Needs no prescription. But maybe it should.

As we’ve said in blogs of the past, we have hurricane preparedness down to a science.

It’s like fire drills in school. Repetition, repetition, and……. what was that other thing?

This year took a little longer because the cables that hold the corners of the roof on needed work. Also the hurricane shutters for the west side of the house which we ordered LAST year, are being finished just now. Thanks, Mr. Busy Carpenter Dude.

We spent all day yesterday getting ready, since the carpenter dude came 4 hours later than he said he would to cut the existing shutters to the right size. We ate dinner at 9pm.

Now, today, we hear former Senator Redfield on the radio, taking calls from people who haven’t prepared.

Local doctors need to start prescribing smart pills. Calling them “Preparation H” probably wouldn’t help, though.

Maybe it would, since doing this CAN be a pain in the butt……

Occasionally since early June, we have, in our “east end” travels, come upon a “suspicious-character” type guy. The first time we met him, he had driven onto our turtle patrol beach. We asked him not to do that, since there had been turtle activities right where he had driven.

He told us that he was “exempt from that”, and asked, “Oh is it the 10th already?” Later on, after he was told in no uncertain terms that he was not to drive on the beach again, he shouted to us that he had very little patience with “tree huggers” and added that we should go hug trees somewhere else.

We have come across him again and again since then, as have other friends and island family members. The guy is a con artist who makes his way from establishment to respectable establishment trying to con nice people out of whatever he can.

Last night as we were heading to a favorite restaurant, we saw him lying on the side of the road surrounded by cars, trucks and a police car. Apparently someone had beaten him up and thrown him out of a vehicle.

Vigilantes to the rescue!

Anyway, we were speaking to a friend after dinner who said that this guy was “not the kind of crazy we like here”.

I found that very profound and ever so true.

“We’re all here because we’re not all there” is one of our favorite sayings about those of us who have chosen to live on this amazingly diverse and wonderful island.

So we’re all a little off-kilter, but we support those around us who are a bit strange, but not out to rip any of us off.

We welcome odd characters – they make life interesting and entertaining.

But we take care of each other-so don’t come here if you can’t play nice.

….are taking a lot out of me. I’m getting too old to run two businesses, two houses with yards, take care of ten dogs, a cat, a husband and myself in addition to doing 12-20 hours of turtle work! But someone’s gotta do it.  We really need to win the lottery soon so we can hire some help…..

During Sunday night’s patrol, we had 3 turtles come up, two of which laid eggs. No flipper tags on any of them, so we are naming them by their markings, size or behavior since we are not able to tag as yet. One has a deep notch in her left rear scute (Notch girl), another has an inverted “v” shape at her tail scute (Miss V) and one is small, very inexperienced, and we think has dug a series of pits at the surf line under the steep berm between stakes 25 and 35 (Grenade girl).

We went again on Monday night because last week-end there were 17 activities between Friday and Sunday, so we wanted to see what else would happen. We borrowed a PIT scanner from TNC because we were told that one season a while back one of the interns couldn’t flipper tag, so she only PIT tagged the turtles she had contact with. We had at least one turtle come up (we call her “Double Wide”) because she’s really wide – she’s fast too, and almost bowled Michael over and down the berm.

Anyway, on our first pass down the beach, we saw an activity that we weren’t sure about. It could have been a lay, but it was dark, so we decided to finish the pass to the end and see if she had come up farther down and laid. We saw a truck idling in the west campground area, walked down to the breakwater, and sat until it was time to head back. When we got to where we saw the truck, the guys were on the beach fishing. We spoke to them and they said that they had just seen a big turtle try to come up out of the surf, but she got spooked by them and went back into the sea. They thought they should pack up and let her come back to “do her thing” – very nice and very commendable (besides, there was lightning all around), so they reeled in their lines and left.

We made a note of the turtle activity that we had seen earlier and went back to our beginning point, sat until it was time to patrol again and headed west once more. This time, when we came upon the area of that activity, we saw a turtle coming up from Grenade girl’s area 10-15m past stake 32. We stopped and watched her laboriously climb up the berm. She started to body pit and after a few minutes we saw another shape in the surf where she had just come up (was it her or another turtle?) It was her, she had fallen down the berm. So she struggled up again and started to body pit. After about an hour, she started to dig. Finally, around 11, she hit roots and started to leave. Michael got close enough to try to scan for a PIT tag, but she bolted down the berm like a bat out of hell. He has a pretty good bump on his leg as a reminder of her.

By then we were exhausted and went home. Tuesday morning’s patrol showed that she came back up to that same spot and possibly laid.

This week, SunDog House is occupied by the family expecting a baby on August 9, 2010.

They arrived on Friday August 6 and we moved into the house that we pay rent on across the street, which we call Hairy House because 7 of the dogs live there, and they are allowed free reign inside and out through the always open front door. It’s really full of dog bodies, dog smells and dog fur.

Hairy House has no ceiling fans , the windows are royal blue louvers, and the stuffy little kitchen faces west. In other words, if the weather is sunny and still, it is HOT. Especially in the afternoon when the sun beats down on the west side. The long, narrow “living/dining area” also has a large blue-louvered window facing west. I perspire just thinking about it.

And, of course, there’s no nice pool to cool off in. Fortunately, some of our days have been breezy and pleasant. Only a few still humid ones. So. We have breakfast at Hairy House in the morning, usually are too busy to have lunch, then we eat dinner out. We have both noticed our middles shrinking.

Instant and unexpected diet!

We were not sure how long the family would be staying, but as luck would have it, the baby showed up a day early, so it looks like they’ll only be here until Friday.  Cute little boy. 8 lbs. 3 oz. and lots of hair.

Hey, maybe he should stay at Hairy House  

I started writing this at the end of June, then other issues caused me to stray from the draft of this post.

Anyway the VI Energy Office has been advertising on the radio that they will give up to $5000 to people buying a new energy efficient vehicle. Wow! That’s a chunk of change!

They have been giving rebates on appliances, even televisions for quite a while, so when we needed a washing machine for SunDog House, we chose one with a good energy star rating and were promised a $200 rebate. Cool!

We went out to Frederiksted with the paperwork to apply for the rebate and were told that we’d receive our check in “10-12 weeks”. This was February 19.

However, since I have lived here 16 years, I knew I needed to make sure that would happen. So I kept a copy of the application with the name, phone number  and extension of the woman in charge, in case the time went by and we didn’t get the money. I put it in a prominent place so it wouldn’t get lost in the black hole.

After 12 weeks (the end of May), we still hadn’t received our rebate. So I called.

“Oh, the checks have been delayed, the next batch will go out at the beginning of June,” said the nice lady. She took a few minutes to look up may application and found that it had been approved.

So we waited, and at the end of June I called back. The nice lady was apologetic and said that she didn’t know when we’d get our check but she’d look into it and get back to me.

Riiiight…..

