Hard Knock Life at Sea

WARNING: some of these images my be difficult to look at and are intended for adult and mature readers only.

We are at sea for four days headed for Canada so I decided to put a window on the hard life here aboard ship. Insignia is a floating self-propelled high-end luxury hotel with fine restaurants, 7 bars, a pool and hot tubs, There are boutiques and jewelry stores. There is top entertainment all the time with music and comedians and magicians. There is a string quartet every evening and live piano everyday day in one of the bars.  You can gamble your money in the casino with slots, blackjack or roulette. High Tea is everyday at 4:00 pm.

The bottom line to all this that when I get home to Fairfield Bay, Arkansas I will be totally helpless.  I won't be able to make my bed or clean my toilet.  I won't know how to cook or clean. I will starve while watching my house slowly deteriorate around me. I will want for live entertainment: the TV won't cut it anymore. The washer and dryer will stand unused because I've lost how to clean and press my clothes. I will stand around all day because there is no one to pull out a chair and seat me. I will become a recovering cruiser.

There will be some advantages to going home that will help me back to a normal life.  I will reacquaint myself to family and friends, from which my cruising addiction took me. I will get an emotional support dog, if she remembers me after 6 months, or three and a half dog years. 

As much as I love my view of the sea and all the ports outside my window and when I walk outside, I will get to wake to the mountains and lake outside my door. These will provide for my peaceful place and quiet solitude for my recovery. 

I will have to learn to drive on the right side of the road. I will no longer endure searches by police and border agents looking for drugs. I will begin to actually understand what people say instead all kinds of gibberish that sound like an unknown language in my brain. I hope to get the emotional support  I will need from my friends and family from whom I literally distanced myself. 

It will be a long difficult road to recovery but, I know I will get better day by day. I realize I will always be in recovery and should I relapse and take another cruise , say in 2020 around the Baltic Sea, that friends and family will be understanding and supportive. You know, just one more hit to boost me before I let it all go. It is a habit that gives me a temporary high but, takes all my money.

I hope to find a CA meeting somewhere close by so I can start attending before it's to late. Meanwhile here are some hard-to-look-at photos of my dire situation.

WARNING: some of these images my be difficult to look at and are intended for adult and mature readers only. Emotionally sensitive people should avoid viewing and crawl back into their sanctimonious shells and continue their contempt for those of us who let our weaknesses for just having a good time overtake us. Cruisers are still people and our addictions are very real. They still pull at us every day and inhabit our dreams at night. If you think you might have a cruising addition please contact our website at: www.cruisersanonomous.com or www.oceaniccruises.com

Jewelry store.

Ray, our Cruise Director

Martini's Bar

Boutique

Entry to Horizons

Grand Dining Room

Lirary

Friends Linda and Judy

Strings on brake

Vincent, at Jewelry Store

Entry to Insignia Lounge

Getting ready for show in Insignia Lounge

Three side view in Horizons.

Polo Grill

Nurses

Invitations

Phillis from the Philippines 

Savio to his employer through mix up.  His real name is Sammy from Goa, India. He has a beautiful wife and two gorgeous kids, whom I met while in India.  Nice family.

Surrounded by fog.

Daily strings on 5th Deck,

The food! It is so good but, so pretty you hate to put a fork in in it because it's presented so artfully. There is always a waiter, in this case Sanjay, a secondary waiter, a water pourer, a head waiter would come by and there was always a sommorlier with a little silver cup hanging around his neck. Oh, there is the pepper-grinder guy. Lots of people around the table all the time.

So fancy, The big plate is the one they put the plate with the food on.
The little plate is the bread plate with its own butter knife.

Water glass, white wine glass and red wine glass.  It gets crowded on the table.

Always a bread basket

Pepper mill.

Cocoa Sorbet, the absolute zenith of chocolate on the planet!  The best thing ever.