Trudy Myers's Blog, page 9

Personal Appearances

I am writing this aheadof time, because I am packing up and getting ready to go out of town on Jan 27,2024.

I will be attending theSunshine State Book Festival in Gainsville, FL. For 7 hours (10 am to 5 pm), Iand another of MoonPhazes’ authors, John Lars Shoberg, will be talking topotential customers, other authors, and other entrepreneurs about potentiallyworking together in some way. It is free to attend this event. This will be my2nd year at this festival, and I have big hopes for it. But it is alittle daunting to handle such an appearance on my own, that’s why this time,I’m taking John to help out. We will be at booths 163 and 164.

On February 17th,2024, we will have a booth at Syfy Bartow in downtown Bartow, FL. This free-to-attendstreet festival starts at 11 am and ends at 6 pm. I’m not sure where our boothwill be located, but if you go there, keep your eyes open for us. I will beselling books and possibly some cosplay prosthetics. John is planning to go,but he may spend the day with the Klingons. Or possibly he’ll split the timebetween them and my booth.

We are also planning tobe at Necronomicon in Tampa, FL, this fall. It was held in September in 2023,but I can’t find an updated website to get the dates for this’ year’s con. It’salso too early for me to start pestering them for an author’s table yet. I’lltry to keep you informed as the convention gets closer. John is thinking ofhaving some Klingon activities there, and he’s looking for other Klingons tohelp out.

Right now, that’s allwe’ve got scheduled for this year. We did hear that Bartow con was a hit lastfall and is planning to do it again in 2024. If they do, I hope I can get atable to sell stuff. They were pretty crowded last year!

We go to conventionsand book festivals to meet and talk to people who have read our books, andhopefully sell them more books. If you would like to check out our books, the (trade)paperbacks are available at MoonPhaze.com,and the ebooks are available at MoonPhazeBooks.com

Do You Hear it or Here it?

It’s surprising to mehow often I receive a letter or advertisement in the mail with grammar orpunctuation mistakes. I sometimes get a manuscript for editing with the samemistakes, so I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised. Not everybody who findsthemselves writing some sort of missive managed to test out of Freshman Englishin college.

Having already tackledthe subject of passive verbs, I decided to continue the trend by explaining apair of homonyms. Homonyms are words that sound the same but have differentmeanings.

The two words I’m goingto pick on today are here and hear. They sound the same, but theyaren’t spelled the same and they can’t be used interchangeably.

Here means ‘this spot whereI am,’ or ‘the area where I am’. It designates a location.

Hear is the act ofperceiving sound by way of the ear. Sometimes a bass instrument or a reallyloud sound can be felt vibrating through your body, but that’s not hearing. Ifyou truly can’t remember which is which, then notice and remember that the wordthat relies on ears has the word ‘ear’ in it.

I once received amanuscript that had the town crier shouting, “Here ye, here ye!” I tied mybrain in knots trying to figure out if he was really instructing thetownspeople to gather around him. It didn’t seem right to me, but maybe I waswrong. So I googled it, and found out that it was supposed to be “Hear ye, hearye!” Which translates from Medieval English to “Listen you, listen you.” And ofcourse, you can’t listen if you don’t have an ear, so the correct word to useis hear.

Memorize the meaningsof these two words, and then substitute that meaning when you use one of them,to see if you used the correct one.

I will build a househere. = I will build a house in this spot. That makes sense.

I will build a househear. = I will build a house by listening. That doesn’t make sense.

Did you here thedoorbell? = Did you in this location the doorbell? No, that doesn’t make sense.

Did you hear thedoorbell? = Did you perceive the doorbell? That does make sense.

I hope you enjoyed thismini-lesson. What was the worst use of either here or hear thatyou’ve noticed? 

Passive Verb? I Think Not

A while past, I asked afellow author to swap ads in our newsletters for one of each other’s books. Shesuggested we read each other’s books to see if we were ‘compatible’ with eachother’s audience.

So I read her book ofshort stories and although I didn’t find a lot of grammar or punctuationmistakes, I wasn’t impressed. Most of them seemed to be ‘slices of life’, notactual stories. She was writing a single scene that had no problem to solve,and therefore, had no resolution. I was carefully crafting a soft critique whenshe emailed me with the news that she didn’t feel my book was fitting for heraudience.

