Wed, Jan 10th – Nothing to report

Folks… what can I say. This is my THIRD day off this week. Out of five.

It’s hard for me to find things to write about when nothing’s happening. But I can tell you about a few exciting things that DIDN’T happen this week….

1) My friends Denis, on the Carnival Valor, and Garth, on the Carnival Legend were both due to be in port with me on the Veendam in Belize yesterday. We were all going to meet up and have lunch at the Smoky Mermaid in Belize City. But the Legend had a medical emergency last week, which threw off their itinerary by a day, and they are in Belize today instead. And Denis didn’t get my email detailing where to meet me in time, so we missed each other too. Que sera sera – I had a great lunch of seafood ceviche and a banana chimichanga which was absolutely delectable.

2) Today’s port of Santo Tomas de Castillo, Guatemala is on the edge of a dense rainforest. And wouldn’t you know it – it rained all day long. So one hour before our only scheduled set of the day at sailaway, Dani and the HALcats were cancelled. Again, que sera…. I called up my friend Vasile, our keyboard player, and we played a 2-hour session of UNO, at which I won the first fourteen hands, but in the end, he beat me by a whopping 22 points.

3) Our percussionist, John Patti, whose contract was originally slated to terminate this upcoming Sunday (as was mine), had decided to take a two-week extension that was offered to him, to better fit his schedule of land-based gigs. However, due to a paperwork mis-shuffle, John Patti’s extension did not get through in time, and on Sunday when his replacement arrives, John will be given a plane ticket to head back to Baltimore. This will surprise and delight his girlfriend and his family, but the rest of us HALcats are sad to seem him go sooner than expected. Not to mention that John was REALLY looking forward to our upcoming eight-ports-in-a-row, two-week cruise.

Such is my life. This is it, folks – the “glamorous” life of a cruise ship showgirl… ahem “band singer.”