Mystery Woman

This painting was on the ship - I was drawn to it.

Vitalio and I met in the lobby
 where this painting hung. He asked
me to be his Facebook friend and
drew a map of where his home
was in France. He also said to be
sure to look him up if I come to
France and he would drive me
to Poland.

The night before we planned to meet
again and dance. Our Salt Lake City
ballroom dancing group alway danced
on the lobby dance floor because they
had live music there every evening.

He didn't show but Mick kept me
dancing every so often and I
even danced with Shirl who
was scheduled to be my first
roommate. He taught me my first
salsa. (The room organizer
 thought that Shirley was a girl.)

Finally Vitalio showed up and
told me that he'd gone to the
other dance club where we had
first met. I tried to sit at the bar
with him but it was a dressy
night and I kept slipping off
the bar stool so he helped
 me balance on the 
bar stool with his leg.

I can tell you right now
that the whole group from Utah
was just buzzing when Vitalio
and I began dancing and
spending the whole
evening together.

Not only was my hair askew but
my necklace was upside down
from all the dancing.

The next day we were going to
meet at another dance club
area (there were 5 or 6 on
the ship) for dance lessons
only the dance instructor
go that dreadful motion sickness
 so the lessons were cancelled.  
I left a message for 
Vitalio but we didn't
connect.

Our group met up next to the
main pool in the middle of
the ship where there was a
dance floor just in front of the
stage. We played a few rounds
of Scum (anyone ever heard
of this strange card game?)

A woman came up to me
and said "hello Ruth". I 
looked at her and said, "I've 
never met you, how do you
know my name?" What is
your name? She told me her
name was Diane but she would not
 talk about
how she knew my name.

Well, younger and thinner 
little hussies in our group
were talking about me and
the drop dead gorgeous man
that I found!

At one point Sandy started calling
Dennis, Brian and since Hank
switched over to being with
Sandy most of the time, I seemed
to have forgotten his name and
started calling him Frank. 
Maybe we were just getting rummy,
 after all we were up until
1 or 2 am every night (who
would do crazy hours
like that at my age!)

I never did find Vitalio on the last
night onboard. He was a very
interesting man who lives in sunny
Australia, has a home in France, 
speaks four languages and has
lived in Massachusetts, Sweden, and 
Mexico.

As we were leaving the ship the next day, 
Vitalio was standing there waiting. He shook
my hand and said how he enjoyed
getting to know me and reached 
over and kissed me on the cheek.

Well, I was ecstatic!