Why Cruising is Not for Us

In January, while enjoying our post-holiday vacation in the Dominican, hubby received an email from his company that they were taking the entire company on a cruise trip in April.  Yes, we are absolutely spoiled rotten and aware of it.  So in April of this year, we headed down to Galveston, Texas to board Royal Caribbean's Liberty of the Seas and cruise to Roatan, Honduras; Belize City, Belize and Cozumel, Mexico.

This was our second cruise, and both through the same company.  The first - as we recall it - was a spectacular experience on the behemoth Oasis of the Seas.  It was a significantly larger ship  in comparison to the smaller, more family oriented ship Liberty.  In retrospect, though, I recall many of the same drawbacks that we fully realized on this cruise and have thus drawn the conclusion that cruising just isn’t for us and I wanted to list some reasons why.

The Pros 

No Bugs

We briefly had a grasshopper stow away in port in Cozumel but other than that there are no flies, mosquitos or other pests (except of the drunk human variety) to dampen your trip. 

The Food.

Food is bountiful on cruise ships and it gives you the opportunity to try things you might not otherwise.. like beef carpaccio or cold melon soup.  Food is pretty well available all the time, although selection for free items decreases during the evening.  On our ship, past 9 pm you could only get pizza, desserts and sandwiches without incurring a room service charge.  The food is not always amazing quality or well prepared, but with the kitchen having to prepare hundreds of meals in the main dining room its to be expected.  The food was sometimes amazing and sometimes only edible, so overall I would say it is decent. 

The Ease.

You get on the boat and once your stateroom is ready and your luggage has arrived, you unpack and just enjoy going from place to place while enjoying your home-base each night.  Activities are easy to plan and decision making is pretty limited.

The idleness of it all.

You could literally do nothing but move from chair to restaurant to bar for a week.  If your jam is doing sweet f*** all on vacation, cruising might be for you.

The busy-ness of it all.

Alternately, there is stuff to do almost always as long as you are easily entertained.   Your cruise line should give you a newsletter each day in your stateroom that outlines all the day’s activities, and most cruiselines will have a channel devoted to the same on your stateroom television.  I found that it seemed like a lot of information sessions on shopping in port, however.

The Cons

The noise.

Go on a cruise with enough young families and drunk spring breakers and you will rapidly be looking for a place to escape.  And there aren’t that many.  Unless you want to go to the woefully under-stocked library where books are left by considerate passengers prior to you, or your stateroom.  Sorry, this should be a pro...  If you enjoy napping on vacation, there is abundant time to nap. 

The crowds.

We tried to avoid meals at the buffet during busy times (which is tremendously difficult when you’re hungry!) but still encountered few – if any – empty tables to sit at.  We took a few dips in the adult pool, but could never access the two main pools because they were so packed with children, and the hot tubs around the main pool were always full of teens.  No seats around the pool were ever secured in a week.  We are both smokers, and other than in the evening and port days, seats were hard to find in the designated smoking area on the 11^th deck.  We spent a lot of time standing around stand-up smoking receptacles. 

The Motion of the Ocean.

I was mildly seasick on the first cruise, but mainly at nights when I was sleeping.  This might have been due to the layout of that stateroom as our bed was parallel to the outside of the ship.  On the most recent cruise, our bed was placed with the head facing the exterior of the ship which I found more relaxing.  This time, aided with diligently changed scopalomine patches, I was perfectly fine (although did experience “disembarkation sickness” around 24 hours after getting off the boat).  My poor husband, on the other hand, had the “mal de mer” so badly that he didn’t vary his diet beyond soda crackers, dry salad and ginger ale on days 3-7 of the cruise.  Not only did the patch not work for him, but we tried in vain using meclizine, seabands and finally Dramamine which ended up being our winner.  Too bad it knocks you out within 30 minutes.  The poor man is a waif at the best of times, and easily lost 10 much needed pounds during our cruise.  Thankfully, he’s gained it all back due to an increased appetite since we arrived back on land. 

Cheesy Entertainment.

In order to drum up interest for the “Saturday Night Fever” show that was playing on our final night, they had a “Disco Dance Party” in the main promenade area of the ship.  Which not only meant that the only way you could get from the front of the boat to the back of the boat on that deck, was to go up or down a deck because the entire promenade was FILLED with people.  We made the mistake of ducking into the English Pub for a drink and were effectively trapped in there until the entire mess was over.  I’m not the biggest fan of disco music, but I also don’t dislike it.  I do dislike when mediocre singers butcher ABBA, however.  

