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!

For us, anyway. It was a productive and pleasant work day, though. Yay!

We met a lovely couple who won one of our donated gift certificates in the last SEA auction. The only downside to donating  these GCs, is that we’re never sure where on island we’ll have to drive to and not get paid for our services. But it’s always interesting to meet the like-minded folks we haven’t met and, of course, to massage those who know and love our particular brand of TLC. We truly love our work.

These fabulous folks live out in Frederiksted in a modest home with 2 and 2 dogs. They love snorkeling and scuba diving and hope to see St. Croix become an eco-tourism destination, too. They enjoyed their massages, which they really needed, and will probably call us in the future.

The last time we were out west was during the application process for our business license for SunDog House. We did not love that work. We had to go to the police department, fill out their application, pay their fee for 2 record checks (the fact that we have business licenses from our massage business and had already gone through record checks doesn’t matter), go back after a few days to pick up the form and bring it to DPNR (Department of Planning and Natural Resources), pay the fee for them to okay the application (saying that what we want to do is okay in the zoning area we’re in), and then bring it to fire services, and pay their outrageous fee to have them come out and inspect the premises.

Anyway, we figured that since the last time we were in F’sted for fun was when Wreggie was here in September (how SAD is THAT?!), and since christmas day was sooooooovery crappy and new years day even worse, we’d enjoy lunch and a great snorkel in Freedom City.

Well, the universe thought it would play a joke on us again and create another cloudy, gray day. We sure didn’t feel like getting in the water with no sun and blue sky, but we did play along with the joke. We went to Polly’s at the Pier for the first time (awesome!) and walked along the waterfront (beautiful), we visited Marsha at Island Villas, bought some pencils from a tiny entrepreneur, and when the sun still hadn’t appeared, we went back to Polly’s for a scrumptious lunch.

I was hoping they’d have their menu on their website, but alas, you’ll have to bear with my description of our experiences. In the morning, Michael had a cup of coffee and I had one of their yummy Ghirardelli frappes. I thought it would hold me over while we went snorkeling. But since we never did go snorkeling, we thought we’d check out the museum center, but it was closed. Really. On a holiday, when people have time to go to a museum, it was closed. Tres Cruzan!

Back at Polly’s (we love that they named their cafe after their dog!) for lunch after our stroll, we started with a bowl of mushroom bisque – rich and creamy and flavorful topped with scallions. It went well with my sauvignon blanc, but not so well, in my opinion, with the yeasty pale ale Michael had. He didn’t seem to mind, though. The sandwich menu is limited, but everything sounded so yummy that we had to try two different ones. I had the grilled cheese, which comes with choice of three cheeses and veggies like spinach, tomato, onion, basil and avocado. I thought the cheeses would provide enough fat, so I opted to not have avocado. It was grilled on home-made whole wheat bread and was delish.

Michael ordered the Loveburger with avocado and tomato and sprouts on whole wheat. I had forgotten about Loveburger, but I used to sell it in my store in RI eons ago. It was good, too and we each ate half of the other’s.

Of course, after we were full, the sun started coming out, but now we were too full to snorkel, and we didn’t have time to lounge around. We had shopping to do! But we did go to Sandcastle beach for a quick dip, which was nice.

Off to kmart for cat food etc., then on to their appliance store to check on lawn mowers. We’re going to need one for the rental property which has an entire flat, grassy acre of land for the dogs to frolic. We’ll also need another washing machine, since we do at least one load a day of massage sheets.

We also stopped at the consignment store to see what was new and we bought a few small items and an outdoor table for SunDog House.

Quite a bit accomplished, for a holiday!

….my mother would say,”….don’t say anything at all.” So I’ve been stewing at the shit that the universe has thrown my way for the past month.

My mother didn’t practice what she preached either. And I believe more that “honesty is the best policy”.

After a fabulous but short vacation on Anegada, we came back to a ridiculously screwed up ad in “the publication formerly known as the pink paper”, loud music blaring into the night and a resulting altercation with one of “St. Croix’s finest”, a letter to the chief and commissioner of police reporting the offending (and offensive) “officer”, a small claims court battle with Juan F. Luis Hospital (still not settled), a negligent property manager for the property we’ll be renting for the next year, and the news of Michael’s job being terminated.

Needless to say, I’ve too depressed and pissed off and still busy with getting ready to move, to write.

We had spent all of our money fixing up SunDog House, and now the expected income for the season was not coming in due to the messed up ad (when there are 3 contact numbers and the first 2 are wrong, how many people will call the third?)

Anyway, our ad will be fixed next month, and we’ve gotten our first confirmed reservation for SunDog House, so things should be getting better.

If I get to meet him.

I’ll just slobber like a little child. I’ve said it to a couple of people.
I just have so much respect and admiration for this man.

