The Royal Caribbean...Monarch of the Seas - Part I

What a trip. It was mine AND Sally's first cruise so we were like little kids in a fully stocked liquor store!

The drive to San Pedro seemed to fly by because Sally and I watched two typical Hollywood movies on the way down. Wedding Crashers and Wild Hogs. By the end of Wild Hogs we were already in L.A. AWESOME!

When we got to our hotel, Sally and I went up to our room. Two beds. I can dig it. Then her parents came in. To our room.

One bed. To be shared with Sally who I really don't even know. We've hung out like 3 times together. Although we instantly fell in love...still....

BUT they were paying for the room so who am I to be so picky?

We headed out to check out the lovely San Pedro. Here we are at some kind of boat thingy place:


(And i soon discovered, i forgot to pack a bra for the trip!)

We told Sally's mom we were going over to Acupulco's for a drink; but, she said 'nah...we're going this way."

"No...we're going this way to have a drink."

"No you're not."

So we didn't go (at that moment anyway) but Sally did let her mother know that as soon as we got on the boat she would throw her overboard and let everyone know that that thing in the water is just a seal.

She said this MANY times during the weekend as her mother was very unruly to us uninhibited, ready-to-party 40 year olds.

At Acupulco's, I ran outside to get a picture of the cutest dog on a docked sailboat; but had to delete it later as i ran out of space on my camera. but i did save the one of the seagull becuase that bird let me get incredibly close!!!

That is NOT zoomed!

Sally was hungover (bitch) and wasn't really in the mood to party; but, I told her i would never talk to her again if she didn't.

So she did. We were told we could get our first drink free up on the 10th floor. When we got there it was just a large hotel room with all the furniture removed. It even stunk like a hotel room. And the "bartender" was a lethargic, apathetic tool with a tip jar in front of her...like that's gonna happen. In fact, the beer was warm.

So we decided to go to the bar downstairs and have a real drink.
Two real drinks = $16

Me no likey L.A. I tried to get our drinks free since our "free" drinks were warm; but, no go. I invented a story that Michelle, who started yesterday and was the bosses daughter, said that we could get our drinks here for free. But even my charming humor didn't work on our bartender "Roger" (i din't know his name so i gave him one. Maybe THAT was the problem) and we paid out the ass.

Back to the story....

Sally's mom, Irene (my mother's name - ironically) came with a group of about a hundred. They're older folk who USED to party like we do so they were all very funny and some still held on to their habits. They decided to go on a local port cruise and then have dinner after and we decided, for free, that THAT sounded like a good idea.

so off we went!


And here's me and Sally on the boat where they had free beer! what??? Don't they know who we are??


Sally's impression of Kate Winslet:


i just wanted, so badly, to take a fine tooth comb to this mans head - nice and straaaaaight down:


Dinner was super expensive too. After dinner, we sat outside and waited for the shuttle to take us back to the hotel. This 102 year old security guard, who probably couldn't even take down a toddler, came shuffling around a building. He looked like he was playing a mini version of hopscotch. Sally looked around for Ashton Kutcher, but sure enough this guy was normally odd.

FINALLY, morning has come and we head to the boat. Well, cripes if it doesn't look like the titanic inside!!! and we were welcomed by a steel drum band which i have NEVER heard live...i was all goose bumpy.


And what do you think the VERY first thing we did....that's right: COCKTAILS!


After we got our drinks, we went to our cabin. Holy shit. It's about the size of a closet...

but our view was nice:

After we settled in, we decided to check out another bar called The Schooner room. It was here we played trivia. and lost...

THEN our luggage finally arrived so we got our suits and headed up to the 11th deck (there are 12) to get our groove on. We laid out for a little while but it was windy so we hopped in the jacuzzi...now ain't that grand??

we were joined shortly thereafter by Christina...one of Sally's mom's friends daughter. She was very sweet and NOT a partier but i think she tried to fit in. She was on her 4th martini and it wasn't long thereafter that Christina started talking to some towels underneath her lounge chair. While she was "chatting with towels" we met some great people and after we brought C back to her room*ahem*, we partied on...

at 4:00 we had to prepare for the mandatory Muster Rescue Drill....stay tuned...

