EQ Made Me Do It

Every contract is a great contract.  My life is a workcation.  I am well aware of how fortunate I am.  But this contract #5…man it was a doozy.  To start with, it was a shortened contract of 2 months to make it back home in time for a family wedding.  Our glassblowers have one of the shortest contracts on board out of any other employee.  Most people work 6,8 or 10 months.  So the glassblowers come and go and we have less time to make bonds with the other 1,200 people we live with.  Being the social butterfly I am, I usually have no problems making friends quickly except when no one comes out to play.  The social scene on the Equinox this summer was severely lacking.  People were hibernating in their cabins and were rarely seen in the Mingles bar, or interested in much activity off the ship.  The quietest ship I have ever joined.  Thankfully I could find one friend who was always down to play, party, color, drink wine, and explore- and that was Joey.  If it wasn’t for her I would have gone stir crazy.

Her mustache is real.  

The other reason this was a difficult contract was the fact that our ship went into a health code 3 times in 2 months.  This means that the gastrointestinal virus was onboard and we had to take extreme measures to prevent it from spreading.  Worse than us having to assist with disinfecting duties, was that we were banned from eating in the guest buffet and from using the guest gym to prevent new cases.  The quality, taste, variety and vegetarian options available in the crew buffet is seriously lacking.  You feel like you are eating cardboard with no nutrition.  So this was depressing.  We also could not host many parties or events for the crew in public areas.  So no open deck for wine and cheese, few themed parties in the big upstairs lounge, or the top deck, and no pool parties.  This situation didn’t help the sad social scene.

Tom, Jared and I in our hazmat suits disinfect by day and sparkle by night.

We made it out alive.  But we also had a rockin’ time on the stage creating super cool collaborations.  Every cruise for our auction we would make a collaborative piece. I showed an example of a big sunset platter we made in an earlier post.  But here are a few more…  We always take turns leading with a color, shape or pattern idea.  Each of us has a strength as well when it comes to executing the piece, and mine is connecting the cups, which have to be matching size and thickness.  

Joining the seams of the pink, gold, pink on this beautiful vase below.  The purple was added later on by Tom, once the piece was on the punty.

A few other pieces I made and really liked this contract...

So I have mentioned that I purchased an adult coloring book while in Turkey.  I LOVE IT!  It was another creative outlet for me and kept me busy on board.  I would frequently take it to coffee shops in ports too.  The birds were a gift to Tom and crab a gift for my friend Nick.

Now because they couldn’t host many parties for crew, I felt we were missing out so I hosted my own wine and cheese in my cabin.  Collecting fruit, cheese and bread over a few days- I had to sneak them back to my cabin.  This spread is equipped with hand made drinking glasses, leftover napkins from the Atlantis charter cruise, and unused wooden paddles from the hot shop as cheese boards.   I think we did all right.  And I hit a record with fitting 14 people into my cabin the size of a shoebox!  It was a great night!

We have glassblowers, dancers, singers, musicians, cooks, AV techs and a youth counselor coming from USA, Austrailia, NZ, Chile, Mexico, Serbia, Columbia and Malaysia.  Because that’s how we roll.

When terrorists in Turkey and the norovirus get you down, just remember...