I don’t want to embarrass Michael, but I know I’ll cry.

And we will be in the same restaurant at the same time on New Year’s Eve, even though we’ve been missing him by inches in Christiansted since his arrival.

The secret service are on every corner when he’s somewhere near there.

I cry just thinking about the magnitude of his work and the criticisms heaped upon him by some.

Business has been pathetic thanks in part to St. Croix This Week totally screwing up our ad (Michael will post about that one. I’m still way too pissed off). We’ve also spend every last dime we had fixing this house.  And since we’re  in the middle of moving, we’ve been mainly eating whatever’s been in the fridge/freezer and cupboards.

I’ve been coming up with pretty inventive meals, but I’m really tired of my own cooking. So, thanks to credit cards, we splurged and went to Galangal for dinner last night. I’ve really been craving their wonderful flavorful foods, so I was able to twist Michael’s arm (actually I didn’t even have to pull his pinky -  he’s pretty tired of my cooking too) and we went to town.

There was only one table of two seated when we arrived. More trickled in as the evening wore on, but it was slower than we’ve ever seen it. We were lucky though. They are pretty much the only restaurant on St. Croix that brings in fresh mussels, and the mussels had just arrived. They’d also just gotten in an 80 lb wahoo. That made our meal choices a no-brainer. I also love their green papaya salad, so we started with that and an soy-cured salmon with fresh greens salad. The temperanillo wine we ordered was out of stock, so we had a lovely pinot noir.

It was too awesome for words. Every single morsel. It practically brought me to tears. (Well, everything brings me to tears these days.) After weeks of pasta and cannned tuna and rice and beans and chili, it was absolutely heavenly. The papaya salad was a little spicier than the other times we’ve had it, but I was thrilled about that, and Michael seemed to thoroughly enjoy it too. The coconut curry sauce that the mussels come in is to die for. I wanted to lie down on one of the red couches and listen to Tobias describe the specials and menu items for the rest of the night. But alas, Michael insisted that we get home for a nice cozy Christmas Eve Eve.

The portions were just the right size, and we left feeling satisfied but not stuffed.

I   ♥  Galangal!

Even though hurricane (the rainy season) is officially over, we’re getting pretty good showers every day.

Not great painting weather. But……the hills are nice and green. And the painting will get done. This year even.

The Ginger Thomas are doing strange things, though. The hills are less yellow because there are fewer blossoms. Not sure if it’s because they are blooming later, or if they’re doing what some of the plants in our yard are doing. The ends of each stalk are becoming fuzzy with small wrinkled leaves rather than full of yellow flowers.

It rained so much the other night we still have puddles in our road. Unusual but not unheard of. We’ll have gleefully full cisterns!

A shower just went by in the middle of the first day this week-end that Michael is able to paint outside. Good thing he’s on the north side and the rain comes from the east.

I painted inside this morning and am spending the rest of the day cleaning the ceiling in the master bedroom. Oh what fun! Hopefully we’ll get that room painted (along with that bathroom, the small bathroom and the laundry room) next week-end.

I am officially refusing to pick up a paint brush on Christmas day.

Bah humbug, for now anyway, because I’m tired and stressed (more to come on THOSE topics)!

BUT Happy Chrismahannukwanzaadan to those who believe in those nebulous notions!

Not much in the way of photos yet, because we’re still cleaning up and painting.

But we’ve gotten a newish comfortable living room set and we’ve ordered 6 sets of organic cotton sheets, pillows, mattress pads, 12 bamboo beach towels, 12 sets of bamboo bath towels and are researching recycled outdoor furniture.

We’ve gotten cost estimates from a cleaning service, and we have some guys coming to do major grounds keeping and will contract with them to come back weekly.

Michael has been diligently working on our website, too.

Life is Goooood!

….will take place THIS Tuesday. And this is a really important one.

On Oct. 6, Rep. Donna M. Christensen, Virgin Islands, submitted a House Bill 3726 to the Natural Resources Committee to establish a National Park at Castle Nugent Farm on St. Croix.

So please e-mail your elected officials who are on the Committee on Natural Resources to support Donna Christiansen’s bill HR 3726. We here in the USVI can write Donna to thank her for her continued diligence in this matter, since she will probably vote in favor of it.

In the near future, there will also be a hearing to increase funding for the National Park System. We’ll keep you posted on that.

Meanwhile, let your friends in the states with committee members know that they need to send a quick e-mail out to them.

I could have sworn I’d written this post before, but I can’t find it.

Far too many people have died or have been physically and psychologically damaged for life because they have fought in wars and conflicts to preserve our freedoms.

We owe it to those brave souls to EVERY DAY, not just on Veterans Day, or our day off, or whenever we feel like it, to honor them by utilizing our freedom of speech/expression to speak out against injustices that we are aware of.