I’d probably still be waiting for her call if I hadn’t called back. By this time I was pretty irate. I did let her know that I would be contacting the inspector general of the federal DOE to let him/her know that the VI Energy office was spending money to advertise rebates, but then taking an inordinate amount of time to send them out.

She said the next batch would go out at the beginning of July.

We finally got ours then. But I still contacted the inspector general of the federal DOE through their website.

Another “Mom and Pop” business has opened on St. Croix, and this is one we really have to share the news about.

Jaccar Organic and Natural Sorbets is located in Gallows Bay where Peter Stewart’s office used to be. For those who don’t know Peter,  it’s in the same building as SEA and Anything Goes, but on the opposite side, the east side of the Arawak Building. They have a few little cafe tables set up outside and it’s usually a nice breezy place to chill on a humid tropical summer day.

Jacky and Carol are making delicious frozen and non-frozen sweet goodies using local fruits and organic ingredients (read: good for you sweets and treats)!

They are certainly a godsend to us, since we have a place to bring dozens of our (still falling) large and small mangoes.

They have delicious flavors of sorbet and frozen fruit pops; organic candies like gummy bears;  home-made walnut, chocolate chip and lime meltaway butter cookies, unsulfured organic dried fruits, local noni juice and more.

My favorite thing about them is they are consistent in their commitment to health by being good to our planet earth. Their packaging is biodegradable, even the “plastic” spoons and containers are really ones made from corn starch.

We need more small, personal locally owned and run businesses like theirs.

Call them at 340-719-6999 or e-mail jaccarsorbets9@aol.com. Better yet, stop in, say “Hi” and tell them you read about them on our blog! They’re open Tuesday through Saturday 10 – 5:00.

For the past few weeks we have been walking the beach in search of sea turtle activities. Yes, they are back.

This year, we have had over 30 leatherback activities on the beach where we do day patrols. An “activity” may be just a track left by a turtle coming up on the beach during the night to look for a nesting area, or it may be an attempted nesting, or an actual laying of eggs.

Sometimes when a female makes her way onto the beach, she is frightened away by something  before she has a chance to even begin the process of moving sand. Sometimes she actually finds a place that seems appropriate but the sand caves in or she hits tree roots and hasto start over again. It’s a tedious process, fraught with challengers, danger and uncertainty, but we are fortunate that they are determined to get the job of passing on their DNA to future generations done.

We have a special permit to work with the endangered species, the Leatherback turtle, the Green turtle and the Hawksbill turtle.

So far this year we have excavated six or seven leatherback nests and one hawksbill nest.

This is how it works. For months, beginning in April or May, volunteers walk along a beach in the mornings. When we notice a track in the sand made by a sea turtle, we decide whether the track led to a successful nesting activity, which we call a “probable lay”. If we think the turtle was able to complete the nesting process, we determine where we think the nest is in the sand. This takes some practice because we don’t dig into the sand at this point. We have a gps, which we place on the approximate spot, and we use a long metric measuring tape to triangulate the point between two numbered stakes near the vegetation line on the beach. We record the gps coordinates, the distance between two stakes, the vegetation line and the high water mark,  and any other interesting observations, such as whether the nest is likely to be washed away because it’s too close to the water, or if there is a risk of predation by mongoose in the area, or if it might be affected by light pollution from nearby houses or hotels…..We also leave a numbered tag on a tree or bush behind the nest are to help us remember where the nest is when it comes time for the eggs to hatch.

We walk the entire beach checking for these activities. Some tracks left in the sand do not lead to actual nests, as I’ve mentioned above.  We call other types of activities either a “dry run” where a nest may have attempted but was interrupted, or a “track only”, where the turtle just came up onto the beach and left without doing anything.

Between 45 and 60 days later, we look in the sand in the marked areas for tiny turtle hatchling tracks coming from a depression in the sand. Sometimes the tracks are obliterated by rain or wind, and we just find a depression in the sand. Sometimes we find a disoriented hatchling or one that was caught by a bird and dropped. Any of these things tell us that a nest has probably recently hatched and we need to dig somewhere in the vicinity.

We look back at our recorded data and start digging where we think the nest is. Michael is the digger and I record the findings on another data sheet. Sometimes we find live hatchlings which we release into the water at an appropriate time, and sometimes we just find hatched shells and under developed eggs which never hatched. The number of hatched shells we count tells us how many baby turtles made it out of the nest, and hopefully into the sea.

The leatherback nests we’ve excavated this year have had between 30 and 55 hatched shells in each, and the hawksbill had 92.

Check out the great pictures on this website if you haven’t already clicked on the last link above. Michael and I saw our first actual turtle nest hatch when we were on our honeymoon trip in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, in Broward County, Florida, where many of these pictures were taken.

This is deep. Yeah, it gets me pretty choked up.

A couple of weeks ago, we got a call from someone interested in renting SunDog House for a while. The young woman who called lives on St. Croix, has been here for a couple of months and she is due to give birth at the beginning of August.

Her mother wants to be here a short time before and after the birth of the baby. She would be coming over from St. Thomas and staying here with a friend. The girl’s father would also come at some point and stay here.

We were excited that we would be getting some local guests, people who understand island living and don’t have some of the ridiculous expectations that some statesiders have. She said she’d speak to her mother and get back to us.

She called back a few days ago wanting to come and see the house and bring a deposit for a week-long stay. It’ll probably be a longer stay, but we’ll start with a week. We’re flexible.

She and her fiance came over on Wednesday. They met Goliath and Mini (we kept Ruby and Harvey out back because they can be a little rambunctious and I didn’t want a pregnant woman being tripped by the two of them playing rough around her), and got the tour of the property.

They thought it would work, so we printed out a rental agreement, etc. and they went on their way.

The following day,  she called back and spoke to Michael on the phone. I could tell who it was and I cringed thinking that they had changed their minds and wanted to cancel. Michael told her he’d speak to me and we’d call her right back.
What he needed to speak to me about was the fact that they sort-of forgot to tell us that they wanted to have a home-birth, and would it be okay if they had their baby at SunDog House?

Yeah, I’ve got goosebumps again, and I’m getting all verklempt.

Someone wants to have a baby at our house.

This is Big Juju.

The VI Honey Man came this morning to remove a large nest of bees from our “bush” property.

Bees had been living in an old metal barbecue grill just on the other side of the fence from the house we rent across the street from SunDog House. I was afraid that if we moved the puppy, Harvey over there, he would, in his playful puppiness disturb the bees and get badly hurt if they attacked him.

So we called the Honey Man.

Michael spent part of yesterday opening the chain-link fence (and fixing it so it could be closed up again) so the bee expert could easily access the nest.

I am absolutely in awe of what this man does. Bees are such an integral part of life on Earth, and he is so skilled and knowledgeable about how to live in harmony with them, that I get very emotional just thinking about it. I feel that he’s a High Priest, deserving of the utmost respect and admiration. He is a second generation beekeeper, and his 9-year-old son is following in his footsteps.

