Ode to Fragolina

Traditions make us feel normal.  For centuries people have been following traditions just to feel an ounce of normal.  Take the Reznicks for example. Every Christmas you can find them sitting at our table for Christmas dinner. Sometimes I will go the entire year without seeing them; however, I can tell you that as soon as they walk through our front door, it is like no time has passed.

Rebecca- the Reznick daughter- and I met in Kindergarten and was directly responsible for furthering my career in the financial industry.  Sometimes we argue and fight as if we are siblings; however, every Christmas like clockwork she comes through our door and everything is normal again.

It’s hard to find traditions on ships. Right now the closest thing to a tradition we have is waking up every morning at 6:30am to lead off the tours and then going for breakfast with the gang! Katie, Christian, and Leonnie get an English breakfast. Well, what the cruise line calls an English breakfast: Heinz beans in a can. John G gets his French toast stuffed with blueberry sauce, but eats around the sauce he also has 6 milk boxes and peanut butter and jelly toast. Melody changes her breakfast from day to day, Ryan eats sausage and James gets a vegan breakfast made up of seeds.

I was talking about traditions to Mia and Juzzy and again they didn’t understand where I was coming from and again I think it was more the third bottle of wine that caused their lack of understanding. I guess that is our tradition: Juzzy calling me, telling me she bought really expensive 4 Euro bottle of wine and then me calling Mia and then her calling Timmy, the musician and then we all meet in Juzzy’s room where she breaks out the Fragolina wine with paper cups,  we turn on Abba and Timmy starts singing “Take a Chance on Me” to Mia – Cue eye roll.

You see tradition’s tell us that we are all on track; that we made it through a certain period of time and are alright.  When we all go home after this contract, I will miss our breakfast tradition, but as I’m sitting at Christmas listening to my sister, Laura discuss with Father Reznick how crossfit directly affects small business while Mother Reznick and Rebecca argue about what temperature to warm the pies, I will be thinking about Vegan James spinning yarn in the forest with his Birkenstocks at every full moon, or Katie taking a picture of her and her guy Steve at every morning before they get out of bed and I will start singing “Take a Chance on Me” to a bottle of Fragolina that I am hiding under the table.