Speaking of the English pub, we spent about half our late nights in there (they shut down all the bars on the outside decks by 9, so down to the Promenade or Casino you must go), and it wouldn’t have been too bad if the entertainer – a singer and guitarist – knew more than the 15 songs he played each night.  I love “Wonderwall” by Oasis.  Singing along to the same song each and every nights faded my love affair with it.  And being socially forced into raising your glass and toasting “Social” after every song made me feel.. well, less social.  

I’ll give it to the comedian we had on the third night though – he was a funny guy. 

Lack of Time. 

You are in port for about 8 hours beginning early in the morning - disembarkation to port typically happens between 7:30-8:30 depending on when you got in.  The only guarantee that you will get off quickly is if you have an excursion booked through your cruise line, otherwise you can expect to take between 5-20 minutes just waiting in a line to get off especially if you try to get off right when you can begin.  Longer if the port you are in requires a tender (or smaller boat) to shore.  We waited half an hour for our tender at Belize City.   

Which leads me to…

Lack of Culture.

So if we factor in the 5-30 minutes to get off the boat, and typically all lines want you back on board ½ an hour before the deadline to re-embark, that leaves you with about 7-ish hours.  To see enough of the culture of the country to make a decision about whether you want to return for an extended stay. 

And the port is typically the least interesting part about any of the countries you visit.  

There is zero culture on the boat since most of the people hail from somewhere within a 200 mile radius of the initial port, so it’s kind of like cruising with a good portion of wherever you live.  We’re Canadian and although there are minor cultural differences between us and Texans, we left the US and never really felt like we did.  

I feel like cruising is for two different types of people:  Those who are established in their lives and have much to lose (ie. Retired) so prefer bite sized bits of adventure followed by the opportunity to escape to a home base.  And those who don’t care to experience one iota of actual culture on vacation.  

My favorite example of this was overhearing a conversation as we were setting sail from Cozumel.

Person 1: “So how your day?”

Person 2: “Oh, It was great – we love Mexico!”

Person 1: “What did you do?”

Person 3: “We grabbed lunch and drinks at Senor Frogs just at the pier”

Full disclaimer: Senor Frogs is literally not even outside the security gates to leave the port and go into Cozumel.  So much so that major credit card companies consider it an “International Shopping Area”.  See photo where I am standing on the boat. 

And just so you don’t assume I just have a hate on for those south of the longest undefended border in the world, know that even seasoned Canadian cruisers that I know act this way.

Case in point.  A coworker of my husband’s comes back from a cruise including a stop in Jamaica and is asked how Jamaica is.  She responds, “Meh, it’s Jamaica.  We just went to Margaritaville in Montego Bay.”

As if Margaritaville, the purveyors of shitty burgers and mediocre beer that can be accessed in about 30 other places around the world, summarizes the Jamaican experience.

The expense.

Did you forget sunscreen?  That will be roughly double the land price.  Didn’t buy a drink package?  That will be between $8-12 a drink.  Did buy a drink pass?  Get ready to attempt to drink 1/16^th your body weight in sugary cocktails on sea days, because God knows, you didn’t get your money’s worth on port days.  And port days… did you actually want to see something other than overpriced bars with terrible food and shops all selling the same generic “Made in China” garbage that you could get in literally ever souvenir shop around the world (but with different destinations printed on them!)?

That’ll cost you.  If you did an excursion through the boat you can expect a roughly 100% markup on whatever the tour is actually worth.  A tequila tasting excursion we haphazardly joined was $50 if booked through the cruise line.  Our price?  $0.

A tour that we booked directly through the tour operator in Belize City was $70 per person.  The same tour was $140 if booked through the cruise line.  Sure, booking directly through the cruise line gives you some assurances.  The boat won’t leave without you.  The tour operator won’t rob or murder you.  But is paying double to five times the price really worth these same assurances?  Sure, if you’re 65 and have plenty to lose.  Not if you’re 30 something with far more credit card debt than you’d ever hoped to have.  

