Queen Mediocretia of Suburbia

Rock Boat: Comestibles

Here are a few alcoholic beverages* we encountered over vacation in Miami and on the Rock Boat cruise.

[*On rereading, this post sounds like a cry for help. I think it averaged out to two drinks a day.]

Moscato Wine at Colony Hotel Bar

A few months ago the wine distributor who ran our wine party last year gave us a free bottle of Gewürztraminer wine. Never have I had a wine that so evoked the subtle notes of Diet Rite White Grape Soda. Of course, Gary has a new rule that he won't buy any wine under five bucks or over ten, so any more of that stuff was out. Happily, the grocery carries a five dollar version of Gewurtzwhatever's baby brother: Moscato.

When we had dinner on our first night in South Beach, Gary got a glass of Moscato that cost thirteen dollars. It was so great every time we passed the bar we got some more.

Wine Bar Moscato

We were sightseeing in South Beach when I tripped on a curb and went down hard. Of course, people rushed across the street to see if I was okay, and I put on the brave heroic face, as you do, then hobbled into a wine bar half a block away to check the bleeding from my skinned knee. 

We were the only people there and I still felt out of place, probably because I was sweaty and bleeding. The waiter asked if we'd like anything, and I said Moscato. There was some confusion if they even HAAAAAAhhhd Moscato, that's what a low class wine it is. Eventually the sommalier was consulted and there was some Moscato, but regrettably it Was Not Chilled. So, after the waiter got permission to serve us tepid wine, we had some. Then we were so grateful we stayed for dinner.

Since then, though, I treat myself with some wine instead of treating myself with chocolate. The knee's still marred.

Bailey's at Colony Hotel Bar

The last morning we were in South Beach I went to get breakfast while Gary finished packing, and I brought him back a Bailey's. I didn't know he'd already knocked one back while I was eating. This is no doubt why he forgot to pack his Invisalign retainer and his teeth have been creeping away from each other since.

Moscato at the first BNL Concert on the Rock Boat

Of course, all alcoholic beverages on the Rock Boat were outrageously expensive, which is why they managed to convince us that an entire bottle of Moscato would be cheaper than two glasses, somehow. After the fancy Moscatos we were able to peg the Rock Boat wine as a five dollar bottle, and we swore off wine for the duration of the cruise.

Bailey's on the Rock Boat

Gary went back to his first love, Bailey's, double, neat. SEVENTEEN DOLLARS. I remembered that T____y, one of the bosses at TeddyJ, had said when he was on a cruise, he discovered you can buy liquor at the duty-free shop on board and get a deal. We tried it. As the clerk was ringing us out, he mentioned they;d be holding the bottle until we left for home. Evidently, sometime in the last twenty years they've caught on to T____y and his conniving ways.

Somehow, the knowledge that the stuff was waiting for him in what he called "Bailey's jail" seemed to slake Gary's thirst. We didn't have any more liquor until we flew home and had some ...

Misspelled Wine At Applebees

We tried to extend the vacation by eating out at the Applebee's back in town. There was no Moscato, but there was an intruiging "Angle Food Cupcake Wine."

 

The wine itself was not as satisfying as firing off a Tweet to Applebees, who responded promptly, and when I went back the next day the offending wine lists were gone.

 

 Yeah. I do kind of sound like a lush.

Rock Boat: Der Dachshundfest

We had a few hours to kill on South Beach Miami before we left for the port, so we did some people-watching on Ocean Drive. I noticed that walking ones dog seemed to be the thing to do that morning.

Then I noticed a cute little dog being pushed in a stroller. Aww, I thought, that's a spoiled little doggie.

Then I noticed another little stroller dog. Then another.

Then I noticed almost all the stroller dogs were Dachshunds. "Weird," I thought. "They do have bad backs, though."

Then I noticed almost all the ambulatory dogs were Dachshunds.

"Excuse me," I said to the next person I saw walking a Dachshund, "Are Dachshunds just really popular in Miami?"

