Expat life on Roatan – Mermaid on a Raft

Don’t ask me where I’ve been, I don’t know.

11/10/2019 It’s been awhile, actually longer than awhile. So long that some people have contacted me to see if I’m OK. I am, just doing the daily living taking care of the dogs stuff. In fact, that’s pretty much all I do anymore. Since Max was attacked by his brothers and our female dog in February, I have had a hard time leaving the dogs alone. Granted, we separate Max, he stays upstairs, Highway is downstairs, Barrio and Gringo are each in a crate on the back porch and Lola is loose on the back porch. She hates the pool so we don’t have to worry about her getting in there and she can’t get out front and even if she could, our yard is Fort Knox. They can NOT get out. The reason they are fenced in is because at the end of our driveway, a fast romp for the dogs, is an insanely busy road filled with people who have no right to be behind the wheel of a car. Many of the taxi drivers try to hit the strays and if someone hits a dog, 95% of the time they won’t even stop. That is why my dogs live the secluded life they do. I freaking hate it, I hate that I can’t walk them because the road is so busy and there are so many stray dogs everywhere. My dogs are sheltered, may not be a good thing, but they are not around other dogs. They are not socialized. I recently went to get my hair cut and was taking Max with me to get groomed. I had him in a harness as we crossed the busy road to the hairdressers. There was another dog sitting outside the bakery with it’s owner and I assumed that’s where it would stay. Once we got across the road the dog came running towards Max. Max freaked, got out of his harness and ran across the busy road. I totally freaked out. Once I got over to my car Max came to me. I was a wreck. I tightened his harness and yelled to the guy to please restrain his dog. I got Max into Nadia’s and she locked the door so nobody could open it and have him run out. He was panicked, I think he thought that dog was going to attack him. It was an awful experience. Him being attacked has changed me, I’m not sure I’ll ever get over that.

As many of you know my Father died Sept. 6, 2019. He was 98. I foolishly thought he would live forever. I never envisioned a world that he was not in. It’s here now. It’s my reality and I’m not ready. He lived the last few years of his life tormented by Dementia. I swear it is the most awful thing ever to watch your parent turn into a child again. My sister and her husband were so amazing to Dad, I can never thank them enough for what they gave to him, and gave to my Mother before she passed in 2018. It takes very special people to care for loved ones suffering from dementia, it’s a hateful disease. I miss my Father daily, he was my rock. I have not had him mentally for about 4 years but at least I could hear his voice. I am my Father’s daughter, there is no doubt about that.

As I said before, I mostly stay home with my dogs. I’m not a party person, hate themed parties like Halloween, etc. I just feel that I’ve been there and done that and it’s not my thing any longer. I go to the beach when we get company but my preferred snorkeling is at Daniel Johnson’s Monkey and Sloth Hangout in French Cay. I think the snorkeling is much better there, the coral isn’t dead from all the tourists walking on it and I always see a ray of some sort. Plus I get to hang with Steph and Daniel or Dustin, always a good time. I took Chance snorkeling while he was here. I was having camera trouble (my stupidity, thought the camera was broken when it was actually bad batteries). Chance and Steph and Daniel ventured off to the west but I stayed in the area I was because I was finding all kinds of cool stuff, until my camera battery died.

This is a spaghetti worm, it’s actually alive and feeding.

As I was checking out the puffer that was hiding, all of a sudden this Lionfish was right in front of me. I moved away very quickly as their spikes are venemous and can pack a punch. They are the only fish here that you can legally spear and there is no limit. (You must have your Lionfish license and be certified by the Marine Park). Lionfish eat all the small fish on the reef, thereby decimating our reefs. They are not native to the Caribbean and many places are doing their best to eradicate them from the sea.

It’s impossible to not have a dog by you at our house. Chance is loving on Max and Highway the idiot.

Our back porch. The dogs hang here a lot. There are steps down to the pool and steps up to the roof. There is usually a lot of activity on the porch. Gringo on the left and Barrio in the crate, AND, Highways butt.

I took the Live Again Ministry group snorkeling at Daniel’s also. They all had shirts made with Minions on them and they say Nidia’s Minions. We posed for this picture just for Nidia, the Boss Minion.

A group of local artists got together and painted 2 concrete walls in Brisas de Valle, a small community near Coxen Hole. Julie and I went there to see it and to visit with Nidia. It’s gorgeous and I hope it has the intended effect that they hoped for.

The artists hope was that by beautifying the area maybe people would stop throwing trash around. Many of the paintings are about getting rid of plastics.

Trash in the ocean is a huge problem. Turtles mistake the plastic bags for jellyfish.

Sadly, you can’t go far on the island without seeing trash. Above and under water.

Sad that so many turtles die from humans polluting the sea.

We had the 5th annual East End luncheon for the people on the east end of Roatan. Nidia and Pastor Ronny from Live Again Ministry started this in 2014 and it was so successful that we just can’t stop doing it. The islanders look forward to this event because they get to see friends and family that they rarely see. This was the second year it was held at Fantasy Island Resort.

This is the group from St. Helene. They traveled the furthest to get to the luncheon. Since there are no roads connecting Helene with Roatan, they must come by boat.

We had over 350 people attend the event this year. We had nurses checking blood pressure and also doing diabetes testing.

The oldest from each community got a huge basket of food. The rest of the baskets were raffled off.

These were gift bags filled with toiletries.

Nidia, the head of Because We Care holding the microphone for one of the men from the ministry group.

This is the pool at the resort. Fantasy Island was one of the first resorts on Roatan. It was beautiful in those early days I’m sure, but now many of the rental units have fallen into a state of disrepair. It would take a lot of $$ to bring it back to it’s glory days.

This is Auntie Clara, she is 103. She always sings at the luncheons. I was lucky enough to get to go to her 100th birthday party.

I have been asking Bill to build a pergola on the roof for 4 years. The views up there are tremendous but you can’t be up there during the day for more than a few minutes because you will fry. Finally, we have a pergola.

The dogs love it on the roof, they can survey their domain.

Bill also made a giant swing and I had cushions and pillows made for it. It’s a fabulous spot to relax with the dogs and watch the sun set.

You can see in the next photo that we repainted the walls all gray to match the newly re-fiberglassed floor.

The view, the water was crazy flat. My friend told me that sailors use the stripes on the water to tell them info about the wind. Not sure if that is true or not.

These 3, the brothers, are in the pool ALL the time. Especially Max, the dark one in the middle. It’s not unusual for him to go in a dozen times in one day.

Lola and Emmy. They stare at each other for a long time, have no clue why.

I was closing windows one night to go to bed and the dog toys were laying on their ottoman like this. Are they messing with me?

We have had a lot of lizards around the house lately. The big ones drive the dogs crazy. This guy walked across the hill below the pool and all five dogs were going into cardiac arrest. By the time I got my good camera he was about 50′ away. Grateful for a good zoom.

This is a male green iguana. I can tell it’s a male because of the large jaw muscles, the females don’t have the jaw muscles that the males do.

This is a male anole. We see so many of these daily that I no longer notice them, except when I see a good size dead one laying on a dog bed. Gross.

Another baby iguana, looks like it’s eating a bug.

I decided to get off the island for a bit, I was getting stir crazy. I booked 2 separate trips. One from Roatan to San Pedro Sula (mainland Honduras) then to Houston and on to Phoenix. I spent the night in a hotel in Phoenix and caught an early flight out of Phoenix to Chicago and then on to Wilkes Barre, PA. 6 airports in 2 days. It’s no wonder I arrived sick. My destination was Williamsport PA, where Bill and I were both born. Some of my high school friends who live in the area have a get together once a month. My friend Stan from New Hampshire came down and we crashed the party. It was great fun except I was sick.

Stan and I have been best friends for over 55 years. In that time frame we have always stayed in touch.

The class party was Sunday and Monday I was at the doc’s. I had bronchitis. Great. After a few days on meds I felt good enough to go meet some friends. My brother (where I was staying) and his daughter Devon and I went out for dinner on Saturday evening. On Wednesday I met some friends for lunch. I saw Mary when I was in town for my last class reunion but I have not seen Sue Stroble in 35+ years. When I was a wild and crazy, no longer in college person, who was too much for my parents to handle I moved out. Both Mary and Sue’s parents welcomed me with open arms. I spent my time between their 2 homes.

Mary, Sue in the back and me. Long time friends.

Before I met Mary and Sue for lunch, I had tea with Bill’s sister Kathy at an old home from the great lumber baron days in Williamsport. There are many of these grand mansions that have been restored and are used as homes or restaurants. This one used to be a dentist’s office. It was donated to the Historical Museum who sold it to the people who own the Backhouse Coffee and Cafe’. It has been lovingly restored and is absolutely gorgeous.

Even the woodwork detail on the door was gorgeous. I could have spent a few hours in there looking at all of the cool restored parts of the home.

I had breakfast with another friend on Friday morning. I had not seen Francie since before we left PA in 1995. On my way to get her I saw the Stoned Dog. This dog was painted back in the late 60’s and someone is still keeping it nicely painted. This brings back MANY memories.

My brother’s back yard. He lives in a valley with a mountain in front and behind of his house, I couldn’t make calls on my cell phone and had a hard time opening photos or attachments unless I stood by the bird feeder.

I forgot how beautiful Pennsylvania was.

The trees were all changing, something I’m not used to at all.

Devon and my brother PJ. Oh, and Lily too. She adores Devon and doesn’t let many people get close to her.

I went out to eat with Bill’s sister Kathy, her husband Mike and daughter Missy. We went to a place called Boom City. Food was excellent and they had a beer selection Bill would have loved.

My last night there I met some friends at the 505. It’s a restaurant/bar that I worked at before Bill and I were married. It was great to see Cicily and Mary, Ruth and Tim and Darri, Dave and Chuckie. It’s been a long time.

I was up early the next morning and drove back to Wilkes Barre for my flight to Phoenix by way of Dulles. Going a round a bout way to get there. I arrived in Phoenix on time and my friend Kelly was right outside the door where I got my luggage. We went to a fabulous wine bar, I grabbed a salad and then we split a humongous dessert. After that we went back to Kelly’s home. She lives in Chandler, AZ. Let me say, her home looks like it’s from Architectural Digest. I could move in and change nothing. Stunning house. And she has 2 dogs and was watching a third for her friend so I got plenty of dog loving.

These are Kelly’s two, Daisy is the little one and Payson is the big black boy. The other one was named Sadie, she was a sweetheart too.

No, this is not a photo from a magazine, it’s Kelly’s backyard. No words.

Her pool is gorgeous but it was coooold.

She had a table made in the pool. Genius.

