4/13/14 Dear Mishka super yacht

4/13/14
Dear Mishka

Can you say superyacht? Ran into someone who knew a few things, it rents for 1 million dollars a week.  that itty bitty boat beside it? That's a full size fishing trawler.

Love
The Blonde

LovRe

4/11/14 Dear Mishka. A faculty outing

4/11/14

Dear Mishka,

Yesterday we took a faculty trio to Batibou Bay (Matt is now a faculty member... ooooh! I'm puffed up with pride even if he is unsure). Batibou Bay is one of the most beautiful spots on the island. It was amazing. So beautiful that scenes from Pirates of thhe Carribean were filmed there. Oh what romantic scene I wondered The pirate ships? A love scene? The great battlements of the fort?..... remember when they were stuck inside the giant golf ball and went rolling down the hill. Yep. No fancy ships or swashbuckling, just rolling in a giant hamster ball. Sigh.

Well it was still amazing. Beaches of white sands and blue waters, a reef just nearby where the waves were crashing and throwing up giant plumes to awe you. The surf coming into the beach not breaking hard but waves just big enough that if you were standing shoulder deep you better jump with them or plan on salt up your nose. The children screamed and played in the surf and the adults stood nearby, bobbing up and down in the waves as they rolled through. Occasionally being surprised by a large wave and spitting salt. We stood and bobbed and chattered like magpies. Rum punch was served and we all indulged (carefully) and laughed.

Matthew and I had brought our kites and found the high breeze lifted them easily. I was in the water “networking” (yapping about our husbands) when we noticed Matt standing at the end of the beach with the kite flying, and 2 small boys watched in rapt adoration and another running pell mell legs churning in the sand to see the flying kite. In such beautiful setting a kite of turqupoise white and black so high was an amazing sight.

Later we took the lazy rider ride on inner tubes. Lazy is right. Almost no current whatsoever and most of us kicking and paddling to move along. At the shallows you could stand on the rocks and carry your tube or pray to float. Personally I couldn't stand, my tube was stuck to my ass like it had been glued there and I couldn't get my butt out of it. The 8-year old in the lead wasnt helping by shouting from far ahead “Just stand up!!!” I did finally figure the magic trick. Turn backward an push against the rocks with your feet and shove yourself along (yes your ass paid the price, but a few bruisses compared to being hung up on the rocks like someone's lost swimsuit (no one ever wants to know how or why but we've all seen it) is no hard choice).. But Julia couldn't turn around or stand and was simply wedged on the rocks forever. After 4-5 minutes we realized the guide standing beside her trying to help couldn't get her up or out we began to laugh, and laugh somemore while trying not to fall off our own tubes where we were all flotaing away. Worst case, it was her son in the lead moving ditching his hung mother as fast as he could.

It took about 45 minutes to travel, and the guides pulled out a jar and plastic cups and served coconut rum punch to the grown ups. Oh what wonderful guides! Lord knows that Julia certainly was ready for a drink!!

At the end, the river came out on the beach right near the cliffs where we were suddenly fighting the tides and just yards away breakers were hitting the carved cliffs and sending up waves at least 50 feet or more into the air. So quiet and secluded. This is apparantly where they did more filming... now I'll recognize the background.... and remember the sights and sounds and the tang of salt in the air. If you never go anywhere else, go to Batibou Bay on the islandof Dominica.

I'll be waiting with the punch.

Love, 

The Blonde

3/31/14 Dear Mishka. Just a daily update

3/31/14

Dear Mishka,

The waves are breaking today so loudly that you can hear them from a distance and expect to see great crashing plumes from the balcony rising over the trees. Probably they aren't, likely they're only a foot or 2 in height but they run the length of the beach creating such noise with little waves. Matthew's out playing in waves like a happy little seal for you now. For a man that couldn't swim a month ago we can keep him out of the water now. I'm never seen anyone take to it so quickly. Nor have I ever seen anyone quite so white. We'll have to make sure that we keep the sun him lotion lathered on him.

Of course this means I must be a site myself, having purchased at wearing my first bikini since I was in my twenties. Thank god we have to beach to ourselves. Otherwise I think I would frighten someone into believing it spirits. I want to lay back on the beach in the sun. Of course Matt stays in the water bobbing and ducking under. So, like a mother watching her child I find I cannot close my eyes in rest because I have to stop and watch him every few moments even when he is only walking in the surf. I worried because he is so very very new to swimming. And I have been swimming for over 40 years. Even I know to respect the ocean currents and waves like this. It's tempting to go to a more pubic beach but I'm afraid someone may take me for dead fish tangled in a pink net. Matthew is still in the water paddling paddling paddling. And riding waves with a young boys happy grin on his face. he looks for seashells and treats them like small treasures and get so excited he has to show me each or bettre, give them to me as small gifts in different places at different times. My shell of the day.

