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FEB 13, 2015       Morning Point of Franklin (Senior  Living Community)

 

 

 

FEB14, 2015          Bistro 226  (Fine Dining Restaurant/Bar  in Bargersville IN)  7pm-9pm

 

 

 

FEB 17, 2015         Christina Place (Senior Living Community, Franklin, IN )

 

 

 

FEB 21, 2015         Teddy's Burger Joint (Indianapolis, IN)  6pm till 9 pm

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Disillusionment in Ship Life

The life onboard the Millennium worsened this past week as more guests upstairs showed signs of gastrointestinal illness. Most of this likely involves food and water issues in the ports, but the doctors onboard have to assume the worst in these scenarios. This translates into “side duties” for all of us crew members. Last week, I had to go upstairs and sanitize at 6:30am. Although I purposively did not go the first day saying, “Oh, I must’ve slept through it,” my supervisor scheduled me for the following day. I clocked into the system and instead of going upstairs, I went to breakfast in the crew mess. Around7:00am, I arrived upstairs to find the place nearly empty. Then I grabbed a sanitization unit and stood outside for fifteen minutes. Then the manager there finally gave me orders to stand at the back of the restaurant. After about 45 minutes, I had only seen around 20 guests walk into the restaurant. My official duty required that I squirt sanitization on the hands of the guests. To make matters worse, I had to stay up all night in order to be awake for this event. At 8:00am, I finally went to sleep. Our “side duties” do not stop with sanitizing the hands of guests. Once every two weeks, when all the guests leave and new ones arrive, we have to help sanitize the upper decks. This includes everything from moving linen to taking out garbage to spraying rooms with a cleaning agent. On another note, we had a fire last week onboard the ship. The announcement did not align with the normal procedure, so the fire team members were a bit confused as to whether it implicated a real emergency or just a drill. To make matters worse, the announcement did not mention the location of the fire. We did have a fire in the incinerator room, but they managed to put it out without it spreading. To make matters even crazier, the announcement had been made by the captain. When the captain mistakenly addresses a life threatening emergency, one ought to be more worried. Things have worsened. Now the crew mess halls require the food to be served to us rather than the normal buffet style where we all proportion the food on our own plates. This creates even more duties because the people serving the crew members are select crew members from each department. Yesterday I handed out plates and silverware for an hour. The boat drills seem to be requiring the water to be turned off in the messes because of an electrical blackout. This means no water for an hour and a half at a time. After one such drill, I entered the mess hall filled with bodies and hot for lack of air conditioning. I hadn’t had a drink of water since waking up and I had just about had it. The mess seemed to be serving only food without any water. The lady serving called out, “There’s no water here to drink.” I yelled back, “Did you just say that there is no water for us to drink?” She confirmed it. I repeated, “You said there’s no water here?!” She confirmed it. Then I yelled, “Fuck this.” The other crew members in line laughed and applauded my reaction. Another daily drudgery pertains to our lack of available food after 11:45 pm. We often play music untilmidnight. This makes it impossible to locate any food in the mess halls if we happen to be hungry. On one such night, Lisa hadn’t eaten dinner because she had escorted guests on a tour all day long. At aroundmidnight, she needed food. I ended up walking upstairs and searching the decks until I found the Bell Hop. The guys inside understood my predicament and told me to come back in fifteen minutes. They had chicken sandwiches cooked up for us. I tried to give him some money, but he wouldn’t take it. Usually, under the table type dealings like this require some financial lubricant in order to make the magic happen, but his guy knew that all this OPP level 2 has just about created a mutiny on this ship. I stuffed the sandwiches in my pockets to evade the cameras monitoring us, and went down to the mess. My friends and I had a feast. Sara, the new doctor on the ship, is a close friend of Lisa. She’s hangs out with us now as part of our “family.” There really isn’t any OPP threat. As of now, there are only 27 people sick with G.I. symptoms, but there’s no way of differentiating G.I. with normal foreign food sickness. The passengers go to these exotic places and eat