“It really frosts my cookies…”

“Went into the woods, had a good time, bonded together…(more quote below)…It really frosts my cookies that we have come so far and now we have to stop.”
~Shelly Long, Troop Beverly Hills

For those of you unfamiliar with the movie, I’m stripping you of your gay card. Another highlight of the movie is Shelley Morrison of Will and Grace playing, what else but an upscale maid named … you ready? … Rosa. I will italicize any references to it in this post so people who HAVEN’T seen it (again, your gay card suspension is already in process) can understand these vague and seemingly irrelevant metaphors.

But I digress. I have traveled very far into the forest on this jamboree… not just mileage. My travel companion would be in nicest terms, “difficult,” and this cruise was definitely the light at the finish line and the prize of being this year’s poster troop. Unfortunately there is no log to cross this ravine and no finish line to carry Velda across. Velda is hurt and in New York and no matter how much I’m going to dislike her for putting me through this, she is still a Wilderness girl. Alright, I’m done with this metaphor. OK, one more metaphor….

“Crock of SHIT …. DAMNIT … DAMNIT DAMNIT DAMNIT …. Just ONCE I want to GO the DIStance!”

Anyway, a close family of mine had a heart attack Friday night. I was out and about in Nice and when I returned home at 3 AM Nice time I had messages on my Hotel phone and 3 missed calls from various American numbers on my international cell phone. My family knew that usin that phone was under only the direst of emergencies.

Last time there was a heart attack in my family I delayed my flight until I heard that my grandfather was stable. My parents lied and while I was gone he died. I never got to say goodbye. They learned their lesson that I would hate them more for lying to me and not telling me the truth about family health than if they ruined my vacation by calling me home. Nice, the Amalfi coast and Italy would all be there next summer – no sense in crying over not getting on a ship and having cocktails.

It is truly a wonderful cruise but it’s nothing extraordinary that I haven’t been available to me in the past.

There will be a GREAT deal of cognitive dissonance in future posts on this topic. Cognitive Psychology was one of the few psychology core-courses I aced so I appear to be an expert at it.