LaughAtlantis

My friend Andy made this animation. We're so proud.

Okay, it's taken a while, but I am finally getting around to chronicling my trip to Alaska. It will likely come in dribs and drabs, but here's a start.

We were scheduled to leave from Boston at 6:20 in the morning. This meant a couple of things had to happen. First, we had to leave from Rod's house at 4:30 in the morning. And before that, Rod had to pack. He opted to do this at around one in the morning. Men are so practical. While he packed, I took a brief nap, then got up at 3 to shower and then we headed off to Logan. At 5:15am, Logan Airport is a barren wasteland. It's like the airport in The Langoliers - there's just nobody there at all.

So we wandered in, bleary-eyed, and sat at the gate for an hour. Upon getting on the plane, we both were asleep withing minutes. I have no recollection of the plane ride whatsoever except waking up about four minutes before we landed in Pittsburgh.

Pittsburgh is a fun airport. There are lots and lots of shops there - it's like a mall in the middle of the airport. Rod was still exhausted and sat with our bags at the gate while I wandered, mumbling, "Get me a present," before I walked away. With that as my mission, I meandered through the airport and ultimately wound up at Godiva. The girl at the Godiva counter was extraordinarily giving. SHe offered to let me try the three new truffle flavors for fall. I didn't want to disappoint her by saying no. I bought some chocolates and she forgot to ring two of them up but gave them to me anyway. Then I went to the Discovery Store and got Rod his present - a crocodile keychain that lit up when you opened the mouth. Quirky without quite attaining the label of lame.

I returned to the gate, we hopped on board, and Rod was asleep before the plane even took off. He woke up about ten minutes later and was notably confused to see that there were clouds out the window. This puzzled him so much he decided to just go back to sleep.

The little pocket thingy on the seat in fron tof me was all broken and there was this hard wire that stuck into my knees for the whole five hour flight. Yippee. Some previous passenger had attempted to stick it up with bubble gum. Very attractive. Needless to say, this did not make for a comfy flight experience. Rod finally woke up about 3 hours into the flight and got to listen me gripe about it... no wonder he sleeps so much with me bitching non-stop.

We arrived in Seattle and headed for the pier. There was ahuge line of people waiting to check in at the boat but a woman was standing in front asking if we were US citizens or not. Rod isn't, I am. There were about two people in the non-US line, and about two hundred in the US line. Thankfully, they let me go with Rod and thus allowed us some time to explore Seattle before we had to get on the boat.

We went to this kitschy marketplace where there were bakeries and eateries and fish stores and a magic shop and all manner of things... it was a bit on the touristy side and we didn't stay all that long. We did buy a couple of HUGE cookies - a molasses and a snickerdoodle that were to last us two days - literally. We headed back to the pier and stopped at a little place along the water to have fish and chips. Instead of your average cod, we had salmon. So good!

When we had checked in at the boat, we were given a boarding group number. That number was 13, and they were calling goup four. I think there were about a hundred people in each boarding group - that's just a guess, mind you - but when we returned to the pier two and a half hours after leaving it, they were just calling number 14. So we sneaked in front of those folks and climbed aboard.

About two weeks before the cruise, I had booked our shore excursions online but I had never received confirmation for them. So the first thing we did when we got on board was go check in at the shore excursion desk. I was fairly pissed to find that only one of the two shore excursions that I wanted had been booked, and the other one was sold out. We put ourselves on a waiting list, but I fumed about that for a bit. Luckily Rod did not sleep through the fuming, but instead vented along with me. We dumped our stuff off in our stateroom - our wee tiny stateroom - and headed out to explore the ship. We hit the top decks first, where they attempted to give us cocktails that, as it turns out, were six bucks a piece. No thank you. We had somebody take our picture on the top deck with the space needle in the background. (I will put some links to our pictures in as soon as I'm able to figure out that whole puttin'-pictures-online business.) We were up on deck checking things out shortly after the boat took off - you couldn't even tell when it started moving! We spent a little more time wandering the boat and finally just got really tired. It had been a long day already, so we went back to the stateroom and took a nap which stretched into just sleeping till te morning.

And that was day one.

(I know, this is slow going. I'm sorry. I'm a very bad person.)

