, I'd want to marry me too if I weren't already... um nevermind.

So I'd been planning this cruise since about the beginning of the year and timed it so that we'd be chillin in the Bahamas, sipping cocktails on our 10th anniversary -all without the hubby knowing because I'm brilliant like that.

But I hadn't a clue as to how to present it to him.

I knew I wouldn't actually have the cruise documents in hand in time for his birthday so I came up with the idea to print out a copy of our confirmed reservation from the cruise site. To that I attached a picture of a cruise ship sailing amidst palm trees and wrote "Since I couldn't get you your own personal boat, this will have to do" (did I mention that hubby's trying to convince me we need a boat and that I'm kinda opposed. I didn't ? Well there isn't time for that now)

I flipped that document face side down and put it in the bottom of a gift bag so it appeared as if it were part of the bag itself. On top of that I placed individually wrapped sunscreen and a pair of sunglasses. I presented the gift during our dinner out and it worked just as I thought it would.

He liked the sunglasses,but the sunscreen kinda produced a WTFoopsimeanImgrateful look. I said nothing. For a few seconds I pretended that was it. Then I told him there might be something else in the bag. He felt around, finally pulled out the paper, looked at it and gave me the same WTFoopsImean... look. It turns out he thought I gave him a picture of a boat just to be mean (I may have the occasional mean streak but I'm not a complete beast - especially on birthdays).

"READ IT!" I exclaimed.

And then I saw his eyes light up and his confused look turn to a big goofy grin. "No way, No way, No way" he kept saying.

And I knew I'd pulled off the ultimate surprise.

Did I mention that I'm awesome ?

But how the hell I'll top this next year, which just happens to be his 40th birthday I don't know.

San Diego, it was brief but me love you long time

I'd ask if you've wondered where I've been. But I know better. I post erratically at best and that's not because I'm out of town, it's mostly because I just plain don't feel like it.
Having said that, I was out of town this past week at a work related conference in sunny (and I use that term lightly because up until the last day it was not even close to being sunny) San Diego.

I'd planned to bring the fam and do the whole Legoland, Seaworld thing but trying to plan me arriving one day and the Mr and the kids arriving another and switching hotels and blah blah blah just made me feel all barfy inside so I went by myself and for the most part enjoyed the heck out of SD. And plan to go back when it's more pleasure and less business.

Since this was a business trip I didn't pay for my flight or my hotel and that's probably why I was able to stay in this place (and please forgive me for all I brought with me for photographic mementos was my weeny ass 1.3 mp camera phone)

This would be the lobby of the US Grant






The hotel at night all lit up and purty like

Fancy right? I know. I felt as if I had to put on an evening gown just to walk through there. And lets not even talk about going down to the fitness room. I half considered purchasing some designer sportswear for the occasion. But then spending loads of cash on clothes I'm going to sweat and stink up shortly after purchasing didn't quite make the most sense. So I shamed the hotel by appearing in my old Tar-zhay shorts and jog bra.


The ceiling just above the entrance to the fitness room


Even the stairs are extravagant. This is the stairwell I had to walk up all sweatified and stanky because I didn't dare take the elevator after working out

So are you getting that this hotel was all kinds of fan-say ?


mah room

My first day was glorious. As you can see I quickly made myself comfortable in my room. I hadn't given nary a thought about the fact that upon check in I gave them my debit card for "incidentals".

Until the next day when I went online in the lobby (because in room wi-fi= 11.95/day but in lobby wifi = free. Umm ok.) to pay a bill. Upon reviewing my checking account I realized they'd seized $400. I don't know about y'all but that's a lot of moolah to me. Like San Diego souvenir and clothes shopping moolah. So I did what any normal person would do and went all postal up in that bitch approached the front desk telling them that all charges were to be charged to the corporate card that the room was reserved on.
To make a long story short, before changing the charges my boss had to speak with them and even then they held my cash until I checked out three days later (but told me they reversed it that day). Bastages! And yes I'll admit to the stupidity of giving them my card in the first place but I'm not familar with them thar luxury hotels and didn't realize that "incidentals" were 4mutherfuckinhundreddollars.

But here. See for yourself. This is the cost of "incidentals" at the US Grant.


$8 for some mutherlovin M&Ms. I will never. I repeat NEVER want M&Ms that bad

And OHGODTHESESINKS.



Trendy but NOT functional. Especially for the vertically challenged like me. We have to stand on our tip toes just to wash our faces and then this happens

Water.everywhere. *sigh*

Also, the hotel could be haunted. One night, I got in the elevator but couldn't immediately find my keycard which I needed to get to my floor. As I searched around for it, the elevator started moving and stopped on floor 3. My floor. I figured someone had called it, but when the doors opened not a soul was in sight (cue Twilight zone theme). Of course then I wondered if they had cameras in the elevator that recognized me and sent me to my floor which then made me concerned about whether or not I'd been talking to myself or pulling out wedgies when I'd ridden in there before that night.

The conference... was a conference. It had some good points: Al Gore and Ted Kennedy Jr. were keynote speakers. And some not so good points: the Tuesday night entertainment was Hall & Oates. Who frankly I dig, but something about watching the stage being rushed by my colleagues for the aging H&O made me feel...well... stabtacular.




But being in the Gaslamp Quarter made up for all that. It's a nice little slice of awesome. Some great little shops and fantastic food. Particularly this place.


And I kinda loved these signs Which if you can't read said panhandling promotes alcohol and drug abuse consider giving to charity...or something to that effect. Kinda makes you say "hmm...".

And random, but did I mention my hotel was right across the street from here?



I kept hoping I'd run into someone famous. Upon telling hubby that, he asked, What famous person hangs out at NBC? And of course I then questioned what famous person does hang out at NBC and felt rather silly. But whatevs.

It was fun.

Now I'm back. And it's like I never left.

I miss you SD. Call me.

***********

P.S. Jiffy Lube Gift card giveaway on my review blog Go. Now.