High Crimes at Sea

They say people can lift 50 times their body weight when running for the Queen's grill on the QM2

Queen Mary via Exeter and Bermuda

Since almost the entirety of the blog nation was at the graduation, I will spare writing about it here. It was both surreal and perfectly normal wasn’t it? Charlie winning the crew award and Christina’s mother dancing alone to the band were my favorite moments; that and watching Chico get his diploma. Thank god we didn’t fly home directly; that would have been just too sad. It was sad enough separating after four days by that turquoise water. 

To go to a Bermudan hotel is not to surround oneself in princely luxury. The food was laughably bad and the bathroom looked like a that of a snazzy motel 6. But we would go back. I think it was in some ways nicer than the Caribbean fancies we have stayed in, once we figured out lunch and how to ask for a down pillow. 

The last night was rather sad- the kids were worried about leaving each other. Some of them (Frederick excluded) have pretty challenging summers- jobs with serious hours and brutal crew work outs for example. Andrew was the MC and was keeping us all laughing about family veering into the absolutely absurd with stories of mothers shooting children with their air guns repeatedly. You’ll have to ask Margaret.

We made it easily to New York with a vague plan to sit at a cafe in Brooklyn with three suitcases to wait for boarding. Then we hear the boat has been delayed due to a medical emergency and had to make an emergency stop in Halifax. They ask that instead of boarding at 12 30, we board at 1:30. We looked fairly ridiculous sitting on a pile of luggage in this hipster place and then hauling the bags down the street. I was practically running at this point…such is the ship’s draw. We had to wait in a long line at check in (never happened before) due to some computer glitch but our moods were high- Thomas was flirting with the English people in line, getting chairs for old ladies and water for me. Whenever he speaks with English people he starts to imitate their accent and I feel like I am at a Royal Astronomical Society meeting. Point is, when he gets really happy, he starts verbally hugging the citizens of Great Britain.

We know what we are doing by this time. First we make all the spa appointments- massages and hair and nails and a chiropractor appointment for Thomas. We know where to get the best coffee and where sit with the best view. We know what to ask for them to put in our room They put in whatever booze you want (and I believe in our room level it is free) and we asked for vodka (for the hot tub) and milk (for early morning coffees). We could have unlimited bottles of wine or whiskey and maybe make a friend in economy class to share with…but we know ourselves. There is no time for red wine in the afternoon-such is the urgency of our Queen Mary schedule.

Handsome Turk is at his post and just as handsome and welcoming as can be. We have a really good table and the waiter we want. He tells us we have never looked better and then tells us what we will be eating (caviar and dover sole. ?)  Apparently he thinks that is what we eat, and it sort of is. But Thomas is suspicious they are trying to offload something. We have had the crepe suzette already, and two soft serve ice creams. We have seen a ballerina in full tutu do a photo shoot on the deck. There are dogs now occasionally on the 7 deck and I think this is both wonderful and will mean a crack down soon. That is the basic update.

Tonight we have ordered a special, extra spicy curry made by the Indian cook and then we will go to see an Irish comedian. 

Bit of a scandal today; Thomas may have to go into witness protection. We had on the agenda a planetarium show about wild weather in the solar system. Delicious. The drill is one has to get tickets ahead of time. I suggest we do this. Thomas says he thinks that was the old system and says I should live on the wild side. I go along, even though, much like the Vichy- I know it is wrong and doomed. Thomas and I leave the sun deck to go to the show, but first Thomas wants shaving cream. It takes a long time to buy…then he attempts his first crime of the day: entering the show through the exit, while people are leaving the last show. He is caught and directed to the entrance where there is an enormous line for people without tickets. The reliable rule followers, the ticketed ones, are let in right away. Thomas decides to leave my side in the unticked group, zip to the loo, and then in perhaps the weirdest thing he has done in public to date, rushes out of the bathroom and zips directly into the show, ahead of people with tickets AND ahead of people who don’t have tickets, but are in front of him. He cuts them all. Rushes in as if he has already been in, and just left for the loo. 

We, the great unwashed, un-ticketed are speechless. Picture several little English faces (one even had a straw hat on) with mouths in the shape of Os. Picture the faces nice people make when they meet a bully. The same faces that were made in the movie theater in Marin county during the documentary about Karl Rove (remember when we thought Rove was the most evil person ever?!?  #halcyondays) I mumble something about finding a divorce lawyer and wander off. I am of course furious because after making me miss the show, with his rule thwarting and shaving cream obsession, Thomas is happily bathing in knowledge about thunder and lightening on Pluto, while I am left holding his shaving cream. 

This blog is not long enough to explain what happened, and historians will debate it for years to come.  An important piece of evidence was the accused rushing to the front of the theater before the show started, and making strange jerky motions waving into the pitch black crowd hoping his wife would identify him and they would be re united. It never occurred to him that I was not in the theater. So now the outside the theater English people think he is a line cutting thug, and the inside the theater English think he has gone off his Parkinsons meds. 

On our walk today he talked seriously about throwing his shirt overboard so people wouldn’t know him. He was last seen (not making this up) in dark glasses and a baseball hat in the first class hot tub. 

More soon.