Write to or call your elected officials and protest that gay people continuously are denied the right to marry. This should not even be a matter for any state to vote on. It should be in the constitution. It is a basic human right!

Then, when you’re done with that, do Michael’s things so we get a National Park in our back yard and not a pet coke burning monstrosity.

I’m not perfect. I don’t purport to being even close to perfect. I’ve lived on this island for over 15 years, and I’m so much more lax in my life than I have ever been. Sometimes, I’d even refer to myself as a slacker. I  do try really hard to help my clients and my favorite non-profit organizations in whatever ways I can. But I know my limitations.

If there is something I am not emotionally, physically or financially able to do, I will not do it. Okay, I may try. But as soon as I know I am not up to the task, I will admit it and move on.

Unfortunately, this is not so for everyone. Just look at our Virgin Islands government.

There are also, a couple of people I have personally dealt with in the last week, that take the phrase “delusions of adequacy” to entirely new levels.

At this time, I will not talk about the first one, because s/he works for the attorney we are using to assist with property acquisition and incorporation. And we’re not done with this, so I don’t want to jeopardize any of it.

The other one, however makes me wish I had a punching bag with her face on it. Or a voodoo doll. For most of the day I was visualizing smacking her upside the head, then choking her.

I actually spoke to her on the phone at one point and wanted to scream, “ARE YOU F****** NUTS?! WHAT WERE YOU THINKING YOU RIDICULOUS MORON?!!”

Ahem. But I didn’t do that. I calmly spoke and listened to her while my blood pressure rose to the point that I thought my brain would fly out of the top of my skull.

The situation we were discussing involved a little dog that we tried trapping a couple of weeks ago. Since then, we have seen many people stopping to leave food for the little thing, and since we’ve been incredibly busy with turtle activities, work, household chores, and starting a new business, we decided to leave it to others who might have more free time and could therefore do a better job.

And then, when we went by the area of the little dog over the week-end, there was a BIG sign posted on a tree which read, “Please do not feed the puppy, we are trying to trap it…..” or words to that effect. And it had the person’s name on it. So we thought, “Oh good. Someone’s trying to do it right.”

Riiiiight.

When Michael was coming home from work yesterday, he saw the little dog and stopped to see if he could convince it to come home with him. But another car came up behind him and scared the little dog away. While Michael was there, he noticed that there was no trap anywhere in the area. So when he got home, he tried to contact the person whose name was on the sign.

This person no longer has a land-line, so he couldn’t call her directly. He tried her at work, but she was not there. He asked one of her co-workers to give her a message to please call us about the little dog. The co-worker said that her cell phone number does not work at her house, so he’d just have to leave a message and she’d get it whenever.

Sigh.

So today she called and told me that she hadn’t really set a trap since she needed someone to “help her with it”. But she’s leaving tomorrow for 10 days, and….Meanwhile, the dog has not been receiving any food because there’s a BIG sign on a tree telling people not to feed the dog because….well, you know. As she was explaining this to me, I felt like a crazed cartoon character. I wanted to reach into the phone and grab her by the neck and pull her through to my side where I could twist her scrawny little neck into a knot.

But I remained calm. I went to get the trap, and brought it to Michael who set it up on his way home from work. We went to check it tonight and we have set up a schedule with another competent and reliable dog-lover. We will catch the little guy and we know someone who will give him a good home.

I do not know the moral of this story. I just know that stupid, inept and apathetic people are the reason I am self-employed. If I worked in a situation where others were slacking off, I would feel responsible and probably either do their jobs for them, or I’d lose sleep over it. Unfortunately, I see over and over again, that they are everywhere. They haunt me. I could write my own version of Sartre’s Huis Clos.

Sigh.

Well, the new place at the corner where the South Shore Cafe and most recently, Kaleidoscope used to be, is (ugh!) a Santo Domingan-type “bar & rest.” Called El Azuano and opened last week-end with blaring music well into the wee hours.

I did call the police, but nothing happened. The music went on until the tylenol pm kicked in. Ugh!

Michael promised to go over to try and ask the people to keep it down in our nice quiet residential neighborhood, and today, on our way back from doing errands, we did stop by. We asked to see their business license. It does not say “night club”, only tavern, restaurant and tobacco retailer. We asked them to keep the volume down. They looked at us like we have twelve heads.

It’s pretty quiet there tonight. We’ll see what happens tomorrow. Hope I don’t have to call 911 again. Although that would be a fun blog post I’m sure. Hahahaha, they probably won’t be answering with halloween and all…..

Despite the fact that we are less financially healthy right now (at this time of year,  and since we’ve been doing soooo much home improvement) than we like to be, we are supporting our friends and family members in their new adventures in the restaurant arena.

The Pickled Greek is surviving the slow season. (Yay!)We go there because we love the food,  the people and, of course the prices.