But even if you don’t book an excursion and just want to go see something cool for the day, expect that each cab driver you approach will now want to charge a per person fare.  Never mind that it doesn’t cost them anymore to drive one person vs three or that everywhere else in the world the cab fare is per ride and not per person, but you just got off a cruise ship sucka, and you’d better believe that you have a giant bullseye on your back that says the same thing.  Sure, you can haggle.  But you’ll still pay for more than you’re comfortable with, and depending on how hostile your driver is after haggling, may or may not see anything cool.  

Not to mention that even though you pay a gratuity surcharge, you will still be expected to tip to RECEIVE service on the ship.  I wandered to the bar we frequented on the boat, and my favorite bartender was on dinner break, so his replacement proceeded to ignore me in lieu of taking care of the 5 people who came to the bar right after me because they all had $1 bills in their hands.  I did not, and thus he replenished their drinks, and then proceeded to take orders from the next wave of the people.  I sat on my stool trying to make eye contact.  When I finally spoke up to ask if I was able to get a drink, his haughty reply was “Yes, what do you want?”  This was day 2 of the cruise.  Not a good omen.

Keep in mind that my favorite bartender was only my favorite because I tipped him well in cash, and thus he rapidly learned my name and my preferences in order to keep the tips coming.  If I chose not to tip at all, I don’t know that things would have been the same.  

Additionally, many people among our group experienced bogus charges after disembarking.  I was charged on my VISA again for my room charges which I had paid in cash 2 nights before disembarking, as well as a $8.50 charge for “mini bar charges”.  The funny thing was, there was never any items in our mini bar fridge and the 2 bottles of Evian they leave in your room (hoping you won’t read the card hanging over their neck masquerading as an info card but that really just notifies you of their cost) remained precisely where we found them – unopened.  It took a week of calling, emailing and finally contacting them on social media before they agreed to refund the charges. 

The value.

So you pay for the cruise which includes your stateroom and meals.  And a gratuity fee which is SUPPOSED to cover gratuities (but as above, doesn’t really).  If you’re like me and far away from a port, you pay for a flight to get there.  If the port isn’t near the airport (a la Galveston), you pay for transportation to get to the port.  And probably a hotel room since you typically won’t be lucky enough to have a flight arrive in time to get you on board the ship.  But (also as above) everything else is extra.  

This includes staterooms capable of accommodating little ones.  As I mentioned earlier, we traveled with a large group and that included a few younger families.  Both paid a significant extra amount (read: the equivalent to an extra adult accompanying them) in order to bring their kidlets along and for that price they got a bunk bed directly above mom and dad’s bed (romantic, right?) and a crib with a cardboard mattress.  

The one night the one little one fell off the bunk, and since he’s only about 2, dad reached out to catch him.  And broke his collarbone.  Dad’s, I mean, not the little guy… He was fine but shaken up.  So you pay the same amount as if you were bringing along a teenager and the best they can do is put the bunk above your bed effectively barring any mom and dad private time, and not even put safety rails around it???  I felt for the poor dad who now got to spend the rest of the cruise with his arm in a sling.

And a cardboard mattress for an infant?  I mean I know kids are durable and all, but for a week?  We wondered why we saw all these people toting around crib mattresses as we were getting on and clearly these are seasoned cruisers who know that if you cruise with a baby it’s BYOBed.  Absolutely ludicrous.  

Icing on the cake was when one member of the second group was now unable to get on the ship due to an issue with photo ID.  Since the next sailing was happening within a day and the room was paid for, my husband’s boss offered the room to our group to see if anyone wanted to stay on another week.  One semi-retired couple stepped up and said they would take it and would even be happy to pay for the increase in price (the stateroom on offer was a single).  When they and hubby’s boss approached customer service they were not allowed to make the change but were offered a refund of …. $90 USD.  Keep in mind that hubby’s boss had now reserved over 30 staterooms (a few were suites) on 2 separate sailings back to back.  And this was by no means the first cruise they had taken with RCI.  And they were offered $90 or nothing.  I can only imagine that the room was sold as a last minute deal to someone effectively doubling their profit.  But hey, profit over people, right Royal Caribbean?

The Commercialism.