There were thousands of bees in this nest. They had been there for many years, and they were just getting ready to send out a bunch of new queens. The Honey Man said we called him just in time.

I had a few errands to do this morning, but he was still here when I returned, and I couldn’t stop watching him. He was just outside of the window of what we now call “Hairy House” because the dogs usually have free reign inside and out. For this occasion, however, we moved them all back to SunDog House.  Michael and I watched from inside to avoid getting stung.

The Honey Man painstakingly sorted through the buzzing swarm, cutting pieces of honeycomb and scooping bees out of his way, working with a small smoker to calm them when necessary.

He will come back either tomorrow evening or Monday evening to move the bees that return to the wooden hive he used to replace the metal one that they’d been using. Until he’s finished with this task, we will stay with the dogs at SunDog House.

As often as possible, before the sun gets high in the sky and before we have breakfast, we enjoy approximately 30 minutes of calming yoga. I love to stretch all of my muscles and quiet my mind before facing the day. It has been a tremendous help in minimizing the effects of the hormonal fluctuations of menopause. I’m still frequently moody and spacey, but not nearly as bitchy as I was just a few months ago before we started our regular yoga sessions, which is not to say I’m not bitchy. It’s just not as bad.

Some days, like today, the birds are very active. We can hear at least a dozen different calls. There are the musical songs of the pearly-eyed thrashers, the king birds, the mockingbirds and the zenaida doves; the urgent cries of the kestrels, the killdeer and the least terns; the raucous caws of the night herons, green herons, little blue herons, the great egrets, the cattle egrets and the guinea fowl; and the chirps and buzzes of the sparrows and bananquits. There are often rooster and peacock crows carried by the wind.

Hearing all this makes me incredibly grateful to live where we do. I love the lack of  the artificial hustle and bustle of cars and people. In its place we have the natural sounds of the real world. The world that was here before us and continues  to provide for the myriad creatures who do their part every day to keep their species’  thriving.

They work really hard. Every day.

They inspire my respect and admiration. And they deserve it.

Restaurant reviews. I used to love doing them. I thought it was good for the restaurants and St. Croix in general. But I’ve stopped doing them for a few reasons.

Firstly, we haven’t been going anywhere new (we haven’t been going out much period).

Secondly, I had this bizarre thought that if we supported places, they would in turn support us. Well, I was way wrong.  So I stopped writing restaurant reviews.  All we ever got in the way of support were  a few “atta boys”.

Even if the restaurant owners or manager themselves don’t like to get massages, maybe they could buy gift certificates for family members, or staff birthdays or tokens of appreciation…….I mean, if we have to deliver a GC to your restaurant, we might stay for a snack, drink or even a meal…..

Lastly, I get bored with writing all the little particular details about everything these days. “The Change”, you know.

Anyway, the other night we had sushi at Angry Nate’s.

The sushi was okay, but the service was fantastic. Possibly the best service we had ever had anywhere, ever.

I could go on about the details, but I’d bore myself to death, so I’ll cut to the chase.

The wahoo sashimi was right off the boat, tender and fabulous. The mahi sashimi was tough and gristly. The nigiri was perfect. And the rolls were good except for the fact that there was too much rice. Way too much.

Presentation was lovely.

We had the spider roll – love the tempura soft shell crab -  I had to remove much of the rice from the outside though,  so that I could get it into my mouth and feel that wonderful subtle crunchiness that makes it my favorite.

The bagel roll (we hadn’t tried one of those anywhere before) was also good, but excessively ricey.

If there were less rice, we wouldn’t fill up so quickly and we’d order more food, bringing our bill up.

The price was certainly right. We had all that plus two carafes of sake and the bill still came to under $50.

So there. Give Angry Nate’s a visit for sushi on Sunday or Monday night when Dashi is closed. Just ask for less rice in the rolls.

“Why not?” You might ask.

Well, let me tell you. It’s largely because we don’t buy up all of the newspapers and fill them out ourselves or give them to our clients /friends and family members to do the same.

A couple of years ago, I actually bought one of the papers with the ballot inside and muddled through all the categories and sub-categories and other crap, but it felt like such a waste of time, that I just gave up.

We probably get a few votes from our good clients who take the time to go through the maze, but most of our clients are busy, active people doing much to support the community. They don’t have time  or the patience for games like that.

And neither do we.

Our lizards amaze me. There are just so many of them.

And with all the mosquitoes, because of all the rain, deh gettin’ faht noh, meh son! I tellin’ yoh!

But we love them!

The poor creatures, though…..

They are eaten by just about anything bigger than them. They somehow manage to flourish.

On many an occasion, we have seen a kestrel or a pearly-eyed thrasher carrying a lizard back to a nest to feed its young.

Our cats eat them, our dogs eat them, and we have heard that other reptiles and amphibians eat them as well.

An educated friend  had a college professor refer to small reptiles like them as “ecological popcorn”. They’re a fun and convenient snack for just about everyone. (And Mother Nature doesn’t even have an advertising budget!)

Yet they continue to survive.

Last year we had one hanging around our “dining table”.  At first we called her “Lizzie”, but then we remembered the promise we had made to Michael’s boss and renamed her “Harvey”.

She’d always be around the table either keeping mosquitoes away from our ankles, or ants away from our food. After a while, she became so brave that she’d jump on a hand or an arm if she saw something she wanted. We started catching bugs for her and feeding her bits of what we were eating. We even set a little plate out for her.

We lost track of her, though, when we started preparing SunDog House. We went on vacation to my favorite BVI, and when we returned she was gone. We had a bit of “empty nest syndrome”. We worried, we lamented, but then we got busy.

We hope that her offspring will continue to evade the predators and keep dengue away.

Many people would be thrilled to have a fridge full of food, but it’s not really my preferred state of affairs.

One reason is that I enjoy having options.

Like when I say to Michael, “Wanna go to (name almost any of St. Croix’s fabulous restaurants), or eat at home?” He’ll say with his usual adamant decisiveness, “Either way’s fine with me.” Then I’ll say, “Okay let’s go out to ____, so I don’t have to cook.” And off we’ll go.

Last week, however, we bought a bunch of beautiful locally grown produce at the farmers’ cooperative market (spending under $20) and it has taken us the entire week to get through it all. We bought eggplant, green pepper, beets, okra, cucumbers and cherry tomatoes. I got some cilantro at the grocery store and we had celery, onions, garlic and carrots, so there were a million lovely vegetarian possibilities.A friend gave me a huge papaya that took us three days to eat. We actually grilled some of it – yum!

We made mango gazpacho with some of the cucumber and tomatoes and cilantro; we steamed the eggplant and mixed it with green pepper and onion to serve over pasta or make into mini pita pizzas; we used more tomatoes for breakfast egg sandwiches; I fried the okra for dinner last night (that was the entire meal); and Michael steamed the beets to make his famous beet salad. He will create dinner tonight because I will be working late.