Okay, so day two of my marvelous cruise dawned and we got up late and headed for the breakfast buffet. Rod decided he was going to race me up the two flights - don't ask me why, he was beign goofy - and so I was harassing him about the fact that it takes a lot to beat an asthmatic girl with only one lung. We were joking around, getting in the buffet line, and began chatting with a couple in front of us. Their names were Larry and Mary - never did get their last names - but since seats were somewhat at a premium, they invited us to share a table with them. They were just the nicest people - lived just outside Seattle and were taking the cruise to celebrate their 25th anniversary. We sat and chatted with them for probably 45 minutes - nice, nice people - and then there was an announcement that they were going to have Bingo in the Stardust Lounge - yes, they have a Stardust Lounge - so we headed for bingo madness.

Bingo madness, as it turns out, was really freakin' expensive, so we departed just about as quickly as we came. It was something like forty dollars for six bingo cards or some such thing - and we just weren't that invested in Bingo. We decided to head back to the room to pick up a card game, then we were going to go out on deck and play while we watched the ocean go by. On the way there, we passed through the Checkers Cabaret (aren't names for shipboard rooms amusing?) and they were setting up paintings for an art auction that would be happening that afternoon.

It was sorta funny... every day they leave a little newsletter-y thing for each stateroom - the Freestyle Daily - which highlights the fun activities of the day. We had seen the art auction when we looked through it and had sort of made fun of it; after all, who buys art onboard ships? But when we walked through, Rod's eyes lit up upon seeing a print called 'Where's Bart?' It was a limited series lithograph of about (I'm guesing here) 300 different Simpsons characters, many of which were obscure and had appeared in perhaps one episode. You could practically see Rod begin to salivate. We made plans to come back at two for the auction.

Sometime later, we found ourselves playing Phase Ten in the Sports Bar. They had a buffet set-up of nachos, salsa, and guacamole. It was sooo good. The salsa and guac were made fresh and were just, wow, so tasty. Hit the spot. Rather than have lunch, we had those as a snack and then headed off to the auction.

Auctions are interesting. We got a number and we sat and waited for our lots to come up. There were two animation cels that Rod was interested in (in addition to the Simpsons lithograph) and a Romanian lithograph that I really liked. As our lots came up we got to wave our number, and as stupid as it sounds, it was exciting. Nobody bid against us for anything except the Simpsons print, but we still got it. Yay!

That evening we went to dinner in one of the main dining rooms. The way things work on Norwegian Cruise Lines is this: you can eat whenever you want with whomever you want. I guess a lot of cruises make you sit with the same people at the same table and eat at the same time - sorta like prison, but with shore excursions. NCL allows for a lot more flexibility. So on Monday night we offered to share a table and wound up sitting with a couple of retirees from South Carolina, Mack and Becky. They were very... Southern. Nough said.

After a fabulous dinner we had baked Alaska for dessert and headed for the ship's casino. We had determined that we were going to spend $40, that's it. So we each got two rolls of quarters and scoped out the slot machines. We took about ten minutes to decide which ones had a good vibe and where we wanted to sit and this, that, and the other. Ultimately, we sat down, I put ONE quarter in a slot machine and won $45. First coin. Needless to say, we were hooked. We walked out that night with more than four times what we brought in there in the first place. Yeehaw!

To celebrate, we headed up to the Observation Lounge for a drink and to play Scrabble. We had established, before the trip, that I am a far better Scrabble player than Rod. He beats me at Phase Ten nearly every time, but I kick his ass at Scrabble. Well, we got up to the lounge and started to play. About halfway through the game, I started to feel awful. The ship was tossing back and forth quite a bit and my stomach was roiling. Churning, even. To make things worse, I started to lose at Scrabble. Clearly I was distracted. The motion was really getting to me and so we headed back to the room... and I JUST made it before, well, losing my dinner. Blech.

Thus I ended day two, with nothing in my stomach and just a dream of Juneau for the next day...

This personality test was highly insightful, and very quick. Go take it. Let me know how you fare.

So, I have friends who have blogs and some of their blogs have this thingy where you can put in your mood and the music you are listening to... I don't have that function in my blog - maybe I can set it up or something, who knows? - but in the meantime, I'm just going to start adding it in to random posts. Why?

Because I CAN.

So...
Mood: Antsy
Music: (in my head) I Keep On Searching For The Way to Your Heart

That song is fifteen years old and I don't know who sings it and I have no idea why it's going through my head. Kind of annoying.

