Accents
Fun at sea
Cape Canaveral, Florida, USA, April 16—Today spring break begins, Montessori is closed, and our Grade II schooler Danika is all agog for the cruise that was scheduled more than a month ago. So are Randy and her husband David, both looking forward to big R and R (rest and recreation) for a break from the incessant spin of the grindstone. The company of Brenda and Bob, David’s parents, is added pleasure.
Gosh, it’s now April 28. I’m here in California and still adjusting to the three-hour difference in time zone from the East Coast to the West Coast of the American continent. I started with this piece on Florida terra firma only to drop laptop and all. Finish with this column after the cruise, yeah, “talk more later,” a favorite phrase when we consign things to the back burner. We had programmed our mind to have its fill of the fun that the ship SENSATION had to offer. Why bother with the email? Replies could wait; let the impatient understand. No cyberspace meanderings, only floating on the wide, wide Caribbean Sea aboard cruise ship SENSATION — billed by Carnival Cruise Line as a “Fun Ship” along with others bearing names just as fantastic: FASCINATION, INSPIRATION, IMAGINATION, etc. FASCINATION was the ship where the wedding of my daughter Raileen and Nixon was held.
In 2003, INSPIRATION took us on a second cruise in the Caribbean waters. These retirees (I and who else but the ‘significant other’) are convinced that cruising is the ultimate, worry-free, best-value-for-the-money “get-away-from-it-all.” No hotel hassles, no traffic jams to ruin the lovely day, no search for restaurants that offer unique gustatory delights. The fun is confined from end to end of the ship.
After years of “kayod” (hard work) seeing son and daughters through college to finally clutch the precious sheepskin, Rudy and I have taken deep breaths of relief in trips that satisfy the wanderlust—trips a fellow retiree likes to call a “payback.” Our eleven-country tour of Europe in 1995 was manna from the daughters. Certainly, hard-earned interest for the years of living peso-pinching. Time was when some necessities had to be dispensed with and luxury was a forgotten term. Education of the children was the top priority.
As we sipped the pina colada on the deck of the SENSATION — two seventy-agers were enjoying the cruise courtesy of forty-ager Randy Raissa, a doctor (an internist). It seemed time was suspended in exuberant beauty: one incomparable moment in a grandparents’ life to see grandkid Danika climb out from the whirling Jacuzzi to give the adjoining pool a go with her free-style strokes. Earlier in the day, the hot tub with underwater jets was a soothing massage for us oldies.
The 24-hour Internet Café was most inviting but we succeeded in repelling the IAD virus (Internet Addictive Disorder). Neither did we browse the volumes in the Oak Room library except viewing the shelves of one bookcase, books on religion, labeled Sacramentary. We entered the Plaza Lounge Karaoke Hour, but didn’t linger. Gosh, had we participated, the result would have been “trying hard” to the dismay of the audience. So much for frustrated warblers.
Rudy and I believe dancing is one of the best forms of exercise, and evenings at the Kaleidoscope Disco would have been ideal to ward off the calories accumulated at the SENSATION heavy laden buffet tables. Disco time, however, was too late for us seniors, age having hauled us into the “early to bed, early to rise” bracket. Moreover, the comfy stateroom called for dreamtime to the gentle sway of the boat on the way to the Bahamas.
Areas Rudy and I are always impervious to are places of games of chance. Back in the homeland, mahjong tables have always been a no-no. Thus, the lure of the slot machines, the dice, the cards, the blackjack tournament, etc. at the SENSATION Casino was no match to feeling the sea breeze in the open deck, moments given to contemplation of the unfathomables—the wonder of the universe—inspired by the moon and the stars up above in the vast expanse of the night sky. You wished you were a poet.
Bingo was plentiful, too, said to be tax-free. But our preference was Music Power at the Promenade Deck. Also, Showtime at the Fantasia (cute moniker), or learning the tricks in ice carving sculptures and fancy towel folding in a demo by the experts of the kitchen staff.
Not to forget America’s most pervasive vice: consummate consumerism. Its ugly head reared in the shopping spree raffle of jewelry, paintings, and souvenir items plus other enticements to gobble your credit card or empty your wallet as if there’s no tomorrow, the global recession notwithstanding. It is said consumer spending and more spending will pep up the economy in the overall. Let the economists have their say. At the end of the day, you have your own personal economics to reckon with. (Next week: The “sensational” Filipinos)
(Email: lagoc@hargray.com)