Perhaps the funniest thing I have ever witnesses aboard. F is paddle tennis obsessed this trip...he signs up for a tournament...all grown ups which usually makes him not want to play..but he is determined. Luckily he is seen practicing just before the teams are made, or the director would not have allowed him. Some English woman (Irene) vouches for him: says I want him as my partner! Ok the scene is a tiny, laughable court on the very top of a 12 story ship, with a huge net around it, like a cage to keep the balls from going into the Atlantic. Thomas, Frederick and faithful Hanna are courtside along with quite a large group of over age 50 English people in black socks and shorts. Sports fans. This is what I so love about this ship..things like the paddle tennis tournament become big deals. The crowd is into it. They clap and cheer and murmur. It is paddle tennis people....you could not get a smaller court! It looks like it was made for mice... and yet, no one seems to think this is not incredibly important.
Hanna, faithful cousin that she is, has her limits and asks if i will take her to the kids zone for a garbage bag fashion show...clearly she does not see the appeal of this sport. (By the way, when I take her, we see some poor English kid with the bag over his head. No no Alistair, not there, says the teacher. Darwin Darwin...oh which reminds me must tell you about our dinner companion, a VC guy from portola valley who is born again and wants creationsism taught in the schools. Why not BOTH?)
So I rush to a massage...Hanna is in the zone, F is waiting for a partner....when I come back I hear Frederick and his partner Michael (an American) have made it to the finals!! and alas lost to Irene a nice lesbian who seems to be in cahoots with the director of the tournament and line judge (I am thinking of launching an inquiry...) . Thomas is not a very good raconteur, but he told me this scene where F in his best roger federer imitation (if Roger were on a court the size of a bathtub) wacks a serve, Irene counters with a strong forehand return, F gets it back hard with big top spin, Irene's partner can only muster a feeble lob at the net, but Master F is at the net (remember it is a very short run up to the net, perhaps 2 kid steps) and he smashes a backhand volley winner...well the crowd goes wild. thomas said it was ludicrous..the clapping and whooping..remember these people are colonialists..they take sport watching very seriously...so F is so happy and embarrassed he cannot look up..but Thomas said he had this huge smile on his face. Then in what will go down as perhaps the most tragic miscalculation in sports strategy history, Michael tells F they must go both to the net at every point...but Irene seems to be a whiz at lobs and they go down in bitter defeat. f came away with 2 vouchers for some crap...QM2 prizes...but he is pretty happy. We really are stars..Hanna has won: the stair counting contest, and the Baggo tournament (english bean bag game) and been part of the winning all girl team for movie trivia. It is almost embarrassing our total dominance.
Last night we got dressed up to meet the commodore and they were so damn cute. they got ready with such care. Hanna wore the blue dress I got her in lech..washed and dried her own hair and then plastered it down under a head band with a strong middle part. F was clean in very expensive tie and shirt from upper east side but he has red eyes and bitten nails from all the excitement...we get a picture, and they get orange juices and we chat up the crowd...they are the only kids at the party and causing quite a stir.
They are really tired..think we might make them go to bed early again....we are trying to avoid our born again VC guy who says, nicely, that we and the dalai lama will go to hell unless we believe the bible literally...sad because we had this nice Jewish couple before but they complained to the handsome Turk about a window seat..so we got him.... His wife has not appeared for any meal..strange..says she is tired. Thomas thinks he has killed her and she is in the cabin rotting away.
Hanna is learning a lot: bow, stern, port starboard, and mini bar to name a few. frederick has appointed himself her personal tutor. Both of them seem to have given up using forks and knives...but they know the difference between euro style and american....just not that good at busting it out yet. All of our army of waiters from our dining room love Hanna...Ali..our Turkish head waiter saw her with her friends on a scavenger hunt and helped her cheat her way to victory on that as well. She really does have friends in high places.
She seems really happy-laughs all the time and sings to herself in the shower...but I have to watch her just before she falls asleep..because she has been known to be sad then.....it really is a big deal this ship....even for grown ups..it is hard to believe we are in the middle of this big sea.
No comments:
Post a Comment