Balloon Drop

There is no sushi restaurant on the Ruby Princess. Instead, there is a wine bar called Vines where you choose a glass of wine, and the staff give you either a bit of cheese or a bit of sushi to enhance your wine-drinking experience. I am not a wine drinker; therefore no sushi for me.

But I am having such a great time, I do not even care.

New Year's Eve in particular was just perfect. Lou and I got all dressed up, went out to the Crown Grill for a special dinner to celebrate Lou's birthday, and then saw a wacky comedy show with Adam Ace. By then it was 11:15PM and time to go to one of the three parties on board. We chose the party in The Piazza (which is a beautiful three story atrium mid ship) because there would be a balloon drop, and I had never been in a balloon drop before.

When we got to The Piazza, the place was very crowded. There is a small dance floor, and I started to walk away to find a good spot along the railing from which we would have a good view of the action. But then I was overwhelmed with the certainty that I did not want to watch the action -- I wanted to be in the middle of the action. Plus, the balloons were suspended over the dance floor. With everything that has happened this year, I want to enjoy myself as much as possible today because there are no guarantees for tomorrow. I just couldn't stand the idea of my shyness keeping me from having fun.

So, I grabbed Lou's hand and we slipped into the slow-moving stream of people making their way onto the dance floor. Luckily, Lou is The Best Husband in the World and always game for whatever happens. Boy it was crowded. Then I saw a big open space, right in front of the band. We squeezed our way over there and started dancing.

The music was great, and everyone was having fun. I was laughing and dancing and bumping into people and having them bump into me. Then the band started playing "I Will Survive" and I got completely and unexpectedly choked up. Lou knew and hugged me tight.

As midnight approached, I looked up at three floors of people all crowded against the railings looking down at the band and dance floor, and I was filled with joy that I was dancing and not watching. Not that we were really dancing! There wasn't enough room to do more than wiggle or bounce in place.

Suddenly everyone was counting down to midnight, and then Lou grabbed me for a big romantic kiss and the balloons floated down on top of us. It was magical. We batted the balloons back into the air, and we stomped on some of them. I grabbed a perfect pale pink balloon and held on to it for a long time, planning to bring it back to the cabin and have Lou take a picture of me with it and post it to this blog so you could see my sparkly black gown, but a tiny little girl on the end of the dance floor stared so hungrily at my balloon that I had to give it to her. It was my first good deed for 2010.

Happy New Year!