We went to a place called Oregano’s for lunch. It was great food. The waiters shirts said Legalize Marinara.

My good friend from high school who rescued me when I got stranded in LA has a daughter I have not met. She lives in Chandler, about 20 minutes from Kelly’s house. I ran over one morning to meet Katie and Jon and of course this adorable little nugget, Dane. He is the only brown eyed grandchild out of 5 for Tim and Cathilee.

I’ve been home for a little over a week. When I arrived in Roatan I was getting my luggage and my friend who works there said Bill was there with a dog. When I walked out and said Max he almost jumped in my arms. I could NOT wait to get home to the other ones and give them their toys and lots of loving. Barrio, my shadow really missed me.

Barrio was sound asleep, I had about 4″ of bed.

We have not had rain for months and months. People’s wells were drying up, plants and trees were dying, it was getting bad. Well, lo and behold, I brought rain. I took this photo outside my back door and it looks like snow. It was really pouring.

This was the next day. We have had thunder storms at night and hard rains during the days. The island needed it badly.

Usually after a long dry spell we have termites, wood lice, whatever they are called. They are black bugs with 4 wings. They are attracted to light and swarm. They mate and drop their wings (or vice versa, never watched) and then they leave. Behind is the massive mess of wings. They are like Christmas tree needles, you find them months later.

These things were brown instead of black, probably a mutated bug. There were so many the birds were at the back door eating the bugs.

This is my outdoor concrete sink, full of wings. They are disgusting.

So, I’m back, haven’t done much, other than getting some work done on my car and staying home with the dogs. I can’t guarantee that I will be any better about blogging but I do promise to try.

I’d rather dodge bullets than potholes

1/4/2018 First time typing or even thinking 2018. It’s here and I’m already another year older (yesterday)! I haven’t been doing much except for a few Christmas parties for the kids and a couple get togethers with friends so I thought I would share some island revelations. Instead of NY resolutions, I mean, really WTH are they? Does anyone REALLY do them? I think not.

Revelation #1. So, how many of you check the toilet before you sit down on it? We are a lid down family. Always down, I like it that way except for the one or two times in my life that I had too much to drink and forgot. I lift the lid and I check the bowl. Every. Single. Time. You ask why? Well, I’ve read about snakes coming up the pipes and being in toilets and I read about a lady that sat down to pee and a frog jumped up and hit her in the butt. I’m telling you if I ever saw a snake in my toilet or a frog touched my butt, it would be the last time I ever peed. EVERRRR. I would just blow up in a weeks time and explode all over creation. I did not make that a NY resolution. Actually I don’t think I ever in my life made one (well, one that I kept anyhow).

Revelation # 2. I hate, detest, abhor Geckos. I don’t care how cute anyone thinks they are, I hate them. Honest, given my choices and I know I’ve said this before, I would prefer a 4′ iguana in my house rather than a 4″ gecko. They give me the major creeps. They can all die or relocate to a different island and I’ll be cool with it.

Revelation # 3. I do not handle having no internet or a non or poorly functioning laptop/tablet well. It’s my boiling point. It makes me crazier than I already am.

Revelation # 4. I no longer am a shopper. Living on Roatan has put an end to that. My needs are little, my wants are nil, it’s so simple and easy. I never was one for designer handbags, personally don’t like them, just not my style. My handbag is a Keene that I got at Mega Paca for $3.00 and it’s perfect. It’s waterproof and I can wipe the mud off of it with no worries of stains.

Revelation # 5. I wear my day clothes to bed. ALL THE TIME. Usually a dress and undies, that’s my go to at home wear and many days I crawl into bed in the same clothes I wore all day. The epitome of laziness. That’s me.

and last but not least: #6. I blow dry my razor. If I don’t it’s good for one shave only. It turns into such a rust heap that it’s a definite source of lockjaw. So towel dry, blow dry, cover and store out of the shower.

OK, done with revelations, I could go on but it may get disturbing to some so I’ll quit while I’m ahead.

Nidia and I did 2 Christmas parties for the kids this year, back to back. The first was in an area we went to the very first year we helped Nidia, in 2014. It’s called Brass Hill but Bill thought she was saying Brazil so we now refer to it as Brazil. It is a very very poor part of the island. The majority of the children do not go to school, most of them don’t have shoes.

Our very own tropical flip flop wearing Santa, AKA Sully.

The Queen Bee, Nidia, getting the group organized. Sort of.

These children are so beautiful. This one loved Santa, she was beside him all day.

Checking the list..naughty or nice. Not really, we had a list of kids that would get gifts.

Our motley crew, Nidia, David, Nicola and Charlie (David’s sweet kids) Sully and me. And my antlers light up!

Me with a sweet young girl. Francie, I have on our top.

Santa going back to his sleigh, errr, truck.

This was on a Friday and the next day we were having the big party in downtown Coxen Hole. It was held at The Merry Inn Seaman Club. I had seen the signs but never been inside the building. I had to park a couple blocks away and luckily brought my rain coat, even though it was a sunny day. It was a wise move on my part. Usually I let things like that, or my umbrella in the car.

At one time this was a well known and busy establishment. They are still open, random hours though.

The inside was a museum, the artwork was amazing. I couldn’t believe it. It saddens me that it is being destroyed by the elements. It really should be preserved.

The Pirate history of Roatan was painted on some of the walls. I met the lady who’s uncle did the artwork, he has since passed.

There were 2 cruise ships painted on the walls, fantastic details on them.

The bar had all kinds of fish painted on it.

Don’t know what the hell this fish is but I don’t want to meet it.

These were some homes along the building. The far one has an outside sink, which is very common.

There was a cruise ship in port that day

We blew up balloons to make streamers and sliced all the hot dog buns, got the toys ready, waiting for the arrival of Santa. Word got out that he was there and he was mobbed before he even got in the room.

It was getting dark and was pouring buckets and I had to walk to my car. I put my raincoat on, hood up and left the party at 5. It’s an hour drive home, even more in the rain and my windshield is very tinted, making it difficult to see in the dark, I was so exhausted when I got home that I just vegetated on the couch before I went to bed.

Newly re-upholstered couch. The ottomans have covers on top of it (it looks wrinkly) to keep the dog hair off of the new upholstery, I can take the cover off to clean it.

I took my curtains down and gave them away. I hated them. I don’t want curtains but Bill does. I haven’t taken the brackets down yet but will before we paint. Once the counter tops are finished, we’ll do the tile back splash and then I’ll choose a color for the walls. One thing at a time.

On Christmas Day we went to our neighbors (a mile away) and had Christmas dinner with other friends. They had their tree decorated.

My friend Yvonne being bartender. Not really, I think she was just getting something to drink.,

Lots of excellent food, turkey and ham and every side dish imaginable.

Dessert table, chocolate rum cake, Italian Cream cake, key lime pie

And Yvonne’s decadent Reese’s bars. I think I ate 8 of them.

The parrots have been around a lot lately. Just the other night a flock of them flew overhead, so noisy. It’s the first I ever saw a flock of them around here.

These two perch in this tree often. They are wild yellow naped parrots.

These two are babies, no yellow on their necks yet.

This is why I can’t have nice bedding, the dogs and the cat. The cat has a thousand tiny holes in the spread from jumping up on the bed a zillion times a day. And the dogs, well, hair..

A friend noticed this dog down by the abandoned pirate ship, she had been feeding her. I went and fed her a few days and started looking for a home for her.

Found out the second day she has an owner and she’s not covered in fleas or ticks so maybe she is OK.

Mom and Dad with the Harry and David cookies I sent them for Christmas. It’s so hard to buy for them at 96 and 92. I just sent them 100 photos of things around the island via Walgreen’s. I type on each photo what it is so they know what they’re looking at.

Currently Chance is visiting them. He arrived last night and is staying with my sister. They are very excited that he is there.

Our eating space the other night for pizza when our friends came over. It didn’t even rain until the rum cake dessert was finished. Lucked out that night.

The other evening the power went out around 6:20. My friend Ann messaged me and said she wonders what the cruise ship people think. They are leaving the island around 6, just getting mid island and the whole island goes dark. Maybe they think we turn the island lights off after the cruise ships leave.

Life has been pretty much stay at home, I honestly do NOT want to go anywhere because the roads are so bad. I have never seen them like this and with the rain we have been having they continue to deteriorate. It’s just not worth it to even go out. Today I’m going in to town because Nidia is finally getting a vehicle and I’m going to meet her at Island Shipping when her new to her car arrives and take photos. She is 40 and has never owned a car and if anyone needs one, she does. A Go Fund Me was started by a friend and raised enough money to buy her some wheels. She is beyond excited, she said never in all of her life did she think she would own a car. I hope she can avoid the damn potholes for awhile until the new Mayor takes office and things change around here.

I’ll end this with a video of an every freaking day occurrence at our house. Barrio always takes this toy and shoves it in Highway’s face while whining, crying, singing, who knows. Watch Gringo’s face (bottom right) at about 20 sec. Highway is the one laying upside down on the dog bed. Click HERE.

Happy New Year everyone.

I killed the Alien

12/17/2017 Yes, it’s still been raining and I am damn sick and tired of it. We have recently had a few nice days, the first for awhile, sunshine and blue skies! The pool got drained too low but it rained enough to fill it back up. I have not been in for a few months, which is really odd. I was in almost daily last winter. Just goes to show this was an ugly rainy season.

So, the election happened country-wide. The island made out well, Dorn, the mindless mayor is gone, hopefully for good, and Jerry Hynds is the new mayor of the west end of the island and we fortunately still have Carson. Between the two mayors we should be able to get this island rolling again. The last mayor of the west end, I’ll refer to him as MM, did nothing in four years except waste taxpayers hard-earned money. It’s really a shame to say but he was totally worthless, everything he did was half assed and made no sense. Not one major accomplishment in 4 years. The mayor on the east end needs pages to list what he did with his 4 years in office. He did A LOT! The new mayor has his work cut out for him but he is an established businessman and can get things done. There is hope. My friend Nidia was selected for city council. This is great because we need a strong woman like her on our side.

However the Presidential election is not over. It was Nov 26th but they can’t seem to come to a conclusion on who won. I read they had one month, so the day after Christmas. There have been riots in the cities on the mainland, mass looting, tear gas, shots fired, people killed, police officers wounded, it’s ugly as hell over there. It has also disrupted service to the island. The ferry was shut down for a day or so because the roads to get to it were blocked by rioters, bridges were closed and a national curfew was put in place. The curfew was lifted for the Bay Islands if we could remain peaceful with NO marches or rallies.

