One of my least favourite aspects of a long-anticipated vacation is that it's inevitably short. Then it's over. Then you have to get back to business as usual.

Mind you, that won't stop me from vacationing! But there's always a bit of time after I come back from a great trip when I wish I was still on it.

So now that my cruise has receded a couple weeks into the past, I find that I'm getting back to normal in most ways. The sunburn has peeled... the bags are all unpacked... my next editing project is on the way... but I'm stealing a moment here to remind myself what the cruise was allll about.

Tour of exemplifying photo!

(Cruise director's voice):

Okay, if you look to your left you'll see the main reason why this cruise was so cool.

Imagine, if you will, having emerged, blinking, from the arctic wilderness that is Canada, to find yourself suddenly enjoying a balmy Caribbean noon. There is not a cloud in the sky; there is not a speck of land on the horizon (or is that Cuba, way over there? No matter.)

You have exchanged your parka for a bathing suit, and your snow shovel for a mojito. You are reclining on your very own deck chair on the Lido deck of a massive cruise ship. The sun presses down on your stunned pallid skin.

In front of you through the rail, you behold a pop concert in preparation on another part of the deck. Soon, Sarah Harmer will be entertaining you with her beautiful songs as you sip your mojito on your deck chair on the cruise ship under the sun, in the middle of the sea...

And there's always that waterslide. You've got that in the back of your mind for when you've finished pinching yourself to be sure it's all real.

*sigh of bliss*

P.S. Those are my husband's legs, not mine!!! *laughter*

CG

Great Big Sea is a Canadian band from Newfoundland. They perform their own work (as in the last clip I posted), but they also play quite a bit of traditional folk music, Maritime and otherwise. Here is an older song I was lucky enough to catch the other day on my cruise.

I promise I'll get to the cruise photos themselves one of these days. There are so many of them! *laugh*

CG

Hi all! I'm back, not much time to write yet... BUT.

If you like Great Big Sea, here's a bonus for you -- I posted the first song of their set on the last night of the cruise, January 30.

Enjoy!

I had hopes I'd be able to make daily entries on Xanga this month, but that just ain't happening for now. Between work and getting ready for my vacation, I've been too busy to sit still long enough for the introspection that precedes (for me, anyway) a blog entry.

I'll be back from my rock'n'roll cruise on February 2, and I promise photos. This particular cruise, with its constant concerts and floating-festival atmosphere, is apparently a yearly excursion. We were inspired to book our trip by the enthusiastic reviews from 2007 attendees... who knows? Maybe you'll see my photos and start saving up for next year's outing! You just never know.

Best to all, and I'll visit you after!

CG

Saw this on a friend's page, decided to try it out.

Well, it doesn't look like me... but the whole monologue-in-the-bathroom thing? Yeah.

I am so excited to be going on my first cruise ever, at the end of January.

Never have I thought of myself as a "cruise" type of person, but in this case it's more like a six-day floating rock concert, so I'm up for it. The shore excursions will be okay, but I'm more interested in the bands (Barenaked Ladies are headlining; Great Big Sea and Sarah Harmer are two of my other faves who will be on board).

At least, I hope it will be fun...

But tell me what you think: what is this "cruise" type of person anyway? Are you one? Whether or no, what would be the single critical factor that would make you say WOO LET'S GO! to a cruise? Or would you never set foot on a cruise ship?

Later edit: P.S. - It's this cruise.

This Christmas, I noticed that my 88-year-old mother-in-law was still using her vintage cookbook, The Woman's Home Companion Cook Book (1942). All its crumbling, stained, faded pages were stacked and held together by two large blue rubber bands.

I decided to get her a "new" copy of this great old standard. If you ever seek an old cookbook, they can all be tracked down at OldCookbooks.com, with attentive customer service provided by its owner, Ernie. I am eternally grateful to Ernie.

It came, it was given, it was received with delight! I just spent an absorbing afternoon paging through it. (I hadn't wanted to touch the old one for fear of completely destroying it.) Many of the recipes and advice in this book are still relevant today. However... here's a scary one. It's one of those Jell-o salads in a mold.