Day Three dawned and we headed up to the breakfast buffet - I was already getting spoiled by the sheer volume not to mention variety of food available. We had a lazy morning in preparation for a busy afternoon. We had gotten word the night before that we were going to be able to go on the shore excursion we wanted - a flightseeing tour over four glaciers that landed at a wilderness lodge to have a big old salmon bake. Sounds good, huh?

Well, we didn't get to go.

Despite the fact that the tickets say "All shore excursions operate rain or shine," they canceled this one - and did not inform those people who were on the excursion that it was going to be canceled until you arrived at the meeting palce to leave. By that point, most of the other shore excursions had left and so we decided, what the hell, let's just wander around Juneau.

Well, we shopped a bit along the main drag, and just a little ways away from the dock was the Mount Roberts Tramway. We decided to take the tram up Mt. Gastineau and then we hiked for about three miles. Despite the fact that it was overcast, the views were spectacular. We saw a porcupine and some grouse (grouses? grice?). After coming back from our hike, we followed some of the walking tour of Juneau in this great book to find a statue of a nun feeding chickens. The statue was very modern, not what I expected at all, and we took many pictures with it... in fact, in Juneau we started a rather silly tradition regarding pictures.

A lot of stores in Alaska have huge stuffed animals outside - bears and eagles and timber wolves and whatever... and we took our pictures with pretty much every single one. We're goofy like that.

The ship was docked in Juneau for eight hours and we spent the great majority of that time in the city. On the way back to the boat we stopped at the Alaskan Fudge Company and got the best fudge I have ever had in my life. If you are wondering what to get me for Christmas or my birthday or just because you love me, click on that there link and order me up some Alaskan Chewy. Soooo goooood.

Back on the ship that night we headed to the casino again. It's addictive. We took the original $40 that we had taken in the night before and we played all those quarters. We were left with about $15 in winnings, I think... that is, we wer $25 down from when we walked in. Oh well. Still up overall, right?

We capped off the night by heading to the Observation Lounge (our favorite spot on the ship) to play cards and listen to the Glenn Miller tribute band. I believe that it was that night when we discovered the wonder of the banana smoothie. In the Lounge the bartender would make us these luscious banana smoothies where you couldn't even taste the alcohol. Again, sooo gooooood. We were to arrive in Skagway the following morning, so we went to bed *relatively* early, knowing that we could come back for banana smoothies at any time... and boy, we would abuse that privilege in the days to come.

Thus endeth Day Three.

In an effort to force myself to blog more regularly, I have been searching the web for crazy little listy things. There's all sorts of these things - the Monday Mission and the Friday five and the Two fer Tuesday and the Sunday Op Ed and the This or That Tuesday and (ahem) the Saturday Sex Quiz. So on occasion, you can now expect that I will answer random questions - call it a sort of "Get to Know Me" thang.

I found this random bunch of questions, um, somewhere online. They're quick answers. Don't know how insightful they are, but whatever.

1. Your name spelled backwards. Yoj Ittelrac. Nice!

2. Where were your parents born? Mom was born in Tazewell TN and Dad in Plymouth MA.

3. What is the last thing you downloaded onto your computer? erm... Tragically Hip live cut of "Trickle Down"

4. What's your favorite restaurant? It sort of depends on what I am in the mood for. At the moment, I am craving meat, so right about now I'd really like to go to Red Bones - but it varies.

5. Last time you swam in a pool? No clue - ages ago.

6. Have you ever been in a school play? Good Lord, yes.

7. How many kids do you want? Well, I can't have any so the point is moot. Given a choice, probably two.

8. Type of music you dislike most? I'm not a fan of ganster rap or opera.

9. Are you registered to vote? I actually don't know. I registered when I got my state ID but never got any notice of voter registration, so I really have no idea.

10. Do you have cable? Nope

11. Have you ever ridden on a moped? Yes indeedy.

12. Ever prank call anybody? Of course.

13. Ever get a parking ticket? I don't drive, so no.

14. Would you go bungee jumping or sky diving? I'm an epileptic, so either would be unwise. Having a seizure while sky diving could be really ugly, ya know?