Her reason? It had toomany ‘passive verbs’ like ‘seemed’.

Years ago, I was toldto avoid ‘seemed’ in one of my short stories because it was a passive verb. Atthat time, I decided to research exactly what was a passive verb so that Icould avoid them. (Authors are always being told to ‘avoid passive verbs!’ withoutany explanation of what a passive verb is.)

A passive verb is whensomething is acted upon by someone or something.

Found artifacts arestudied by archeologists. – Passive

Archeologists studyartifacts that have been found. – Not Passive

 

Beach rocks are poundedinto sand by recurring waves. - Passive

Recurring waves poundbeach rocks into sand. – Not Passive

 

Those holsters werecrafted by a novice leathersmith. – Passive

A novice leathersmithcrafted those holsters. – Not Passive

 

Mary was kissed bySteve. – Passive

Steve kissed Mary. -Not Passive

 

Another way to think ofit is that with an active verb, the subject does something. With a passiveverb, the subject is acted upon. When searching for passive verbs, look for a‘be’ verb (be, am, are, is, been, being, was, were) as part of the verb. In theabove examples, we have are studied, are pounded, were crafted, and was kissed.A ‘be’ verb often (but not always) signals a passive verb. Does it have a ‘by’phrase behind the verb?

Some writers attempt to‘correct’ passive verbs by eliminating the ‘by’ phrase. It doesn’t work. “Marywas kissed.” is still a passive verb even if you don’t know who kissed her.

‘Seemed’ is not, by itself,a passive verb. “Everything seemed normal” is not a passive verb. How about“Mother seemed distraught by the news”? It’s got a ‘by’ phrase. But it doesn’thave a be verb, so frankly, I’m in a quandary, and would probably rewrite thesentence, possibly the entire scene.

Let’s take a closerlook. ‘Mother’ is the subject, ‘seemed’ is the verb, ‘distraught’ is anadjective describing the subject, and ‘by the news’ is a phrase answering thequestion of why. The news made mother distraught, so the subject has been actedupon, making this a passive verb. That’s how my thinking goes. Does yourthinking agree with mine?

I’d love to hear yourthoughts on this subject, as well as where you get your information on passiveverbs.

Our Train Trip to KC - Part 3

 

In and Out of Chicago –Tuesday, Nov 14

I don’t think I got anysleep sitting in that chair. It wasn’t comfortable; it didn’t recline orrotate. The arm of the chair was so far from the window and wall that if youtried to prop a pillow on the armrest, the pillow would slowly slide down inthe gap. Hubby didn’t have much better luck; he thought the rocking of thetrain was too unpredictable and jolting.

We got up about 5:40 AMand were soon off to the café car for breakfast. We were a little early and hadto wait for the server to get there. While we were eating, we were the onlyones there. Then Hubby remembered Chicago was in Central time zone, so he sethis watch back. Now it said we were eating at 5:20 and had plenty of timebefore we got to Chicago at 8:45.

Back in our room, wewatched daylight progress. I thought I saw frost on yards and cornfields butwasn’t sure. Mostly I saw naked trees, something you don’t see in Floridaunless the tree is dead.

Hubby wanted to layback down, but the bed had been put away. He stacked the boxes between the sofaand the sink, I moved back to the uncomfortable seat with the cpaps, and he laydown on the couch and dozed for another couple of hours. During that, theattendant took those stacked boxes downstairs and put them by the door so theywere ready to go.

We arrived at theChicago station on time. A Red Cap loaded our luggage in a cart and took us andanother lady to the lounge. The lounge people notified us what train we were onand what time 2 be ready to board (2:20). We put our luggage into temporary storageand looked to see what they had to eat. Again, it was snacks, and not a lot ofvariety.

Hubby settled in towork on his novel, and I worked with pen and notebook. About noon, he decidedhe was too tired to work anymore, so he wandered off. I jumped onto thatcomputer to work on the short I’d just started the day before we started thistrip. Finally got the word count over 1K! It’s been slow going, but until that, Ididn’t know where I was going with it. Should move much faster, now.

At 2, I startedshutting down and packing things up. Hubby and I went to the temporary luggagestorage and put away all the things we had gotten out, then started collectingour luggage just as they called over the PA for our group to go.

