<\/p>\n
So that title was supposed to be in reference to the arrival of my folks (which happens later), but it actually works fairly nicely with the first big thing to have happened since last I wrote: the inauguration.<\/p>\n
\n
The cast all huddled together in one of the rooms watching CNN, and while there are very few moments that Wolf Blitzer can\u2019t ruin (Yo Yo Ma and Yitzhak Perlman aren\u2019t your backup band, you tool!), it was all very lovely. <\/span>Mind you, I remain all jaded and cynical about each and every politician, but I get pleasure from the hope of others, and I am genuinely grateful to see a world leader who values rhetoric and the spoken word. <\/span>I suppose there\u2019s cause for a rant about how sad it is that a politician who\u2019s able and willing to articulate a viewpoint is a rarity, but I\u2019ll let lying dogs sleep. <\/span>For now.<\/p>\n \n Other than that, a fairly uneventful five-day, a long walk in Cozumel notwithstanding. <\/span>I seem to recall being asked at one of our rehearsals what interesting had happened to me that day, and I seem to recall my answer being that my shoelace had gotten caught in a stationary bike. <\/span>It was true, and it was funny, but still\u2026<\/p>\n \n I did manage in one of the shows to get everyone on stage but me to corpse, which is always fun. <\/span>(In fairness, some of it may have been chain reaction, but it started with me.) <\/span>We were doing \u201cSing It,\u201d Ashley and I were astronauts (I couldn\u2019t love her because Russians during the Cold War weren\u2019t allowed to feel love), and Mike, who had been our monkey Sputnik II, unzipped his monkey costume to reveal that he was actually a NASA commander sent to spy on us. <\/span>Upon this reveal, in my best mix of incredulous and hurt, I cried \u201cYou threw your feces at me!\u201d<\/p>\n \n Ta da!<\/p>\n \n Moving on\u2026<\/p>\n \n And then with the nine-day, the parents! <\/span>I met them in Miami, where we were promptly ripped off by a cab driver. <\/span>(Grrr! <\/span>Everywhere else, I have my guard up, but I still expect in major American cities for the social contract and the rule of law to be in place. <\/span>Ah well, live and learn.) <\/span>After a quick acclimatizing and tour of the ship, my worlds collided over dinner at Tango\u2019s, the onboard Mexican restaurant. <\/span>As far as I recall, no embarrassing revelations were made by either side, but it\u2019s possible I\u2019ve repressed it.<\/p>\n \n Inspired by my parent\u2019s arrival, I made my first visit down to the excursion escort signup, and it\u2019s definitely something I\u2019m going to keep doing. <\/span>It\u2019s pretty incredible. <\/span>Crew members get to accompany excursions for free, and the expectations for what we have to do are pretty low: keep count of the passengers to make sure no one gets stranded, help people as necessary, fill out some quality-assurance paperwork when you get back\u2026Suffice it to say, pretty great deal, and they seem to like the Second City folk.<\/p>\n \n Here\u2019s what we\u2019ve done so far:<\/p>\n \n Samana<\/strong>, Dominican Republic<\/strong>:<\/strong> I accompanied Mother on a walking tour of Samana. <\/span>This was a mistake on my part. <\/span>Samana is known for being quite poor and bleak, but I assumed that a walking tour would find the nice parts. <\/span>I was mistaken. <\/span>Or possibly misled. <\/span>If you read the description \u201cLa Churcha was built in England where it was unassembled and then reassembled piece by piece in Samana,\u201d would you be expecting sheet metal? <\/span>Me, not so much. <\/span>But hey, who are we to hide from the reality of life in Samana?<\/p>\n \n Tortola, British Virgin Islands:<\/strong> The family went to Virgin Gorda. <\/span>It was gorgeous. <\/span>Of course, shortly upon arrival, I made the arguably selfish but fully sanctioned decision to go to another beach through caves that I was the only Hershfield capable of getting through. <\/span>Of course, most of the day was spent in transit, so no guilt here, sir! <\/span>The snorkeling was great, with the water very clear and all sorts of great boulders and caves to explore. <\/span>It was just over far too quickly, so the plan is to go back with the cast, leaving early and coming back late (on time, but late.)<\/p>\n \n Antigua:<\/strong> <\/span>We did the Fort James and Beach tour. <\/span>Fort James is a close relative of Nelson\u2019s Dockyard, and we saw both. <\/span>Of course, the historical feel is somewhat obscured by a preponderance of gift shops, but still some very nice views to be seen (you can definitely see why famous people dry out there!) <\/span>Then the beach, which was nice and laid-back.<\/p>\n \n There were two moments of note at the beach. <\/span>The first was my mother was reading some health magazine, and she hands it to me and says \u201cIs that a picture of the Jewel?\u201d <\/span>(our ship) <\/span>To which I reply, \u201cWell, I can\u2019t tell the ship from the picture, but that\u2019s Jennine standing in front of it, so I\u2019m going to say \u2018Yes.\u2019\u201d <\/span>It is<\/em> a small world after all!<\/p>\n \n (Dave, please pass along to Jennine (unless Jennine\u2019s reading this independently, in which case, \u201cHey there!