They did a recount and still have not finished, or so they say. It’s really the lesser of two evils, the current President had “special” congressmen appointed after others were fired. They allowed him to run again, despite the fact the office was previously limited to one four-year term. The incumbent President is linked to Mel Zelaya who was ousted by the US. He’s a bad guy (so they say, what do I know, I live on an island) and the opposition is in his ring. Not good. I’m just happy we live here and not on the mainland, two different worlds. Here is an article on the situation if you are interested.

Enough with politics, I honestly hate them and am thrilled for the people who won on the island. It can only get better.

This is the beginning of busy season and initiating a curfew to tourists who just arrived is a sucky thing to do. So we escaped with no curfew, not that I care, I wasn’t going anywhere anyhow. It seems to have all leveled out and things are running as dysfunctionally normal as usual. Not a bad thing, just island life.

I saw someone post on FB that they were looking for a puppy for their family. I sent them photos of one of the pups we found. After the family saw the photos, they wanted her. Bill and I met them in Oak Ridge. Turns out when she said where they lived I knew the house and the color of it. They have 3 grown kids, Wyatt, Sidney and Abby(i)? Sweet kids, mom Gretta is thrilled to have this pup and her husband is in love with her also. It’s a definite win win for the dog and the family.

Abby and Bailey (that’s the name they chose for her)

I get FB messages from Gretta, the mother of the 3 kids and they feel their family has been blessed with Bailey. They absolutely adore her and are already making her dog treats. She is spoiled and loving it.

I’ve still been a homebody, spend more time here than anywhere. I would rather be with the dogs. Or the beach. With the weather being so miserable, I stay home. That and the fact my car’s rear end was practically falling off. All of the bushings were shot, even the differential had to be pulled. The car was rattling even before I hit any potholes. And let me tell you about the potholes. They are EPIC. There are spots in the road that you have to crawl and maneuver through at speeds slow enough to stall the damn car. I’m driving along, almost stalling and the whole right side of my car disappears into the cow burying sized rut in the side of the road. The view out the side window is mud and rocks and garbage. It’s not pretty. And you know what? I’m not lying or exaggerating at all. I am so sadly serious.

Ok, I’m currently having a dilemma. Inside this colored keyboard that Bill bought me is a

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bug (the typing above is me trying to kill it). It’s crawling around and I can see it and it’s driving me crazy. I have used half a can of compressed air. It’s still alive. I’ve tried to stab it with the canned air nozzle thingy, still alive. I’m ready to hose this keyboard down! I have not seen it scurry amongst the lighted keys recently so I may not go overboard this evening. Unle, aaaaggggh. It’s still alive. ioooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiivv00-0—0. I got a steak knife and I think I stabbed it. Bill said it wasn’t a good idea to be murdering a bug in my keyboard with a steak knife. But hey, you do what you gotta do. Extremely annoying.

I follow a woman on Instagram called mrs_angemi, follow her!! She has a website called iheartautopsy.com. She posts crazy (gory kind of) photos of stupid shit people do or unusual accidents, broken bones, gun shot victims. I don’t find it gross at all, it’s so educational to see all the body parts she shows. Like this woman who decided to rinse her hands off WITH THE PRESSURE WASHER. Hello, did she NOT read my blog? Well, she turned the pressure way down but SOMEHOW it got turned way up and she blasted the hell out of her hand. The Doctors had to slice the hand up more than it was ripped to get the imbedded dirt out of it, then they sewed and stapled it closed. EeEeWWW. I was so freaking lucky. And we need to pressure wash again, this time I will wear my rain boots, promise.

*The next day

Before I could get carried away blogging last evening, my computer locked up again. It said I had no more space. I deleted my recycle bin which had 20,454 items in it. That took FOREVVVVER. So I went to bed. Bill informed me that I have photos from 2002 on my computer so he has me going through and deleting them to free up space. I made it to 2011 and quit, too boring and exhausting. It’s similar to work.

On Wed. a friend messaged me about a sick dog, I had no car so I messaged my friend Ana. She went and got the dog and took him to the vet. He was on his last legs, couldn’t even stand up.

How a human being can allow a dog to get to this condition baffles me. It makes me sick.

Look at his hip bones. I seriously could hurt whoever did this to this poor defenseless animal.

He was starving and severely dehydrated. Doc gave him several IV’s because the dog couldn’t swallow. Ana took him to her house and made him a bed of towels. Remember, this guy has been abandoned by some idiot and was left starving on the streets on Roatan. He was unable to keep food down so she was feeding him broth. He could barely swallow. Ana was giving him liquids with a syringe. Finally he was able to drink some broth the next day. When Ana would approach him he would wag his tail although he was still unable to get up. She messaged me this morning that he passed away last night. She is devastated as am I and all of the other dog lovers who were following this story on FB. So very sad. Ana blessed him with Holy Water and buried him in their pet cemetery. So heartbroken over the senseless cruelty animals endure at the hands of man.

I picked my car up at 5 on Wednesday so that I could do a Christmas thing with Nidia. All the rattles are fixed but now there is a weird noise in the brakes. I’ll take it back in next week.

When Nidia says she’s taking you somewhere you have never been, be prepared. I picked Andrea and Kenzie up at LFK after their day excursion from the cruise ship and we met Nidia at Bojangles. Andrea and Kenzie brought a TON of Santa hats and 43 backpacks filled with school supplies. (backpacks will be passed out when school begins again) We went to the Franco Flats area of Coxen Hole. When I parked my car I asked if we were walking up that and Nidia said yes and smiled. Knowing full well that my knee hates all hills.

The first thing I see is this poor iguana tied to the boys shirt. I wanted to steal it and take it to the iguana farm so it can live to be an old iguana.

This was the hill we had to climb. I had on flip flops. It was slippery mud. Some politician at some point laid a big concrete slab in the middle of the muddy hill. You can’t drive to it nor can you drive off of it up top. In fact you have to jump off the top. Utterly ridiculous waste of $$.

Kids carrying stuff up the hill. See the beach ball the kid on the left has? Denna brought a lot of them, I blew them up the other day and we had the kids help carry them up the hill. Bad idea. They vanished. Think of this when you see the little boy pouting.

View from the top. I did not walk up the road, my shoes were muddy and wet, too steep.

We had the adorable kids come down and carry stuff for us. Once we made it up this hill we had an incredible downhill to go.

We had just gotten to the top of the first hill, walked through here, passed a store on the right. Then we began the downhill part of the event.

this is going back up the hill from hell, and you can’t even see the worst part of it where the muddy steps were. I think I held onto a barbed wire fence carefully for support.

We walked through an area that had been devastated by the floods. The majority but not all of the homes down here are on stilts. The ones that aren’t didn’t fare too well.

A hammock in the mango tree. All you need is a bucket of water and a towel to wipe and rinse the mango juice off of your elbows.

The hill had steps made of slippery mud. Nidia said if I fell to land on my boobs so I would bounce. That works. We had to cross a few streams to get to our destination.

Stream 3, I didn’t take a pic of stream 2, which had you stepping on rice sacks filled with dirt to try to keep your feet dry. Stream 3 crossing required us to jump up a muddy bank on the other higher side of the stream with not a lot of area to land on. I set my sights on a fence rail wrapped in barbed wire. I told myself I was not grabbing the barbed wire and I did not touch it. Stream 4 was a recrossing of this same one, except we had a bridge made from the door of an old appliance, I think. As soon as you stepped across the appliance part and were on the mud again, there was a home right there. Sticking out of the home was a loop of barbed wire. And there was a tree on the roof and the wall fell over when the kids leaned on it.

This is the home right by the bridge made with the appliance door

This beauty found a bench to sit on and eat her hot dog

They all want their photos taken and then they want to see it. I love showing them photos of themselves.

This whole area was severely flooded in both of the recent floods. It was evident everywhere we went. Homes had ruts under them, the unlucky ones on ground level were still filled with mud. Not fit for anyone to live in. Once the kids got organized, we passed out Santa hats, hot dogs and juice, toys for the smaller kids and flip-flops to everyone we could fit. The babies got the small balls and the big beach balls kind of disappeared. (Thank you Denna for the 100 pair of flip-flops you brought us along with all the balls). After we were done with the festivities, we headed back up the hill and I took Andrea and Kenzie to Mahogany Bay to catch their boat back to NOLA. Thank you Andrea and Kenzie and Denna! You made a lot of kids happy today and that’s what this whole thing is all about.

Look at these steps. They are insane. I give major kudos to the builder of these, it must have taken a lot of blood, sweat and tears to build them.

OK, here’s my pouter. I thought he was mad he had to wait for a hot dog. Not so..he wanted a beach ball.

He’s an adorable child. If it weren’t so impossible to get in there I would go look for him and take him a ball. Maybe after it dries up a bit I will.

We had 100 pair of sandals my friend Denna brought. We fit everyone that we had shoes for. There are some left that will be donated at Christmas.

That’s how I rock socks and flip-flops too, Zories to my friend Jeanie. And I even spelled your name right.

This was walking back down to my car. The piece of concrete is ridiculous. I walked the mud path along the concrete because by now the treads on my sandals were caked solid with slippery mud. This is Nidia’s sister Rosemary walking down.

And here it is Sunday and I’m still not finished with this blog. We did the 3rd part of the counter top re-finish yesterday. Saying we because I add comments to what colors are needed and mop up drips, Bill does the actual work. It’s epoxy resin.

This is what the counters looked like before. They were acid stained with a clear finish. The finish was terrible stuff and did not hold up well at all, it peeled, chipped, turned white, just got downright ugly. The edges in this photo have black and white epoxy on the edges.

This is the top of the bar after he poured 2 colors of epoxy on it.

After touching it with the torch but before any sprays of different colors

This is after some sprays of 90% alcohol with no color mixed in.

After some colors were sprayed on, copper, green and brown

Really difficult to get good photos with bar lights right overhead.

This is the top-level of the bar, it’s finished.

This is the lower level prior to refinishing

Smear it around a bit with a brush, a stick, a plastic putty knife, whatever.

Like I said before, impossible to really get a photo of how gorgeous this is.

It’s sunny out today, I couldn’t force myself to go to Mega Paca, the roads and the crowds are so bad that it just makes me bitchy all day if I go. Not worth it.

Off to the pool to read with cup of tea # 2.

How cute is this guy? He made himself a little snuggle area with a towel that was on the bed and promptly settled in for a nap. Max, you are a sweetheart!

Oh yeah, this is the alien it took me a week to dig out of the hole in my ankle. It’s just extremely hard calcified skin I think. When it’s still in my ankle I can’t have a sheet touch it, it hurts that much. Once I dig it out it’s fine until another one forms. One of these days I’ll get the plates and screws removed to see if that permanently kills the alien.

