I have been too tired to write due to all the excitement of my latest wonderful and very big win! Best one of all. Something I’ve always wanted to do – go on a cruise! Yes, I won a cruise!!!

Late in the afternoon on the 14th, we fired up the heater now that summer’s checked out. Just when I was getting bummed over the thought of it being cold till mid-June (with the exception of the fact that the bugs are virtually gone now) I got the news. It’s been in the 50s-60s. We’re to have a couple of days in the 70s, but that’s pretty much it for the year. We’re done with the 80s for the year, that’s for sure. So anyway, it was a few hours later in the evening when I was settled in bed reading when Tom came and said I must’ve won something good because this number that’d been trying to call all day finally left a message with a callback number. When he mentioned something about a blues festival, I thought maybe I won a trip to Louisiana or something. I’m no blues or jazz fan as opposed to Tom, but I know that area is big on that stuff. Yet when I called back and spoke to a woman named Nancy, she said I was the grand prize winner for a cruise for two valued at $4,999 aboard Holland America’s MS Westerdam!!! First place got a $1,500 river cruise, and the many runners-up got CDs. The ship sets sail from Ft. Lauderdale, Florida on Jan. 7th and has 3 ports of call before returning to Ft. Lauderdale on the 14th. Its first stop will be Nassau, Bahamas, then Ponce, Puerto Rico, then the Grand Turk Island, the smallest of the islands.

I’ve developed a knack for sensing surprise wins coming in the mail, but I sure as hell never sensed this one! This one gives me hope that yeah, I can win big. They got over 5,000 entries. Well, over 7,000 before they weeded the duplicates out, including one of mine. I’m surprised they don’t have it set up to automatically kick out the dupes, but as I told her, I enter tons of contests and it’s easy to lose track of what you’ve already entered. I’m surprised they didn’t get more entries. It must be because they didn’t include transportation to port because I’ve seen sweeps for sneakers get 12,000 entries.

I had to update my OLS profile which asks what the biggest prize I’ve won so far is. That had been the guitar till now. Hope I keep steadily moving up to the car, then the house, then the millions of dollars!

Nancy told me to call the next day and ask to speak to Regena, who would have more info for me as far as what we need to do. There are a few kinks to iron out first, though, and that’s that we’ll have to come up with the $400 or so for round-trip tickets to and from Florida. We also need to pay around $300 in port taxes, get some 2x2 passport photos taken, then apply for passports at the PO, thanks to the fucking Arabs who’ve caused us to really need to beef up homeland security and then some. They should be made to pay for all this shit if they’re going to terrorize us like they do. We’ll have to fill out and send in a citizen form as well and hope our Arizona IDs/driver’s licenses won’t hinder anything. I think we can work it out and that it’ll be well worth it. I wish we had the truck up and running to do all these errands, but not having it running will help hide the fact that we’ll be gone a week to 10 days.

I don’t trust leaving Tinkerbell in the hands of anyone else, so we’ll be getting her a roommate. I just hope they get along and the one I choose doesn’t turn out to be a biter like the one I bought with her last November turned out to be!

I don’t like the idea of virtual strangers having a key to this place while we’re gone, but hopefully they won’t need to come in here for any reason. If they do, there’ll be a note on the memo board saying: To Bill or AAA, If you have any reason to come in here (and it better be a good one), we’re on vacation and will return on the 14th. Meanwhile, if there’s been some mix-up over the rent, look at the receipt on the kitchen table. We did pay!

Speaking of paying, as Tom pointed out, if I were still in touch with the folks they’d probably pay for the airfare, but they’re not worth associating with for a few hundred bucks. Really, the thought of speaking with them or seeing them makes me sick! Some people really truly are unforgivable. If only they knew, though, that their crazy daughter was to be just 71 miles away, assuming they’re still in Palm City. And if only Mary knew I’d be just 103 miles away, though I’m done with her as far as I know.

All in all, we’ll want to come up with around $1,500 to cover all that’s not included, get new clothes and have money for souvenirs, gambling and fun stuff like that. She said the artists are bringing merchandise if one wants their picture taken with any of them, or to have something autographed. This Delbert McClinton is going to be the lead feature of entertainment with other artists we’ve never heard of. I won’t care for the music as much as I’ll care for the gambling, shopping, swimming, dining, and just plain old relaxation at sea! No stereos! No barking! And hopefully no wild kids! It’ll sure beat starving in dumpy motels!