Another Red Cap took usto the train where our attendant greeted us. He had us leave our boxes onluggage storage shelves downstairs. When we got to our roomette, we found thisone was even smaller than our first one! At least we wouldn’t have to sleep init, because the train was due to arrive in KC at 10 PM.

Still, we hadn’t beensleeping well, and KC was still hours away. At first, Hub pulled out the laptopand tried to write, but the train was swaying and jolting so much it keptmessing up his file, so he gave up and put that away. Then he went walk about fora while, and I made our dinner reservation for 5 o’clock, because we’d neverreally gotten anything for lunch.

Eventually, it was timeto go for supper. We differed on what appetizers we got, but we both had steak(very good) and the cheesecake (also very good).

After dinner, Hubbytried to get some sleeping done. We had 3-4 hours before we had to get off. Weturned off all the lights in our roomette and closed the curtains to thehallway, to make it as dark as possible. Hubby took a pillow and leaned intothe corner of his seat, but he just could not doze off while sitting up.

The train was movingslowly. They announced we were behind a congestion of freight trains and couldonly move slowly until the tracks ahead cleared up. Sometime later, we began tomove faster and they announced that due to the delay, we would get to KC about10:42. About 9:45, we got too nervous for Hubby to try to sleep. This was not amajor stop where everybody would get off, like DC or Chicago. This was ascheduled 42-minute stop that they were trying to cut down to 10 minutes.Finally, we headed to the door on the lower level so we’d ready to get off.

The train stopped, theattendant help us off with our luggage and flagged down a red cap for us. Thered cap was picking up the checked luggage, too, and one of the suitcases hepicked up was Hubby’s carry-on. We couldn’t claim it yet, but as least we knewit was there. Then the Red Cap got stopped to help an older man who couldbarely walk. After several minutes of looking, the train attendant decided theolder man had lost his black piece of luggage, that it possibly got left inChicago. I don’t know how they decided to handle that.

Then we were off to theCentral Terminal. We helped the Red Caps unload their cart, claimed our pieceof checked luggage and asked questions like, “Do you have the number for a taxiservice?” and “Where should we wait for the taxi?”

Now having more luggagethan hands to carry it, we made our way through the lobby and out the frontdoor to a bench, where I tried to call Ztrip at 10:50. The line was no longerin service. I went back inside, asked the same guy, and he corrected the numberhe’d given me. Then he scrolled through his contacts and also gave me a numberYellow Cab.

I went outside and callZtrip again. I got through and made arrangements. They never showed. The nightwas chilly. I called Yellow Cab about 11:10. The night guard let us into thevestibule to wait because it was cold. Nobody showed up to get us!

About midnight, wetried to open a door to get out and couldn’t. Hubby went inside to try to findsomebody to let us out. What he found was a door that would let us out, so wecarried everything over there and went back outside. I called Yellow Cab again.A Ztrip van showed up about 12:30 and asked if we were headed for Independence.Yes, but where was Yellow Cab? We decided to take this guy. As he drove us toour hotel, he told us that Ztrip and Yellow Cab were the same company. Whoknew?

He drove us to ourhotel. I registered, we got everything up to our room, set up our cpaps andfell into bed somewhere around 2.

Thus our trip by train was a mixed bag of adventures, not all of them due to Amtrak. I probably should have looked up taxi services in KC before we left Florida, so that's something to keep in mind.

Our Train Trip to KC - Part 1

DC to Chicago – 2ndDay, Tuesday

At last it was lightout, and we got up and went for breakfast. We had just ordered our food whenthe attendant told us there was a problem with our train connection in NY, andwe needed to call Guest Services to see what changes were being made in ourplans, and it couldn’t wait, because we were only ½ hour away from DC, whichwas the possible place we could change trains. So I sat there, calling GuestServices. First the line was busy, then I was on hold. Time was ticking by. Theattendant came back and said the conductor had called for us, and we were toget off at DC, which was now 20 minutes away.

We forgot aboutbreakfast and hurried back to our room to gather our stuff. The attendant wasvery helpful in helping us get our stuff off the train and onto the platform.She even took our claim check to the baggage car and got our 1 piece of checkedluggage so it would travel to NY without us.

Not knowing what elseto do, I left Hubby on the platform with all our luggage while I went off tofind the ticket counter to ask for help. The ticket people gave me new ticketsfor the rest of our trip, and one took me to show me where the lounge was at.Apparently, since we had sleeper accommodations, we were entitled to use thelounge! Furthermore, we had gotten an upgrade for the next leg of our journeyand would have a bedroom rather than a roomette.