the food; a certain number will get sick. Unfortunately, the company calls it all G.I. just in case it happens to be this. As a result, we all clean the decks, work in the mess halls, and move the linen to acquiesce this delusion. It all comes down to money. The company does not want to be dry docked and to lose money. Yesterday, I attended a safety briefing up at my muster station. In front of all the crew members at this muster station, I took it upon myself to put the safety officer on the spot in regard to the fire a couple weeks back. I began, “Can you please demonstrate to all of us the correct way to announce a code Bravo in the event of a real fire?” He paused and nervously responded in realization that I knew their major screw up during the emergency two weeks ago. He admitted that they made a mistake but he became pretty heated at me for calling him out on it. He said, “I’ve been awake since 3:00am, and I really don’t need this.” I responded, “You’re tired? I’m tired too. We’re all tired. I’ve been cleaning the crew mess all morning in response to this OPP that we all know is not true. Even the doctors know its not true.” He said,”Everyone is entitled to make a mistake.” I said, “When you’re mistake jeopardizes my life and the lives of other crew members, it becomes an unacceptable mistake. I find it pretty hypocritical to be lectured in safety by officers that cannot even correctly announce a code Bravo.” It escalated more, and he asked me to leave. I stand by my words. During the fire incident, I watched the Bravo team linger within the corridors prevaricating between believing the announcement as real or simply a drill. Meanwhile, the incinerator room continued to blaze with fire. Since the incident at the safety briefing, people seem to be looking at me more often and greeting me. I think people respect me for engaging the third highest ranking officer on this ship to the point that he had to force an ending to the conversation. The whole ordeal raises a lot of considerations, but the one that comes to mind first and foremost relates to perception. We live in a world that believes doing your best to be the ideal. I disagree. Doing your job correctly represents the ideal. In a position of being Captain or Safety Officer, doing your best might not save the lives of people onboard; doing your job correctly will. I live one day at a time here. I’m torn between a longing to quit this compromised living experience, but I don’t really wish to go home. My mother continues to be reliant on the ventilator for basic breathing purposes. It’s possible that I might be coming home to the disillusionment of losing her. In addition, I’m not sure what I wish to pursue upon my return in the realm of music. Everything that once existed doesn’t really any more. Meanwhile, I wade in a swamp of corporate silliness here with nothing definite as far as what duties will be expected of me from day to day. We hope to see that Great Wall of China. That in and of itself seems to be the driving force keeping us all from quitting our jobs. The music, on a positive note, remains enjoyable. Saying Goodbye to Ho Chi Mihn(Saigon) Vietnam My buddy Brent and I decided to go experience an authentic Vietnamese lunch in the city of Ho Chi Mihn. We opted to take a bicycle taxi to the restaurant which seemed like a good idea at the time, but we later realized it to be less than ideal. The initial ride in the cab of this cyclo-taxi left little to be desired other than maybe a cold beverage to counter the hot temperature of the day. After about twenty minutes, we arrived at the restaurant. We figured it only fitting to order the prized Vietnamese cuisine while here in this country for the final day: a king cobra snake. The process by which one can enjoy this delicacy unravels as a sort of ritual in this culture. For example, the woman began by asking us the exact weight of the snake that we would consider eating. After this measurement (in kilograms) had been settled, as well as price, the woman led us to the back of the facility to view our lunch(still alive). We viewed the cobra in a bag that resembled something used to transport laundry(?). At his point, we realized that we were being treated as VIP guests. The woman asked if a salad and soup would be our preference. Not knowing any other option, we nodded in affirmation. As we stood there, four men came out to handle the snake. After opening the bag, one man held the head while another held the tail. Another, using very big scissors, cut the neck of the cobra as anther man held a large cup under this wound to catch the draining blood. Then the man inflicted a second wound whereby he exhumed the beating heart of the snake and placed it on a plate. It continued to beat while we watched with mouths open and