Not only was this ship horrible about soliciting to their guests (I’ll get back to that in a second), but everywhere we went the "info sessions" were about things like “How to buy Gems” and “Shopping tips in (the next port of call)”.  From the moment we walked on the ship, staff were encouraging us to buy things or upgrade the experience that we’d already paid a significant amount of money for.  They stand at the entrance to the buffet waving brochures in your face and barking the name of the restaurant to entice you to pay for the food at one of the “specialty” (read: not included) restaurants.  In 10 minutes while eating breakfast we were approached to buy a cupcake decorating class, a reservation at a specialty restaurant and a couple’s massage at the spa.  My husband finally barked at the last lady, “We are trying to eat breakfast”.  

It was aggravating and infuriating all at once and it happened constantly.  

6 channels on the TV were devoted to trying to sell you things, a guy walked back and forth across both sides of Deck 11 with a cart to make guac and entice people to make reservations at the mexican restaurant, they setup a makeshift bar to sell people drinks inside a coconut (they were not included in your “all inclusive” drink package), girls stood outside the main dining room at suppertime trying to sell you overpriced spa treatments.  It was just, enough.  If I wanted to go on a vacation to be sold to the entire time I’d go to a mall.  

And then you get off the cruise ship at a port and its more of the same.  We've discussed the idea of doing a European river cruise when we're older, but other than that, cruising just isn't for us. 

My Bucket List Updated

Since I've been awhile on an update on this, and I'm procrastinating on painting my spare room, I thought now was as good a time as any to do one.

Set foot on every continent on Earth. (Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, South America, Antarctica, Australia)
Get a tattoo on my ankle or foot.
Get a degree.
Watch a soccer game in Brazil.
Fly first class.
See Our Lady Peace in concert.
Restore a car.
Visit Boston in the fall.
Take a comedy class.
Go backcountry camping.
Take a self defense class.
Visit Australia (and watch the sunset at Uluru).
Ride a real rollercoaster.
Visit NYC.
Join the Mile High club.
Inspire someone to do something great.
Bake cookies for my neighbours.
Fly in a hot air balloon.
Take voice lessons.
See the Grand Canyon.
Go wine tasting at a vineyard.
Start a dance in a public place.
Take my CFSC exam and get my firearm Possession and Acquisition Licence -- just because.
"Flip" a house.
Visit the East Side Gallery in Berlin.
Ask for a raise.
See U2 live in concert in Dublin.
Go to Charleston, SC and drive across the Arthur Ravenal, Jr. Bridge.
Drive across the Golden Gate bridge.
Get down to a single digit clothing size.
Help build a Habitat for Humanity Home.
Ride a camel in the desert.
Learn to play the piano.
Give a stranger a $100 bill.
Play a song on a guitar.
Have a salt water aquarium.
Be "at sea" on Christmas Day.
Swim with a dolphin.
Buy and display a piece of art that I love.
Rescue a dog and give it a forever home.
Go skydiving.
Make love on a moving train.
Drink beer at Oktoberfest in Munich.
Perfect my poker face.
Send a message in a bottle.
Learn to actually shuffle a deck of cards -- properly.
Ride in a private plane.
Pay for someone's groceries.
Drive a Lamborghini Diablo.
Visit a former concentration camp.
Learn how to invest intelligently.
Ride a mechanical bull.
Visit Japan (and the Aokigahara Forest).
Make a real difference in someone's life.
Ride through the Panama Canal.
Visit Easter Island.
Write a will.
Live abroad for a year.
Audition for a play.
See a play on Broadway.
Quit smoking.
Attend Mardi Gras.
Play tennis passably well.
Take a computer free vacation for at least 2 weeks.
Throw a classy dinner party.
Kiss the Blarney Stone.
Safari in Africa.
Help sail a yacht.
Learn to say the alphabet backwards.
Hitchhike.
Convincingly adopt an accent for an entire day.
Take salsa dancing lessons.
Take tango lessons.
Have whiskey at a pub in Ireland.
Go wild at Carnival in Rio.
Have my teeth professionally whitened.
Learn how to surf.
Spend New Year's in an exotic location.
Participate in a Marathon.
Go on a cruise.
Write and submit a script for a TV show.
Speak in front of a large crowd.
Feel weightlessness.
Live in a beach house.
Heal my past.
Donate blood.
Gamble in Monte Carlo.
Take a bellydancing class.
Own a Clydesdale Horse.
Whale Watch.
Go Scuba Diving.
Buy a round for everyone in a bar.
Visit all US States. (Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming) * 7 down now.  Sadly Z is doing much better at this one than I am.
See all the Wonders of the World. (Great Wall of China, Petra, Christ the Redeemer, Machu Picchu, Chichen Itza, Colosseum, Taj Mahal, Great Pyramid of Giza, Stonehenge, Hagia Sophia, Porcelain Tower of Nanjing, Leaning Tower of Pisa, Catacombs of Kom El Shoqafa)
Go to Hawaii.
See a tornado.
Take a Flair Bartending class.
Go to the Kentucky Derby and wear a great hat.
Make love under a waterfall.
Break a plate at a Greek restaurant while yelling "Oppa!"
Learn how to ice skate without killing/maiming someone.
Learn the basics of ASL.
Become fluent in another language.
Become conversational in at least 4.
Meet the Dalai Lama.
Get married.
Stay in a 5 star hotel.
Learn to sculpt.
Own a canoe (and use it).
Be an extra in a movie (or a TV show).
Go whale watching.
Speed date.
Live in a house with a window seat.
Ride in a gondola with the love of my life in Venice.
Go on a road trip down the Pan-American Highway (it doesn't have to be all the way).
Show a dog at Westminster and Crufts the same year.
Make something to be proud of.
Write a novel.

