11/6/2014 After a rainy rainy week we finally are getting some sunshine. Normally I could tell you how much rain we got but our weather station reset itself the beginning of November. Who knew? Speaking of November. How the hell did that happen? It was just July wasn’t it? Of course, here on the rock, seasons are insignificant. December, May, August, February, all interchangeable. Well, in certain respects. We do have a rainy season, enter November; however that is not to say we don’t have rainy spells during the year. This is NOT a desert island, it’s a veritable jungle. It’s green for as far as the eye can see and from our house, that’s pretty far. GREEN GREEN and BLUE. I’ll take it. This is my breakfast view.
Our residency cards must be renewed yearly and to do this you have to go to Tegucigalpa. It is a ridiculous pain in the ass so I contacted Cristiana (our lawyer) to see if she could do it for us. She planned to go there on Wed. so on Monday Bill and I drove down to her house and dropped off our cards and the fee. This has to be done yearly for 5 years and after that once every 5 years. It’s so much easier and cheaper to have her do it that it’s insane to even bother to attempt to do it ourselves. We got our new cards yesterday, good for another year.
This house needed cleaned, not downstairs since Bill is using that once again as a workshop (constant UGH) but upstairs was dirty and dusty. With the rains the dogs were inside and 3 good sized shedding dogs make a huge hair mess. Add to that the sawdust that blows upstairs and comes firmly attached to Bill’s clothes and socks and shoes and you have a pig sty. I dusted, swept and mopped. All clean but it doesn’t last long. It is incredibly dusty down here, the screens and window tracks are covered with dust at all times. Oh well, I really try not to let it bother me and I am 50% successful 50% of the time.
On Tuesday Jeanie stopped by. I haven’t seen her since our trip to La Sirena. She and her husband were back at their home in Atlanta for a few months and just returned. Always enjoy her company. Later on that evening Cleo came over to visit us, so nice having them as neighbors, I just wish they were permanently our neighbors and not moving out to the other end of the world. It will be OK though because I like boat rides and we’ll find out soon enough if all 3 dogs do too. Craig is getting a special boat that is dog friendly so we can come out and stay for extended periods of time at the ranch. Thanks Craig, what a guy you are when not wearing garbage bags.
I met a new friend on Facebook and she finally moved to the island. Welcome to the island Jen, so nice to finally meet you! As luck would have it, a malnourished little kitten found her in Coxen Hole. Animals know who to go to, like Highway getting hit by the truck in front of me..She was taking the cat to Dr. Calderone on Wednesday so I said I would meet her at the vet office. The little kitty was adorable but she couldn’t keep it, she can’t have pets where she is temporarily living. She was lucky enough to find a good home for it. I took her to Carniagro and then to the mall to go to Tigo. Tigo was closed just like the banks were, for the rest of the week. Nice way they decide to change holidays and group them all together, on a whim. Nice vacation for the Hondurans. We went in to Roatan Motorsports, what a great store. The first time I was in they didn’t have much stuff, now they do! Lots of fishing and snorkeling gear and rafts!! Many different types of rafts, nice rafts too!! Anybody looking for a raft, check there.
On Wednesday afternoon Don and Janice came by for some wine and a visit. Always a pleasure visiting with these two.
Thursday Bill and I did some running around, had to get groceries and wine because Stef and Jurgen were coming over for dinner. We have seen Jurgen recently but not Stefi since she had been sick, so it was fabulous to see her once again. After dinner Craig and Cleo came up and joined us for drinks. The pleasures of ‘Hood living.
Friday we were planning to go to BJ’s with Craig and Cleo but the weather was so nasty we decided against it. For our dose of Halloween we were going to watch Beetlejuice and Craig and Cleo were going to join us, except only Cleo came. We sat down to watch the movie and were half way through it when we heard Craig at the door. Bill went down to let him in and when Craig walked up the steps I lost it. We have a standing joke that our neighborhood is PWT, Poor White Trash. We have gone back and forth with ordinances, safety meetings, steering committee, rules and regulations for living in a PWT hood. Well, I’ll spare you the photos since I haven’t asked for or gotten permission to post them and I’m not even sure they are acceptable to be posted online; BUT, picture this. A man in his undies and white trash bags with trash stuffed in the bags. BEST HALLOWEEN COSTUME EVER. I’m still snorting over it.