Nidia and I still have 2 Christmas parties to do. I have not put up one single decoration at my house, just not feeling it this year. Could be due to the counters being done and things have to be moved and set where they don’t belong or it just could be sheer laziness. I opt for the latter. We are going to a party on Christmas day at our friends home. They live really close to us. Miguel, our island friend is going to get 3 of his kids this coming Saturday. This is a big deal so we will make sure they each have a nice gift to open for Christmas.

Merry Christmas to all. It’s the time of year when I miss my family so much, especially the boys.

Roatan ramblings

05/28/2017 I haven’t been into blogging lately, actually, I haven’t been into much of anything. Seems I spend more time with the dogs than with anyone else. We communicate endlessly.

A friend I met on FB and then caught up with twice while she was here visiting came down and stayed with us for 2 weeks while she was finalizing some things with her house build. They plan to be in their new home by the end of the year, it’s going to be awesome and they have a fabulous view. The beach is at the bottom of their land and they sit up on a hill overlooking the sea. Anxious for them to move down here. Diane is a dog lover so she was perfectly comfortable with our pack, Lola took a special interest in her and seemed to gravitate to Diane’s side.

Diane and I helped Connie with the Mother’s Day event to benefit Cattleya. It was held in Loren’s studio above their restaurant, Romeo’s, in French Harbor. The kids paid to make Mother’s Day gifts and when the gifts were completed they each got a pizza and a drink. Diane and I helped at the first station. At our table the kids drew on coffee filters, that had been opened and flattened, with markers.

The one little girl was very pensive, it took her a long time to do 10 filters.

These two were awesome, Jazmin and Matthew. They are the grandchildren of Miss Valerie who runs the Charmont Bilingual Academy (it’s an amazing school) for children who come from families affected by AIDS.

After they each colored 10 of them, they were individually spritzed with water until the colors bled. Then they were dried with hair dryers at the next table.

The ladies helping here are all teachers at Cattleya.

Once dried they were folded, twisted at the bottom and then opened into a flower shape. After that they went to another station where they added things to the bouquet.

Annie helping to make the bouquets beautiful.

This is Matthew, he gave me a big hug before he left, what a sweet boy!

The final table was glitter then wrapping the bouquets up like a real flower bouquet. After they were done we all had yummy pizza, courtesy of Romeo’s restaurant.

This is the outside area of the art showroom.

I’m not sure what type of paint they used but I really like this artwork.

It’s great fun helping Connie with an event, she is always so appreciative!

Diane and I also helped Nidia with the Mother’s Day event at Infinity Bay. It was held the day before Mother’s Day. The manager of Infinity Bay is always willing to give back to the community and he did it in a big way. The event was in their banquet room, tables were set very nicely, the food spread was incredible, they offered free 5 minute massages and all the ladies got a gift. Nidia planned for 120 ladies but several brought friends and children. I fast counted 135, we think there were 140+ people there.

These ladies came dressed in their Sunday best.

Many of them have never been to Infinity Bay (it’s quite a posh resort right on the beach) or West Bay beach.

Nidia (in red) leading a game on the porch. The ladies weren’t playing by the rules so Nidia didn’t give out the prize.

Nidia and one of the ladies dancing. The lady in black had the music in her, she danced while she waited in line for her food. She was a total joy to watch!

Diane and I were both tired when we got home. I really have to praise Nidia, this woman hass the drive and the power to get things done. It’s nothing for her to throw together a shindig like this, bringing ladies from the far reaches of Roatan to have a fun day. She’s totally amazing.

I’ve had some problems with Jessica, (the young girl I got back in school) she hasn’t been going to school. I had her over here one afternoon so we could talk about the situation. She was unusually quiet while she was here though and I couldn’t get more than 2 words out of her at a time.

She was picking dead leaves off of a plant.

The week after she was here she missed 2 out of 4 days of school. The first time she said she had to babysit. I told her she didn’t have any children that she was responsible for and that I was paying for her to go to school, not to babysit. The second day she missed I called her and asked what was going on and she said she was sleeping. She does nothing all day (school is 8:30-10:30 AM, M-Th) , stays out late with boys at night and can’t get up for school. I give up. She doesn’t want this for herself, if she did she would be like Alexi and not miss school. I even paid extra for her to attend a class trip the following Friday which included lunch at Bojangles.

I told her I was done and not to go to school anymore. I called Sister Judy and explained the situation and told her Jessica was done and that they could use my money as a donation. I felt awful doing it, it still haunts me, but if she doesn’t want a better life, nothing I say or do will change that. No different than getting rehab for an addict. She will be pregnant soon, Alexi agrees with me. He is furious with her as is her older sister Juliana. She told me she wished she had someone like me who cared when she was young. I am still stressing over this. A good friend who lives near the family and has known them for years told me not to waste my time, that Alexi is the success story from that family and to lavish our attention on him. He needs and wants it. Sad that their mother, who lives above Jessica and Juliana, doesn’t care. It’s so frustrating. I wanted better for Jessica, I thought she did too. I was so looking forward to helping this young girl. I am crushed that this happened, I had big plans for Jessica. Maybe she will come around, I can only hope.

We started adding onto the pool deck. The girl who was cleaning for me while my other gal was on maternity leave happens to have a very skilled craftsman for a husband. Enter MoMo. Thank you Andrea!! He is here everyday early, works non-stop all day long. He has expanded the deck, built a pergola, deck railings, a table, 2 benches and 2 chairs, a large counter with shelves and doors and 4 side tables. ALREADY! He is now building a box to hide the hideous hot water heater that Bill insisted on hanging where everyone can see it on the back porch. Then he is building doors to cover the storage areas on our back porch. After that it’s a pergola and furniture for the roof. I would really like to adopt him, he’s awesome and such a nice guy. He’s so good that Bill is allowing him to use his tools, BILL NEVER ALLOWS ANYONE TO USE HIS TOOLS. MoMo is in heaven. I’m in heaven because things are getting done here.

You can see by the stained/not stained what we added.

He made the table and chairs. The 2 benches are still waiting to be sprayed with finish and I have to have cushions made for everything..

Nice storage area, the tile for the counter is in, I have to pick it up tomorrow. I asked my friend Trish to paint a mermaid on the wall behind the counter.

The tables he made are so sturdy they can be used as seats too.

I love the table. We can’t have a glass table down on this deck, the wind is wicked strong, it would either be in Parrot Tree or shattered.

Fabulous views and some afternoon sun protection.

I’m quite pleased that we are getting all of this stuff done, my honey do list was stagnant and it was pissing me off. Our whole house needs repainted, inside but especially out. The sun is a killer on paint down here, it’s only been 3 years and the paint looks like crap.

Good lord, I love these dogs. Max (l) and Barrio

Max is on the table, Highway is doing his lap dog thing.

Bill had a small bag of Cheetos, the dogs were starving to death, as you can see.

5 dog protection. Nobody, 2 legs or 4, gets by these dogs. Highway is a flipping idiot. When he barks it sounds like all 3 Stooges making their weird woop woop woops all mixed together. I HATE IT! Not a man, child, watusa, dog, duck, cat or motorcycle/car/truck gets by these guys. They are freaking relentless. It’s why Highway sleeps inside at night. Much easier than getting up 10 times screaming, shut the hell up, during the night.

Look at these boys, Barrio, Max and Gringo on the steps. They do a few laps several times a day. Max runs and jumps in. Do they know they are brothers?

Mr. Gringo, he thinks it’s a big water dish.

Bill went to Diane’s to check some measurements at her home that is under construction. It is in Politilly, not far from where Alexi’s family lives. (Glad he doesn’t live there anymore). Bill stopped to see Osman and Ephrain. (Alexi said Ephrain’s name has an N, not a M on the end). I stand corrected.

Osman (l) Alexi’s nephew and Ephrain, Alexi’s brother. They adore Bill and throw themselves on him. They get no attention from anyone, no father figure at all, no male in their lives, no mother either, really.

Odd looking Hummingbird. Mr. Anole crawls right up, doesn’t matter if there are Hummers there or not.

The other night the dogs had just eaten and were outside playing when all of a sudden they went bat-shit crazy. I could tell by the sound of Highway’s bark that he was jumping up in the air with every bark. I went down to the pool deck to see what was going on and the neighbor boy, Eddy was outside the fence. Eddy lives with several family members in the colonia below us. His Mother is not one of them, she lives in Coxen Hole, 30 minutes west of here. His grandparents are poor and do not treat any of the boys well. The 6 and 8 year olds come up here barefoot with machetes chopping firewood. Eddy is the oldest, 15 years old, he works every day as an unpaid bag boy at Eldon’s, the only money he makes is from tips. Weekdays he only works until noon, then he goes to a school to learn tourism. It costs him 2000 ($85.00) lempira a month for school, plus he has to pay for his transportation to and from school and work every day. Tonight he came up here very upset, he wanted to talk to Bill. His grandparents said he has to quit school and work full time because they need the money. We are pushing for him to stay in school, his future is grim if he stops going. It’s so sad to see a young boy in this situation. He’s another soul who gets no attention from anyone. No parental figures in this young boy’s life. WTH is up with the mother, why does she not see her child? How can she do that? I’m not judging, I just have serious questions. Sometimes it’s so hard to wrap your brain around things that you see. We will try to help Eddy and keep him in school, if we can. Ultimately, it’s not our decision.

Alexi is doing well, he’s here on his days off from the Bomberos, either working / hanging out and falling in the pool on occasion.

Mr. Muscle laying in the sun after he “fell” in the pool after cleaning it. He’s using his phone for eyeshade, this was before I gave him glasses.

He has to go to the mainland for the month of August, if he does well there he will hopefully become a paid Bombero. (firefighter/rescue) Currently, we are his only income.

Our friends Kevin and Pam brought 2 bags of nice t-shirts for us to pass out. We gave Alexi, Miguel and MoMo first choice, what was left I took to the station and gave to the Bomberos guys, It always makes Alexi look good to his peers when someone close to him donates to the team. Alexi on the L.

If (praying he does) he gets in he needs to buy his own uniform and boots and 20 white undershirts. WTH? 20? He said yes, that’s what they have to buy. We need to revisit that and have him talk to the boss, that seems excessive. Thursday he told me he needed a white single sheet on Friday. I didn’t have one so I went to Mega Paca, no white sheets of any size. I wish he had told me before so I could have found one for him. The big General from the mainland is checking out the stations this weekend while he is here for the Bomberos competition on Saturday. Alexi is so funny, he was telling us he’s not even going to try to win the competition, he’ll enter but he’s just going to go slow and be chill. HAH! He plans to win that thing for sure. I was on his case all day, he loves the back and forth banter.