As he was about toleave me, I asked him for help in rescuing Hubby, who was still down on theplatform with too much luggage for both of us to carry, let alone him. He askedanother employee for help, and that employee, whose radio was chattering away athim, said yes, there was a Red Cap helping him get to the lounge. I thankedthem and wandered back toward the gate I had come from, expecting to see themsomewhere on the way. I didn’t find them, but my phone rang. Hubby waswondering where I was, he was at the lounge.

I went to the lounge.

I saw him as soon as Ientered, and all our luggage was in the temporary storage room. The loungeattendant could have printed our new tickets for us, but couldn’t checkluggage, so I took Hubby carryon and went back to the ticket counter to get itchecked in.

It was not quite 9. Ourtrain wouldn’t leave until 4.

The DC station washuge; multi-leveled, with lots of hallways, doorways to the outside, storesgalore and signs all over the place. I was glad to get back to the peacefuloasis of the lounge, where we could have our pick of coffee or soft drinks anda variety of snacks. It wasn’t breakfast, but it helped soothe our janglednerves. Hubby pulled out the laptop and worked on his WiP until about 2. Iworked in my notebook until he got done with the laptop, then I switched andstarted working on a short story I had barely begun.

We did leave the loungeonce, about lunchtime, to go to the food court in search of ‘real fool’. Allthat was available was fast food, so we each picked something and went back tothe lounge to eat.

We had been told to bein the lounge at 3:00 to be ready to catch our train. I packed up the laptopand put it back in our luggage about 2:45. At 3:00, they announced there was aproblem with the displays, they weren’t updating as needed, but the lounge employeesand the red caps could see the correct times, and they would get us to ourtrains on time.

About 3:30, a red capcame looking for my party of 2. He helped us get our luggage out to his golfcart and zipped us out to our train. We were in a 2-level car, so we had toclimb a tiny square staircase. The train’s attendant helped get our stuff upstairsand to our room. It was at least twice as big as our roomette had been, with acouch along one side, and a bathroom, sink and chair on the other. We put ourcarryon bag on a shelf above the single chair, piled the boxes and cpaps on thesofa, and we both got to sit near the window.

Soon the attendantarrived to take our orders for supper. There was no dining car, only a cafécar, so their choices of food were limited, and everything was microwaved.(Okay, I suppose the bread, salad and drinks were not.) What I had wasn’t greatfood, but it was edible. And it came with a complimentary alcoholic drink. (Trygetting complimentary drinks on an airline!)

We ate at 5:45, and itwas dark by the time we got done. Hubby had finished his word count for the dayand he hadn’t brought anything to read, so he decided it was time to turn in!After all, we had to get up by 6 to get breakfast before he hit Chicago. We hadthe attendant make up the bottom bed, which we’d been told could hold 2 people‘snugly’, and place all our boxes on the upper bunk.

Okay, we tried, butafter 40 years of sharing a CA King bed, we couldn’t make a not-quite-full bedwork for us. After a couple hours, I climbed out and told Hubby I would sleepin the chair. I’ve slept sitting up many times and didn’t think it would be aproblem. It was.

 

Our Train Trip to KC - Part 1

Day 1 – Orlando to NewYork

For a change of pace,we decided to take a train trip. Why? Well, a cruise ship would not get fromOrlando (inland) to KC (even further inland). The trip was to meet our latestgrandchild. We didn’t want to sit for hours in a brew of germ soup before wemet her, so we didn’t want to fly. Ditto for a bus. We thought about driving,but didn’t look forward to it, what with stopping every hour for a restroombreak, finding a motel every evening, and the big cities with their maniactraffic.

So I took a look atrailroads. I wanted some kind of room for us, so we could cut back on the # ofgerms we’d face and have a place to lay down and sleep. So I asked for a roomettefor the two of us. It seemed a little expensive, but maybe not, if youconsidered that not only were they transporting us and our luggage, but feedingus and providing lodging as well. We decided to do it, just so we could say,“Yes, we’ve ridden a train, and we remember doing it.”