Saturday was a soul drenching day. It POURED and then some all freaking day. You couldn’t see the horizon, let alone the water on the south side!
Sunday was a gorgeous day. It was sunny and only semi cloudy. We hung around here, I sat on the patio with the boys and read and actually got some sun. My tan is fading..
It is made by a company called thirty one. They have lots of cute stuff. I have my Contigo water bottle, my tablet, my phone and my camera along with my sun hat all tucked neatly into the bags and it’s myriad pockets. I love this bag.
Bill has been busy making these wooden lounge chairs. He made them many years ago when we lived in Pa and thought they would be nice to have down here, hoping also that he can sell a few of them. He was given a chair pad from a friend, makes a nice comfy place to lay in the sun.
I was out on the deck with Lucky the other day and he was laying under the corner table. I watched this lizard run under my chair, under the bench and jump on Lucky’s paw, his leg, his shoulder and then onto the wood post behind Luck. It all happened so fast I couldn’t get a pic and Luck couldn’t even react.
Tuesday I went to my first ladies lunch. I’ve been invited for a long time but really didn’t have the desire to go. Jeanie messaged me a day after she was here and asked me to go with her. I didn’t know if it was just a small group or the big ladies lunch and I must have been off kilter at the moment, because I said yes. I was going. Crap. I am not much for lunch or for large groups of people, I much prefer small groups. It was being held at Blue Bahia, where Olivia and I stayed in 2010 and also where we ate Thanksgiving last year with some friends. Tuesday was a nasty day, raining buckets and blowing. Jeanie was coming from the far east end of the island, picking up Nancy and coming here. Then we were leaving from here with Cleo driving. It stopped raining once we headed west, not such a bad day except for the huge pools of water laying all over the roads. We stopped at Lawson Rock and picked up Judy and set off for Blue Bahia. They had a good turn out, lots of people I’ve not met and many that I know. It was a nice time, I got to talk to Connie from Cattleya School and plan to go there with Jurgen. It is a school for mentally and physically handicapped island children. Such a cool thing they do, I want to see if it’s somewhere I would like to volunteer.
Bill got an email that was sent to 2 different email addresses of mine and 3 of his. It was from the realtor we bought this property from in 2007. The last we saw him was 2008 when we were on vaca here. Jim’s Mother passed away while we were here and he ended up going back to Wisconsin to sell her house and never returned. He emailed us because he is on the island until Sat and is hoping to see us. He came back down to sell some property he owned. We’re kind of sticking around here hoping to hear that he is able to make it down to this end of the island. The last time he saw our land it was a grown up, jungly piece of property with a cistern and that’s it. Things have changed.
Since I had walking pneumonia a month ago I’ve had trouble with my ear. The same ear that I perforated the eardrum when I couldn’t equalize on a dive in Akumal. I saw my friend Andrea when I met Jen @ the vet’s and she told me not to go in the ocean until my ear is healed. She said when I think it’s healed she wants to check it (she is a nurse) because if the hole in the eardrum hasn’t closed I can will get an infection. I planned to go snorkeling with Jen and get more water in my ear with the hopes the remaining water would leave with the new water, Andrea said not a good plan. It’s been a month now and it’s still not better, it feels like that ear is underwater every time I swallow. It’s a marvelous sensation. I am ordering special earplugs on Amazon, sending them to my friend Susan who I will be picking up at the airport when she arrives in December. Maybe then I can get my diving refresher course with Kristi and can start diving again! Keeping fingers crossed.. Speaking of diving if you have never seen a frog fish here is a fantastic video of one curiously going after a diver. I DID NOT film this, found it online. Talk about a creature of the deep. I will be looking for these guys once I get back underwater.
I’m headed back outside in the sun for a little while longer. It’s so freaking intense it felt like my boobs were getting crispy through my black dress. Hmm, maybe that’s what the burning smell was..
Mermaid on a Raft 