We had a conversation today about the amount of water he DOESN’T drink. I’m a water chugger, I drink minimum 90 oz a day. He drinks coke. Many times Alexi will come here and his legs hurt, he says they feel like he can’t stretch them out. I give him 2 ibuprofen and make him drink water. I told him one of the main reasons he’s getting these cramps is dehydration. He promised me he would drink more water. He also never wears sunglasses or a hat, except when he’s in uniform, then he must wear a hat. I had a pair of sunglasses with polarized lens that I bought but they weren’t prescription so I never wore them (not a clue why I bought them). Once I found them again (he actually told me where they were) I showed them to Alexi. He really liked them so I gave them to him. He couldn’t believe what it looked like when he put them on, he said colors were different. Umm, yeah, they are. I also bought him a dark pink (his favorite color, because some girl told him he looked good in pink, he does) t-shirt that says Fire and Rescue on it.

He LOVED it. He was showing Bill the glasses before he left and he said to Bill, “she loves me.” Bill said, “yeah she does.” I won’t get into the fact that he clogged our toilet and it overflowed all over the floor, thankful for concrete floors and for the fact he knew where everything was to clean up his mess. UGH. I wondered what the heck was taking so long.

Because We Care is proud to be associated with Live Again Ministry. These are groups of people from different churches in North Carolina who have fallen in love with Roatan and the people here. These wonderful people have chosen this island to bless with their love and kindness. This visit a few of the things they did were; donate water filtration buckets to 150 people in Esperanza and El Higuero, painted the inside of a school, painted a medical clinic, passed out toys and sandals and dresses, toy cars and trucks and lunches to children in Oak Ridge. I know they did many other things this visit but unfortunately, I’ve been housebound because we have a worker here. Bill’s busy, so that means I hang at the house.

Pastor Jim in the green, he led the group this visit. I’ve met him, his son Josh, Dave and John before. It’s so cool that they keep coming back several times a year.

These are Sawyer water filtration buckets. If maintained properly they will filter at least 250,000 gallons of water, making it potable. Maintenance is easy. If used properly, this could change lives, providing fresh drinking water to people who have been getting bottles of water from the stream.

Milton is one of the children who lives in the same home that Eddy (who has to quit school) does. He’s one who comes here barefoot with a super sharp machete. He is so cute; a nice boy with not a snowball’s chance in hell to succeed in life.

This is the inside of the school they painted. The teacher / principal picked the color.

Passing out gifts, dresses, toys and flip flops

Many thanks to the people from LAM, your smiles and open hearts are making a huge impact on the people of Roatan.

I took one of my 5 dogs to the vet on Wednesday. Barrio’s been digging his ears a lot. The vet was doing a complicated repair surgery so I waited and chatted with other friends who were there. We sat in the same room as the vet doing the surgery, the operation was happening 3′ away. You can watch if you want, I do off and on. After about an hour of waiting I went to wipe the sweat off my face with my dress and realized I was still in my nightgown with a swimsuit top on underneath. Total island girl.

And here it is almost June. Class reunion in Penna. in September, trying to make flight arrangements has been ridiculous to say the least. There are very limited flights. In the time it takes me to get home I could have flown to Australia and back. Almost. Insanity.

Last pic is of my gorgeous granddaughter Alexah. She posted this on FB and said, Last day of middle school. Ever.

And….I’m done. Peace out.

Planes, boats and fins

04/30/2017 First of all, I apologize to those of you who received an email yesterday saying that a new blog was published, only to have me take it down. Somehow the post got published and wordpress wouldn’t allow me to get it back to a draft so I had to trash it and do a shabby copy and paste into a new blog. Our internet has been shit so that may account for it.

Saturday afternoon was the first I stopped and relaxed in a solid week. Remember, I’m O L D. Very old. Don’t misunderstand me, I had a blast entertaining Jillian and Justin this past week. Jillian is my great niece (well, Bill’s really, but I claim her as mine) and Justin is her boyfriend. It was Jillian’s second visit and Justin’s first. In fact he had to get a passport to come visit. We’re happy that he made it to Roatan. So are the dogs, especially Lola, she really liked Justin.

I picked them up at the airport on Saturday. I’m a weirdo who loves to go to the airport to pick up friends. I see so many people I know that it’s like a big party, this Saturday was no different.

Once Jill and Justin got through the insane immigration lines, we headed east, stopping at Eldon’s for them to get some food. After getting settled we all retreated to the pool, it has been so flipping hot that being in the water is all you can do.

Sunday we made the routine Mega Paca shopping trip then came home and got ready to go to the Reef House on Oak Ridge Key. We parked the car and went by boat for the short ride there. I was excited to see my dive friend Caroline there, haven’t seen her for months. We spent some time in the water then I got out and wandered around talking to friends. Tim Blanton, who lives on Roatan and is an exceptional photographer was there with his drone. He made a short video of the Oak Ridge area and hovered over the porch where we all were posing. Check it out HERE. Beautiful video of the area.

Monday we went to Daniel Johnson’s Monkey and Sloth Hangout. I didn’t know until Justin and Jill got here that Justin’s favorite animal was the sloth. It was a no brainer that we would go there first. When we got to the farm Preston was waiting to give us one of his exceptional tours.

One of my favorite animals is the Coati. They are a part of the raccoon family. Two of them live here.

The first cage we got to go in was the monkey cage. The white faced Capuchin’s are named after the cast of The Jersey Shore, AKA, Snookie, Vinny, JWow, Pauly D etc. These monkeys are very friendly and love to interact with people.

They were particularly fond of Justin’s curly hair.

They are like kamikaze monkeys. They vanish and then out of nowhere come flying onto your shoulders. They were so much fun.

Next we looked at the spider monkeys but they are not very friendly so guests don’t interact with them.

When we were ready to leave Justin walked over to look at the water again and the monkey grabbed his sunglasses. He finally managed to get them back, all in 1 piece.

Next stop was the parrots, the Red and Green Macaws. These birds are so stunning. There is only 1 green one, Fiona, from Shrek. Her colors are so intense that she doesn’t seem real.

I think the red macaw is named Rose from the Titanic and the other is Fiona.

We saved the best for last, the sloths. These are all 3 toed sloths and are all rescues.

Jillian and Olivia the sloth. The sloth is adorable but Jillian is gorgeous! Love this young lady!

The sloths mostly live in the trees and venture down to the ground once a week to poop and pee. Their only defense is camouflage, they do not use their claws except to climb and grab leaves.

Just an FYI: Daniel does not buy animals, every animal he has is a rescue and they are treated very well.

After we saw all the animals and were getting ready to leave, Daniel arrived. He invited us to go on his maiden snorkel trip on his new snorkel barge later in the week. We said sure, something else fun to look forward to.

We went straight to the Iguana Farm, critters to critters. It was a hot sunny day and there were iguanas all over the place. Jillian and Justin fed them, Jill wasn’t ready to get up close with them though.

This is a black spiny tailed iguana, indigenous to Roatan. This one is molting, shedding it’s skin. Black spiny-tailed iguanas.

This dude just chased another male out of his tree. Sam (Arch) said they are very territorial, especially during mating season.

Look how long the spines are on this guy’s back!

We had a great visit at the iguana farm, especially because we got to see Sam. Sam and Daniel (sloth farm) are 2 amazing young islander men (and cousins) who work very hard and are quite successful. I am blessed to have them as good friends.When we left the iguana farm I called my friend Marcia to see if we could come kayak and snorkel and she said sure. The 3 of us went home, changed, ate and left for Carib Bight and Marcia’s house.

An extra bonus of going to Marcia and Dennis’s home is I get to see one of my puppies, Duke and their other 2 dogs, Shay and the new rottie, Luna. Puppy breath is the best.

Justin, Jillian and I went down to the water and got the kayaks down and set off for the mangroves. It was a little later in the day so there wasn’t much boat traffic. We kayaked all the way through the tunnels and back.

We then tied the kayaks up to the broken down dock and snorkeled out to the reef. For some reason it was extremely murky and stirred up and the visibility was not very good. And, my camera battery died. bummer.

Once I got more puppy kisses we came home, all got showered and went to Cal’s for dinner. We had an excellent meal, as usual. It was a busy day and we were all tired so it was early to bed that night.

The view from Cal’s and my friend Linda’s house.

The next morning we stopped at Jessica’s school to see why she was absent Monday. The teacher said her mother’s lame assed boyfriend kept her home from school because they all overslept. I’d like to lynch him.

From there we drove through Punta Gorda to hand out some of the toys that Liza and Mike brought down for the kids. Once again, it got crazy. The kids were grabbing out of my car, the ones I gave toys to hid them and said they didn’t get any. It became bedlam so I did what I had to do; I closed the trunk and left, no more for them. We passed out a few more along the way, choosing wisely where we stopped.

Jillian wanted to go to La Sirena in Camp Bay, it’s pretty much a must see spot. We all had onion rings and rum punches. My friends Don and Janice were there so we sat near them and chatted for awhile while watching the wind surfers. {side note, I bought a new camera, a Nikon CoolPix B 500 with a 40X zoom lens on it} I am still learning to use the camera and did not have it on the correct setting so these photos aren’t the best.

It must be so amazing to be wind surfing at Camp Bay, it’s one of the more pristine spots on the whole island.

Jillian and Justin at my favorite beach on the moon.

Alligator Nose, just seeing it makes me miss the Duchess of Camp Bay and her husband.

Almost every day when we came home from our activities we jumped in the pool to cool off, rinse off the salt water and visit with the dogs. On Wednesday I thought we could go to The Buccaneer in French Harbor for something different. If I had known they charged $5.00PP entrance fee I would have stayed home in my own pool.

It’s a nice place but it isn’t worth the entrance fee.

They have an area roped off from the sea and pretty much protected from the waves. There are huge decks, swings in and out of the water, hammocks, floats. It’s just not the beach to me.

Floating their hectic career/school lives away

Unicorns, flamingos, swans and penguin floats. I can’t imagine what it looks like with all of them floating around,

Very colorful and somewhat tropical. I liked the ceiling at first but then I didn’t. It’s trying too hard.

I did like the hand painting on the wood deck

I think the painting would have been enough without having fake flowers and dried up leaves on the ceiling.

Not sure where these are going but I liked them.

Jillian was interested in seeing Cattleya school so I made arrangements with Connie to go there after lunch. When we arrived the students were with Kamille learning ASL. Afterwards they split into groups and did various projects.

Cattleya is a school for physically emotionally and mentally handicapped children. It’s an amazing school.

We watched the 3 different teachers conduct their classes and learned what each one was doing. The little girls flip-flops on the floor in the photo are some of the ones I donated to Cattleya, thank you Kelly. I’m still passing them out. I also donated the 3 games that Kelly brought to Cattleya.