The day came for us tostart our journey. The dishes were in the dishwasher, getting cleaned.Everything was packed. The taxi was on its way to get us. The Amtrak stationwas in a part of Orlando we didn’t know, and it didn’t have any long-termparking there, so I had hired a taxi to take us there.

The taxi driver wassurprised at the amount of luggage we had; 2 carryon suitcases, 2 mixer setsand a juicer still in their boxes (Christmas gifts), and 2 cpaps, but we got themall in his car, and got us to the station about ½ hour before I thought hewould.

It was a nicealmost-winter day in Orlando. The sky was deeply overcast, a soft breeze blew,and the temperature was in the low to middle 70s. We got Hubby settled on abench on the platform, the luggage piled around him, and I went inside to theticket window to ask questions.

That was when I got thenews; they could not accept the boxed kitchen equipment as checked luggage.Even though I had called and asked if I could substitute Christmas gifts forsome of my checked luggage, and was told yes, this guy said they did not acceptboxes as checked luggage. So we put our heads together to figure out how to geteverything to our destination with us. The solution was to pick one of thecarry-ons, take out our medications, and take the bag to be checked luggage.Everything else had to be carried onto the train by us and stored in ourroomette.

Our roomette wassmaller than we had imagined. If you see some youtuber on traveling on trainsand their ‘roomette’ has a tiny bathroom in it, that’s not what we got. Ourtrain had that type of room, but our room was even smaller: Two seats facingeach other, a small sink beside one seat and a trash can beside the other.There was a cubby hole way up at ceiling level that could be used to store someluggage. Hubby managed to shove the carry-on bag and 1 cpap in there, but itwas hard to reach, and none of the boxes would fit in it.

The train left thestation at 1:36 PM. We were informed we could go to the dining car at 2 andhave lunch. We had purchased a quick bite at the hot dog stand at the trainstation; we hadn’t thought we’d get any lunch otherwise. But lunch soundedgood, so at 2 pm, we lurched our way to the dining car. (Those movies that showpeople nonchalantly walking down train hallways and confidently stepping fromcar to car don’t take into account the swaying and jolting that an actual traindoes.) As we plopped down in a booth, I told Hubby I didn’t have my sea legs.He replied that the sea doesn’t usually toss you around this much.

Later, as we sat in ourroomette entertaining ourselves, we asked each other how we liked the trainride so far. Despite the snafu with the luggage, I thought that gettingourselves to the mode of transportation was far less intense than gettingthrough the airport. And despite having luggage piled up around us, the seatsare bigger and more comfortable on an airplane. It had gotten dark, and we werestill traveling (we would have stopped by then if we were driving). And it’snot as far a walk to the dining car as it was to the dining room on our lastcruise.

I think I like it.

 

After a supper thatHubby said was at least as good as, if not better than, cruise ship meals, wehad the attendant make our roomette into a pair of bunk beds. The steps to getonto the top bunk were at least 2 steps tall, maybe more, but I eventually gotup there.

 

It was, I think, thelongest night I’ve ever experienced. The train was rocking, which I thoughtwould help me fall asleep. Instead, it kept me awake as I feared rolling offthe bed, despite the safety harness intended to keep me in the bed. I clutchedthe safety harness for reassurance and finally fell asleep, but I woke up sooften, it must have been a light sleep.

 

The Dr Who Cruise Part 7

Saturday, 10/28 – Dayat Sea

We didn’t have anyreason to get up, so we didn’t set an alarm, and got up when we woke up, whichturned out to be about 8 AM. We went to the Main Dining room for breakfast,where Hubby was able to get Eggs Benedict, which he couldn’t get in the buffet.After hanging around our cabin until 11:30, we went to deck 5 to refill ourbeverage cups with soda at the pizza place. Then we went to the deck 3 MainDining room for lunch.

After lunch, we watcheda little tv in our cabin, then decided to go to the hot tub. Once I got into aswimsuit, Hubby confirmed that I had a bruise along my upper back/lower neck.Left-overs from the massage I’d gotten two days earlier. We found room in aninfinity-view hot tub in the Solarium, a section that is for adults only. Itried to get my bruises submerged in the water as much as possible, but I hadto hang on and squat, and the movement of the water tended to move me this wayand that. The water was agreeably hot, and after about 25 minutes, I decided Iwas done.