Woo Hooooo!!!

i'm leaving on a last-minute cruise to Mexico tomorrow!!! Hopefully i'll be back with great stories; none of which will include mexican prison time... :)

My daughter?

Here's an email exchange between me and Megan's supposed mother:

Megan's Supposed Mother:

you would be so proud of my daughter . we were at the grocery store in the floral department when she ripped out the biggest "TANYA" burp. People looked up from their shopping to see where it came from . I hid and my jaw fell to the floor. I thought it was Freaky Friday and you had taken over her body. Have you recently become a very sweet, demure calm young lady in the last few days.?GIVE ME MY DAUGHTER BACK!!!!

Me:

THAT'S what's wrong with me! hahahahaha...i'm telling you; if i didn't witness her birth, i'd say she WAS mine.

Megan's Supposed Mother:

I think it was all that burping you did to my belly when I was pregnant. Most people sing to the unborn. She was technically living with you before her arrival. Just before her burps enter the earth's atmosphere she does the whole gulp, push up with the chin, and out motion method you are classically known for. Unbelievable. You must be so proud...

And for your visual, here is my little protege...

Best little girl in the whole wide world... : )

Just another day?

Last night I layed in bed with a weird pain in my head and an odd pain in my right chest. The pain in my right chest was only present when I laid on my right side.

So that led me to thinking: what if i were dying?

I think i would call Fox Broadcasting and allow them to video tape my last "year" of life. Course they would have to pay for my trips around the world to create memories for my audience before i died. Hopefully, i would die in that year so the reality show would be momentus.

But the irony is that i would finally be famous and rich and then die.

And is that so bad? Life is really hard when you live paycheck to paycheck. And barely that. so maybe dying young and living rich aint' all that bad. Course i don't think i'd want it to be a year later.

which led me to questions like if they offered you 10 mil and you'd die 10 years earlier than your said death, would you take it?

how about 10 mil but you'd lose a limb?

Me? i'd take 10 mil over damn near anything but sight.

Are you there God? It's me, Margaret...

I got yelled at for not blogging so what you'll get will probably be lame since i had nothing to say - hence the not blogging.

Last Friday, Janet and I rafted down the American River and almost died at the San Juan rapids. It's a measly little class 2.5 and I non-humbley tell Janet not to worry about it - I'll handle it.

I handled the raft, all right - right in to a vortex. It didn't look so big heading towards it but once we were in it, it was scary. I started to panic when Janet reminded me that "it's okay, it's okay...we'll be fine!" I know she has no idea but she was trying to calm me down. then 10 seconds later I hear her scream to a passerby "CAN YOU HELP US??? I'M SCARED!"

Way to go, Janet. I almost calmed down.

Our raft literally filled up to the rim with water. It wasn't budging. I saw beer floating vicariously to the edge and it was then i found my courage. I'm not losing a beer, by god! (I earlier saw my shoe float off but didn't quite give a shit about that. that sucked later on the super hot rocks carrying our crap to the park) I dug my oar in to the rock and i could slooooowly feel the raft move. So after Janet's cry for help, I assured her not to worry that we were, in fact, moving!

I never thought we'd get out of that really. When your raft fills up completely with water it becomes SUPER heavy. As we learned when we shakily rafted over to the edge to bail the raft out.

After about 30 minutes of bailing & silence, it was time to tip the raft over to completely drain the boat. I climbed up on a rock to get better leverage and Janet stayed on the other side.

With the raft up and ready to be over I asked Janet if she was ready and she answered "Yes!" So i dumped the raft over, saw a lump in the middle of the raft and heard her desperate scream "get it off me! get it off me!!!"

At that point, it just became super funny. We almost died but didn't, we almost lost our beers, but didn't, Janet almost broke her neck, but didn't...and in the end we actually had more than enough memories to store in our fun bank.

And by the way, after my hot trek up the scalding rocks to the park, i found my shoe. Some guy had two mismatched flip-flops and one of those was mine :)