Besides, my lovely and talented daughter, no longer a jewelry business owner (this is a relief in quite a few ways), has finally received recognition as an excellent customer service representative, so is suddenly is working at 3 (yes THREE) restaurants.

{The typical “rags to riches” story continues…..I was a poor jewelry store owner who became a waitress…. – (sigh)}. Steve Martin couldn’t have done it better…. 

So, Friday night, we went (on Mitchell’s birthday) to his soft opening at the new Cultured Pelican. It was absolutely lovely!

We wanted to try everything, of course, so we started with soup and salad. They had a roasted eggplant soup. We’d never had anything like that before. It was like eggplant Parmesan puree in a bowl. Perfect for these two eggplant lovers. (My daughter- one of the servers – go figure- reminded me that I ate eggplant parm just before giving birth to her. So, in my world, anything associated with eggplant is GOOD!)  And this soup was delizioso!

We needed to try the caesar salad, because housemade caesar dressing is a rare and beautiful thing. It was also fabulous, lightly dressed with shaved parmesan cheese.

For our entrees, Michael chose the housemade pasta dish called, “Fallen Hankeys”, created by former owner and chef, Dennis. (Yes, Dennis is still there working with the new guys. Is this an awesome place or what?!) “Fallen Hankeys” consists of sheets of fresh pasta in marinara sauce topped with ricotta cheese and pesto. Red, white and green, like the Italian flag. Magnifico!

I had the fresh local Mahi with charred tomato risotto and mixed veggies italiano. Eccellente! The mahi was exquisite. Tender, juicy and flavorful. Not over-cooked nor over-sauced, and therefore not overpowered by distractions. Perfetto!

I described dessert in detail, but the computer ate it, it was so delicious. So all I can say is. “Mmm, Mmm, Mmm!

We would definitely eat there again. So we made reservations for Sunday brunch, which would happen the day after their next dinner shift. 10am, right when they’d open because we needed to get to World Food Day festivities at the University of the Virgin Islands.

We were asked about how we like the paint job. Well, the paint job is great. It looks fresh and clean, but I am so totally not a white person, that it really does nothing for me. I like Caribbean colors and I loved the bold blues and purples of the last incarnation. But that’s just me…

Sunday’s brunch was also lovely. Again we ordered a bunch of stuff so we could adequately review the menu items. I started off with a Stoli bloody Mary topped with shrimp and olives. When they are officially open, they will have pickled asparagus and green beans along with the jumbo shrimp garnish. The shrimp were huge and delicious with the olives and the nicely spiced concoction. My food choices were: an omelet with roasted eggplant, artichoke hearts, spinach and goat cheese. I also needed to try the baguette French toast with banana kiwi sauce. Yum!

Michael started with their special cane rum drink with fresh limes. It was cool and refreshing – like a mojito with out the mint. He also ordered and enjoyed the lobster hash with eggs and homefries.

We  saw lots of friends there. Meredith back from MA brunched with Nancy and a large contingent from the Pickled Greek  came to celebrate and wish Mitchell well.

We were stuffed, but headed to the festivities at UVI hoping that we could work off those calories and eat some breadfruit…..

One of my “Snowbird” clients is back early! Another regular is back from a 4-month stateside stint, so business is.

Right. It’s not booming at all, but it is what it is. And since one of my snowbirds comes to our house for his massages, I have to clean the house twice a week. Time consuming and tiresome.

A few weeks ago, I got a call from Dee at Sail Bilinda Charters. She knew that I had worked on charter sailboats and loved sailing, so she asked if I could crew for her on her boat, Zulu few times during the month of October.

Yes! Back on a sailboat. And getting paid for it! Dee’s a great Captain and  offers a fun trip for her guests

I met with her at the dock on Sunday for a briefing for the Tuesday morning trip. Monday on my way home from doing massages   (    !), I saw a bicyclist friend on the side of the road with a puppy she’d just found running on the side of the road. Of course she flagged me down, we chatted for a minute, but traffic behind me told me I had to get going. Apparently, there was another pup in the bush that she wasn’t able to catch. I already have my quota filled, and someone was there to help with the  healthy, friendly pup.

Tuesday morning as I was getting ready to go to the boat, Michael called. He saw the other puppy, and couldn’t stop, so could I go see if I could catch it? Okay. So I rushed out and didn’t see the dog, but we decided to set a hav-a-hart trap for it as soon as we could. Well, we caught two mongoose and the last time we set it, someone released whatever we caught. Oh well. Done with that for now. Haven’t seen the dog in a while.

I did some errands in Christiansted town and ended up gabbing the afternoon away. I rarely get into town and I was lucky enough to see two of my favorite local people/business owners, Sue Victor at Cache of the Day, and Michelle Pugh at Dive Experience.