We’ll still have stuff left. I’ll probably make another batch of mango gazpacho and we’ll have it for lunch on Friday. We’ll go out for dinner some night this week-end, and be a little less avid at the farmers’ market when we get there.

When there’s too much food in the fridge I can’t easily find what I’m looking for.

I can’t believe it happened to me. There was no warning at all. A few weeks ago we were with a group of people and the conversation turned to the subject of centipedes. We all agreed that before one encounters a centipede, there is usually a dream or some sort of premonition-type incident. It’s happened to me before. For some reason the though of a centipede enters my mind and shortly thereafter, I will see one scurrying across the floor.

Quite a few years ago while I was asleep in bed, a centipede walked across my foot. My subconscious knew exactly what it was and I woke with a start and kicked that leg hard so the critter went flying out of the bed and into the corner of the room. The lights were turned on and I was able to kill the bugger before it did any damage.

Last night, I received my first actual centipede bite. We had been sleeping for a couple of hours when I felt a pain in my lower left calf. I said aloud that I’d just been bitten, but Michael thought I was talking about a mosquito bite. It didn’t hurt that much at first, but I did shuffle around to turn the light on because I was pretty sure what it was.

Michael was startled by the bright light, but he got up and moved the covers aside exposing the 4-inch long culprit. He grabbed his flip-flop and hit it. The centipede merely sunk into the soft sheets and quickly wriggled away. My leg was starting to hurt by now, so I went into the bathroom to get something to put on it, while he tried to find it again.

He finally did and was able to dispatch it quickly while I applied “wounded warrior” to my injury. It soothed and cooled the bite for a minute. Then I put benedryl sting stop on it and Michael got me some ice. It was throbbing and painful, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep for a while. Finally after an hour and a half of reading, we were able to drift back off.

This morning it was still a little sore, but we walked the Southgate beach in search of turtle activities (a leatherback had come up during the night!), and the leg was fine.

My first real centipede bite in almost 16 years of living here. And without warning. I need get my mojo back or something….

Lots of mangoes are falling from the trees now. But this year they’re falling at a pretty manageable rate. We processed a bunch of them this morning after we made a gigantic papaya and mango salad with passion fruit yogurt sauce. Yes, the passion fruit that we planted around the pool deck is starting to come now, too.

I love passion fruit. I love the unruly vines, the fragrant flowers and the tart juicy seedy slimy insides. Michael doesn’t like the seeds, so we usually scoop out the pulpy insides and run them through the blender to loosen the fibers from the seeds, then strain the juice into a bowl or cup for use in smoothies or just to drink.

There are still a couple of mangoes in the bowl that should ripen tomorrow or the next day.

We will bring whatever falls tomorrow, along with the ripening ones to our massage clients. They have a three kids and a live-in nanny to feed. And they all love mangoes. To eat, in smoothies, in daiquiris, etc.

Yesterday I made a mango upside-down cake. My first attempt at it. It’s just okay. Needs cinnamon. Maybe I’ll get some vanilla ice cream. That’ll help us eat it faster. Next on my list is a mango cheesecake. But we’ve gotta eat this one first.

Another new and exciting outlet for the abundant fruit this year is a sorbet shop which just opened in Gallows Bay. The proprietor used to wait tables at the Galleon. We’ve seen him most recently at the Buccaneer. He told us what his next venture would be and that he’d be looking for any local fruit for his sorbets.

Great! So besides giving them to friends and clients, we can bring stuff there!

I hope his business does well so we don’t start drowning in fruit again.

….Puerto Rico and St. Croix.

Okay. This will be easy since we have just returned from a week in Rincon, on the west coast of the “enchanted island”.  A surfer’s paradise.

Both places are green and lush and have nice beaches, warm weather year-round and warm sea water. Both places have lots of people who speak Spanish and English quite well. Both places have nice, friendly people working in the tourism industry. Both places have tons of mangos falling from trees and rotting all over the place during this time of year. Business is slow this time of year for restaurants and bars frequented by tourists.

Here’s where our experience of each place differs. There are many more roads in Puerto Rico. They are much better maintained  than our, at least in the communities we drove in. Maybe they are able to maintain their roads better because they roads are so small. Many of the “two-way” streets we drove on were barely wide enough for one compact rental car. And with people parking on the sides of many of these roads, they were practically impassable.

Other differences: Our restaurants are sooooo much better. Better food, better atmosphere, better presentation, better wines…..The servers were all very nice and helpful, but the food was not even in the same ballpark.

Our first night there, we went to a local place which came highly recommended by the people at our guest house. It was kind of a shabby looking place, but the owner is a fisherman and they always have fresh local seafood. We ordered two different local wines by the glass to go with our tuna and mahi entrees. Ugh! The wines were sweet red wines! We were forced to order a bottle of Castillo del Diablo, a familiar red to get us through the meal. The bottle was only around $20. The entrees were $8.00 each and came with choice of heavy starchy fried or boiled side dish (yucca, green or ripe plantain, yam, tostones…..). The fish was gristly,  the cuts small, and served on styrofoam plates.. We ate most of it, though and tried a local “corn” ice cream (served in styro with plastic spoons) for dessert. It was interesting. Not very creamy, though, and we drank our sweet local wines with that.

Whew! Since we had cooking facilities in our room, we bought a few items for snacks and breakfast for a few days. I usually boil some eggs which we have with english muffins or bagels and cream cheese instead of having to go out every morning. There’s not much in the way of breakfast restaurants in the area either. There was one that looked interesting, so Sunday morning we went looking for it. They advertise 100 different garnishes and hot sauces for their bloody marys. That was a big selling point for me. But by the time we got there, breakfast was over. I had a bloody anyway (there were 4 hot sauces, and the garnishes were a lime and a celery stick), and it was okay. Michael tried a rum drink. Drinks were served in plastic  cups. The food was just okay here, too. I had a taco salad or something and Michael had fish tacos. Not memorable, but not bad.

Pizza signs abound on Puerto Rico. We wanted to rename it Pizza Rico. We never got pizza out, but the subliminal thing must have worked because we bought a frozen pizza from a health food store to have one night in our room. We ended up having it for breakfast one morning.

I really wanted to have a nice veggie omelet with home fries and toast for breakfast one morning with a bloody mary or two, but the rest of the times we went out in search of recommended places, they were closed or not at all up to par. One place was a bakery. Highly recommended. I really didn’t want to try it, but Michael insisted. Well, it was gross. Slimy kid snot on all the tables, flat omelets and frozen, fast-food-type hash browns.I didn’t want coffee, and could not get a bloody, so I ordered a beer. They looked at me like I had five heads. Whatever.