The remainder of the afternoon was spent in our pool at home. We had big salads for dinner and drank some wine on the roof.

Thursday morning we hung around the house, in and out of the pool, waiting to hear from Stephanie and Daniel. We were going snorkeling with them this afternoon. As soon as they called we went over to the sloth farm. I sat and chatted with Daniel’s Mother until they arrived. Stephanie’s parents were here visiting and they had been touring the mangroves, zip-lining and then going snorkeling. We were fortunate to be invited and very excited to go. Daniel just built a new snorkel barge with The Steelers (as in Pittsburgh) and Big Ben stenciled on the sides. Nice boat with an easy access ladder.

We went out in front of CocoView and snorkeled there. It was beautiful.

Daniel had my camera for a few minutes and snapped a pic of me.

Four eyed butterfly fish, Daniel may have taken this photo.

These are amazing Spaghetti worms (click on the name for a fascinating video on the worms). They are alive and move along the sand getting food to take back to their hole.

This was the biggest Porcupine fish I had ever seen.

They can puff themselves up to 3 times their normal size by drawing water into their abdomens. Once inflated their spines stick out and they are quite long and very sharp. They do this to protect themselves from being eaten by other fish. Then we moved to a different spot to snorkel, looking for lobsters.

Juvenile French Angelfish, Daniel took this

A school of grunts and Daniel took this too

Love to hate, hate to love. The Lion Fish. Beautiful but venomous if you get stung by them and they are decimating the reef by eating all the small fish. They are the only fish you are allowed to spearfish (with a permit). Kill them all.

A conch slowly trucking along. I swam past him on the way out and on the way back he had barely progressed.

Daniel and Dustin (red shirt) wrestling underwater trying to pull each other’s mask off.

Beautiful day with our heads underwater with friends, can’t beat that.

I dropped Jillian and Justin off at Cal’s at 6 so they could have a nice dinner together, then Bill went down to get them when they were finished. They were done in less than 45 minutes, I thought something was wrong but they said it was all good, he just wasn’t busy.

The next morning we left here at 8:45. We stopped and got Ann then took Jillian and Justin to zip-line at South Shore. Ann and I sat and watched them zipping along under the canopy of trees.

Justin seeing the trees from a different angle

As soon as they were done we went to West Bay Beach, grabbed some chairs at Bananarama and waited in the water for Sean (my friend from Canada) to meet us. Soon as he arrived we walked down to Infinity to snorkel.

I think this is a longspine squirrelfish

I love when I see an opening out into the deeper water. Really feel like a mermaid then.

I was swimming around in the shallows looking at little things and hoping to find this big Parrot fish. I swam around a coral chunk and there he was in all of his magnificent glory. I was lucky enough to be able to swim with him for several minutes, watching him do his thing.

Mr. giant Parrotfish, I was looking for you.

You really can’t tell the size from this photo but this guy was almost as big as my dogs.

He had several fish following him as he gnawed on the coral so he could then poop sand. I know the best facts!

Such a beautiful beach. After snorkeling we ate at Bananarama then floated our cares away.

Ann walked up to a restaurant called Nice and Spicy to get her husband some dinner so we ran Sean over the hill to the place he is staying, then went back and got Ann and took her home. We went inside so I could meet her new kittens and I wanted Jill and Justin to see her place and her view. After that we made the long drive home. As soon as we opened the gate to come in the driveway the power went off.

Wonderfreakingful. Bill was making pizza. He got the dough rolled out and partially cooked on the grill before it got dark. Then we put the stuff on the pizza with the LED’s for the lightsource. It was so windy that Bill had to cover the pizza with another cookie sheet just to carry it out to the grill.

Nothing says romantic better than glaring LED’s. I lit candles several times, only to have them blown out by the wind.

Miraculously, the power came back on just as it was time to eat. We ate and cleaned up the kitchen and all ran to take showers while we had water pressure. Not long after that, the power went out again. It wasn’t only us, it was island wide. Just a 36 mile strand of darkness in the Caribbean. It really wasn’t a big deal because there was a very strong wind blowing through the house, keeping temps cool.

We hung out here the next morning, watching Flightstats to see what was going on with Jillian and Justin’s delayed flight. Once we saw it was airborn we went to the airport and got them checked in. The line for departures was long so I took them for a tour of Coxen Hole, the “downtown” center of the island. We drove all along the waterfront and stopped to take a photo of the new sign by Petro Sun. I dropped them off at the airport with time to spare before their flight. We enjoyed having Jillian and Justin and look forward to them returning.

I started talking to them about diving. I suggested they do the course work at home, then get their certs with my friends @ Blue Island Divers when they get here. I need to get Jillian’s sister to do this also, she will be here the end of June.

It’s been unusually HOT. 90 degrees with 85% humidity. Despite the insane temps the wind has been blowing hard and steady, keeping the air moving and keeping it cool inside. If there were no breeze we would either have to remain in the pool 24/7 or melt. The wonderful wild and crazy wind is blowing so much dust and dirt around that my screens are filthy and everything is covered in an inch of dust. Lola is sneezing and Barrio has goobers in his eyes, I think it’s allergies for both of them. Tomorrow is Max’s last day of meds, keeping my fingers crossed.

I have a busy few weeks coming up. A friend is coming for a few days to sign the papers on the land she is buying, another friend is coming to stay with us for 2 weeks while she sorts things out with her house building project. I am helping at a fundraiser for Cattleya for Mother’s Day and am also helping Nidia with a Mother’s Day luncheon on the 13th. TOMS shoe delivery will start in June, super late start this year due to some customs snafu.

Off to find something to watch on the computer. I hope everyone had a great weekend, it’s kind of quiet around here. Jillian and Justin, maybe you should come back.

Smells like dead lizard

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02/17/2016 Today I went to my local bank to withdraw $$ from the ATM but it was down, AGAIN. So I used the blank check in my wallet to get money out of the account. I made the check out to myself and signed the back of it. It was for Tres Mil, 3000LPS or about $150.00. I handed the teller my Honduran resident card and my debit card for this account. He started filling out paperwork and on the back of my check he wrote my account number. Then he flipped the check over, looked at it, at the back of the check, then at me again and said DEPOSIT? OMG, NO. Why would I deposit a check drawn on my only account into the account it is written on?? This was after waiting 35 minutes..seriously??

I haven’t been in a blogging mood lately, sorry about that. I’m depressed. My house in the US was always clean, windows, floors, curtains, clean. I am physically unable to keep this house on the hill clean no matter what I do. I dust and the next day it looks like I invited the Sahara desert over for a freaking windstorm. I shit you not. You can write your name on any and every piece of my furniture. My window tracks are disgustingly gross, filled with dead critters and mud. I just cleaned them again yesterday and as soon as it rains they will be muddy again. Does it rain dirt on this island? Cleaning my window tracks is an all day job, I have 16 windows on the second floor that open. They are filthy all the time. Add to that a husband who is not Mr. Clean and 5 dogs and a cat and it’s a lose lose situation.

Last week a few nights in a row when I crawled into bed I smelled dead animal. I was convinced there was a dead lizard somewhere under the bed. Bill looked all over for it but didn’t see anything. We pulled the mattress up and looked under it, nada. I opened my nightstand drawer and found a pile of stuff that smelled like dead something. Whatever it was it was disintegrated into a mound of pulp in the drawer. I took the drawer in the bathroom, emptied the contents, scrubbed it out and put it back. Then I went back in the bathroom to clean up the mess and was assaulted by the SAME DAMN SMELL. I finally realized it was the bag of cat treats still setting on the counter that smelled like dead lizard. That’s what the mound of stuff was in the drawer that smelled.

Last Sunday we had no power due to the rain and winds. So, what do we do when the power is off, go to Mega Paca and shop. Marilyn, Carmen and Carmen’s parents picked me up on their way to town. First thing I scored was a Kate Spade wallet. It was $1.50.

We all had a blast shopping except it was hot in there with no A/C (power was out island wide). We made a few stops before they brought me home. I think power came on later in the day but it was off for a loooong time.

Monday was another beach day. I picked up Carmen and Brett and Karon and Ron (Carmen’s parents) and we drove out to Camp Bay beach. We had a pretty good turnout, we floated, played volleyball and had a few drinks.

Then the 5 of us went to La Sirena for rum punches, well I didn’t drink any because I was driving and they are STRONG. I just devoured my onion rings, so yummy!

We had an epic Tuesday, really we did. Marilyn, Carmen and Karon picked me up and we went to Coxen Hole to get Nidia. We were on our way to see Doña Maria. I had sheets and a blanket, shampoo and conditioner and 2 bags of coffee for her. Marilyn had a new pillow, more sheets and a roll of chicken wire that a friend of hers donated. After we got Nidia and the chickens that Daine gave us we went to the grocery store where Carmen and Karon bought Doña Maria all kinds of things, cereal, milk, oil, salt, sugar and coca cola. Then we went looking for feed for the chickens (that were in a pillow case in a box in the back of the car), got that at the 2nd store. We then drove around some more looking for a corn grinder for her. Marilyn had gotten one before but turns out it was a meat grinder. After looking several places, we had one more place to look. That was the golden ticket, Nidia found a beautiful grinder there for Doña Maria.

We headed back to the path that treks through the jungle and started walking up to her house. When we got there we were disappointed because she wasn’t home. ~~Martha Stewart~~ Marilyn, in her pink Polo wellies, started building a chicken coop for the new chickens.

Rather than leave and not get to see Doña Maria we decided to hang around until she came home. We wandered around checking things out, waiting for her when all of a sudden she comes walking up the path with a cardboard box balanced on her head. In the box were scraps of wood for her fire that is always burning. She had walked all the way into Coxen Hole carrying a hand of bananas to sell. Doña Maria weighs all of 75# soaking wet and she carried the bananas down the path, walked along the highway into town, they must have weighed 30# at least. She found a buyer for her bananas, the lady took them and then said she didn’t have the $$ to pay her. All of that for nothing, she came home banana-less. Doña Maria was so excited to see us. We made her close her eyes and then Nidia walked her to the chicken coop, she was thrilled that we got her chickens. Nidia showed her the gorgeous corn grinder that Marilyn bought for her, I know it’s something she will really use a lot. We gave her all the things we bought for her, I think it may have been overwhelming. Carmen had a padlock with a key for her door and a variety of food stuff. Doña Maria showed us her sugar came press that her son made for her.

12736830_1253824311298179_1618025403_o — Nidia climbed up the hill where they planted corn and took this pic. There is a chicken coop behind Carmen and I, but the chickens belong to someone else.