While I was getting outof the tub, I noticed a man come into the Solarium with his daughter in astroller. He paused right in front of the sign saying guests 18+ were welcometo rearrange the towels in the stroller so that his daughter would nap. Then awoman came in with her toddler son and stopped to stare at that sign. Sheturned to me and asked, “This is for kids, right?” I told her it wasn’t, andshe turned around and left. The man with the stroller was still there, andlater, as Hubby and I walked to the other side of the Solarium in search oftowels, the man came pushing his stroller among all the adults as if hisdaughter belonged there. Some people just don’t believe the rules apply tothem.

Then we went back toour cabin and packed as much as we could. As usual, we decided to carry themout ourselves, so we could toss the last few items in in the morning. Hubbydecided to go walking, and I decided to catch up with my writing. (Blogs don’twrite themselves, and neither do Works in Progress.)

After a while, Hubbyreturned with two photos. One he had bought from the couple who had organizedthe semi-group photo the night before, and a copy of the official group photofrom D, which was part of our membership. He told me he had been told that theyhad had the readings and autograph sessions at 3 PM, and nobody had known howto get hold of us to tell us, because D didn’t know our cabin number. This wasusually held after dinner on the last night, not the middle of the afternoon,but the last day wasn’t usually a day at sea. So we missed that activity andwere saddened, but we had the photos.

We took the photos withus to dinner, and Hubby borrowed a sharpie from Jon (monster) and flitted fromtable to table getting autographs. In fact, two or three of the monstersapproached him to give him autographed photos that they had prepared for us. Wecame back to the cabin with more photos than we had taken, which left usfeeling happier. Eventually, D will edit all the video and audio he took duringthe cruise into a CD, and we will get a copy of that CD as part of ourmembership. That will include the reading of the stories/scripts, soeventually, we’ll get to hear those, too.

So we set the alarm to get us up to get off the ship and turned in.

The Dr Who Cruise Part 6

Friday, October 27 –Mexico

The alarm got us up at6 AM. We crawled out of bed and got to the buffet for breakfast by 6:30. Aftereating, we slogged back to our cabin for bottles of water for the excursion. Weeach confessed that we were tired, and debated if we should even go on a 4-hourwalking tour of Mayan Ruins. So we went down to the ship’s conference center,where the group was meeting, to tell D we wouldn’t make it to the ruins. Thenanother elevator ride up to our cabin, where I fell into bed.

About 2 hours later, Iwoke up and climbed out of bed. Again. We had about an hour before lunch wouldbe served in the buffet, so we went to the card room, where I wrote. Hubby wasdone with his DW script and had turned it over to D on the only thumb drive hehad brought with him, so he didn’t feel he could write. He tried to playsolitaire on the laptop but got frustrated when it didn’t react as quickly ashe thought it should. He took the laptop back to our cabin and walked untillunch time.

We were joined in thebuffet by 2 other DW people, so we had conversation during lunch. Back in ourroom, we watched “Night at the Museum” (#1) to pass some time before we neededto head for the Music Hall, where Dominic would give a musical recital at 3:30.Dominic is a composer who has worked with the DW show.

We left our cabin about2:50 and went to deck 8 to stroll through Central Park, which took us right tothe Music Hall. We got there about 3 PM. The hall wasn’t open yet. We talkedwith a couple other early-birds for maybe 10 minutes, then Hubby wandered offinto Central Park. I followed him until I found a table where I could sit andcontinue writing. It wasn’t long before Hubby returned with a couple desserts,which we devoured at my little table. Then back to the Music Hall, where wecould now get in and choose our seats.

Hubby picked seatslocated in front of a small stage set to the left of the main stage. D asked usto move because the small stage was where Dominick was going to be. So we movedto seats at the bar, about 3 feet from where we had been sitting.

The music started at3:30 and continued until 4:33 or thereabouts. It was great fun, a compositionbased on DW music. After it was over, we all had to beat feet to the AquaTheater on deck 6, so the photographer could get our group photo taken. Afterthat, I stopped at the candy shop to buy some jelly beans, and then we returnedto our cabin, where I convinced Hubby to lay down for a nap.

About 7, we headed forthe social hour at the chosen bar. We traveled aft via deck 5, where we foundseveral members of the DW group waiting to get a group photo, so we joinedthem. After the photo, we went to the floating bar, which periodically risesvery slowly to deck 8. By the time we got off on 8, it was after 7:30, so Hubbyand I took an elevator back to deck 5 and joined the crowd collecting in frontof the doors for the Main Dining Room. At 7:40, those doors opened, and foronce, we were not the last ones to our table.