Our last morning we drove way out to a place at the top of a windy ridiculously narrow road for what promised to be an awesome breakfast. They were closed for the month. There is a “slow season” in Rincon, between the winter tourist season and the summer Puerto Rican season, when PR families with kids travel out to the resort areas. Ha ha ha. So we went to a hotel/condo restaurant right on the beach. It was 10:29. They stopped serving breakfast at 10:30. Hahahahahaha.

We had found a place with a breakfast buffet a few days earlier. Michael called ahead to make sure they were still serving, and they were – for fifteen more minutes. We told them we’d be there in ten minutes, and they did make us a nice veggie omelet, but I couldn’t get a bloody because the bar wasn’t open yet. Oh well. I eventually got one and Michael had one of their Pirata Cofresi special rum drinks served in a coconut.

For our last evening there, we decided, after some deliberation, to go to a nice-looking place just up the hill from our guest house and a few doors up from the place with the corn ice cream. They had decent wines and a nice looking menu. We sat outside. The only other occupied table was inside. It was a dark and stormy night……and we felt like eating lobster. They had a few different preparations like thermidore, scampi, stewed, in butter sauce, with onions, etc. We started with a bowl of delightful French onion soup, and had a lobster thermidore and a lobster scampi. with the requisite choice of bland starches. We were surprised when they brought each of us a small “salad” (ice burg shreds with a hard pink tomato slice – and french dressing). We thought, “okay the place is much more expensive than the others we’d been to, so the lobster should be good”. Well, it was just okay. The thermidore consisted of a few chunks of lobster in a half shell, swimming with frozen vegetables in a cheez wiz  sauce. The scampi was better, but they used garlic powder and not fresh garlic.

A couple of nights before this, we were on our way back from a disastrous “day trip” and came upon a seaside restaurant where we were greeted very warmly by the host and waitress, served a nice wine, and a fabulous meal. The place looked over a surfer’s beach in the town called Isabela. The entertainment was great. As the surfers caught small but rewasonable waves, we watched grackles in a coconut palm performing their mating rituals.

We started with a cup of cream of plantain soup. It was good, and the seafood ceviche was nice as well. We shared the “best mofongo in Puerto Rico”and loved it, although we hadn’t tried all the other mofongo, so we couldn’t really vouch for their claim. This was our best meal of the whole trip, so I didn’t want it to end. We even had cheese flan  and nice Puerto Rican coffee for dessert. Yum!

So, in the restaurant department, St. Croix is definitely superior.

Because of the rough seas /crappy weather, we only snorkeled once, at Steps Beach. It was beautiful though. A little murky, but fabulous elkhorn corals, lot of sea fans and fish and a ham of a hawksbill turtle. She swam right up to Michael begging to have her picture taken. He took some video of her, which will appear somewhere on this blog sometime in the future.

The Rincon rea as a whole seemed pretty safe. It was quite disconcerting to me though, that there were big signs all over proclaiming: “Pelligro! Zona de Tsunami!”

Yikes! That’s gotta be pretty bad for tourism! I did lie awake a couple of times wondering if the sea would disappear while we were there and then return to sweep us away. I imagine there is some sort of alarm system, but who knows…..

The guest house we stayed in was chosen by me. It was a little off the beaten path, not in Rincon proper. I wanted to stay there because the sea frequently hits the building. Our room was on the second floor, and we commonly felt the entire house shake when the waves were larger. Our hosts were in the room directly below us. They must have gotten splashed a lot.

A couple of times, we walked right off the porch onto the beach, and walked in the sand (with a few rocky areas) among the waves for an hour or so. It’s an interesting place to be, but I’m too nervous to ever live in a place like that.

It was nice enough. It differed from SunDog House in that it was a smaller space than we’re used to. An electric two burner stove top wouldn’t have worked in a power outage. It had a jacuzzi tub, which also wouldn’t have worked in a power outage. It lacked a pool, dogs (of course), and it wasn’t as clean as our house.

It was on a side street, but there was frequent loud traffic at all hours. It was charming in that horses were ridden by a few times and the cat, Irene, was friendly and cute.

All in all, our vacation was not as good as we expected it to be. But the company was good, we read a few interesting books (discovered a new-to-us author!) and had a change of scenery.

We’ve gotten quite a few more inquiries for the rental, but mostly from people with children. We can’t have children at SunDog House because the dogs are afraid of children. This is because some of our former neighbors allowed their mini hoodlums to throw rocks and sticks through the fence at our wonderful four-legged kids.

Fortunately those neighbors are gone. Unfortunately, our dogs are still very wary when other peoples children are around. We can’t risk a child making the wrong move and getting hurt by one of our dogs, and we don’t want our dogs to be afraid of our guests. Not a good precedent for future guests….

Friends or relatives (without children) from off-island can help contribute to the continued rescuing of animals on St. Croix by staying at SunDog House (or getting massages from Ambrosia Body Care).

We have purchased a nearby property which we’d like to develop into another sustainable short-term rental property/pet adoption center. We will not be able to do this without the support of our local community to get us through the slow season.

So far this month I have spent over $600 on dog food and medication. Not every month is this expensive, but this month I bought three months worth of  Revolution. I buy some of the meds in bulk for a discounted price from one of our local vets (Duke Deller is the only one who gives me a discount on revolution, which is quite expensive, but it takes care of fleas, ticks and heartworm).

So that’s the scoop. We’ve not been able to do a thing with that other piece of property because there is not an extra penny. We’re still paying off the credit card bills from getting SunDog House together.

Tell your friends and relatives (who love dogs, care about the environment and don’t travel with their kids) to come visit us soon! 

The sun rose. Lots of people woke up before it did. Many went into town to start the grueling triathlon. Many actually finished. A few people won in their categories. For all that information, you can check the newspapers.

This is what we did:

We slept in. We played with the dogs, took them for walks around the yards and did yoga. We ate bananas with our Dean’s Beans organic coffee and had a late, lazy breakfast of omelets and toast.

Michael then began the gutter-on-the-carport project while I did dishes and laundry. I went out to help Michael with the project and we didn’t quite finish before it was time to get ready for our 4pm triathlete massaging appointment.

In past years, we have volunteered in the massage tent. We don’t any more. I need my hands to make my living. At my age, I can’t really afford to spend hours giving free massages. Besides, how many of our numerous local triathletes  (many of whom get free massages on the day of the race), actually have supported Ambrosia Body Care over the years?

One.

And that was for a few months, around 5 years ago.

We do a lot of other volunteer work around the island, so we don’t do this particular thing anymore. We did help clean up the roads last week. That was a blast. I’m tired of picking up after the lazy slobs of this island, too. But we did it to show our support for the island-wide team effort.

Anyway, all told, when the visiting athletes have gone back to reality, we will have massaged around a dozen triathletes. Some before the race and some after. I love listening to their stories. Most of them complained about the heat this year. One guy lost his bike computer because the roads are so bumpy that the rattling loosened it to the point that it fell off.