This recipe contains another recipe, "Roquefort Cream," which is actually, yes, made from Roquefort blue cheese and cream, along with Worcestershire sauce and a few other ingredients. Read this and try not to imagine what it might taste like!

Roquefort-Avocado-Grapefruit Salad

Gelatine, 1 tbsp
Cold water, 1/4  cup
Grapefruit juice, 1-1/4 cups
Sugar, 3 tbsp
Salt, 1/2 tsp
Lime juice, 1/4 cup
Avocado, 1
Grapefruit, large, 1
Roquefort Cream, 1/2 recipe

Soften gelatine in cold water. Stir over boiling water until dissolved. Add grapefruit juice, sugar and salt; stir until sugar is dissolved. Add lime juice.

Peel the avocado and cut into thin slices. Peel and section the grapefruit. Rinse a loaf pan with cold water; arrange a layer of alternating rows of avocado slices and grapefruit sections across the bottom, then add a layer of gelatine mixture. Chill to set. Repeat until all is used. Chill until almost firm.

Prepare Roquefort Cream and chill until partially set. Put on top of the avocado-grapefruit jelly; chill until firm.

Unmold on a bed of escarole or other greens; serve with French dressing made with lime juice in place of vinegar.

Okay, I tell you what. If anyone wants to make this recipe,  perhaps just for the sheer morbid fascination value, then I'll post the Roquefort Cream recipe too. Otherwise... don't it just make your eyes (rather than your mouth) water?!

LOL!

CG

I found an old prose poem I wrote 'way back in 1995 and thought I'd read it into the Xanga record here.

At the time, I knew a man who had just left his wife and children over what I'd call irreconcilable differences. During his 17-year marriage, he had seldom picked up the guitar he loved to play as a teenager, because his wife (apparently a real screamer) would light into him about how selfish he was and how he ought to be doing whatever else. For this and many other reasons, he felt smothered and eventually got a divorce, but it was a traumatic process, and in this poem I was exploring his search for a new identity through the music he was suddenly free to play.

The broken husband collects his music and falters, plays a few bars and plays with the pick-up, plays more and chews his pick, turning over the pages. Straining for his distant voice, it's hard to tell at this remove what it was he was saying when he said it, but his assembled hands leaf through his memories, searching for a useful starting note.

The faltering collector husbands his broken music. He guesses he's not really broken, he's a whole and useful someone else, without even a name, why not enjoy what he's been missing ever since. Potters shaping clay don't start with such a void, but it's the same job, he reflects, going over old ground to create a new receptacle.

Like building-block castles, he can see that demolition was built-in from the start. Everywhere he turns, though, there is evidence that nothing is really over, that he will reach through his space to shake his hand, that his shaking hands will put one thing atop another again. In the meantime, there is always something in his hands, his guitars, his steering wheel, his face. He's not letting anything else go.

CG

I hope all Xmas-celebrating Xangans enjoyed the day.

I have been waiting for months to give my parents a return flight to England. My mom was born there -- emigrated to Canada when she was 15 -- hasn't been back for half a century now.

When I try to thank them or tell them how I feel about them, it comes out flat somehow. I feel so great about this gift, because it's just perfect. My mom needs to go back, and my dad always wanted to visit England. They are older now, and they must go before my mom's mobility becomes any more limited. It's just the right moment.

It's a large present, and also an intangible one, so I thought for a long time about how to "give" a gift of travel. In case you are ever in the same position, what worked for me was to create a large leather-bound scrapbook that acted as a sort of large Christmas card. There were several pages, and it told the story of my mom's life from her childhood in England through getting married and raising a family in Canada. The last couple of pages lead up to the trip that is the actual gift, and it was a surprise to them. There were tears and anticipatory excitement, and I'm just delighted.

My fear was that they wouldn't treat me as a mature person who can decide for herself how to allocate her money. However, there was barely a murmur about the expense, thank the gods, because I couldn't have borne it. (My finances are in *great* shape.) My travel agent is waiting for my parents to come in and make flight arrangements, and I won't be entirely relaxed until they are actually on the plane and it's all happening. This gift means a lot to me, and all I want is for them to have the time of their lives and not to worry about a thing!

... is going to cruise the Caribbean with the Barenaked Ladies this winter! Woowoo!!