Back to reality...again.

A new year. A new beginning. And yet, seems I'm swimming in the same old muck.

But at least I got away for awhile!!

A week on a cruiseship. Wow. What a trip. I ended 2008 in Guatemala, started 2009 in Belize. And in both places, I got a chance to see how the locals live. Which was an excellent reminder of how good we've got it here in the good ol' U S of A. At least, it was a reminder for me. I may be wading through heaping tons of debt, but my floor ain't made of dirt. And all that debt is a result of opportunities that most people never even dream of. I kept wondering, as our insanely large cruiseship pulled into these ports, what do the locals imagine this boat to be? Here comes this giant floating city, full of people who want to buy discounted diamonds (every port we went to had a Diamonds International store, and many of our fellow passengers made it their first stop). How does a kid living in a tin-roofed shack make sense of this? I have a hard time making sense of it myself. For an entire week, I lived on a boat with 2000 passengers and 1000 crew members, with nothing to do but eat massive quantities of food, listen to any number of live bands or DJ's, and spend the days wandering around a new country. It was weird. I didn't really know what to expect. The first day, I was in awe of everything. So much food! A big theatre right on the ship! Shuffle board! Ping pong! Entertainment everywhere! But after a few days, it was all rather repetitive. The entertainment was fine, nothing spectacular, pretty cheesy, actually. And the people were...well, I didn't meet many people. There were a lot of families on board, multi-generational, little kids and grandparents, everyone moving in bunches. Not many people in our age range. And I often felt, overhearing conversations, that there were not many people I could relate to. For one thing, everyone seemed to be buying diamonds! All the ports we pulled into were rather empty of anything to do besides shop. Well, they had lots of excursions you could take to go explore the area a bit. And if you wanted to do anything besides shop, you'd better take an excursion. We took a couple, but we were on a budget so we were rather limited. My parents gave us some excursion money as a Christmas gift, so we checked out some Mayan ruins in Belize and did a tour of the port towns in Guatemala. They were the cheapest tours we could take. And they were great. Really fascinating. An excellent glimpse of how the locals live. Except we were stuck on a bus with people asking embarrassing questions of our tour guides, like, "Where does the middle class live?" "Do kids go to school?" "Do bodies get embalmed before they get buried?" Sigh. I'm pretty sure "embalm" isn't a word familiar to our Guatemalan tour guide. She had a beautiful, gold-capped smile, and a fair grasp of the English language. But come on! And there were lots of complaints on the bus about the fact that we didn't stop anywhere to shop. Seems that's what people like to do on cruises. The whole time on the boat, there was a constant sales pitch. "Come to the gift shop! Buy your raffle tickets! Don't miss our port shopping talk with Jenna! Today at noon, emeralds on sale in the main lobby! Make a deposit on your next cruise, receive a free gift!" Every time we sat anywhere, the cocktail servers were on us, "Today's special cocktail is The Ball Drop, only $9!" Even soda cost $2 a glass, but they did offer a $50 unlimited cup at the top of the cruise. Alex consumes massive quantities of soda, so he bought the cup. And every time he asked to get it filled, he was met with an angry look. I'm pretty sure all drink servers were told NOT to refill those cups. Especially in the restaurants. There were 9 restaurants on the ship, only 4 of which were free (the other 5 had a cover charge of $15-25 per person). 1 was the buffet, another was a burger joint, and the other two had table service. We generally did the buffet for breakfast and lunch, as it was easy. But for dinner, we'd put on some nice clothes and head to one of the better free establishments. And as soon as we were seated, a server would present a bottle of Pellegrino and a bottle of Evian, asking which we'd like. "Just tap water, please," I'd say, as we were determined not to spend money on things like water. Dirty look from the server. Then another server would approach, "What kind of wine will you be drinking tonite? Or would you like to celebrate with champagne?" "No thank you, but I'd like a diet Coke, please," and Alex would present his unlimited Coke cup, knowing that they wouldn't offer to fill it if we didn't force it on them. Again, dirty look. I'm guessing the servers got a commission. I don't know, but it actually made for an unpleasant experience. One server, after we said No to the wine, said, "Pass pass pass" in a snarky manner and walked away. That was our first night. Now, I know that most people going on a cruise are there to party, and they plan on spending a good deal of money. But we got this cruise for free and had no money to spend. So to spend a week listening to overhead announcements about the great deals available on precious stones, or buy 2 get 1 free Bingo, or special deals on your next cruise, well, it was pretty unsavory. Kind of like being at a non-stop Timeshare pitch. By the end of it, when we got our bill, I'm pretty sure we had the lowest tab on the boat. All we bought was a couple of low-priced excursions, some overpriced Tylenol in the gift shop, and our daily service charge (which, at $10 per person per day, seemed rather low to me, the only thing on the boat that was underpriced). Don't think we'll be offered another free cruise anytime soon. Though our cruise director, Boozy Soozy, did everything in her power to get us to buy our next trip.

But the trip was very good for us. We went to some beautiful places, got to see the bluest water I've ever seen, spent days in the sun and nights under the stars. It was an entire week of no phones, no computer, no ability for Alex to work. It kind of felt like the first time I'd seen him in months. Sure, we're together every day in Vegas. But his work consumes him, and I've got no life to speak of in Vegas, so our time together has been rather distracted and unsatisfying. Now, we had days of nothing but each other, and it was exactly what we needed. We finally had a chance to talk about the future a bit, life after the Superbowl. We came to Vegas with a 6-month lease and said we'd figure out the next step along the way. But there's no time to talk when we're in Vegas, no time for Alex to turn off the job. So, there were many hours spent under a starry sky, trying to make sense of the life we're living. What do we want to do? Where do we want to be? What can we afford? Let me tell you, these conversations were not simple. The more we talked, the more complicated things became. But we definitely have a better sense of what's what. Not that I'm prepared to speak out loud any decisions made (or pondered anyway). But I do know that change is a-brewin'. It's all rather terrifying, but I have faith that things will work out. 2009 has to be a better year than 2008. Doesn't it? Please??

I am unable to comment any further, due to pending legal matters. But let me just say this, turns out our troubles are far from over. Happy freaking new year.