She gave us our cabin number and we looked at the deck plans online. It’s a deluxe outside cabin. They have standard inside cabins for as low as $1,500. We’re on the upper promenade towards the stern and on the port side. Based on the description and the 360 virtual tour of our cabin, it looks like it’s third-best. The penthouse is obviously the best, but because it’s so high up, you wouldn’t have as good of an ocean view from there as ours will down on the upper promenade. It looks a lot like a hotel room, only you can see the ocean beyond our private verandah through the floor-to-ceiling window! It has the usual dull colors of greens, tans and browns, just a shower, and two lower beds that can be pushed together to form a queen-size bed. There is a little sitting area and a desk. It is one serious luxury cruise liner! This company has a fleet of 16 ships. This ocean liner will have 11 decks, 14 guest elevators, 24 public rooms, 1,848 guests and 800 crew members. The ship’s gross tonnage is 82,000, its length is 950’, its width is 106’ and it was built in 2004. It can go up to 22.5 knots, whatever that means. I emailed her and asked her how that compares to MPH.

I also asked if kids were allowed because contrary to what Nancy told me, the site lists rates for them, which sucks. If they allow animals on that’ll really spoil things big time, because you know we’d be next to someone with wild kids that can’t sit still or shut up for a minute, and well, I don’t want a vacation filled with screaming, running, door-slamming little monsters. We wouldn’t be able to get any peace at the pool or in most places, though the cabins in our area are only designed for two people, so that’s good. Still, I want to eat, shop and swim in peace. At least I could gamble in peace as I don’t see how they’d be allowed in the casino area. I figure, though, that no matter who’s in the neighboring cabins, they’re bound to be noisy enough, coming and going. We’ll be coming and going as well, only we’ll shut the door normally and not slam it. The walls are bound to be paper thin so as to lessen the weight, and so it’ll be noisy enough because that’s just our luck, especially with God knowing we’re not paying for most of it! But neighboring kids would be all the worse than neighboring adults, and we still have to come up with a good $1,500 or so for extras and that’s quite a bit. I just hope it’ll be worth it! Sure seems like it will be. Tom says not all the cruises allow kids just because some of them do, and pointed out that they’re supposed to be in school at that time of year. Well, I just hope that if there are any animals, there are not that many. I don’t see how there could be, as most people with animals couldn’t afford to go cruising. It’s certainly another reason to be glad we don’t have any of our own. First of all, I wouldn’t have the time to do these sweeps in the first place. Secondly, we’d never be able to come up with the money for the extras, and then where would the animals go while we were gone? I’m also glad he doesn’t make $8 an hour. That’d be another sure way to stop us from going, so I guess it’s meant to be. I can’t wait! There are 113 days to go, according to their site. The next 113 days are going to be boring because I’ve ceased all doll shopping, so it’s going to be a big old waiting game.

My only real concern is it severely delaying the handicapping from getting us out of here. Tom’s not going to be able to bet as aggressively as he originally planned to start doing today, so hopefully this won’t be a serious issue. He’s sort of compromising the way he’s going to be betting. Life is never what we plan it and things always take longer than expected anyway, so we’ll have to ask ourselves upon returning from the cruise, do we want to stay here, or try to find a bigger place around here that’s no noisier than this one if we can’t go quieter? So that’s my biggest concern right there. If I knew, for example, that it’d add a year to our Oregon sentence then I’d be really tempted to bail out of the cruise as much as I want to go, then wait till we’re settled somewhere with enough money to go on a cruise of our own choosing, which I guess would be from California to Hawaii. They just don’t have as many Pacific cruises, though, because there are not as many destinations to sail to from there.

