tavie.com

Expensive and slow, yes, but since I've given enough quarters to the slot machines, I don't sing karaoke, play bingo, bid on art, swim in the rain, let strangers massage me, get manicures, want to watch stupid Robin Williams movies, smoke cigars or climb rock walls, since I've purchased my rum, since my mother doesn't want to let me sit and read my book in peace on the deck, since the arcade is reserved for those 17 and under (whyyyy?) and since dinner's not for two hours, this is my chosen entertainment.

Today! I cuddled! Sting rays! Cuddled, yes, cuddled. They were divested of their barbs (I don't want to know, it was probably a hideous surgery performed on them for the sole purpose of letting stupid fat tourists like myself pet them) and were cute and friendly as puppys, clambering into our laps in the shallow water and sucking greedily at our outstretched fingers for dead fish. Which we gave them. And rubbed their buttery wings and velvety bellies. Sweet, sweet stingrays. I stalked them from the surface in my snorkel gear like the good year blimp circling an arena, following the smaller males instead of the big, pregnant females, because I promised I would flirt with someone on this trip. Stingrays are darling. I bet you didn't know.

It was much nicer weather in Nassau than on Coco Cay yesterday, where it began raining the second we stepped off the tender and ceased raining the second we stepped back on the ship. Not that we cared. My mom discovered a drink we have called Tavie on the Beach, which is coconut rum, soda water and a squeeze of lime. It's lightly sweet without being cloying, and low carb, and very refreshing if you're on a tropical island and crave coconut flavour but don't want to stray from your diet. Tavie on the Beach: have one today. I floated on my back in the ocean which was warm like a bathtub compared to the chilly rain. We lay on hammocks in the rain. We ate barbecue in the rain. We chased roosters in the rain. We don't care about no stinking rain.

Our tour of the Everglades tomorrow has been cancelled for lack of interest (YAY!!!) so we're going to go to Parrot Island (some place... with... parrots?) to kill the time until our evening flight.

One last thing: the music on this cruise is extremely, extremely gay. In the Diane-Warren-makes-me-ill sense, rather than the showtunes-are-awesome sense. Really, really tired of that Whitney Houston song from The Bodyguard, not that one but the other one.

Why are you in Tavie's head? 6:43 PM | shower me with attention