12716165_233243630343690_6008552429899569101_o — Carmen, me, Karon and Nidia

She wants to get her hair done again so Nidia will follow up on that. After I posted some photos on FB I had a friend here on the island who wants to pay for and build her a table and bench to use as a kitchen table. I’ll probably get her a few plastic chairs too. We are also inquiring about building her a better home. She doesn’t own the land so we have to get permission from the landowner.

After we said our good byes to Doña Maria we dropped Nidia off in Coxen Hole and headed home, sort of. We got diverted and went to Romeo’s in French Harbor for lunch and wine.

I don’t recall what I did the next few days, one of them I tried, again, to pay my friends property tax, only to be told this time I needed copies of their RTN’s. They did not say I needed them the last time I tried to pay, each time I go there, it’s something different. You would think that they would make it easy to pay your taxes, especially since the many on the island don’t pay theirs. UGH!

Friday was BJ’s and on the way there, I paid our taxes. The last 2 times I tried to pay them I couldn’t wait any longer because of Spanish class. This time I was in and out in less than 10 minutes. Then I was off to BJ’s with the crew. It was anther rainy shitty day but we still had a good group of people.

And the rains continued. When I got up Saturday morning and looked out the windows, first the south shore and then the north shore, I realized I couldn’t see either. We were socked in with no visibility and a very low cloud cover. The tower at the airport is not equipped to do IFR landings so unless the pilots can see the runway (Visual landing as opposed to instrument) they can’t land.

I got to the airport at 11:15 and we were told it was closed. No flights coming in or leaving. Really? We had 2 AA, 2 UAL and a Delta flight coming in and an airport full of stranded delayed passengers. I got the PAX counts and ETA’s from the desks and we waited to see what was going to happen. The first flight was due in at 12:30 but it was “late.” We stood outside the back of the airport facing the runways and watched the Delta and the 1st United circle overhead. Then we heard that the United diverted to San Pedro Sula. Soon after that, out of seemingly nowhere, the Delta plane landed. The runway at RTB is right smack next to the water and we could barely see the water. As the PAX were de-planing and I was welcoming them at the immigration door I saw the American jet come in, almost land and abort at the last minute. OMG, the passengers were probably freaking out. It went to Belize instead. We were told the other American also went to San Pedro Sula. After waiting around the American from San Pedro and the United finally came over from the mainland and landed. The 2nd United flight was cancelled and we heard the American wasn’t coming. I went into the office and signed out and was getting ready to leave when the airport guys said the American that went to Belize was due in at 6 PM (only 5 hours late). I signed back in and 4 of us went to wait for the plane to come in. The runway lights were on, waiting for the flight from BZE @ 6 but at 6:10 PM it was cancelled, still in Belize. As it turns out, there was no room in Belize for the plane so they refueled and took those poor passengers back to Miami and they were bringing them the next day.

12728856_10153595817543533_912436818591423482_n — It’s rare that a plane lands at night in Roatan, as it turned out, one didn’t land this night either.

It was an exhausting 7 hour day at the airport, the only good thing I can say about it is, I love meeting the new people coming to the island and I love the ladies I work with.

A few shots of random stuff before I wrap this up and go read.

This is the ARK they are building in Politilly. It is going to be a nightclub??? I’ll snap some more pics on Friday when I go to BJ’s, they have done a lot of work on it. I don’t remember who took this photo but I did not. 12671619_1697270283861936_4166679552789434544_o

12657378_1743377865892901_1440531157699557451_o — This is my niece Devon, my brother PJ’s daughter. She is at the Night to Shine event at a church in Montoursville, PA. This is an event sponsored by the Tim Tebow foundation and it is worldwide..Devon had a blast at the party, I so wish I could have been a fly on the wall.

12249983_10153599895213533_5794753807831936733_n — Dog origami, on the roof.

12087973_1091100230899989_8939742309565076685_o — Trace took this pic of his sweet girlfriend Maureen. I love it! We are anxiously awaiting for them to come visit us soon. (Hint hint Maureen)

12694718_10204944700128691_2210976706250918842_o — My friends Jill and Rick Jackson own Las Cabanas de Loreto ( a fabulous vacation spot) in Baja, Mexico. Rick, as you can see, is a professional photographer. He snapped this photo while they were camping in Baja on Valentines Day. To see more of Rick’s work go to http://www.soulcatchingimages.com

Yes, we have bananas, lots of apple bananas. The dogs are still enjoying them every morning with peanut butter, I’m eating them and Bill makes a smoothie every night. Sure hope we have some when our guests arrive in March.

And that my friends is a wrap. I’m off to the couch. If any of you have any hints or tips for my house cleaning woes, I’m ready..

Signed:

Disgusted with the dirt in Paradise

They found me

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01/25/2016 There she went just walking ‘cross the floor, singing do wah diddy diddy down diddy do

snappin’ her fingers and shufflin’ her feet, singin’ do-wah diddy-diddy down diddy-do

She looked good, LOOKED GOOD
she looked fine, LOOKED FINE
she looked good, she looked fine
and I nearly lost my mind
Before I knew it she was walkin’ next to me,

And then she was dead.

Squashed by Bill’s shoe. A big assed scorpion, upstairs, in the kitchen and we’ve never had them upstairs before. Not happy about this, I want scorpion barriers. Good news is the big ones don’t have as much venom as the little ones. So the natives say.

I didn’t take a photo of the squashed scorpion because I’m gross, but not that gross. The last time we found a big scorpion, it was the same scenario but it was in the rental house, not ours. The first one was bigger. After the first one met its demise, it laid dead on a paper towel on the kitchen table for 3 days before someone finally threw the damn thing out.

So began my week on the rock.

Sunday morning we took the 3 boys to Parrot Tree for an early morning swim. They were so excited to be there! Not much makes me happier than seeing these 3 guys running and jumping in the water, chasing each other, over and under the beach chairs, up the steps and jumping off the wall. They were exhausted after 30 minutes.

Monday I went to Mondays Don’t Suck with Gypsy Rosalie and Bob. There were only a handful of us there but my favorite Cookie Monster, Roger is back on the rock. We didn’t have the volleyball net so we just ate and drank. A few brave ones went in the water, it was a rough sea for sure.

I was invited to a spa day at Francie’s this past week. I met Jeanie at the top of the hill in Oak Ridge (her husband dropped her off). We met our badass girlfriend Marilyn at BJ’s at 9:30 and she took us by boat to Big Rock, Franklin and Francie’s utterly fabulous home. (click on Big Rock and check out this property, it is for rent and it’s top notch)

There were 3 ladies to do massages, mani’s and pedi’s. I passed on the massage due to still sore ribs and had a nice relaxing pedi. We had a great lunch, bowls of fruit and some adult beverages. Franklin came home from golfing and made us some specialty drinks with fresh grated nutmeg on top, oh my yummy!!

It was almost totally dark when I got home, a long day away from the babies..What a wonderful way to spend a day with friends. So lucky.

This island is divided into 2 parts, Roatan and Santos Guardiola. I am very thankful to say I live in Santos Guardiola. Each part has their own mayor, ours is Carson Dilbert and I know him well enough to always get a hug and a kiss every time I see him. He is a good man who is trying to do what is right. The mayor on the other end of the island is not quite an upstanding person. When the DEI came in here toting guns and closing businesses, he left the island. He was not here to stop them. Just recently he proposed a new tax plan that is discriminatory, ridiculous and illegal. He thought in his nonfunctioning brain that this was a smart way to get some new $$ for raises for many of the people who work at the municipal. The business people were up in arms over this, taxing foreign dive instructors and other ridiculous things.. Anyhow, my friends on the other end of the island decided to have a march against what he is doing. Ironically, as soon as he got wind of what was going to happen he supposedly rescinded the cruise ship tax and the raises. he thought the march was cancelled. Surprise.. we were still marching.

I got to the airport where the march began at 8 AM. My friend Daine was there and Nidia’s oldest son Franklin. I helped pass out t-shirts and by 9 AM we had passed out 500 of them (purchased with $$ Daine and Nidia raised) that said Roatan United on them.

At 9:15 we were off, the march had started.

600 people strong, photo credit, Aaron Etches

Aaron (2) — In front of the municipal office, photo credit Aaron Etches

Of course, the illustrious Mayor was nowhere to be seen. His minions took to Facebook afterwards and claimed we were all disgruntled people with a political agenda and not business owners. Bullshit. There were MANY business owners there.

I left downtown Coxen Hole at 11:15, buzzed by the house, Bill gave me a cup of ice water and my books for Spanish class and I drove like the local taxis do so I could get to class on time. It had rained a little while we were marching so I was semi wet, semi sweaty and really needed wine. I made it through my fun Spanish class taught by Francie and immediately headed to BJ’s with the gang afterwards. Luckily I got there before Jeanie and got the biggest wine glass.. Bitchacha!!

Saturday I was back doing my airport gig. The poor people traveling to the east coast were doomed. Francie’s family didn’t leave as planned, they were headed to the Northeast and decided to wait until Monday to even try to make their connections! It was a long day at RTB. The plane that was supposed to be there at 12:20 arrived at 3:20, we didn’t leave the airport until 4 PM, exhaustion set it, however I still made chicken noodle soup for dinner, it was just what I needed. That and vodka. AND, I just talked about the airport again, oh well, it is a part of my life.

This letter was received about us, the Volunteer Airport Greeters, it is the very reason we do what we do.

In my line of business I travel internationally quite frequently and lately, work with Vegas Electric has been bringing me to Roatan on a more regular basis.

As a frequent traveler in the Americas, I usually know what to expect – a short flight from Houston that may or may not be on time, the signature Roatan warmth as we deplane, and a long line with an air conditioning system that may or may not work. As mentioned, that is more or less what I expect when arriving in Roatan, and to be fair it is not very different than similar destinations in the Americas I travel to.

During my last trip to Roatan however, something was different. We were a little bit late, and the warm embrace of the breeze was unchanged as we deplaned, but something was different with the line at immigration. It was the group of mostly ladies from the Roatan Tourism Board (or Chamber) uncertain of the actual name. They were smiling, they were engaging, they were speaking to every person in line, quite a welcoming sight and experience. It made the usually tedious nature of waiting for your turn go a lot faster, a lot easier and in the end, entirely changed the disposition of the passengers, the immigration officers and the room in general. What a great way to arrive.

The excellent initiative of establishing a formal island welcome in this fashion, makes a difference to new arrivals to Roatan. I can tell you it made a difference to me, and that I also saw it in the faces of other passengers. This is an excellent initiative that in my view should continue as the ladies warmth, smiles and positive energy made a big difference in the arrival and ensure the Roatan difference is felt from before immigration.