15. Furthest place you ever traveled? Venice, Italy

16. Do you have a garden? No, I don't have a place for one. I would though, if I had a yard.

17. What's your favorite comic strip? Fox Trot

18. Do you really know all the words to your national anthem? Yes

19. Bath or Shower, morning or night? Shower in the morning - bubble baths once in a great great while for relaxation.

20. Best movie you've seen in the past month? Chicken Run

21. Favorite pizza topping? White pizza with spinach and walnuts. Really.

22. Chips or popcorn? Popcorn.

23. What color lipstick do you usually wear? I don't, usually, but when I do, bronze.

24. Have you ever smoked peanut shells? Um, no.

25. Have you ever been in a beauty pageant? Again, no.

26. Orange or Apple juice? Orange as long as there is zero pulp - otherwise apple.

27. Who was the last person you went out to dinner with and where did you dine? Rod and I went to Cinderalla's for pasta/calzones last Friday.

28. Favorite type chocolate bar? Thanks to Rod's influence, Boost bars (the British ones, not the enrgy bars from the US).

29. When was the last time you voted at the polls? 2000, when I voted in the presidental election.

30. Last time you ate a homegrown tomato? I'm not really a tomato fan.

31. Have you ever won a trophy? Yes, for a potato-sack race at my dad's company picnic when I was about ten.

32. Are you a good cook? I'm average, I think. There are things I make really well and others that you might not want to bother with. I do read the sides of boxes well, so I'm good at pre-fab meals.

33. Do you know how to pump your own gas? I don't even drive and I know how to pump gas. Does ANYONE not know this?

34. Ever order an article from an infomercial? Yes... back in college I ordered a step exercise video. I think I used it - and the step - once.

35. Sprite or 7-up? Sprite - Diet

36. Have you ever had to wear a uniform to work? I had to wear a uniform when I waitressed at a country club - and an apron thingy when I worked at a supermarket in high school.

37. Last thing you bought at a pharmacy? Erm, tampons.

38. Ever throw up in public? if I have, I was too drunk to remember it.

39. Would you prefer being a millionaire or find true love? I've got true love, so it's not a fair question... but life with money and without love still isn't fully living.

40. Do you believe in love at first sight? You know, I am not sure.

41. Ever call a 1-900 number? The National Passport Center Hotline is a 900 number. So yes.

42. Can exes be friends? Sometimes, but not always. I have three exes that are still friends. I have several more that are not.

43. Who was the last person you visited in a hospital? No idea. Most of the time, people wind up visiting me in the hospital.

44. Did you have a lot of hair when you were a baby? None. I didn't have a really full head of hair until I was three.

45. What message is on your answering machine? "Hi, this is Joy. I'm guessing you know how this works, so go to it."

46. What's your all time favorite Saturday Night Live Character? This question is way, way, WAY too hard for me. Too many choices.

47. What was the name of your first pet? Sassy

48. What is in your purse? Gum, wallet, Tangerine Altoids, two pens, lipstick, an inhaler, random receipts, a program from an improv show and an announcement for another.

49. Favorite thing to do before bedtime? Um, is sex a legitimate answer here?

50. What is one thing you are grateful for today? I'm grateful that I got a lot of work done this morning. It's let me slack off a bit this afternoon. :)

Yes, I know I said I was trying to blog more often. I also said I am a horrible person.

So here's my first "Friday five."

1. What is your favorite scary movie?
Silence of the Lambs - I like the fact that it's not just horror, it's a psychological thriller.

2. What is your favorite Halloween treat?
As a kid it was always Reese's peanut butter cups. I can remember that every Halloween my brother and I would test whether the Reese's cups or a Hershey bar dunked in peanut butter tasted better. Jury's still out.

3. Do you dress up for Halloween? If so, describe your best Halloween costume.
Not anymore. As a kid, I had some fabulous costumes - my mom always made our costumes rather than buy those plastic things. I think that when I was three I was a ladybug - it's the first Halloween I even vaguely remember and I can remember that it was tough to walk with a sandwich-board type costume.

4. Do you enjoy going to haunted houses or other spooky events?
Eh, I can take 'em or leave 'em.

5. Will you dress up for Halloween this year?
I'm thinking no... if I'm going to, I had better come up with something soon, huh?

So this morning I was on my way to work and realized that I didn't have any reading material on me at all - a necessity for the commute - and so I stole a magazine from my boyfriend. When we were in Alaska, he was reading this magazine/journal thang and it looked really intriguing, and it was just lying on the floor of his living room, so I really don't think he'll miss it. Anyway, it's this British journal called The Idler and it's brilliant. It's sort of like Granta, but less hoity-toity and with a smattering of pop culture and a sense of humor - and it celebrates being lazy and hating your hometown! I like!