We’ve been doing a lot with the sea turtles. Patrolling three mornings a week and doing one all-nighter each week. I really believe I’m getting too old for the all-nighters, though. Exhausting!

We’re also back to painting now that the tile work is done. Last night Mitchell and Bob had their soft-opening at the Cultured Pelican (more to come about that) so we had to go eat and wish them well..

Today we have an early morning bird-watch, and tomorrow brunch at the Pelican and World Food Day Festivities at UVI.

So, Wreg, that’s partially why I haven’t posted in a while.

Saturday was cruise ship day, and we had an appointment to do a 90 minute couples massage on the beach at Carambola. A  honeymoon couple contacted us months ago and we agreed to meet them out there. We have had a few of these nice little jobs since the cruise ships started coming back. Hope they continue.

They were a nice young couple (everybody’s nice and YOUNG these days – I feel so old sometimes), enjoyed their massage and probably spent the rest of the afternoon lounging out there talking about coming back to visit, or what it would be like to live here. They had been to a few other islands and especially liked St. Lucia. They hiked up a volcano there and are into outdoor pursuits (like us).  But they liked our island, too, so hopefully, they’ll return.

When we were done massaging them, it was time for lunch, so we went to Cane Bay and ate at Eat @ Cane Bay, Frank and Katherine Pugliese’s new place. Aahhh! Beverages served in glasses and food served on real plates with silverware. If you must have a traveler for the beach or the road, they’ll give you a regular plastic cup instead of styrofoam. Add $1 for a take-out  meal since they use eco-friendly containers. Love that!

And, of course, with Frank in the kitchen, the food is superb.

Classy beach bar food. How perfect is that!

Menu items include create your own burgers and salads. Starting price for a burger with lettuce, tomato, pickle, onion, and choice of cheese is $8.50. You can add bacon, egg, avocado, mushroom and onion, blue cheese or jalapeno cream cheese for $2.50. Or duck chili, chorizo or pulled pork for $4, truffle aioli for $2 or foie gras for $12.

Your salad is $10 with a butter lettuce and romaine hearts base. You can add any 6 of the following: carrots, cukes, tomato, red onion, mushrooms, kalamata olives, red pepper avocado, croutons, roasted beets, chick peas or edamame; 2 of the following: roasted turkey, hard cooked egg, feta or blue cheese, bacon or strip steak; and dress it with herbed yogurt, passion fruit french, caesar, blue cheese or evoo (?) and balsamic.

When we were there, they had a special of fresh local wahoo sandwich and also a tuna sashimi appetizer on fried wantons. We had both of those. They had also just gotten in a 90 lb tuna. We wanted more, but we saw mussels on the menu and had to try them. We had onion rings (yum) and hand cut fries  (kind of limp and oily), but everything else was great.

The rest of the menu includes an open-faced BBQ brisket sandwich, a pulled pork sand, fried chicken, an oven roasted turkey club, mixed fried seafood. Fun sides include the ones we had along with sweet potato fries, roasted beets, smoked duck chili, peel and eat shrimp, orzo salad w/red pepper and edamame.

They have a kids menu, a couple of desserts,  and  a nice wine selection. Two whites and two reds by the glass, and bottles ranging in price from $18 for the Chilean Montes Cherub Rose, to $40 for the Italian Masua di Jago Ripassa.

We are happy to have the Frank and Katherine team feeding us again! Eat @ Cane Bay! Bon appetit!

We actually took a day off from around the house duties this past week-end to enjoy our surrounding waters.

Saturday, we borrowed one of the Yacht Club’s Rhodes-19 sailboats and practiced tacking and jibing in the perfect gentle winds and calm seas of that day. Michael did a great job at the helm and first mate, Michelle skillfully handled the jib sheet.

I, of course had to hold and console the little dog, who had a traumatic experience last time he was on a small monohull, and was NOT a happy camper at all being on one again. A few years ago, when we owned a small sailboat, we went out on a rough day and got into trouble, and had to be towed back to the club.

He survived a couple of hours on the water, though. Nothing bad happened, and he was rewarded with a nap on the cool, not- rolling floor of the yacht club while we enjoyed a yummy lunch of mahi sandwiches.

After that, we took Michelle to our favorite snorkeling spot, where we saw three hawksbill turtles and dozens of other very cool sea creatures, coral formations and sea fans.

Yes, another awesome day in paradise!

In restaurant news….. Well, it may not be news to a lot of people, but Frank and Katherine Pugliese have taken over at Cane Bay Beach Bar. We KNOW it will be good, now! Apparently it has opened and everybody knew about it but us. We’ll get there ASAP. Maybe this coming week-end if it’s not PACKED.

Since Frank is no longer at the Galleon, Craig Butler is back cooking there, along with Yummy.

