12/5/2014 After a few weeks of wild and crazy weather, torrential rains, leaking windows, overflowing cisterns and Thanksgiving dinner, add to all of that losing the most amazing dog ever to grace our home, I’m ready for a do over. It’s been pretty sucky in Paradise. I previously wrote a post describing in detail what happened from the day we realized Dooce was sick until the moment she died. It was morose, morbid and grueling in detail. It was cathartic, for me. I will keep it close to my heart but not post it. Let me just say that Bill and I lost the dog of our dreams. Dooce was an amazing animal, strong, obedient, gentle and nurturing. She raised Highway from the time he was 3 months old, she loved him with all of her heart, despite the fact that he bit her ankles and hung from her neck with his teeth. He snarled, growled, snapped, bit, howled and whined at her. She accepted it, she loved him. My heart hurts for Highway, for what he lost. He adored her. RIP Dooce, you’ll never be replaced.
We miss her so much every day, it’s a void that won’t be filled for a long time. On to more pleasant things. It may not be official, (yet) but I am positive I have won the title of THE DIRTIEST WINDOWS, SCREENS AND WINDOW TRACKS IN THE CARIBBEAN. What an honor! I didn’t get a crown yet but I think I will soon. I mean. What a freaking distinction!! I am humbled. And repulsed and disgusted. Yvonne, you warned me. You were right, it’s never ending and it’s thankless!!
How many times are you expected to clean your windows? Weekly? I DID NOT sign up for that. In Washington I did them 2 times a year. That’s all. Living in a veritable PARADISE there is no such thing as a damn clean window. I surrender. They are dirty BUT I can still see out of them so we’re good. On Sunday we were supposed to go to Nancy and Chuck’s with Susan and her friend and some others for fondue. Neither Bill nor I were in a socializing frame of mind, having buried Dooce in the morning so we didn’t go. Turns out Nancy was under the weather also, we rescheduled. Bill has half the shelf unit done in the bedroom and is working on the other side. On Wednesday he had Craig help him carry part of the shelf unit for the bedroom upstairs. I was so excited to put stuff on it and clean up the closet! Once I cleaned up the whole cake baking mess I dumped the big basket of my underwear (why do I have almost 30 pair of undies) on the bed and started going through it and there were THOUSANDS of ANTS, on my bed and in my underwear. ANTS IN MY PANTS. That’s why there were ants in the closet! I threw the ant covered undies in the sink and washed the ants off, screaming the whole time for Bill. Then I took the whole basket of underwear and threw it in the washer in HOT water. OMG, so many ants on my bed! We have been having a problem with ants in the whole house recently so we have declared war. We put Terro ant poison all over the counters and this is what happened.
One night of thousands of ants and now hardly any. That shit works. It’s been a blustery week or two. We were pummeled by a storm over Thanksgiving and it was nasty outside. The waves on the north shore were quite large for Roatan waves, at least Lucky is having fun surfing.
The days before Thanksgiving our power was flickering but I attributed it to the wind and the approaching storm. Flickering to the point it was almost like a light show back in the 70’s. {When I was only 7.} Turns out it was just 4 homes with the power problem and RECO came and fixed it. We had 23″ of rain in November. That is a LOT of rain. On Nov. 27th this was posted on a Roatan FB page: SOS. Help needed immediatly at Sundancer in Sandy Bay as a boat load of Cubans(12-15) just came ashore and are wet,weak and cold. They are in desperate need of dry clothes and towels, food and water. Abraham is out on the beach helping them and needs these items. Immigrations has been called but busy with cruise ships. Please grab anything that you can and head over to Sundancer dock ASAP. Some may need transport to hospital. Will keep you updated as the info comes in. These poor people arrived in the midst of our Norther. The big ferry boat between here and the mainland wasn’t running that day due to the weather but this boat managed to make it.
They all were given a place to stay and the people on the west end of the island gathered food and clothing for them. One of the big restaurants had some turkeys left over from Thanksgiving which they donated. I read that their papers were processed already but I don’t know if any will remain here or if their desire is still to reach the USA. Fabulous response by the people here on the island. We didn’t have power on turkey Thursday so Thanksgiving was postponed. The power came on late in the day and went off again Thursday night from around 8 until 10 the next morning. 14 hours, no power. Once RECO came for the 2nd time in 24 hours power was restored and our bird was stuffed and in the oven. John and Craig and Cleo came for Thanksgiving dinner. We had a great meal, lots of good food and friends to share it with. Only thing missing was our boys and families. After dinner we watched Planes Trains and Automobiles, a perfect turkey day movie. Saturday until Wednesday are being passed over. Dooce was buried Sunday morning with Miguel and Craig and Cleo with us. It’s great to have friends that care, somehow it helps to share the pain. Monday and Tuesday we sat and stared at the walls, depressed, pissed and hurting. Wednesday my car was done. Three weeks. We took Emmy to the vet for her shots in the morning and then picked up Scarlett. Emmy was loose in my car on the way home and was rather insistent on standing on my lap and looking out my window. I mean, there is a back window and a front and 3 other empty available windows to look out: but she wants mine. It was raining buckets and I kept trying to get her to move but that didn’t work very well. After one drive home I was not happy with my car, I think it still makes too much noise and rattles. Now we think it’s the shock. It goes back in the shop tomorrow. I got to drive it home from the garage and will drive it back tomorrow, that’s all I’ve driven it for 3 weeks. So, no car again. She is such a slut. (the car) Thursday Susan and her friend Kate picked me up to go to Nancy’s for an ART day. Jeanie and Maggie were there and Nancy and the 3 of us. We had snacks on the porch and then went to the art studio. I worked on some scrapbook stuff, Susan did a painting of her cat, Jeanie did several awesome drawings and Maggie was drawing Pelicans. It was a great day. After several hours in the art studio we went downstairs for some of Nancy’s KILLER margarita’s and more snacks. I had 1 drink and OMG! It was a fun afternoon with fun women!
We ran in to town one day looking for some DVD’s but they didn’t have Gone Girl yet. We’re going to start getting them on a memory stick instead of actual DVD’s, third world country or not!
I just volunteered to be a greeter at the Roatan airport on their busy days. The last time I flew back here I was greeted by scowling faces at immigration. Out of the 4 people there the only smiling face was Daine Etches. I realized what an impact that had on people coming here, especially for the first time. When Cleo told me about this opportunity, I was on it! I think it will be a lot of fun, I’m excited! I was looking for something the other day and came across this hair clip. These things aren’t easy to find here. Since 99.99% of the time I have my hair in one of these or an elastic hair band, I covet them. As soon as I saw it, I grabbed it and STUCK IT ON THE SIDE OF MY HEAD. I mentally told myself that I needed to remember to remove it before we went to the store. Well, guess what, I forgot. Yes, I went to the grocery store and the pharmacy with this big black clip randomly stuck on the side of my head, my hair was in a ponytail. The clip was NOWHERE near the ponytail. I was not alone in the store, Bill was with me but not once did he say, “What the hell is that thing on the side of your head?” He DIDN’T MENTION IT. Why the hell not? I normally don’t go out with a big hair clip stuck randomly on the side of my head. Thankfully, I’m on the rock and I doubt anyone thought anything about it. 
I wouldn’t be surprised if someone noticed me and thought it was a new cool fashion trend and they will all start wearing ginormous clips in random spots on their head. I’ve started a fashion trend. I’m kind of fun like that.
Mermaid on a Raft 