The Dining Room wasoffering lobster tails. I think everybody at our table ordered one. Some—likeme—also ordered a 2nd main dish. The lobster tails were served, andseveral of them were then handed off to people who had ordered one, but wanteda second. (The ship was charging for a second lobster tail, but not for othersecond main courses.) So, for 20-30 minutes, I sat with a lobster tail in frontof me as a favor for my husband. I was hungry, so I ate the carrots andbroccoli, which I wasn’t sure he would eat anyway. When Hubby finally finishedhis first tail, we were exchanging plates when the waiter grabbed the emptyplate and whisked it away, then brought my actual main course. It was cheesetortellini, and I enjoyed it a lot. I hope Hubby enjoyed his lobster tails aswell.

The Dr Who cruise - Part 5

October 26, Thursday –Roatan

We got up at 7 with noshore excursion to do. Hubby did have a 9 AM appointment with 2 other fanwriters to collaborate on a short story. The DW guests would do a table readingof the freshly written stories on the last evening of the cruise. Since he hadthat appointment, he opted to go to the buffet for breakfast. I wanted to go tothe Main Dining Room. I like the Main Dining Room for breakfast and lunchbecause it’s less noisy, less confusing and less hurried than the buffet.

After breakfast, I wentto the card room to do some writing. This would give the steward a chance toclean our cabin.

We had appointments atthe spa for a couples massage. We arrived almost ½ hour early and had paperworkto fill out. For some reason, when it was time for our massages, they decidedit was too soon after his stent was put, and they could not do a massage onhim. Who knew one would effect the other? So I was the only one to get amassage after all. I knew I’d been dealing with a lot of stress, but she wasreally working my muscles hard! Afterwards, she told me my leg muscles were ashard as a wall. A few hours later, I realized my calves were sore, and my upperback/lower neck felt bruised. (Hubby confirmed that I was bruised there.)

Hubby came back aftermy massage, and the two of us went to the buffet for lunch. Then we went backto our cabin to write, but Hubby seemed restless and kept going off to walkabout. One time when he came back, he brought the 2 women from Australia who werethe rest of his writing team. He had made a change to their script and wantedto get their opinions on it.

The two ladies hadfound themselves with nothing to do for the afternoon. D had told them to justtake a taxi to the dolphin experience, and everybody would meet there. Theywent to the taxi stand, but couldn’t get a good deal, so they just came backaboard. We had a nice chat, they approved the change to the script, and thenthey gave him their email addresses so he could send them a copy of the scriptonce he got home.

About 7, Hubby told meto go down to the Schooner Bar and he’d catch up with me. I said I would firstgo to the pizza place to fill my tumbler with pop so I’d have something todrink at the bar, and he said okay. With such a large group, we very nearlytook up all the seats at the bar, so I sat down with the first batch of DWpeople I saw, thinking I would see Hub when he arrived. A short time later, Timcame by and told me Hubby was farther into the bar, holding a chair for me. SoI went to join him, but if he was ‘following’ me, how did he get ahead of me?Why didn’t he call to me when he saw me come in? Is it any wonder we lose eachother?

We went to dinner, andthe guest at our table tonight was a companion of the Troughton DW way back inthe late 60s. Unexpectedly, another table complained that there were too manypeople at their table, and not everyone could sit down. So D went over to seewhat was going on, and even though he had already been at our table once, Rosscame over to join our table. Double fun! And there was no soup drama tonight,although the servers did break out into a dance. And those diners who were soinclined joined in.

Others at our tablewere going mini-golfing after dinner, while others were going bar hopping. Butour group shore excursion the next day started at 7:30 AM, so we went to ourcabin and to bed.

The Dr Who Cruise Part 4

Oct 25, Wednesday, -Cozumel, Mexico

We got up at 7 and hadbreakfast in the buffet. We had a shore excursion to learn about Mexico’s Dayof the Dead. We needed to be on the shore by 8:45 at Station 4. Just before weleft the ship, Hubby realized that he had left the camera in the cabin and ranback to get it. Sensory overload hit me as I reached the end of the dock andtried to find the sign for Station 4. I finally found it, hiding behind Station5, which was hiding behind Station 6. Oberto was our guide, and he hadpaperwork for me to fill out. I found a table and chairs in the shade andstarted filling out the paperwork. Hubby showed up, so I started filling outthe paperwork for him, and showed him where to sign in.