\u201d) that I\u2019ve actually managed to lose weight onboard, but the method probably isn\u2019t ideal. <\/span>Basically, it involves spending the year before going living like a gluttonous shut-in, so that even a moderate amount of restraint and exercise causes weight loss. <\/span>That said, I have gone up a level in my recombinant stationary bike hill program, so while it\u2019s not exactly like I have to check my nutsack on a regular basis to make sure I\u2019m not Lance Armstrong, progress is being made!)<\/p>\n \n The other moment of note was the polishing off of Rick Mercer Report: The Book<\/span>. <\/span>(That\u2019s right, it\u2019s Book Report time again!) <\/span>A good read, but somewhat defeated the purpose for it I had in mind. <\/span>I was hoping for laughs (which there were, to be fair), but forgetting how much Canadian politics generally piss me off. <\/span>All the more when you gather up and compile all the stupidity. <\/span>In the time Rick Mercer\u2019s show has been on the air, we\u2019ve gone from a Liberal government interested only in power with just a pretense of concern for public welfare to a Conservative government who differs only in that they don\u2019t even bother with the pretense. <\/span>(Oh, and the NDP piss me off too, lest it seems like they\u2019re being left out. <\/span>Not that they\u2019re unaccustomed to being left out, mind you\u2026)<\/p>\n \n Things I miss about Canada: <\/span>Poutine. <\/span>Being able to piss and moan about Canadian politics to people who might care. <\/span>You. <\/span>(Not necessarily in that order.)<\/p>\n \n I don\u2019t know what I\u2019m going to read next. <\/span>It should be The Source<\/span>, but it\u2019s daunting, both in overall and chapter length. <\/span>I\u2019ll keep you posted.<\/p>\n \n Also, I finished the first season of Friday Night Lights<\/span>. <\/span>I really loved it. <\/span>I\u2019m thinking it might be a good series for me to write an hour-long spec for. <\/span>(My 30 Rock<\/span> is coming along, thank you for asking.) <\/span>Mind you, I\u2019ll have to see the next season, as I\u2019m somewhat worried about diminishing returns, but so far, so good.<\/p>\n \n Barbados<\/strong>:<\/strong> <\/span>Father and I took in the Turtle and Shipwreck Snorkel Excursion. <\/span>It was pretty good. <\/span>It was great snorkeling over the Hawksbill turtles, though it was somewhat irritating being surrounded by other gawkers and more than one jerkass who felt entitled to dive and grab at the turtles, despite specific instructions not to. <\/span>One was even pulling at the shell. <\/span>It\u2019s pretty incredible: it\u2019s one thing to not care about ruining the experience for the people you\u2019re with (as it scared the turtles off, after having coaxed them over), it\u2019s one thing not to care about future tours (as endangering the turtles, which are already endangered, could, among other things, lead to the cessation of tours), but what kind of person sees an endangered species and thinks \u201cHmmm, I wonder what it would be like to hurt it?\u201d <\/span>It takes all kinds, I suppose. <\/span>As for the shipwreck, also pretty funky, with fish swimming in and out of it like nobody\u2019s business. <\/span>Of course, it being a smaller focal point, people were really on top of each other there, but it\u2019s a short distance from The Boatyard, so I\u2019m thinking I might give it another gander when the mob\u2019s not there.<\/p>\n \n \n So that\u2019s where we are now. <\/span>Couple more days with the folks, in which they\u2019ll see me perform improv for the first time in years (I\u2019m warming up to the idea, though I still don\u2019t want to make a habit of it!), and then five days of rubbing elbows with Canadian royalty, knock on wood. <\/span>The revolution will be photographed.<\/p>\n Ummm, and then I’ll come up with interesting things to do for the month and a half (and beyond?) following.\u00a0 TTFN!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" So that title was supposed to be in reference to the arrival of my folks (which happens later), but it actually works fairly nicely with the first big thing to have happened since last I wrote: the inauguration. The cast all huddled together in one of the rooms watching CNN, and while there are very […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-65","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scatteredflurries.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scatteredflurries.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scatteredflurries.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scatteredflurries.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scatteredflurries.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=65"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/scatteredflurries.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":69,"href":"https:\/\/scatteredflurries.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65\/revisions\/69"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scatteredflurries.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=65"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scatteredflurries.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=65"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scatteredflurries.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=65"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}