But he says he’ll come back next year. His wife wasn’t so sure, but she says that every year. This was their fourth year competing.

We look forward to seeing them again.

I know that my ‘inbox’ is always full of stuff from Humane Societies and Environmental organizations. I usually delete them because I have enough to do right here in my back yard as far as animal welfare and environmental protection go. Besides, I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night being reminded of the atrocities animals fall victim to at the hands of screwed-up people.

Anyway, I’ve been wanting to do this for over a year, so here’s a letter to our local senators which anyone can copy and paste onto an e-mail to our them. It IS an election year, after all. Let’s get this territory to enforce the well-written laws against animal cruelty.

I’m sending this to

Adlah “Foncie” Donastorg  712-2252 AFD@legvi.org

Nellie Rivera-O’Reilly 712-2280 teamnellie@gmail.com

Sammuel Sanes 712-2251 sammuelsanes@yahoo.com

Wayne James 712-2216 wagj91461@hotmail.com

Michael Thurland 712-2321 senatormichaelthurland@msn.com

Craig Barshinger 712-2261 craig@visenate.org

Terrence Nelson 712-2210 positive__1@hotmail.com
That’s a double underscore before the “1”

Neville James 712-2277 njames3033@yahoo.com

Usie Richards 712-2276 senatorrichards@hotmail.com

Dear Senator,

“According to a 1997 study done by the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) and Northeastern University, animal abusers are five times more likely to commit violent crimes against people and four times more likely to commit property crimes than are individuals without a history of animal abuse.

The FBI has recognized the connection since the 1970s, when its analysis of the lives of serial killers suggested that most had killed or tortured animals as children. Other research has shown consistent patterns of animal cruelty among perpetrators of more common forms of violence, including child abuse, spouse abuse, and elder abuse. In fact, the American Psychiatric Association considers animal cruelty one of the diagnostic criteria of conduct disorder.
If you break it down to its bare essentials:
‘Abusing an animal is a way for a human to find power/joy/fulfillment through the torture of a victim they know cannot defend itself.’
Now break down a human crime, say rape. If we substitute a few pronouns, it’s the SAME THING.
‘Rape is a way for a human to find power/joy/fulfillment through the torture of a victim they know cannot defend themselves.’
Now try it with, say, domestic abuse such as child abuse or spousal abuse:
‘Child abuse is a way for a human to find power/joy/fulfillment through the torture of a victim they know cannot defend themselves.’
Do you see the pattern here?”
The above paragraphs are from the website: www.pet-abuse.com/pages/abuse_connection.php

Since, in this territory animal abuse is actually a crime (we have very comprehensive animal protection laws), it behooves us to make certain crimes committed against animals are acknowledged and dealt with accordingly.

This can only happen if the animal wardens hired by the Animal Welfare Center are able to enforce the law. The police department rarely if ever responds to cases of animal abuse and neglect, so we must give the wardens status as peace officers so that the victims of numerous and often heinous crimes are truly protected.

Please sponsor, co-sponsor, or at least support a bill to bestow peace officer status on the animal wardens to help make our islands a safer place for all of us.

Thank you.

Our one remaining cat (at one time we had ten cats, along with the twelve dogs) is named “OK”, for “Orange Kitty”. He showed up a little while after “OJ” another orange tabby. It was a time when they just kept showing up. I was ready for the next one, with the name “OL” (continuing with the alphabet, but also a sort of submission to the will of the universe which kept them coming to us…….”oh well, another one”). But we haven’t had to use the name.

I call OK “Bigmouth” too, because he talks a lot. He’s our last living kitty. Right now.  We generally lose someone when we go through major trasnsitions. Milo didn’t survive the opening of SunDog House.     Of course I blame myself. But Milo had been playing with fire for years. He’d used up more than nine lives living amid the dogs who killed many of the others.

Anyway, the other day as I was going out to the pool deck for my morning yoga session. I opened the door to a bird head. OK ,the cat had killed a dove and eaten almost all of it! The head remained attached to the heart and lungs by a blood vessel. The tail and wings and a few feathers were scattered about. There was blood smeared all over the new tiles.

“BAD CAT! I’m not going to feed you now!”

That’s actually what I used to call Milo, because he’d sometimes pee on people to mark them as part of his territory. In any case, this goofy cat had killed a Zenaida Dove and eaten it. It wasn’t a small bird, either.

OK looked pretty smug, but I told him that those birds are slow and stupid so I was not impressed. I secretly wondered, though, how he could have dragged a bird a third of his size to the porch and consumed it almost entirely. At least he had cleaned himself up.

Quite a few years back, Milo dragged one into the house through a cat door. He left the carcass on the living room floor and when I arrived home,  looked at me with feathers on his lips. I had to laugh. He looked so funny.

I was not laughing this time, though. I could hear the dead dove’s mate in the trees, calling for it, with no reply.

It’s been almost two weeks since I found the puppy with the broken leg on the side of the road.  It took the vet more time than it should have to pin his leg, for various reason (a hawksbill turtle took precedence – a second opinion about the x-rays, etc) , but it was finally done.

Poor baby, his femur was snapped in half!

Anyway, we picked him up on Friday morning and were presented with a bill for over $800!!!

This was two days after paying over $300 for a dental for Goliath. Talk about sticker shock! No “Good Samaritan” discount, no “you’ve been a good client for 15 years and have lots of animals which will need care for many years to come” discount, no discount for paying with cash or a local check rather than a credit card.

After a really slow work week during what is supposed to be our busiest time of year, I was beside myself. This year we missed all of the auction/fundraisers due to lack of funds, and you haven’t seen any restaurant reviews for the same reason. Oh well. Puppy chow is now on our menu. Harvey’s not eating it.

We named him Harvey, because last year, for Michael’s boss’ 70th birthday party (what do you give to a guy who can have anything he wants?), we prepared a proclamation which declared that the next 4-legged child we’d adopt would be his namesake. And he’d be the “Dogfather”.  So the puppy’s  official name is Harvey R. Clapp IV.

Well, us being the way we are, he already has a bunch of AKAs. “Harvarooni”, “Harvito”, “Harvums”, etc.

He’s only about 4 months old. Really skinny and lanky. Slightly mangy, of course, and has ticks and tape worms, but he doesn’t eat much at all. I guess he grew up on chicken bones or something, ’cause he doesn’t know how to eat dog food. He is even cautious about a small milk bone. We bought him a couple of toys, but he doesn’t know what to do with them. This is actually fairly typical of dogs here from what I’ve heard and seen, though.

But the eating thing has me stumped. He’s a puppy. He should chow down everything in sight. But he’s a fussy little thing. Oh, he did eat a used tampon from the bathroom trash can. It’s always pleasant to find the contents of the little basket strewn about, but missing something that you knew was there just 30 minutes ago……

Guess I’ll have to get him some ground beef or something until he gets healthy enough. And hope he’s not stopped up from last nights “snack”….