As you can see, I have a long way to go still.

Forget Scentsy!

I know it's been forever since my last post again, but sometimes I come across a product I love so very much that I can't think of a more appropriate outlet than a blog post. If you're like me, you probably know 1.4 billion people (or thereabouts) that distribute Scentsy, those little scented wax bars that you melt in a specially designed unit. If you're like me, you're annoyed with everyone approaching you to distribute or to buy from them exclusively, and you're doubly annoyed that if you just want to try one bar it'll cost you the price PLUS exorbitant shipping charges. Oh yeah, and those shipping charges don't even get the product to your house -- just to your distributor's house where they may or may not arrange to deliver.

Yes, I am not a fan of multi-level marketing companies, and I'll admit to that freely, but I also understand the appeal behind Scentsy completely.. You avoid the soot buildup of highly scented candles (I used to love Gold Canyon for their throw until I realized that no amount of wick trimming was going to save my windows from looking like they belonged to a chimney sweep), they are safer than leaving a candle burning, and you can swap out scents whenever you tire of the old one. They're also comparatively cheaper than candles -- One Scentsy melt provides roughly the equivalent scent as an average 7 oz. candle, which averages a few dollars more depending on quality.

I stumbled across something wonderful a few months ago. It's Scentsy but better. 

 This cute display belongs to a lady by the name of Patty who makes scented wax melts from her home.  The bars are the equivalent size to a Scentsy bar, she has about 300 permanent rotating scents (and does special requests all the time), the scent throw is phenomenal (think Yankee or GC, but soot-less) and one bar has lasted me just over a month.

I originally picked up her scents Bamboo and Sweet Tweet, and when I got home that night and put on ST all my fiance could remark is that our living smelled "Sweet and tropical".  We puzzled over the combination of scents that made up that intricate Caribbean smell and both agreed it smelled like a cocktail we'd both loved in Cuba.  It turns out that very scent was inspired by a special request for a Cuban cocktail that one of Patty's other customers had tried on her vacation, so I'll say she's pretty spot on with her special requests.

Bamboo is clean and uplifting.  It's the kind of smell you'd expect in a spa, and would immediately relax you.

Today I decided to go visit Patty and check out some of her other scents, and was pleased to discover that she has not only scented melts but room sprays and car air fresheners.  As a smoker who is consistently ashamed of that status, I'm always seeking something to keep my car smelling less like a driving ashtray, so I picked up a bottle of Sweet Tweet and Cool Citrus sprays for the vehicles.

I also picked up Gain (which makes my house smell like I've been doing laundry all day.. that's going to come in handy for those times I have company coming but don't want to really clean), Sugar Plum (smells blissful in my kitchen), Aloe & Clover (another relaxing spa scent), Ocean Mist and another package of both Sweet Tweet and Bamboo.

Patty also gave me a sample of a new melt she is experimenting with called Odour Out, which is reminiscent of clean, fresh-cut grass and has certainly perked up my fiance's games room -- incidentally the only room in the house that we allow smoking in.

