Last week was a busy one work-wise, even . And we were out every night but Friday. So I didn’t have time to write about many of our doings.

Tuesday, Melissa and Ed arrived from STT. They came to escape the craziness of carnival there. They stayed at another friend’s cottage. We hadn’t seen Melissa since our wedding, and I had never met Ed.

We had them over for cocktails and hors d’oeuvre at the same time that my daughter came over for a massage and we were waiting for a call from Peter, who was just coming back from a visit to NY and Arkansas. We went to the Deep End afterward, thinking we might get to see the weary traveler, but he was so weary that he wasn’t there.

The Deep End bar is really my favorite place on St. Croix for fun, delicious and inexpensive fare. And they always have good wines. Lesley is the owner of the Deep End and the Galleon, and both places have become immensely successful since she took them over. She and Mitchell do a great job and seem to inspire the talented staff to do the same.

Tuesday night is “Italian night” there, and Mitchell’s landlord, Pietro, who owns 3 or 4 restaurants in NYC, was at The Deep End with a bunch of friends. Besides that, the place was packed, and some of the staff had called in sick, so Lesley and Mitch were waiting tables and entertaining Pietro and co. at the same time. Lesley recommended a fabulous zinfandel, which we imbibed with relish (hold the mustard) And we saw this same wine the following night for $10 more at a different restaurant (read on…). Actually, since we had just eaten a bunch of munchies at our house, we weren’t too hungry, so I had a bowl of my favorite tomato basil soup, Michael had the tuna salad, Melissa and Ed shared a salad and some eggplant parm. All yummy.

Wednesday, I was supposed to massage a couple of visitors at a villa on the east end. They’d initially contacted us via an ancient e-mail address, which made me wonder about them in the first place (if you google “massage on st croix” or anything even remotely resembling that, you can get our current contact info from our website). Michael talked me into replying to their initial contact (in December for their April visit) even though it had gone into my “junk” box since it was so cryptic. We had agreed on Wednesday, April 23 for their sessions and I put them down in my book.

The week before they got here, I sent an e-mail to confirm, but there was a typo on my message. It said Wednesday, April 24. Rather than asking about the discrepancy, they assumed I’d be there Thursday the 24th, so when I got there on Wednesday, it didn’t work for them. I was pissed! This villa is about as far east as you can get and I drove out there for nothing even though I tried to confirm with them the week before. And I had no other time on other days.

Lesson learned: If people make appointments 4 months in advance, they MUST put down a 50% deposit. I had stupidly saved those spots for them for 4 months, denying anyone else who may have wanted to pay in advance, the opportunity to actually get massages during those hours. Dummy me!

Anyway, Melissa and Ed went hiking to the tide pools that day, but made appointments for massages with someone else the following day, since I was busy. I could have massaged our friends on Wednesday instead of wasting time driving to friggin’ timbuktu. Aaargh!

That night we went to Savant with them and Tom (at who’s house they were staying) and had a lovely meal. After dinner, we walked down to the waterfront and called Wreggie and Gigi to tell them that the light pole which had been knocked over, was now erect. We stopped in a Zebo’s for espresso martinis. Mmmmm!

Next day Melissa and Ed borrowed our bikes and rode around the Great Pond area down to the beach where they found lots of sea glass. I always wonder what people will do with that stuff. All I’ve ever done with it is move it around when I’m dusting. Over the years, Michael has collected a bunch of trinkets from beaches and they basically sit around collecting dust. They’re pretty, though, when they’re not covered with dust (which is rare).

We had a party to go to at the Yacht Club that night, but we talked about going snorkeling the following day. But they pooped out on us, even before they saw the gloomy day. And they went back to STT on children’s parade day. The next day would be the adult parade. We were perplexed, because we thought they had come over to avoid those things. Oh well, just another example of Cruzan confusion.

I’m wondering if they were just craving some of their favorite STT libations. They couldn’t seem to get a good drink while they were here (except for the wines with dinner and the martinis at Zebos). They tried pina coladas at Off the Wall and margaritas, etc at Sunset Grill and couldn’t drink any of them. I can sympathize. I’ve had a crummy dark and diet at Sunset. The ice tasted like it was made with gray water. We were at Cane Bay beach bar yesterday and I had a frozen marg that stunk. It was really watery tasting. The one at Off the Wall was good, though. I guess it’s one of those “hit or miss” things.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 28th, 2008 at 10:03 am and is filed under Reviews, St. Croix, Terry Talk. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.