Is it just me, or are others sick of companies calling themselves “green” without really making the commitment?

First, here on island, there was the Buck Island tour company that had a new “green” boat built. It already had two sailboats (sailing is the greenest, non-manual mode of transportation on the planet), but this new “green” machine has electric engines in addition to its diesel ones. Interesting, but not “green”, in my book.

Then, there are the new “alternative energy” companies. Whatever. A bunch of people have jumped on the bandwagon that one guy started here on St. Croix YEARS ago. But few, if any, have the experience to put the systems together properly and in a timely manner. They get front page articles in the paper, though. I’d also like to see how many of the people selling “green energy”  products actually use them. That would show me some true commitment.

The Alpine Energy Group is a whole other can of worms, which I may discuss in a future post.

Now, for the past few months, a local grocery store has been calling themselves “completely green”. I spoke to the owner a while back, after I heard the radio ad about this. I was excited and asked if she’d be putting solar panels on the roof to run the refrigeration, etc. Well, no, but they’re not using styrofoam containers anymore for their take-out items, and the plastic bags are degradable, too. Well, that’s a start. But no wind generators and no solar panels, so no “completely green”.

Okay?

An Idea for Tourism on St. Croix

St. Croix has needed an economic boost for too many years. We just can’t seem to catch a break around here. A few years ago, I had a great year business-wise, but it was one out of twelve that I’ve been in business here.

During this year’s Super Bowl, Home Away, a company which promotes renting homes out as vacation “villas” ran a big ad about the benefits of staying at a private home rather than a large, expensive, impersonal resort.

Could this be the future of tourism?

Let’s think about it. Does St. Croix really want more resort/casino/golf course monstrosities? Do we want to be like Aruba, St. Maarten, San Juan?

I think most of us don’t. Many local people say they want big resort developments because of the promise of jobs. But the resorts we already have are frequently looking for help and have difficulty filling positions.

I’ve worked in some of our resorts, but want more job satisfaction than I received working for someone else. I am still involved working with tourists, but I am self-employed and I love what I do now.

Many of our visitors love St. Croix specifically because it’s not overdeveloped with wall-to-wall high-rise hotels.

So here’s an idea: St. Croix has a wonderful rich history. We are still fortunate enough to have much of our beautiful natural environment intact.

What about a joint-venture between some of our historic neighborhoods and tourism which assists homeowners in remodeling their homes to be rented out to visitors?

CHANT, the Department of Tourism, the St. Croix Foundation and the St. Croix Chamber of Commerce, etc. could work together to secure funding for loans toward this end.

A three bedroom house could be converted into accommodations for 3 couples or 2 couples and 2 kids, or any combination thereof. People could offer a B&B option and rent out part of their homes to visitors. This would provide another low-cost and unique option for visitors.

Each neighborhood could have a small museum with information about the people who lived and worked on the estate over the years. There could be walking paths to showcase beautiful trees and gardens….

This would accomplish quite a few goals:

1.) More people would be gainfully employed.
2.) They’d have the satisfaction which comes with being self-employed rather than toiling for someone else’s benefit for their entire lives.
3.) Their properties would be enhanced and the history of the area preserved
4.) Pride in neighborhoods would be instilled
5.) Crucian Heritage and Nature Tourism would flourish
6.) It would make St. Croix unique and at the forefront of a new type of tourism rather than just another Caribbean island.

And that’s only the beginning.

Please take the time to think about this and discuss it with family, friends and colleagues.

Let’s start working together as a community to create a sustainable future for our children, our island and our planet.

What a great experience we had with our first guests at SunDog House!  

But now they’re gone. Back to the ccccold nnnorth.  

They are such awesome people that they adopted a little dog from the shelter and took her home with them!  

OK the cat misses them.  

Many people will wholeheartedly agree with this sentiment (and perhaps even add that I’m EXTREMELY disturbed – but that’s a different can of nuts).

A local political situation has me disturbed.

We have been very supportive of Senator Adlah “Foncie” Donastorg in the past, but in my humble opinion, his extreme criticism of Governor deJongh has gone too far. Foncie’s been acting like a total ass and blowing a relatively small issue way out of proportion.

He’s beginning to remind me of the wacko former senator who pulls microphone plugs out on people expressing differing opinions. (You know, the one who killed his own son by shooting him in the back and then got elected as delegate to the constitutional convention.)

I hope Foncie is not so desperate that he continues pulling his political weight in this way. There are some things that deJongh has done that we completely disagree with, but he’s responded to many many of our territory’s issues much more eloquently than any governor we have seen before.

I hope Foncie takes a long deep breath and decides to take the high road instead of stooping to the extent that he seems to be.

He will have his time, if it is meant to be. And we will all feel better about it.

It’s probably not politically correct to call it a “Chinese fire drill” anymore. Would an “Asian fire drill” be better?

Anyway, because Innovative Telephone Company is so third world that it doesn’t have to adhere to FCC requirements about porting land-line numbers to cell phones, we have been forced to get a new phone number for Sun Dog House.

That’s okay, over the next year, we’re going to slowly switch all of our advertising to reflect the cell numbers and get rid of our expensive business land line.

Anyway, we have ordered installation of our business number at the house across the street and a new residential number (773-DOGS) for SunDog House .

So this morning before beginning another busy work day, we had to run across the street and call a special number to get our business line transferred to there. Then we had to come back to SunDog House and repeat the process. We also ordered call forwarding, so that if we are staying at SunDog House, the business number will ring here.

The successful transfer of the business number took only a couple of minutes. (Surprise!) but when we came back to SunDog House to repeat the process, there was no dial tone. (Surprise!)

Ha! So we had to run back across the street to let them know, since we couldn’t call from SunDog House!

Actually, Michael called from his cell phone. But we only have one phone which is not cordless, so I did have to keep running back and forth in the rain and mud to plug it into this jack and that jack, just to be sure. A comical situation indeed.

Eventually, the phone company was able to get us a dial tone and the new number, but they can’t do the call forwarding thing until tomorrow. So the nice, cordless answering machine phone is across the street in the crappy house where the business number is and I’m at nice comfy SunDog House with a crappy corded phone with a ridiculous shrill ring.

Tomorrow, Ida at Innovative has promised me that she will activate call forwarding first thing in the morning.

I hope so.

Wish I were a weather forecaster here. It’s gorgeous most of the time. But when it’s not and you screw up, you still get paid even though people have depended on you. I guess it’s like being a government employee.

One Daily News article said “Sunday could be better….with the rain dissipating, leaving partly cloudy skies.”   Weather underground said, ” 70% chance of rain on Saturday and 30% on Sunday”. Mary Ann is back for a short time, so we FINALLY decided to take a day (Sunday) off to kayak to Buck Island with Mary Ann and Karen.