lost for words. Then they took the snake to another room where it would be prepared for eating. The waiters led us to a private table upstairs. About five minutes later, the waiters arrived with a flask and two shot glasses. They poured the blood of the snake into each shot glass and then brought out the plate containing the cobra’s heart and placed it on our table. Because my buddy and I could not decide what to say or do(or who would be the “guest of honor”), they cut the heart in half and put these portions into both shot glasses. Then they added some rice liquor and mixed it together. You guessed it. We downed the blood, heart, and liquor in one gulp. I cannot really describe the courage it takes to drink the raw blood and heart of a cobra, but I can assure you, it’s not for the timid. The taste and texture did not bother me to my surprise. The opposite could be said of the actual cooked snake(or was it?). The salad came out after our vampire snake blood drinking experience. The salad consisted of pieces of vegetables and strange shapes of mystery meat. Actually, we knew exactly(well not exactly) what these were. The salad consisted of the internal organs of the snake. Brent tried the liver; he nearly gagged. He described it as there being liquid puss squishing out of it when he took a bite. Pieces of the snake meat(with skin) were also mixed into the salad of splendid wonder. I jokingly asked the waiter if he wanted some. Although he couldn’t speak a lick of English, he understood me. Laughing, he took a chunk of the snake and ate it! Then he picked up a piece and literally put it into my mouth. As I began chewing this very chewy specimen of grandeur, it reminded me more and more of the raw octopus I ate this past summer. The octopus took about five minutes to chew and swallow by nature of it being raw. This thought I shared with Brent as we both chewed and chewed....and chewed for nearly six minutes. Not to complain, because my standards of cuisine have dropped dramatically since joining the Millennium ship of paradise, but this snake might possibly qualify as my worst tasting meal ever. I decided to forgo the organs. Then arrived the skeleton of the snake. It apparently had been deep fried. I ate a portion of the bones, and not surprisingly, it tasted pretty good. Fried food always tastes good right? Then the soup arrived. The waiter subsequently used his chop sticks to pull out the head of the snake which he promptly placed on my plate. Brent and I both poked around at our meal, mostly eating the vegetables which still tasted like snake(because of the broth), then we took our leave. Before paying and leaving(still hungry), Brent wrapped up the tail of snake to present to Lisa as a gift. Later, she screamed as we expected. She’s like our sis that we like to tease, and she’s vegetarian, so grossing her out with our disgusting food experiments appeals to us. Then more fun took place in the circus of my life in Vietnam. Our taxi-cyclists wanted to scam us. Their initial price of fifteen dong seemed to have inflated to 1,500,000 dong which basically equates to $75 for each of us. My driver actually pulled out a twenty dollar bill from my wallet. Hand in hand, we struggled for the bill. It was like trying to pry candy from a baby’s hand, but this guy appeared to be nearly 60 years old! He ended up putting it in his pocket. Never having seen such a desperate and pitiful person, one might think I’d be more willing to let him go. Nope. I quickly made my way to his cycle in effort to steal it. I figured I’d drive it a few blocks and hide it or wreck it beyond repair. Either way, I wanted to ruin that bike. To my dismay, after getting onto the cycle, I realized how much balance it required for one to drive it! The cab in front made it very wobbly and heavy. I started to feel sorry for the guy who had just ripped me off because of the shear difficulty of hauling me and this silly cycle around the city. I let him ride off, but then as I listened to Brent’s driver begging like the runt in the movie “Lord of the Rings, “ I got ticked off again and decided to chase my driver and take my money back. Then a scene opened up like in an action movie. I chased this dude a block or two with everyone watching. Coming up behind him I said, “Give me back my money, man.” He must have been scared because he pulled out all of his money. Then(don’t ask me why), I felt pity for this guy again. So I let him have my twenty, but I took everything else he had. What can I say, I’ve become a bit jaded out here in the land of insanity. As questions of human nature and abstract thoughts filled my mind, we made our way back to the rendezvous point where we caught our shuttle back to the ship of darkness.


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