Mitchell and Bob from Zebo’s will be taking over at the Cultured Pelican in the next few weeks. Can’t wait to eat there again!

“Good Spirits” Deli and BBQ will hopefully open soon where Lori’s used to be.

And Ziggy is the new owner of the gas station formerly known as Smokey’s. New menu, new energy…looking good. We saw him last night at Luncheria with his very sweet right-hand man, Dale.

The restaurant on the corner formerly known as the South Shore Cafe and most recently, Kaleidoscope, has been re-painted (from their nice bright blue to a dull beige – soooo strange), so I guess it will be re-opening as something. Will find out and report ASAP.

New energy! Exciting and wonderful!

But we still don’t have cable or satellite to get any of it.

This week, we’re in luck, though!

PBS and the National Park Service are showing the series “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea” on a big screen TV on the lawn next to the gazebo in Christiansted. Last night we went and learned how John Muir and others worked tirelessly to get Yosemite and Yellowstone set aside as the first National Parks.

It is very awe -inspiring.

I can’t think of a much better way to spend an evening  than being outdoors relaxing on a cool, comfortable night. The lights of the harbor buoys  flashed red and green, and the moon shone golden on the dark water as people fished off the boardwalk and kids ran around playing.

Unfortunately, there were only a handful of folks out there. A couple of families and individuals and us. Hopefully many others were watching at home.

The series continues every night this week at 8pm at the Christiansted National Historic Site. We’re going to be there every night but Thursday, when we have turtle night patrol duty.

Hope to see more people there tonight!

The tiles are all installed and they look great.

There of course has to be a dark lining behind this silver cloud.

Yogi has died.

The day before the job was to be finished, Yogi asked me if he could go outside. I had not allowed him in previous days because of all the noise and activity. Yogi is the kitty who came home partially paralyzed a few months ago. He’d been doing so well, adapting to being an indoor/outdoor kitty, so I stupidly thought that, since the guys were almost done, they surely would be done making a lot of noise and he’d be fine out there.

I’m having a hard time dealing with this because I made the conscious choice to let him go out. He went out. I had a couple of appointments that morning, so I wasn’t home to hear what was going on out there.

Doors had been taken off an outdoor closet and the pump room, and the tile guys were nice enough to cut the doors and replace them (they did a great job, too). But at some point, Yogi must have gotten scared and hidden in the pump room and then maybe tried to jump to a high shelf with his weakened back legs. Then he must have fallen on something in there and really hurt himself.

When I got home from my appointments, I was thrilled that they were able to cut the doors and put them back on. They left and I started to sweep the dust and pieces of concrete and hardened thin-set out of the laundry room, where they had also removed, cut and replaced a door.

I heard Yogi crying from outside and opened the door. He wasn’t there, but I heard him from inside the pump room, so I opened the door and called him. He was crying and in pain, but he was able to drag himself out from under the water tank. He was again only using his front legs. He was covered with vomit and urine and thin-set or grout, but he bravely dragged himself out of the pump room and into a carrier. I called the vet, and the receptionist (this one I really don’t like) reluctantly told me to come in with him, since it “seems to be an emergency”.

Yogi and I talked all the way to the vet. He was really brave about the whole thing, so I hoped that it would be like last time and he’d be able to make a miraculous come-back.  I wasn’t ready to let him go. Dr. Stacia was not nearly as optimistic as I.

She explained a couple of possible reasons for his paralysis, but the prognosis was not good at all. I wanted her to x-ray him and give him some more steroids since they helped him last time. She said that he’d have to stay overnight, and I agreed since I knew he’d be more comfortable there. It’s a pretty cushy animal hospital, after all.

Anyway, my poor little Yogums didn’t make it through the night. So I’ve been beating myself up for letting him go outside that day.

Michael dug a hole while I went to get his little body. The Sugar Mill staff had picked some flowers for us, and we got another little gravestone, too. Nice touches.

I still feel responsible. He didn’t have to die like that. He knew I loved him, but it still really sucks.

The tiles are almost all laid and the guys have been grouting the front and side porch. Woo hoo!

Since last Tuesday, we have been getting up a little earlier every day and getting the dogs ready to have workers around. This means that after they’ve had their morning “cookies”, I put Wiley out in the back yard (he snapped at one of the painters when they were here, so he can no longer be trusted), and Yoda goes outside in the front yard where Emmy, Fudge and Bebe have chowed down their Vita Bones and are making their morning rounds sniffing things and peeing where necessary.

I clean up the poop and then move the dog beds from the porch to under the neem trees, where Fudge and Bebe will be tied up for the day. They are getting used to this routine now, but at first, Fudge was highly insulted that I would not let him “help” the tile guys. He’s such a good boy.

