Day 103

Sea Day. Weather, huh? It seems like this entire month has been a series of good-byes. Tim and Russ (trumpet player and bass player respectively) were supposed to sign off on Miami day…and yet they are still on the ship. We had meals with them today and apparently their replacements got caught in weather so they stayed on. They’ll be leaving on Cozumel or Grand Cayman day in theory. We also lost our sound guy, Matt. This is also Sveta’s last cruise before she settles into her and Roman’s Miami apartment to get ready for their baby.

This cruise has a lot more younger people on it. You can tell we’re getting closer to Spring Break…we’ll just be missing the height of it. I went to the gym after breakfast and it was packed so I went again after lunch. Better. More young people means more people working out.

Later I fell asleep. I was going to get dinner around 6:15 or so. Deanna asked if I could wait until 7pm. So I waited, but fell asleep. I was moody for the rest of the night. I hate naps. I’ve always been a “sleep in” guy. Why break up your day with sleep when you can get it all done in a 8-12 hour block, right? Anyway, we ate and then caught Band on the Run. A nice thing about the younger groups is that they actually cheer. As soon as the “rules of the theater” audio started playing they were cheering. Unfortunately for the JARs something major happened with the lights. I don’t think any of the audience really noticed, but the lights were all out of whack in the beginning. From that point on the light cues all seemed weird. I’m pretty sure the odd lighting throughout the show was actually manual mastery…meaning, the cues might have all been worthless so the lighting guy was working on the fly. I might be wrong. Everyone made it through the show ok and I doubt the audience had any idea.

We also checked out the Newlywed game in person tonight instead of watching on TV (they film it and show it on the ship for the rest of the cruise). Jimmy the Cruise Director asked for a couple that had been married 5-10 years and got a gay male couple. It was nice that he did it…especially with the overwhelming conservativity of passengers. It was enjoyable…until...one of the questions Jimmy asks is what is the strangest place you and your spouse have ever made whoopee. Well, one straight guy says “the bathtub”, another says “on this ship”, the other “in a semi truck”…then the guy from the gay couple says “a rectory.” The room was rendered silent momentarily. His partner didn’t match the answer when he came back in at least. Ships!