May 28 - Cozumel

This morning I was down at the coffee bar getting a Vanilla Latte and Sam tapped me on the shoulder. I turned around and he was with two friends I hadn’t met before. He gestured in my direction and said, “This is my Mom.” One of the two girls didn’t even look in my direction. The other one looked over at me as if I was a distasteful looking slug and turned away again. I looked at Sam with a “You have GOT to be kidding me” look on my face. He shrugged. I said, “Ohhh-kayyy” and turned my back to them as my drink arrived. Behind me, I heard one of the two girls shout, “Bye, Mom!”, in an incredibly sarcastic tone. She was very lucky that she was out of sight by the time I turned back around, because I think I probably would have felt compelled to teach her some manners. The waiter asked, “Are those your children ditching you for the day?” I replied, “That was my son and a couple of skanks he probably just met.”

After I got my Latte, I went up to the breakfast buffet. I fixed my plate and went in search of a table. The tables are usually all taken, but you can choose to join a table, if you don’t mind sitting with people you don’t know. Usually this guarantees interesting conversation and you might even make new friends. I spotted a table with six chairs that had only two people, a couple, sitting at it. I asked if I could join them. They said yes, so I sat down. They then proceeded to ignore me the entire time I sat there, which is most unusual. Since this was happening immediately after the incident with Sam’s “friends” ignoring me, I developed a bit of a complex, but thankfully it only lasted for the time I was at the table. When I was finished eating I stood and politely thanked them for allowing me to join them. They just looked at me. Some people are very odd!

I spent most of the day in the Sanctuary. When I couldn’t avoid the sun anymore, I came back to the cabin and caught the latest James Bond movie. That Daniel Craig is a great James Bond. Interestingly enough, we have a Head Waiter in the Da Vinci dining room who is a dead ringer for Daniel Craig, but a bit older and not as svelte. He enjoyed being compared to him, however! He said he was on a secret assignment.

As we left Cozumel, the ship turned and I had a view of the sunset over the ocean. It was an incredible sight. I took some pictures, but none of them really did justice to the event. At one point, I glanced up at the bridge and saw an officer filming the sunset. When the sun had completely disappeared, all of the passengers that had been watching broke out in spontaneous applause and cheers.

Sam came back to the room at about 7:30 p.m. and we got dressed and went to dinner. He was nursing a mild hangover. To my left at the table were two sisters who were about my age. To their left was a couple who were in their sixties. To Sam’s right was a young couple about his age, maybe a little older. The older gentleman was in his cups quite a bit and slurred through everything he said. He had seen two beautiful German girls the night before while he was sitting at a bar and he told us about them about ten times. Each time his wife would just roll her eyes. I’m sure she wanted to throw her water glass in his face. Frankly, I wouldn’t have blamed her!!! I wanted to do it myself! The sisters were wonderful. I really enjoyed talking with them. Sam left the table after dessert, followed shortly by the young couple. I was enjoying conversation with the sisters, but the older gentleman kept butting in with unrelated topics, including – what else – the beautiful German girls. I finally excused myself and got up from the table.

As I began to walk away, I heard the older gentleman call out to me. “Ma’am!” I decided to pretend that I did not hear him because the last thing I wanted was to get cornered by a disgusting, old, drunk man. He was persistent, however. “Ma’am! You say you’re a college president. We need a college president!” I continued walking quickly, hoping he would give up. “Ma’am! Ma’am! Ma’am!” I was walking so fast that he had to be running to keep up with me. I heard him tell someone, “I can’t catch her.” I reached the entrance to the dining room, “Ma’am!”, went out the door and made a quick right turn to the back staircase, then a quick left turn to the elevators, skirted right to the shops and practically ran to the casino. I didn’t hear him shouting at me anymore. But I still didn’t slow down. I wound my way through the casino, then to the next set of elevators, walked up one flight of stairs, then paused to catch my breath. I think watching that James Bond movie had an impact on me because I felt like I had outrun some secret agents!

Back in the room, Sam was stretched out on his bunk listening to Mike’s IPod. He had decided to stay in. I told him what had happened with the man. He was equally disgusted. We watched a little television. He fell asleep before I did, but I wasn’t long behind him.