At 9AM, Oberto gatheredus all together and walked us out of the crowded business section to a placewhere buses and taxis were waiting. He divided us into 4 different groups andput each group into a taxi van. The taxis drove us to Playa Mia, about 10 minutesfrom the terminal.

At Playa Mia, there wasa tour put together by a cacao company, and that was what we were there for. Wewalked along a wandering path through a small patch of jungle. Along the way,we were shown a ‘typical Mayan hut’ and given a tiny tostada with a daub offilling as our first taste test. We were shown examples of the various spiceplants they add to their cocoa drink and given a small wooden spoon with somecacao candy on it for our 2nd taste test.

 

After that, we climbedto the 2nd floor of the cacao shop and were given a few minutes todecorate an altar for the Day of the Dead. Then we got to cross a bridge to the2nd story of the next building. They handed out small wooden skullfaces that we could color using sharpies. And when we finished that, they hadmore things to taste; enchiladas, toquitos, a deep purple water made by boilinga certain type of flower, regular water, and some Mayan cocoa. The food wasokay, and I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about spicy cocoa made with water and notmilk, but I tried it, and it was good.

We were given 20minutes to shop in the various stores, and there were several in the area.Hubby went down the street far enough to find 2 swimming pools and the shoreline.Then we were put back in taxis and sent back to the terminal

Sensory overload againas we made our way through the first building and its myriad shops. When wecame out into the sunlight, I asked Hubby where he wanted to go, and he said‘to the ship’. I said, “Come on, it’s this way,” and he said, “Go ahead, I’llcatch up.” I thought he wanted to find a bathroom, so I walked forward about ashort block, and then waited for him to ‘catch up.’ I must have waited at leasthalf an hour before I decided he was a grown man and the location of the shipwas obvious, so I made my way to the dock and walked most of the way to theship, then paused to sit on a bench and rest for a moment. And that’s where hefound me. He was angry that I’d ‘gotten lost’ when he had OBVIOUSLY told me togo ‘back to the ship’. Not the way I remembered it at all.

Having found eachother, we went to our cabin for our special tumblers, and then went to thebuffet to hydrate and eat some lunch. That’s where we found A, another DWcruiser, so we sat and talked for a while.

Afterwards, we went toour cabin and worked on our stories for the afternoon. I laid down for an hournap, and Hubby got up and went walk-about a couple times. He’s not one to staysitting for long periods at a time. I also took a quick shower to wash away thesweat from our shore excursion, but by the time the ship pulled anchor and leftCozumel, I was deep into my writing.

When I decided to go tothe group’s social hour, the boat was rocking. I felt like I had lost my sealegs. This was a bit alarming because I ‘lose my balance’ entirely too often,even on dry land. But I got to the Schooner Bar safely and found a seat on thefringe of our big group.

Before long, it wastime to go to dinner. We had 2 go down 1 deck, and the elevators were mobbed,so we walked down the stairs, some of us gripping the banister as if our livesdepended on it. When we got to our table, we found that Tim and George were the‘monster’ guests for our table tonight. Tim is very outgoing and lots of fun.George has worked with Tim on lots of DW episodes, but this was his first timeon the DW cruise. He seemed to be warming up to the group’s off-beatcamaraderie.

We did have a touch ofdrama during our meal. Apparently, a server somehow dropped a bowl of soup.Some of the soup bounced as high as the ceiling, other splatters landed on 3 ofthe diners at our table. Hubby had a couple drops land on him. The lady next tohim went through two cloth napkins wiping off splatters that hit her. Tim gotso much soup on his shirt that he went back to his cabin to get a fresh shirt.Many jokes were made about the incident.

Several members of thetable decided to go do the onboard zipline. I don’t know if they got theirnighttime zipping done; the ship may have been swaying too much for thatactivity to be available. If not, they were looking forward to barhopping afterthat, so I’m sure they had lots of fun. Hubby and I didn’t have a beveragepackage that included alcohol, so we went back to our cabin to write, but thatdidn’t last long before we started yawning and decided to go to bed.