"There's a Dachshund Festival just down the street," she said.

Evidently it was the Annual South Beach Dachshund Winterfest. You really should follow that link to see all the photos. Even those professional photos don't fully convey what it's like to be in the middle of thousands of whining weinerdogs.

None of our photos captured it either. I think the problem was that the dachshunds were too low to the ground.

There were so many dachshunds that I looked at the Doberman on the right of this photo and thought, "Man, that's a really tall dachshund."

You would think there's be a lot of dog fights, but evidently each dog felt this entire festival was to honor them alone. Any other dogs were just there to pay tribute.

I really recommend again you visit this link to see the Miami Herald photos. Still, I don't know how well the still photo of the dog race will convey how non-competitive dachshunds are. They don't grasp the concept of racing. Essentially, dachshunds came out of the gate, ran in circles, ran back in the gate, and some eventually went over the finish line entirely by accident.

The biggest treat for the dachshunds was what I believe was called the Odor-rama. It was a series of mason jars filled with smells, from the divine "Filet Mignon" to the lowly "Human Crotch." My favorite was "Wet Pavement Oh The Horror The Horror."

It was a nice way to spend a few hours on South Beach.

 

Rock Boat: Appearance

When I think of my dad continuing to smoke after being diagnosed with cancer, I think, "How much self-delusion did he have to swallow to keep smoking? Seriously."

How much? About as much as it has required for me to hit 242 pounds.

I know where the mirrors are in my house, so I haven't looked squarely at myself, naked, for five years. I have also avoided these clothed reflections: the three-quarter view, the profile, and the backside vista. I look wide from the front, sure, but not grotesque, I told myself. If there was any other presentation I just averted my eyes

However, the cruise cabin was filled with mirrors. The nasty type. The ones that catch you by surprise. The ones that make you think, "What is that fat woman doing in my cabin?" and then "Oh my god, that's me."

After catching a particularly unfamiliar side view, I roped Gary into taking a stark look at our weight. We faced each other so we were in profile in the big cabin mirror.

He lifted his shirt over his belly. I lifted my shirt over my belly.

I immediately realized the Boob-Belly Protrusion Ratio was not acceptable. Viewed from above, the rise of my belly seems to recede behind the nearer breast landscape, but viewed from the side I could see my bosom no longer enters the room first.

"Gah!" I said. Then I realized my belly was still in its natural semi-sucked-in state.

I let my belly sag.

"Oh god!"

And then I filled my belly with air so it would pooch out as much as possible, and then shortly after that I was in tears.

And that's why we've both begun new eating habits. I now realize that I have a certain level of ugly I can accept, and up till the confrontation with the mirror I thought I was on the edge of unacceptable. On top of that, my age puts me on the verge of wrinkles. (I've looked critically in the mirror and have seen several lines and gouges but only one wrinkle.) The wrinkles will keep me from looking too good. The wrinkles plus the fat will push me into an unacceptable level of ugly. I can't control the wrinkles: I can control the fat.

I had other things during the cruise that shot down my self-image. First, my black rubber shoes turned my feet black after I wore them into the Atlantic. We puzzled over what had happened until Gary came up with a theory. He announced that "the emulsifiers dumped into the ocean to control the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill have acted on the petroleum-based rubber shoes and the are disintegrating." It was a good theory, but internet research on my rubber shoes revealed they are actually leather. Gary's called them my rubber shoes so long I forgot what they were. Its been two weeks and the edge of my heels are still black. The shoes are an acceptable level of ugly: sort of a mottled grey.

I was ugly from toe to top because my hair reacted to the humidity as you'd expect: every hair curled onto itself and I looked like I was wearing a poodle skullcap. "I have PubeHead!" I complained one morning.

The worst was color day.

One day had been assigned "color day" in which each section of the boat had to wear certain assigned colors. The upper decks were red, and the red team did not give one solitary fuck about wearing their colors, except for perhaps the red bandannas the cruise organizers gave us for free.