As you continue to work towards strengthening and differentiating the Roatan tourist experience, I think this should be an element retained and when possible, extended.

Regards and very nice to meet you.

I love my airport gig and the people I meet there. It’s lobby leading, just not for Bank of America, although they did teach me well.

It was a blustery weekend on the rock. It looked like a battlefield when I walked the dogs.

The locals were freezing their butts off, wearing sweaters and layers of long shirts. It was mid 70’s with a cool wind from the north. I wasn’t cold. I’m still not cold, except I do have on socks with my flip flops..

A couple more photos before I proofread this 19 times and publish it. This is our granddaughter Alexah, she is 13.

11071161_1510810405889528_2626217882231726867_o — Maybe I’m partial but I think she is gorgeous!

This is Chloee, she will be 10 in February.

12495015_10208198564272419_3396366799729997219_n — Look at her dimples, she just got about 4″ cut off her hair, this is the new do. I think she’s a beauty too!

We are so excited for July to come so we can spend some time with the girls and Chance and Alecia. I can’t wait to take them snorkeling and show them around this gorgeous island!!

Signing off this cool breezy January night, going to watch some American Horror Story. I’m wildly fascinated with it.

Get your socks and velour sweatsuits out tonight, it’s going to be a brisk one..it’s 73 degrees at 9:20 PM..

With visions of whale sharks

weird

1/16/2016 My 3 legged dog licks rocks. I’m not lying, she does. She loves it, I’m not overly enthusiastic about the whole thing. For some reason this satisfies a particularly intense need that she has. She drools when she does it, maybe she has a deficiency? Yes, this is the same insane dog who ate between 40 and 50 heart worm pills at once. I still don’t know how she got them out of the suitcase. They smelled like beef, that’s all that mattered: they were hers. We gave her a bottle of liquid charcoal by the syringeful to make her puke. She never vomited but she quickly developed a taste for Charcoal. She did shit pure black the next day, but puke? Nope..

We have had dog collar issues this past week. I was given some dog collars so I changed the boys collars for sturdier ones. The next day Barrio brought me Gringo’s collar, chewed in half. WTH? I put another older used collar on Gring and found it in pieces on the porch later the same day. I put his older collar on and IT WAS CHEWED OFF TOO. I ended up putting the thin cheap Wal Mart collar back on him, it’s been 2 days and all is well. The pleasures of raising 3 male pups can’t ever be put into words. It’s mystifying to say the least.

I have watched again for the billionth # of times a show on Netflix called Iris. Go out of your way to watch this movie, it’s about an amazing woman. She makes me think of the times when I worked at Lynn Hayes in Williamsport, just a young 18 year old girl working in the fanciest, most expensive clothing store in town. I fell in love with fashion. I didn’t follow the norm though, I always wanted to be different. That was my deal. Ladies, do yourself a favor and find the show Iris and watch it, she is an upscale, bohemian fashion icon.

I moped around here on Monday, depressed about Bowie’s death. I think I moved everything and cleaned off the shelves, listening to Bowie. Later on I ran to the store to get stuff to make something to take to the 2nd Annual Port Royal Bash and am glad I went with options in mind because Eldon’s had nothing, again. I was reduced to broccoli salad, which turned out yummy. I ran to Mega Paca and saw 3 friends there, it’s really my favorite store, ever. I can find Banana Republic plain colored t-shirts for around $1.00, dresses for $3.00. I get my shopping fix, spending under $10.00 and come home w/ a bag of stuff. I saw an ugly but large cooler bag there on Monday, didn’t buy it b/c it was orange and green. After I got home it’s all I could think about. This is the story of my life. This is what I did buy though.

I got up early Tuesday and ran to Mega Paca and bought the damn cooler bag. It’s ugly and I love it, it says Tropicana on it. Bob and Rosalie picked me up Tuesday morning around 11, we were meeting other people at BJ’s at noon to get a ride to the party on the Islander . I believe there were about 40 people on the boat on the way over, most with chairs and coolers. It was the usual crowd, most everyone was there and the ones that weren’t, like Bill and my un-named girlfriend, well, we decided they all had hemorrhoids.

Mel and John have recently started building on their gorgeous piece of land on the water in Port Royal. They are doing it building by building, all the while living on their big boat docked right there. It’s really beautiful and serene out there. The easiest way to get there is by boat and it takes close to 30 minutes from Oak Ridge. There is a road but I guess it’s pretty long and not in great shape.

1404705_10154426952147646_4516811767580189175_o — Thanks Keri for the pic of Jeanie and I, although curious why you named it Double Trouble???

Wednesday I cleaned again, this time I moved all the furniture and sucked up 736 pounds of dog hair. No lie. It took forever and then I let the dogs back inside so they could shed some more. I’m a sick sick person.

I read online that whale sharks were spotted in the waters in front of our house so I contacted the dive shop and begged them to call me because I can be there in 10 minutes. Thursday I got up, dressed in my swimsuit and a skirt, had my snorkel bag all packed and they didn’t call. I decided around 1 I had to go to the bank, not a lempira in my pocket, so I reluctantly got dressed and left. I got a call from Holly at the dive shop saying the whale sharks were still in the area and maybe tomorrow. Maybe just became a HUGE word.

Thursday night we went to Chuck and Nancy’s for dinner and were home late and had 6 hungry dogs. I got the dogs fed, watched Modern Family and went to bed. I had visions of whale sharks in my head. Friends, this is at the top of my bucket list, it’s something I REALLY want to do. My dream is of me slipping into the water next to one of these giants and hoping I don’t die from a heart attack due to uncontrollable excitement.

I awoke Friday morning, whale sharks still on the brain. I dressed in my swimsuit again and had all my gear ready to go, but no call and it was time for Español escuela so I had get myself ready. I showered and got my stuff around for class.

On my way to Spanish classes (which is always followed by wine at BJ’s) I encountered the following: a young boy thrusting a live chicken, held by the legs, at me as I drove by. Like I’m actually going to stop, grab the chicken, give the boy a few lempiras, strap the sucker into the front seat belt and go on about my day. What reasons could he possibly have come up with in his mind that I was going to stop and take a live chicken from him? Do I look like a chicken lady? Isn’t there a law about dangling a live chicken in front of car windshields while the car is moving?

Then around another corner were 2 Brahman bulls standing in the middle of the road. These things are BIG evil looking cows. Shortly after the cows I came upon a TukTuk, a 3 wheeled vehicle like they use in Indonesia. It was filled to maximum capacity with what looked like a bunch of candy and it had a maximum speed of 7 MPH. What I could see through the back window was all colorful foil packets. Maybe they were all condoms and not candy but seeing all of the pregnant ~~women~~ girls on the island I’m placing my $$ on candy.

Power went out a few times last night, not for very long though, thankful we have battery back up for the WiFi! It reminded me that power was out a week or two ago on the West end of the island because someone shot the lines with a bullet. I don’t make this shit up, I don’t need to.

I was asked to be in charge of Saturdays at the airport, making the schedules, finding subs if someone can’t make it. Last Saturday night I was making spread sheets again, good for my brain. Thank you Amanda B.

My friend Amanda Walkins, who is a blogger and also writes for several well known publications, Huffington Post, International Living to name a few, has her own blog.

In her most recent post, she talks about leaving the island and now living in Scotland. She also gives mention of my little blog. Thank you Amanda!!

From Amanda’s blog: Mermaid on a Raft: Debbie retired to Roatan and has been documenting all of her island shenanigans over the last several years. Her humor is hysterical, and her life will make you jealous if you’re still plugging away waiting to retire. She posts tons of photos from snorkeling adventures, her regular social outings with other expats, and the many volunteer activities she does all around the island. She’s incredibly helpful if you’re thinking of retiring to Roatan – be sure to reach out!

Also, Amanda’s handsome Irish Colombian boyfriend said the grape looking things I saw underwater are indeed Sea Grapes..who knew?

I hustled my butt at the airport today. It was a zoo again. Maybe I’ll only mention it when it’s slow because I’m sure everyone says why does she do it if shes going to whine about it. I’m not whining though, just remarking how freaking busy we were. I love mass pandemonium and chaos for short periods of time; therefore, the airport gig is well suited for my personality type. I love it. I worked with my friend Caroline again, we make a great team! I really enjoy meeting the new people, having them look at me with wonderment when I tell them my story of how we ended up here.

As soon as we got home, I had my daily crack.

While at the grocery store I saw Woudsin (my friend from Helene). I gave him a big hug and a kiss. Then some gringo came up and asked me if I lived here and I said sure do. He said we just bought a place, I asked where, he said Helene. He then asked if I knew Perry or Rick and I said yes, that I knew both of them but have known Perry most of my life. I put two and two together, and realized he was w/ Woudsin. He then said to me, did you spend the night at Perry’s and do you blog? I said I sure do and my overnight at Perry and Kay’s blog was called Serene Helene. He said, I read your blog and have the photos you took at Perry’s on my phone. Small island and I’m always happy to meet people with the weirdest connections to me. I told Woudsin to show them where I lived on their way up island and told them to come visit. Welcome Terry and Cal to Helene, Roatan.

The extended dog fence is moving along slowly. As expected. EVERYTHING moves slowly here except taxi’s and $$. The fence they ordered and delivered was 8′, ours is 6′. Damn. Just got the estimate for the gate and windows for the shop and plan to get them started ASAP.

When I finished my yogurt after work (airport) we grabbed a suitcase and a bag, both full of soccer jerseys and shorts and socks. We met our friend Miguel (who just came for dinner last week) with several guys from 2 different teams in Oak Ridge and Pandytown. They were very excited to be getting soccer stuff. The leader is a coach and a minister and his mission is to get the kids off of the street and playing basketball, soccer and volleyball. Our friends, Trish and Dave, from Toronto were given these uniforms by a league back in Toronto. Many thanks to the donating league and to Trish and Dave for carrying all the extra luggage down here. they made so many people (kids and adults) so happy! I will get more photos when the season begins again mid February.

It was fun to see the guys smiling and excited about having jerseys that matched. I gave the teams 2 of the soccer balls Trish and Dave brought also. I feel really good that the uniforms were given to men who still play soccer and who encourage the kids to play as well.

When I finally returned after being gone most of the day the boys were extremely happy to see me. Funny how much I miss them as well.

I still am dealing with the bruised/broken, disintegrated rib from 2 weeks ago. It hurts. I always thought my Mom was exaggerating {when she fell in the big huge green garbage bin trying to retrieve something she threw away by accident} about her ribs but I understand now that she wasn’t. Lesson learned the hard way, again.

Hasta Luego..whale sharks still on the brain.