Sitno >>67<<
The General was not happy I missed our Skype date, and even less happy I lied to him and then even less happy to find out I passed out, but then he found a postcard with a lipstick kiss print in the mailbox and he was okay again :D
I stayed on the ship yesterday, doing not much of anything. Just a little now everybody shuns me, because of some odd CodeAlpha stigma, like, how dare I show the same weaknesses as the pax. It's not that I'm complaining. Now that Dread has taken off, I revel in all the peace I can get. And ice-cream I am supplied.
I spoke to one of the pretty Thai girls (actual girls), slender and tall enough to be a model, but here a housekeeper, and a new one at that. There is so much for her to do, she needs to pay 50 pounds (I imagine that is an eight of her salary, if they DO get paid in pounds, because the deck hands get paid in US Dollars) to her coleagues to help her finish. We took a short walk up and down the quay, as much as I managed, to do some selfies in front of the pink-lit Ferris wheel. I dreamt about her, but in comic book form. Really. She wasn't moving at all, she was just in frames and I had to flip the pages. So cute.
Bought some nice chocolate and packed the jelly ice blocks and towels from yesterday and took it to the medical center, also to pick up some sea sickness pills. Read the side-effects... Maybe I should get sea sick once in a while, rather than take that stuff... Just saying.
Went to check the gangway photos... Crikey. I can't even remember the last few I took... But I had the sense not to say anything to anyone, because people were happy to buy them and we actually made very happy sales. I think. Perhaps because it is so hot, shopping outdoors doesn't seem so fun anymore. Inside it's nice and easy.
Many people asked about my wellbeing, someone even wrote me a note, wishing me well. A lady said it was very cute, how many people came out running when the Code Alpha was announced for the photographer on the gangway... :D Such a pity I remember absolutely none of it. O.o
Sitno >> 66<<
Had a sinfull supper last night, off Tapas buffet: four samples of Spanish dessert: half a pear with cream, dipped in something purple, sweet and suspiciously alcoholic; only a bite of a fried pretzel, because that was just grease and sugar; a small thin pancake with almonds and a cinnamon paste inside; and a tiny block of some dense lemon vanilla yoghurt/pudding deal, fried on the outside and with strawberries. All of it was ridiculously delicious and if it was Wednesday, I would have three of each :p
SLSB is supposedly leaving today. With a little luck I won't see him this morning and the never, ever EVER fucking again. It will still be too soon.
Have plans to go out for an excursion.. They would like me to film some of it and I'll take some pickies and see if this time around they will be noticed. The other plan was to find a cool cafe and Skype, but looks like my beautiful lover will have to do with just another phone call again. I do kinda wanna send some postcards, but can do that in France, nay? Or Aviles, once we get to it.
Sitno >>65<<
Ten weeks sounds a lot, but two months sounds okay, even if it is still an eon. I amuse myself by updating the long list of complaints that 2C4S utters with her rare showcases of articulation attempts:
”I hate formals."
"We always did restaurants on formals."
"We had two sailors saluting on their way out of British night."
"Making these postcards is such a waste of time."
"Erase those photos.." (When we measure the studio lights. Yes. We were not going to print them, sweetey, they are light tests..)
She couldn't take a friendly advice with a hammer. She is so above all, she takes it all as criticism and gets awfully defensive about it. I wonder if that was me, thirty years ago.
The cake of idiotic complaints today goes to the latest Hotz, though, who came by the gallery to tell us not to photograph people in the restaurant while they are eating...
Okay.
Well, they, um ...
No.
I argued it is already difficult to shoot them as it is, because we are in...
Neup.
Find another way.
I would understand it if he said while they are driving or watching the movie, but ...
2C4S reminded me he is a Hotz and can have me fired like THAT.
Right, because I haven't been threatened to be fired almost every day until now. It seems to be the natural reaction from a superior if you dissagree with them: to threaten you with termination. And that's even without mentioning that I've already RESIGNED.
But she's right. It's not my problem. We'll just wait until they are sleeping and photograph them in the restaurant then.
As vengeance, we made him stand and pose next to old ladies for half an hour before he got to his food.
It was cool, though. This is a fun group. Perish the though I mention to anyone who I think things may be done better, so I just do my own thing and somehow it works, because the new manager appretiates my effort. We also made some cool pics, OUTSIDE restaurants. So we'll see what the end report says. Our target is 9000. We're 3000 in. Ah, well..
Sitno >>64<<
Fuck me, what a fun, busy day. :D
Okay. Morning, I see the new manager put up none of the last night's pics, which feels very wrong, the spirit of SLSB pulling out his hair from behind me, standing on Bognor, so I take the formal portraits and put them up myself. SLSB would kill me if I ever did that before, but M2.0 is thankfull I share the load, which feels nice. (Though havng a decent boss suddenly makes everyone else seem slightly more crappy and I am gettng more and more fed up with some folk on the fast lane.) Then I shoot gangway and run to my room to get changed, because for some reason this time we are only staying in Aviles for, like, a minute. By the time I make it to the gangway, a drill anouncement sounds and I find myself in the gallery, locked in between two fire screen doors. What is worse is that I am wearing flipflops. FLIPFLOPS. In A HOTEL. If you need explanation, know that wearing flipflops is reason enough to be publicly beheaded on deck five ona Sunday. Of 1450 people on the ship, who will be the only humam to walk pass? The latest Hotz. I hide in an office and survive by stealing chocolates. Then another crew tells me I can open the fire screen doors any time I want and, feeling stupid, I run down to my cabin, change my footwear, get the life jacket and run back up to my usual muster station...