I thought about wearing my red bandana over my hair, but I figured I couldn't pull it off. I still had it in my hands when I went out to the hall.

Migdalia, the towel folder for our room, wanted to know why we were not wearing our red. I weakly held up my bandana, which she took and said, "Here, I do your hair like black girl."

Awesome. Because white girl had not been working out for me. She wrapped my head into a tiny Aunt Jemima peak.

So, if I had been in the cabin I could have caught a glance at my appearance from bottom to top: black feet, thick legs, huge belly, breasts dwarfed by said belly, tiny peahead swathed in a red bandana with a tuft of poodle hair peeking out of the top. Not an acceptable level of ugly. Things must change.

 

Rock Boat: Lyrics and Music

Last week I did not post because I was on vacation. Specifically, I was once again on a cruise ship with my favorite band, Barenaked Ladies (BNL).

This was not quite the same trip I've been on before. This time, instead of a boat filled with a) BNL fans, b) BNL the band, c) BNL side projects, and d) other BNL-selected bands, it was a different venue called The Rock Boat. Much more eclectic. There were hard rock bands, country rock bands, pop bands, one guy from American Idol, the whole gamut.

I know. I have no idea why I still have this tween-like obsession with BNL. Seriously, they should put me in an MRI when that band plays and watch what on earth happens to my neurons, because they're like a serious drug. Why? Is it a right-brain left brain issue, with the contrast between the music and the lyrics? Perhaps that's what it is: they get my blood whizzing across my corpus callosum, where I have classic MS damage.

All I know is last Saturday, after standing in line four hours with overly-friendly drunks, I felt isolated - that special type of lonely that only hits in the middle of a mob. I was withdrawn and isolated, and then BNL played one song and all the world was right. And every time they played it made up for anything I didn't like about the vacation (detailed below).

I tried other bands, of course, but most were too pop for me, or too hard metal, or too country. And no one else seemed to have put PhD-level effort into their lyrics, which is evidently what I need to fall in love with a band. Perhaps I just heard bad songs. There was one particularly good lyric in a Michael Franti song about his son: "He's my reflection in the water." I missed half his set, and couldn't hear another set from him because Michael Franti blew out his meniscus after his first show and had to leave the boat in Cozumel. "We broke Michael Franti," my friend Carrie said.

In fact, at the songwriter's panel one lone artist said, "Lyrics are not as important as the music, to me."  Many listeners must have agreed, given how many of them saw the lyrics as an inconvenience they had to shout over to have how-ya-been-buddy conversations. That happened only when I was on the edges of the concerts. We quickly learned the importance of band proximity if you didn't want to be treated to loud chit-chat.

Front Lines

Crowd was into it, dancing, listening. The BNL audiences were particuarly attentive, given that they got personal attention from the band. Lead singer Ed called out Robin by name for requesting a song he didn't know the lyrics to, and legendary Swiss fan Barbara got to play drums on the entirety of The Old Apartment. We hung on every word, because who knew when they'd mention us by name, like on Romper Room?

On the Outskirts

With the bands I wasn't invested in, it got to be fun sitting on the outskirts and eavesdropping. There was one thirty-ish tech guru who expounded about life to such a degree that I hoped he was drunk, because to be that pompous while sober would be as insufferable .. well, as insufferable as I am. And at another concert a guy was loudly hitting on a soft-spoken girl while The Shadowboxers sang, "I'd love to make you wet / In between your thighs."

"What is this? Are you listening to this?" he said, shocked, affronted. I noticed that he reacted the way an old biddy like myself should have, while I sat there thinking, "Wow. That's not subtle. Love it."

(Can't blame The Shadowboxers for that lyric; evidently it's a cover.)

Here's a comment I heard on the edge of a crowd listening to BNL. (Or more accurately, not listening to BNL.)

"I don't want music that makes me think. I want music I can drink beer to."