Today my boss is out, and I am in charge. As they say, while the cat's away, the mice will play. But the thing is, he put me in charge, so I have to at least pretend to be relatively productive and official and stuff.
Yeah, whatever.

Apparently reckless driving is an affront to God.

The new Lemony Snicket book comes out today. I am actually giddy with anticipation.

My latest fun obsessions? Online Clue, Battleship, and Monopoly at games.com. Like I said, while the cat's away, the mice will play.

My brother just got online - as in, he is completely and utterly computer illiterate and is just joining the web world. I share this with you because I love to have stuff to rag on my brother about - and because if he can find his way back to my website, he might eventually read it, and then he will attempt to tease me. However, he will not be able to figure out how to enter a comment and will be forced to call me to abuse me about it. Or IM me. He has figured that out, at least.
I jest, but I love him.

So, I got notice a week ago that my medical insurance - Medical Claims Services/Health Care Value Management - decided to reject a claim for a doctor's appointment I had in July of 2001. They suck. They refused to respond to the claim for a year and three months and finally rejected it based on the fact that I have a prior condition that they were uncertain that I was previously covered for. But get this - they didn't cover that initial appointment with my neurologist because of my history of epilepsy, but they covered my subsequent appointments with her. So, what gives??? Why some, but not the first? Why are they such huge colossal assholes???

So now I had to contact my old employer because my previous health insurance company has since gone out of business, and of course my old employer has updated their computer systems since I left so I am now nowhere to be found. Ultimately they did find me in the payroll system but not in the HR system and told me that I have to get my new medical insurance to write them a letter requesting the coverage verification. Well, of course they aren't going to do that. Hell, they waited over a year to address this in the first place. So I had to make a special request to the powers that be for them to accept a letter from my company's HR department which will then be forwarded on to the insurance people. This is endless and annoying and I just want to hurt somebody.

Argh.

Assholes.

So, you may have read my blog and thought to yourself, "Gee, she does all this blogging at work. Doesn't she have better things to do?" The answer, of course, is yes. I need to IM friends, I need to search the net, I need to read other blogs, I need to tease my brother about his lack of computer skills. These are important, nay, VITAL parts of my working day.

But lately I have found that many a request I make to search the web results in a screen that simply says "REQUEST DENIED BY COMPANY FIREWALL." Excuse me? I wanted to read blog, not search for porn! I mean, really. I can't go look at a site where Biblical scenes are acted out by Legos? Apparently not - which makes the fact that I have bookmarked it as one of my favorites sorta moot.

I understand that our company is trying to prevent people from searching for porn on the net - this has, in fact, been a concern in the past here. But anything that is hosted by blogspot is now off-limits to me.

Where is the sense in all of this?

They can't possibly expect me to work all day, can they?

I figured out how to change the look of my website. I just can't figure out how to change it to something that is actually interesting.

I have found the most boring computer game ever...

... and yet at the same time, it's sort of addictive and oddly soothing.

My last three entries all had titles that ended in exclamation points. Makes me look like a hyper-enthusiastic dork.

Not that that's new.

Oh well. Happy Halloween!

So, I read somewhere online today that the average woman has 25 things in her purse.

Well then, let's see if I'm extraordinary or what...

1 - Wallet. We won't count what's inside that.
2 - Book of stamps
3 - Chili's gift certificates (4) and business card of the manager - received when we had the worst service EVER a few weeks back
4 - receipts (4)
5 - T-passes (2), October and November
6 - black pen - ball point
7 - $35 that I need to remember to give to Cheryl
8 - concert stub from Monday's American Idol concert
9 - state ID
10 - cruise ship guest card from my trip to Alaska last month
11 - little black thingy that holds business cards
12 - key ring with four rings and eight keys on it - I probably only use two of those keys with any semblance of regularity
13 - access card for my company's building
14 - watch
15 - medication in a little bottle
16 - medication in inhaler form
17 - medication in blister pack form
18 - lip balm
19 - portable thingy of perfume which I always carry but rarely wear
20 - er, tampon
21 - another pen
22 - gum wrappers (no gum)
23 - another black pen - gel writer!
24 - two tissues
25 - a HUGE amount of change - $7.96 in change actually

Wow. I just feel so average now.