I Suck At Cruising

last night, karen and i returned from our little vacation during the holiday break. karen and i took a cruise to the bahamas. now, i suck at cruising. neither karen nor i have ever been to the bahamas, so going there was a new experience.

one of the reasons why we decided to go on our vacation when we did was because it definitely has been rough the past three months. aside from having almost every high priced item break down and needing repair within these three months, karen and i also lost our first son (braden). braden was born extremely premature. unfortunately, the neonatal intensive care doctors could only do so much because braden's body was just too tiny. we were fortunate, however, to have been with braden for that one week that he had survived. needless to say, the cruise was more of a simple get away from reality... than an actual vacation. in fact, we purposely chose the cruise for the week of the new year because yesterday was the original due date for braden.

anyway, the cruise was good. the cruise definitely took my mind off of things. i'm afraid i had only one moment... that being yesterday... when i broke down in the shower thinking that braden would have been born on the day had he not been born so extremely premature.

for me, one of the highlights of the cruise... aside the sight-seeing of things like the atlantis in nassau, oprah's house in nassau, nicholas cage's house in nassau, or even the fun karen and i had being on waverunners for the first time... was receiving a special note in our cruise cabin from a mysterious benefactor. (by the way, waverunners... awesome... i want one now.)

when karen and i first got to our cabin, there was a little note that said we had some credit complements of our "friends". there were no names listed as to who these friends were... just the word "friends". we have since come to find out who those friends were... so thank you friends (jen, kerry, hot amy, andrea, and pam... and anyone else who my detective skills forgot.) the note was very nice... not because of the cruise credit... but because it made me think about how lucky karen and i are to have such great friends in our lives. for me, it was touching.

(the video below is of a ray at the atlantis in nassau.)


among the other highlights (aside from the waverunner... yes, in case you could not tell... i loved the waverunner... i would get a waverunner if i ever had a use for one. i even had it all planned out that i would keep it docked at hot amy's. after all, using a waverunner on the pond outside my house would not be too enjoyable...) were the fact that karen and i actually won things on the cruise. too bad we did not win a waverunner... just kidding.

as much as my friend (aimee) likes to think that i am lucky, i never win things. i believe the last time i won something was in college... and it was not even at my own college. i was visiting my friend (cass) at his college where he was running a casino themed night at his dormitory. (cass was an ra at the time.) that night must have seemed rigged because all of cass's friends won a lot of the prizes that night. (i ended up with a television... which i gave to my mother.)

anyway, on our cruise both karen and i won things. karen won a snorkeling package from the cruise which we could use on the day we were at the cruise company's private island. it was funny because we had borrowed snorkeling gear from my friends (marc and kelley) already. but oh well. i won free art... apparently, not just any art... five huge pieces of art.

there was a raffle to guess the amount of a picasso print. thinking nothing of it, i entered. my guess was not even close to the amount of the print. (i was about $9,500 off.) as it turned out, i was actually the fourth closest guess. in order to win the raffle, however, you had to be present at the art auction. lucky for me... the closest three guesses were not present. so, i ended up winning the raffle.

i did not realize what i had won until afterwards when the works of art were shown to karen and i. apparently, the works of art included things from linda kinff (the official world cup artist), itzchak tarkay (a holocaust survivor whose works of art always have women with their eyes closed), and a few others. as lame as this sounds, i actually enjoyed learning the history of the artist more than the art itself... probably because the history gives context to the work of art. i have never really been into art... but since winning the raffle, art has become... somewhat interesting.

as well, karen may have been bitten by the art bug. in addition to the art that we won, karen wanted to splurge on a piece of "kinetic" art created by yaacov agam. it was the first time, actually, that we ever splurged on a piece of art. so it was neat. we may have to have an unveiling party for the work of art. just kidding.

all in all, the cruise was a good time. as lame as this sounds, i felt like little braden was with us during the cruise... watching over our shoulder like an angel... helping us we win raffle prizes... which we normally don't do. it was as though braden wanted us to enjoy ourselves on our vacation. so thank you, little b.