...only to find myself in a loby full of smoke and kneeling firemen in full gear, with an inspector filming their response protocol... Asking me politely if I can fuck out of their simulation. I have no idea how to get to my mustering now. More luck than anything else, I find the man calling for missing crewmen the SECOND he is about to announce me missing from drill on the other side of the ship, and also find my LifeBoat leader to direct me... Then I stand, with everyone else, for an hour, while the rest of inspectors watch the show of a simulated fire.
Yes. We get it. Our sister ship burnt down. We get it we now drill practically every other day. Yes.
Finally, FINALLY released from drill, I run down, exchange the life jacket for my baggie and run across Aviles, completely closed down on a sunday (though supposedly they did have a Spanish-type festivity from the Church of sailors and seamen down the streets, but I missed that...) Only thing on my mind is finding the cafe with coffee and skype we were in once before.
... Now comes the scene of me, trying to order an ice coffee in Latin.
I ask for ice-coffee, but the lady happily brings me an espresso. I make a nice, actually pretty accurate 3D sketch of an ice coffee, which she has never heard of before... Okay. My Latin clearly isn't translating to Spanish, and she speaks not a word of English, French or international sign language for impatient tourists, so I run down to the bar (she didn't know their password for wi-fi either, thought luckily I remembered it. She didn't know what wi-fi is, even though there's a hige sign saying FreeWifi right on the wall...) and begin to point. Milk first. Cold. Leche. Caldo. Fredo. Yes, from the fridge. Now my little espresso (only thing they charged me.). Now ater. Aqua. Freda. Frigida. Calda, for christ'ssakes, which part of cold don,t you understand? I embrace myself and shiwer.. Okay, and now, just a little pantomime of canned whipped cream. Pshuuuuuusssh.. And voila!
That show left me with 45 minutes of skyping my beloved, who informed me Tinka brought me some granola happily; the dog is now house-trained (only took us seven years); he bought black satin sheets (okkkaaayy. I know we are poor, but is it realy time to start doing home porn already?..); and his face is much better.
Five minutes of answering letters with pre-written replies, posting a little bit of Instagram and back again we are, running to the ship.
I ate two salads and a fruit salad between noon and midnight, and drank plenty coffee. (My body still hasn't forgiven me for the dehydration episode and I still pee very very rarely... Drink A LOT, though. Drain a Britvic every eve before sleep, suggar free...) Napped a bit, because I promised M2.0 that I will help him put up the pickies at four, as we open at five and 2C4S has, you know, never been forced to do any such thing on any of her excellent other ships before, so that much about that. If she was asked to lift a finger, she would offer a full range of a resentful eleven-year-old's attitude, so I don't give a fuck about her anymore). The moment I put up the first pics at 15:41, people start swarming and they don't stop way after we are already closed at ten. We made a grand today, a very nice day. M2.0 did not have the heart to turn me down for a second (wild, I know! Two in a fortnight, it's practically voluptious!) excursion, so I might be seeing Monet's almost gardens after all... I pray they don't ask me to film. That moron 2C4S has no idea what to do with the material I brought her and doesn't even chip off the first second of the video, where the camera jerks from pressing the rec button... Dumb as a fucking brick, that one. She will say the stupidest things with such confidence - and to equally idiotic people - that she is never short of an audience.)
At ten M2.0 didn't show up for the final report, so I took it to the accountant and closed up and in the lab saw he's printed the latest gangway. I wasn't quite tired enough, but too tired for gym, so I put number stickers on most of the hundreds of new photos, then up on the display as well. Did that, having actually a really nice time, until nigh midnight. Could pretend it's just me, that it's only mine little shop. M2.0 thanked me, exhausted, and wished me goodnight. Drank my Britvic tonic water. Wrote back to My Maja, and this blog, and read The Rum Diaries some more.
Like I said. A greatling of a day. Bognor was nowhere to be seen. Size of a flea.
Sitno >>63<<
Nine weeks to go. Still sounds like a million, but time is going fast. I didn't mention my resignation to any of the higher ups again, because DOo writes he might be back after all and I want him to be the one to fire me.
I was alone in the gallery this morning again, and again I prefered it. But I forgot to check/ask if we are working today again, and so now I have no idea when we are working again... And may be missing my workday entirely. I have, after nine days, finally found a place to skype G and am not leaving.
It actually isn't as easy as it sounds, finding wi-fi in Bordeaux. Sure, the one on the window sill of the Apple, but the other cafes simply don't have it. Finally walked into an Irish pub where an actual Irishman with ginger hair and beard and celtic tattoos, and a waitress with old French hot air baloons tattoed on her forearms helped me log in and allowed me to stay for hours. Granted, I did leave most my fortune hee, eating an expensive cheesecake and drinking one ice-coffee, then eating a chocolate cake with ice-cream and having another ice-coffee... There were mosquitos and moths in the air, and green dense pressure, because it constantly looked like it was going to end in a thunderstorm. Alas, the awfully pressing-down weather continued, not a fresh breeze in sight.
I Skyped until we had nothing left to say or any more buttons of my blouse to undo without provoking morality police, then another hour or two, and I posted Instagram, blogs, letters and backup copies... Forgot the cable for the camera, otherwise I would post even more pickies....
If I assumed correctly and I don't have to work today anymore, this should be a nice day. If I misunderstood and I've just incidentally failed to show up at my job... That will shorten my detonator fuse by another half. Dunno. It doesn't matter whether I try or not to do everything right, I always fuck up anyway. So am starting to get back to my optimistically fatalistic self again. Fuck you, Bognor, you cheerful little depression demon. Have a bath in my irish-virgin ice-coffee...
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