I spent far less on all those products than I would for half as many from Scentsy, and I don't have to wait for my products to arrive in a week or two.  I supported a local small home-based business (that isn't in MLM), had a wonderful conversation and have plenty of new scents to enjoy at home RIGHT NOW. 

So I urge you all to do something for your local economy and find someone who locally makes a product you love and buy from them. You might be pleasantly surprised.

If you live in Southern Alberta or Southwestern Saskatchewan and want to try some of the Patty's "Heart Felt Melts", I suggest you check out her facebook page.  I know you won't be disappointed!

Out with the Old

Yesterday was my 28th birthday.

For most people a birthday is a time of celebration, and while I have had celebratory birthdays, my birthdays have been first and foremost a time of contemplation. It's another year gone, the startling realization that I am now one year older, and a checkpoint in my life.

I wrote a blog entry years ago about my birthday.

Birthdays are:

1) An inventory of all your "real" friends vs. your "fake" friends. It's funny how a guy you dated 5 years ago sends you a MSN at midnight and says "Is it too early to wish you a Happy Birthday?" while people that enthusiastically claim to 'love me' don't even send me a Good Morning.

2) A status report on your current place in life, and if you've done everything youre supposed to do by such and such age, and then seeing a disturbing amount of checks in the "nope" column.

3) The sad resignation that you have no control over the events of this day in your life, and must meekly nod and smile when everyone assumes they know what you REALLY want to do.

4) The unsettling social commentary that most of your "gifts" are in bottles

Birthdays suck.

And I realized something. I am in complete control of these things. I don't need to surround myself by "fake friends". I need to start making more of an effort to check boxes in my "Yep" column.

So I did something I've often wanted to do, but never had the guts to. I purged my Facebook friends list last night, aided by a bottle of wine and the knowledge that most of these people wouldn't even notice.

It was the most liberating thing I've ever done on a birthday and I feel 50 friends lighter.

All Apologies

For various reasons I've been slacking about keeping my blog up to date, and it's generally just because I've been busy doing all the stuff that's not fit to write about.

As a brief update, I put down my love of 9 years on February 8, 2010 - my beloved cat, Onye. She was suffering from liver failure, and as much as I wanted to justify dishing out the $1000+ it would take to stabilize her, I realized it was a selfish move on my part to prolong her anguish to serve my own companionship needs. The past month has proven to be especially difficult in regards to me emotions, but I feel like I see light on the other end of the tunnel.

On a plus note, I met a wonderful man who has been a great support system through the loss of my constant companion, as well as much of the work anguish I've been dealing with. It's also helpful that he's employed by the same company as me, so all the stories about "my day at the office" don't involve the anonymous, faceless subjects that they usually do.

I'm also happy to say I've switched departments and hope that despite the cut in hours, it does more to improve my attitude towards waking up every morning and making the trek to work. I wouldn't be lying if I said it hadn't been turning into a daily struggle, and the days that I did make it in were usually full of frustrations and headaches which was demotivating me more daily.

I do also have to make an effort at censoring more things about what I write here, because I have again had a reminder that people often take things more seriously than they should. While I view my blog as an outlet for my thoughts and a way of keeping in touch with those I (unfortunately) don't get to talk to enough, many people seem to view it as a way to keep tabs on me. It's unfortunate when things come to that, but I guess in a public forum you can't complain when people read what you write.

I promise to think of something more entertaining to talk about next time, but long-term readers know my patterns, and those are the people I care about.

I think the common thread is "Boys" and "texting" which means I am really 16, not 26

Apparently there's this thing called Wordle where you can type in your blog url and they give you an artistic rendering of what your blog is all about.

Mine is (not surprisingly) boring.


I think it's mildly humorous that the first thing that stood out to me is that repercussions is spelled wrong. And yet, I bet given the opportunity I would type it repurcussions again and again.

In the absence of my two favorite EHOs or my friendly neighbourhood IT guy to email, I felt the need to blog to pass time, because I just finished a job interview and now feel like I have an adrenaline/nerve hangover.

And then there was lightly whipped mascarpone...

Yeah, I dig it a little. But sometimes I wonder if people who get ironic tattoos ever think of the future and the potential repurcussions of getting something like, Oh, I don't know, the Flying Spaghetti Monster tattoed on the back of their leg. 9 out of 10 people I've made a reference to don't get it NOW, who is going to get it in 10 years?

Oh, noodly appendages.