After Yoda and Emmy are finished outside, I move them into our bedroom where they will spend the day. I close the sliding glass door so Yoda doesn’t go through the screen. She will occasionally bark like crazy at the guys that she can see through the glass, but she’ll calm down when I go in to talk to her. Emmy’s just happy to be inside.

We even did this all on Sunday, since they said they wanted to work for a few hours that day. Well, that didn’t happen. Too much partying for the guys on Saturday night, I guess. But they did call to let us know they wouldn’t be making it to work. So the dogs regained their freedom even earlier than we expected.

Not a lot of turtle activity on our morning patrols. Oh well, the experts did expect it to be a slow year for greens and hawksbills. But we had a nice snorkel Sunday when we swam out to Green Cay. Saw a very large green turtle with a big long tail, and a couple of  smaller hawksbills. I love the sea fan gardens out there. The colorful waving of the fans as the currents move them is one of my favorite underwater seascapes. We swam around out there for over an hour. It was great!

Yesterday, I noticed that my watch had stopped working. Since my daughter has closed her store and Patrick has retired, I went to Millenium Jewelers on Queen Cross Street. The woman working there sent me across the street to Tropical Jewelry which was closed because they’re officially on vacation. But Gotham was still there and agreed to change my watch batteries for me. How sweet is that? What a lifesaver, too, because I’m a watch-a-holic, and wear mine 24/7/365.

Anyway, when he reopens the store after vacation, I will definitely go shopping there for holiday gifties. He’s got some pretty cool stuff, and his space in that very old historic building is beautiful.

I love this place!

The other week-end, we went to buy the tiles for 1200+ square feet of porch. One of the guys sitting in the flooring showroom said he would be able to do the installation. So we made an appointment for him to come the next day (Sunday) to check out the job and give us an estimate.

He really showed up at around 10am on Sunday morning. He measured the job and wrote up an estimate. We needed to do some preparation before we could have him start, so we asked him if he could come Labor Day week. He said that he could, and he also said he recognized the truck  in our neighbor’s yard, knew his name, and used to work with him on a construction crew.

So after he left, we checked with the neighbor and eventually found out that he does good work. He’s from Haiti and his accent is pretty thick, so there have been a few communication difficulties. We’re used to the regular West Indian accent without the French, so maybe I can try to use some of my long forgotten second language from my childhood.

Another guy we talked to about building shutters recommended a stateside guy for the tile job. The stateside guy came over and didn’t measure anything. He wrote a number down from our receipt from the flooring company, multiplied it by 3, added some for the steps and gave me a number. His number was about 30% higher than the Haitian’s. I was not impressed by his lazy attitude toward measuring and we’ve had a couple of less-than stellar experiences with supposedly able stateside construction workers who give you a good line, but get distracted by other jobs they’re working on at the same time, or they keep jacking the figures up as the job progresses. I like confidence but not cockiness, and the stateside guy’s attitude left a lot to be desired.

We figured the guy from Haiti would need the money more, he’d be more familiar with Caribbean construction (another thing about statesiders is they base a lot on what works where they come from. And as we well know, stuff down here does not always work that way), and he wouldn’t be resentful about having to work for a living.

He and his helper arrived at around 7:30am, just as he said they would. They got right to work scraping paint off the back porch and Michael helped the boss man moving the thinset and grout and tiles while his helper went to see about immigration paperwork.

The truck that delivered the materials couldn’t fit into the yard close enough to the car port, so there was a lot of heavy lifting to get the stuff in bags undercover. After everything was delivered he started right away on the east porch. Both he and his helper are neat and polite and after I asked them to keep me informed, the communication has been flowing more smoothly.

So far the job is progressing well.

During the rains on Friday, Michael went to rent a pressure washer and spent most of the day pressure washing in the rain. The guys at the rental place questioned his wanting to work in this weather, but when he explained what a good idea it was to use the water from the cistern to pressure wash while the cistern was being refilled with water, they totally agreed with this brilliant idea. He was pretty soggy out there in his raincoat and boots. The paint chips from the ugly old brown floor paint stuck to him all over. It took him all day, but the porch came out great and he got all of the crud off that side of the house, too.

Wreggie and his friend, Ty had arrived from NC on Wednesday night, and one of their vacation projects would be to install a venting unit the roof of the Pickled Greek kitchen to remove some of the heat from the cooking. Last week, Aaron said it was 140 degrees in there !!  A little ceiling prep got done on Saturday, but they didn’t cut a hole out, since there would be people working in there that night. They’d wait until Sunday to actually install the vent.

Saturday morning, Michael started working remotely from home on the webcam for the Greek that he a Wreggie had been working on together. That was another of Wreggie’s vacation projects. After Wreggie and Ty played a little with the camera over there, too, they took off to go snorkeling. Michael was having trouble with working remotely, so he went down to the restaurant for the rest of the afternoon.

