Mr. Spock goes line dancing

Okay, I've been accused of blogslacking. In my defense, I was out of the country, and was quite deliberately unplugged. No phone, no email, only one page of daily international news.

The good news is that we were on vacation for two weeks after Easter. The bad news is that most of the household got really sick with a stomach bug when we got home.

That's right, a two-week vacation. I've never in ten years of married life heard these words escape my spouse's lips: "I need a vacation." So when I heard them, my response was something on the order of, "yes, dear; where would you like to go, and can I come with you?" She wanted to go on a cruise, so that's what we did. Down the west coast of Mexico, with bookend stops in San Jose to see our god-child and compadres. I took the new camera along. Watch it, or I'll send you eight gigabytes' worth of pictures of beach. And birds. And seals.

One of the surreal things that happened on the trip was that one of our fellow passengers was an almost dead ringer for Leonard Nimoy. I did a triple-take that first day. That's where you glance, and then stop and look again, and then stop and take a really hard look because it just might be him, before you finally decide it's really not.

The first day, Mr. Not-quite-Spock (as I began to refer to him in my head) was wearing a dinner jacket and dark turtleneck, the same kind of outfit Nimoy wears in interviews and things. Dignified, gentle smile. But then, of course, as the cruise wore on, I got many more Spock glimpses, and every one was jarring, out-of-place:

Mr. Spock goes line dancing, in blue jeans, boots, and straw cowboy hat.

Mr. Spock in a tuxedo.

Mr. Spock in a deck chair, wearing a white spa robe, reading Tom Clancy.

Mr. Spock eating a burger and fries by the pool.

Mr. Spock in the hot tub?!?


I'm certain that this is going to work its way into a sermon someday. I can think of several ways it might go. In fact, that's one of the happy results of some vacation time for me: when I read gospel texts, the fireworks of multiple images and multiple things to say and allusions and connections are once again going off in my head.

But for today, I'll just leave you with the "Spock in the hot tub" image and let it work its own little brand of mischevious magic.