So, what do we do down here in the dark?

Well, here's my office:

and my other office...

photo (c) Robert Schwarz

stuff goes on there, but besides that there's all sorts of other fun...

dressing up for dishpit and galley slave duty (happens every month or so...) (that's an apron I'm wearing... just to clarify...) and then a Cinco de Mayo celebration in the store...

A while back we held the first ever Antarctic celebration of the Commedia Dell'Arte event, a same-day, worldwide recognition of the origins of professional theatre-- making it the first time this event occurred on all seven continents... our home-grown performance (augmented by specially-made leather masks-- they would retail for several thousand dollars-- by a master Italian artisan who sent the masks to Pole specifically for this event!) was a South Pole version of boy-meets-girl-then-things-go-downhill-from- there... our narrator kept things on track, the fools tried to help despite their incompetence... and in the end, boy won girl after presenting some locally-grown wildflowers and posting a touching poem on the galley scroll... see if you can pick me out!

Then we just had the BF5K run... n 18 lap course through the station hallways, individuals and teams competed to the applause and cheers of lazy onlookers in the galley...

Some of the entrants:

Log Lady

Team 80s Fantasy Tron Girl and friend

Just Weeks

Team 80s Fantasy Fairy Prom Queen

Team Life Is Good "All Nighter" (check the margarita glasses...)

Galley hand-off

Now we call him Reba

Team 80s Fantasy Freaky Bunny

Go speed racer, go!

And then there's the good old fashioned dance parties in Club Deep Freeze...

Dan took the "one dance as Marilyn" challenge for a free drink at the inaugeral event...

Then came funk night...

lighting is important

our bouncer

 

  

                              freaky bunnies... a continuing theme...

And there's more!  Next up, Team 'Za and the Imperial Delivery March...

Will try for higher res/larger pics next time...

Cheers!

(thanks to everyone for taking such great photos...)

a peek into the restless spirit...

My friend Robert sent me this poem he's had ahold of for many years... sure does put down on paper a lot of the thoughts and feelings I continue to have as life goes on... me and a lot of my other fellow wanderers...

The Double Life

How very simple life would be
If only there were two of me
A Restless Me to drift and roam
A Quiet Me to stay at home.
A Searching One to find his fill
Of varied skies and newfound thrill
While sane and homely things are done
By the domestic Other One.

And that's just where the trouble lies;
There is a Restless Me that cries
For chancy risks and changing scene,
For arctic blue and tropic green,
For deserts with their mystic spell,
For lusty fun and raising Hell,

But shackled to that Restless Me
My Other Self rebelliously
Resists the frantic urge to move.
It seeks the old familiar groove
That habits make. It finds content
With hearth and home -- dear prisonment,
With candlelight and well-loved books
And treasured loot in dusty nooks,

With puttering and garden things
And dreaming while a cricket sings
And all the while the Restless One
Insists on more exciting fun,
It wants to go with every tide,
No matter where...just for the ride.
Like yowling cats the two selves brawl
Until I have no peace at all.

One eye turns to the forward track,
The other eye looks sadly back.
I'm getting wall-eyed from the strain,
(It's tough to have an idle brain)
But One says "Stay" and One says "Go"
And One says "Yes," and One says "No,"
And One Self wants a home and wife
And One Self craves the drifter's life.

The Restless Fellow always wins
I wish my folks had made me twins.

- Anonymous