Michael and Wreg had been conspiring to put in a webcam there since before it even opened, but the owner didn’t want them to. However, since the “incident”, a couple of weeks ago, the owner has changed his tune. Now there is a webcam hooked up which faces the front door and records the comings and going of everyone in that spot. But with internet fluctuations during the stormy days,  Michael continued having trouble getting it to work the way he wanted it to. Eventually, since we had dinner reservations for 7, he headed home at around 6.

Just as Michael was coming home to get ready to head into town to go to Galangal for dinner, the storm came back, poured more rain all over everything, and there was thunder and lightning enough to make power go out at the restaurant, scare the dogs again and make us cancel our dinner reservations.

The Greek’s generator  had a dead battery, so Vinny got his jeep close enough to it to jump start it, and they were set to serve.

I was all dressed and ready to go to dinner, and as I walked into the kitchen, I walked into a puddle. I thought that one of the dogs had had an accident, since they were so scared of the thunder, but quickly realized that our cistern had started to overflow into the house. This was a first! We’ve had a lot of rain storms, and we have a large roof and a small cistern, but because, in the past, we’ve had old, leaky, flimsy gutters, excess water would spill out and not overwhelm the overflow pipe.

Well, now we have nice new extra large gutters and downspouts, so a LOT a WATAH was getting into that underground water tank. So much that it started coming into the house in the storage room which also houses our fancy shmancy inverter to change DC current from the solar panels into AC used by all of our appliances and ceiling fans, etc. Yikes!

I reminded Michael that we had the downspouts installed so that if this happened, we could remove a cap and the water in the gutters would immediately drain out into the yard and not make it to the cistern. So he got the wrenches and went out to fix the problem while I used lots of towels to sop up the water which had come into the dining/living room. We then put a small fan into the storage room to dry out the  floor and damp boards underneath the big batteries that store some of our excess electricity. Whew!

Sunday afternoon, we all went snorkeling at Tamarind and saw three different hawksbill turtles! And lots of fish, too.

Monday, we went west to snorkel out to the wreck of the North Wind. We had lunch at Sunset Grill (yum) and then I had to head east to go to work. They went to the crab races in town and I met them at the Deck Bar. After a nice dinner at Rum Runners, we were tired and came home.

The tropical storm formerly known as Erika went by but came back it seems. After we waited aaahll day yesterday for it to start raining. I could have been painting, but I baked (or tried baking – I rarely do that, so my corn muffins came out like hockey pucks). It was not nearly as rewarding as painting either. In creating food all your effort eventually goes down the toilet.

Anyway, Erika took her sweet old time arriving (while we waited after moving things around that had just been put back after the threat of Ana a couple of weeks ago). And finally around midnight the big rains started. The thunder and lightening frightened the dogs who huddled in front of the door, whining pathetically.

So of course we let them in and it took them a while to settle down and we were wide awake again.

With the menopause coming on, my sleep patterns are pretty erratic, too. Last night was just one more in a string of lousy nights of sleep. Hence, I’m frequently grouchy, anxious and depressed. But…. we heard on the radio the other day that depression has hit epidemic proportions. (sigh) So I’m not alone. (thank goodness) I’d better start sneezing into my elbow, though!

We’ve been busy doing the detail work around the new deck because once the passion fruit vines start to take over, they will be totally in the way. That’s just about done.

But now, we’ve bought a bunch of tile and thinset and grout, and the guy will be coming next week to start laying tile on over 1200 square feet of porch. So the big push is on to get most of the paint onto the house before the nice new tiles are laid. We’re not the neatest painters. I always get paint all over my body and in my hair.

There are drips and spills all over the place, and even the dogs have been getting in on the fun.

Well, we don’t even know if the person or persons responsible for contacting the service animal registry still read this blog. They may have started their campaign against us a year or two ago, when there were a lot of critics who commented by calling us and our friends names and even threatening us.

Believe it or not, some disgruntled reader contacted the company we used to register Goliath as a service animal and complained. This very peculiar company chose to believe a person with a personal vendetta against us and revoke Goliath’s certification rather than contacting us to discuss the situation. I received a certified letter the other day after I repeatedly called the company which had cashed my check for renewal, but never sent me updated registration cards. When you call this strange company, you always get a voicemail, and there was no signature, not even a person’s name on this letter.

So we’ve gone with another much more professional service animal registration company. You can see Goliath’s new service animal registration here. You can search their data base with my last name, Chretien, and Goliath’s name, and there you have it!

So, some of the suspense is over (for our faithful readers). We however still do not know, and we may never find out who was so petty as to stoop to trying to prevent Goliath from going everywhere with us. The three of us will be watching out for him/her or them, though. I’ll spend part of my day today fixing the little snuggli we have for him, and he’ll join us even more places from now on….

Ha, ha, ha!!!