Nancy had mentioned something about Dan Aykroyd and a radio interview, which had me confused at first because Dan Aykroyd’s an actor. Regena said she didn’t know anything about it and that he was one of the Blues Brothers. But Nancy’s going to set up a magazine interview which I’m not too eager about since I reckon it’d be a pain in the ass. She’s going to do it before the cruise, which seems weird. I would’ve thought that’d be afterward so we could tell all about the fun we had. As long as it’s no additional cost to us, we’ll just get it over with and go ahead and do it. She said she’s going to send the magazine with last year’s winner featured in it, and the quarterly newsletter, too. She also asked for both our full legal names, DOB & place of birth.

Now here’s the good news. I had been concerned about us being stranded on land without a place to go at each port of call till the ship took off again (I looked up these places on maps and satellite images), but she said not to worry cuz we don’t have to leave the ship when it’s docked. We’ll have an ID card which we’ll scan in each time we come and go. They’ll give us robes and towels to use on the beaches, too. I miss the beach sooo much!!! Sure I’d love to go snorkeling and scuba diving, which is extra, but if we have to wait till we’re rich to do things like that, fine. I’ll be happy enough to just bask on the warm sandy beach with palm trees and stare out at the ocean!

I was so excited that I tried to call Paula to tell her all about it, but the numbers I have for her were changed. Figures.

Tom thought it’d be cheaper to get to and from Florida by train, but it’s actually more expensive. I can’t say I’m sorry about that one because it’d add two weeks to the trip, and flying is way more fun! Since there’s no real airport here, I guess we’ll bus ourselves down to Reno, Nevada, gamble a little there, then fly to Ft. Lauderdale from there. I just wish Oregon wasn’t so damn far from Florida! We may just go to Sacramento instead. There’s no road going straight through from here to Reno because there were never enough people in this damn town to be worth spending the millions of dollars on roads to connect to there, so you have to go down to Sacramento anyway to get over to Reno. We may leave two days in advance, get a hotel in Sacramento, fly to Ft. Lauderdale and get a room there till we embark the next day. We just don’t want to be cutting it too close between each point of travel.

Fortunately for me, I won’t have to worry about keeping a schedule other than getting to and from Florida. We can get free room service 24/7. Coffee, water and ice tea are free, but soda isn’t which is strange. Soda is way cheaper than coffee. They don’t pay for alcohol, of course, but since we don’t drink, it doesn’t apply to us. She said they used to schedule people to set dining times at set tables, but since that didn’t work out, they just schedule set dining times. She asked if I wanted 5:30 or 7:30. I told her I didn’t think it’d matter. She said she personally prefers to eat early, so I said we’d go with that. She said we could gain 10 pounds on the cruise and I told her I love to eat so it’d be worth it. So this is why I don’t have to worry about a schedule. If I miss the dining time I can just get room service! She said if the early dining time doesn’t work out, just tell them and they’ll reschedule it, but I think it’ll be fine. She said there’s also the Lido deck we may want to go to instead which is similar to a food court in a mall. The casinos are like Vegas.

I told her I was almost certain we could make it and asked if there was a cash equivalent if something came up where we couldn’t, and let her know that I read that the Blues Festival guide would pay $500 to those who couldn’t make it. She said she didn’t know and would check into it. All she knew was that the trip could be transferred or bumped up a year.

It’s too bad I don’t love people and hate shopping. If I didn’t like shopping, having rats, blasting music and singing, we could live and work on a cruise ship somewhere! Or even on such tiny and secluded islands like the Grand Turk. Although they do have hurricanes, the weather there is even nicer than in California. Maybe we can still build a place in California, live there for a while, buy all we want, sell out, then build a place on some remote island. They’re not crowded despite how nice the weather is there because most people don’t like living so isolated.

The hard part will be leaving the beautiful sunny weather just to return to a tilted microscopic dump in the Arctic. I’ll just have to keep in mind that I’ll be coming back to the rat(s), my stereo, computer, and all my other stuff. I can then resume my shopping list, too.

Apparently, Kim’s behind on her car payments. The guy who drives this old gray pickup was there a couple of days ago. I put my ear to the wall as he was leaving and heard him say, “Well, maybe you can get them to take it back, ride the bus for a while, get a job, then see if you can pay off…”

This was all I heard, but maybe her being so broke will prompt her to stay put. I don’t know if losing her car will mean having more company, but she wouldn’t be going out at 2 AM, that’s for sure!