It was partly cloudy when we left Solitude Bay, but it looked like there might be a shower coming. Seas were choppy and it was windy. Then once we got through the reef, the swells were pretty good size, too (3-5 feet, I’d say). But our Hobie Mirage pedal kayaks were up to the task of getting us safely across the salty divide.

I was holding Goliath and we’d get splashed occasionally. He was not a happy camper. When we got out to the beach at Buck, we spread our towels on a picnic table and chowed on veggies and two different dips, organic chips and salsa, brie and crackers, peanut butter sandwiches, chocolate chunk cookies from Schooner Bay and white wine (Michael had rum and coke). The sky started sputtering, but we were happily eating and watching some pearly-eyed thrashers teach their young to beg food from picnickers. And we were on the lee side of the island, so it was warm and pleasant.

While we went for a walk, the birds tried to get at the triscuits. Some adventurers living on their sailboat, visiting the islands from Wisconsin, shooed them away while we were gone.  It became windy as we walked around to the south side, where Goliath met a little poodly-type friend and shared a squirt or two.

When we got back to our table it was raining. So we went into the water and chatted with other crazy folks out at Buck on a crappy day. Goliath huddled under the picnic table staying out of the rain and away from the Wisconsin children, whose parents told us that one of the little ones was complaining about having to go to another beach! They seemed to be having a real blast, though.

I brought my big warm sweatshirt, but didn’t want it to get soaked, so Michael and I shared a damp towel trying to keep warm. It wasn’t overwhelmingly cold because we were back on the west side, but when we walked the other way toward the north side, it looked and felt  like the North Sea (it was sooo much colder in the wind), so we headed back to the relative shelter of the  ‘yaks.

An older gentleman came over to check out the kayaks and when Michael went to show him the pedal mechanism, he noticed that Karen’s was broken, so only one of her flippers was flapping. We weren’t quite sure when it had broken, and we decided that we might have to tow them back if it was going to be a problem.

Norma Jean came over from her boat to gab for a while, the rain got heavier and we resisted the idea of getting back out in the wind and choppy sea. A few times, the showers were so heavy that we couldn’t see St. Croix, and we were not quite sure exactly where the beach we were returning to was.

We eventually got into the boats and headed back during a break in the rain action. Goliath and I huddled with our only (now pretty wet towel) to ward off the chill from the wind and the splashing water. He was even less happy this time. Even though his life jacket isn’t very comfortable for him, it keeps him somewhat warm, but not necessarily happy.

Just as we were getting back to the iffy part of the journey where the reef is, a rain squall came through and our visibility went way down again. We made it safely through though, and Karen’s husband, Ken was waiting for us on shore when we got back.

She had been joking that he’d probably been checking her life insurance policy while he was supposed to be watching football.

Anyway, Ken helped us get the kayaks back on the vehicles and we were happy to get into a somewhat dry Land Rover. The rovers are not Goliath’s favorite mode of transportation, but he was so happy to be out of the kayak and off the water, that he’d probably have settled for a Conestoga wagon.

It will be sooo nice when we have a calm and normal life, living on a sailing catamaran and can take off to any other island when the weather is good…..

Sure, whatever.  

In my younger days, I was aware of what people were wearing. I got a job as soon as I could at age 16 so I could buy all my own clothes. I was always at the mall if I wasn’t at school or at work. I was buying the latest fashions from those stores full of dressed up dummies. I even wore stupid shoes with high platform heels.

In college, I was more practical. Hell, I had to be. I was married and had a child. My income had shrunk. No, not really, my expenses had increased, and there were fewer disposable dollars.

That was okay. After graduating from college, I worked a little but concentrated on mommy-hood. But I missed academia and the opening of the minds which takes place in that world.

I think that was when I started to care less about what people wore and concerned myself with the substance rather than the outer layers. Divorce happened and then there was extremely little income for other than just the absolute necessities.

Moving down to the islands gave a whole new meaning to everything. People here where whatever they have. Most just wear comfortable cool cotton shirts and shorts. Some are pompous and dress like “celebrities” in ridiculously expensive suits and dresses, though.  I don’t hang around those types.

These days I don’t usually notice what people are wearing unless it’s something stupid. I will not generally make a comment about your clothing even if you look stunning. No offense. I’m just more interested in what you have to say about things that I find important or fascinating. I’ve learned a lot from my dogs, I guess. They don’t care about attire, or skin color, or if my teeth are straight.

Well, maybe if I had a little too much to drink and you wore a goofy polyester dress with pleats and stupid shoes I might say something like, “Are you heading for the circus or something?”

But I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing anything like that. I don’t even think I’d have worn anything that in the days when I cared about “fashion”. Well, maybe, but I’m not like that anymore. ☻

Yipee! Barbara is here!

After waiting MONTHS for another mural artist to return my call, I called a much more responsible and professional one.

We’ve been wanting a mural painted on the front porch – a beach scene with dogs frolicking -for two reasons.

First, the dogs live on this porch and rub against the wall constantly, so a sandy scene on yellow paint would not show their “dirt” so much. Second, this is SunDog House and the whimsical theme inspired pictures in our heads of dogs surfing, climbing a coconut palm tree and doing other “fun in the sun”- type things.

I had forgotten that Barbara said she’d start today, and she magically appeared at 8:20 (yikes!) to start working. This would not have been a problem if I’d expected her at that time.  As it happened, we’d been gone all day yesterday, the house is a mess with boxes full of stuff to move across the street, and our cherished shop-vac cleaner bit the dust on Tuesday.

Needless to say, I was too embarrassed for words. The dog poop hadn’t been picked up in a couple of days, and I was still trying to recover from yet another night of menopausal insomnia. Fortunately, Yoda was in the right place for me to scoop her into the  master bedroom where she’d feel comfortable and not bark all day or bother Barbara.

I also had a 9am massage appointment on the beach, which I was running late for. Ah yes, the mellow life of a massaaage therapist………

Anyway, Barbara is very comfortable with our helpful pack of kids, and I was able to leave for my appointment knowing that she and they would get along just fine.

I enjoyed a great session with a first-time visitor who is enamored with our island of St. Croix and wanted to know about the best hiking and snorkeling spots. I was happy to show him our favorite spots on a map after we are finished getting him “de-crunched” as he called it. I also told him about SunDog House, the new National Park, and the soon-come bike path, which he was VERY interested in. We hope to  have him and his significant other as our very own villa guests in the future!

After I got paid for that, I went immediately to buy myself a  piece of jewelry new awesome shop-vac. It’s the best deal on island at GBH.

When I got home, I was amazed by what Barbara had done in a mere two hours. The yellow porch had been transformed into a beach! I was nearly speechless! It is so beyond my comprehension to be able to do that. I would need stencils and at least six months.The palm tree is outlined and the bottom has a cartoonish textured look. It’s exactly what we were looking for!

Can’t wait to see our happy little kids as they start coming out to play on the porch beach! It’s magic!