Love,

The Blonde

3/29/14 Dear Mishka. Just a an average letter

3/29/14

Dear Mishka

So today is finally raining. I mean real rain. Like Michigan (If Michigan had palm trees and coconuts), pretty steady and then every now and then it's really hard for a couple moments again. It will be interesting beach combing today when I walk Matthew to work will have to see what is waiting for us.

Some time later as the Disney movies would say



The morning it at last stopped raining except the occasional drizzle. But it's raining now truly hard because the palm leaves are drooping under the water but if you look across the rich green the distance between you and the sky you can see it coming down like a fine haze. I expect to be soaked by the time I meet up with Matthew. But I think walking along the beach in this will be wonderful. And of course if it gets too heavy, I'll just run to the nearest palm tree and cower like a frightened little lobster staring into a bowl of butter. But I must admit looking at the green the word verdant seems the most appropriate that comes to mind. Is it me using a 50 cent word? Or is it simply the most appropriate to describe the world that I see around me as waves are harder than I've become used to.



But somehow still the same, so gentle even with the crashing so much louder today. I wonder how high the tide will reach before retrieving Matthew from his air conditioned little cage (I should mentioned that on an island in the Caribbean air conditioning makes people envious of your cage)



Last night was the spaghetti dinner for the students (hosted by a local restaurant for all of them, the U being small enough to pull this off), there are so many volunteers they were able to set it up for everyone. Matthew's knight in shining armor kicked in and agreed to be on cleanup duty. I'm glad we did it as we met a professor of microbiology and his companion who told us we should look up at the the night sky rolling in to discover it was clear enough and we got a look for the first time at the infamous green flash at sunset. It was amazing. It didn't even last a heartbeat but it was truly green. I've heard people who say that it's fiction until they are actually standing here within sight. I've heard about it in pirate movies but I never knew that it was real, this time I got to see it for myself..

Love
The Blonde

3/20/14 Dear Mishka. Sea shells

3/20/14

Dear Mishka

I've been quite lucky so far with my walks along the beach. The first day there was a very large conch shell in shades of cream and gray. Needless to say I trotted up like any tourist, pounced on it and stuffed it into my bag crying "Mine!" (remember Tank Girl?). Last week during an evening walk in the dark with Matthew and a flashlight we discovered a piece of sea sponge turning and rolling in the surf. That particular piece of sea life bounced its way right into my living room.

Later while discussing my goodies, I was told by one of the people that works here that she had been walking the beach for 4 years and have never found anything like that. I guess I'm lucky. But then Murphy's Law found me again. For the first time ever a swarm of jellyfish has been washed up on the shore right here at a pretty private white sand beach. And I wanted to go paddling today. Well you can't win them all.

I have to settle for sitting on the balcony and watching the tall mastered ships go by in the breeze. Loki sits with me these days, he got used to his leash and harness and we made his leash long enough for him to pounce upon to the table for a better view. You should see his face in the breeze and he is sniffing. His head tilted back and his eyes are squeezed shut and his little nose is twitching faster than you can imagine.

Love
The Blonde

3/27/14 Dear Mishka. My first experience with the kitchen

3/27/14
Dear Mishka,


Let me tell you the saga of a brave little stove. Some time during the week I decided it was cookie time. Warm chocolate chips like mom used to make.. Mostly for myself because I had a craving. And of course I told everybody it was all for Matt because I'm such a great wife (stop laughing! I am too!).

Anyway, I discovered that the stove would not turn on. The burners would light slightly if you used a lighter but no oven. I pushed buttons in and out because the stove labels are gone completely by now, it's a bit on the well used side. After pushing and pulling and waving a grill lighter around like a magic wand I came to a decision.. No such luck. Time to call maintenance!

Maintenance around here is delightful. Always quick and helpful. This time they quickly attempted to be helpful. The first man was Robert, who I suspect was the gardener based on his sun hat and gardening boots. He and I sit around discussing how to push buttons and pull levers, and I'm helping as only I can when I can barely make out what someone is saying and absolutely nothing helps. Not match nor lighter or even a prayer.

Now make the all important phone call to the head of maintenance who is home sick with the flu. Aforesaid gentleman proceeds to tell us over the phone that the switch on the wall where the plugged in is probably off. We had a bit of trouble explaining to him that there was no switch, no outlet, and no plug. Well that is poor Roberts was explaining everything over the phone to Joey for the third time.

During this delightful highly productive time period I spotted my neighbor Anne. Time to ask someone with experience here. Anne has lived here for about 30 years, much of it in this apartment complex. Anne walked in and pointed out there was a plug in back, a very short one, she also explained that the crimp in the hose she could see was not helping. So under her firm and knowing direction Robert and the younger gardener, named Ronan, proceeded to drag the oven out from its location unkink the line and discover that there was a plug and it had a number of feet of cord that has been stuffed into some open space in the back of the oven. Oh THAT sounds safe.... We pulled it out and ran it down the wall to the nearest outlet. Tah Dah! A plug leading to a socket and a switch... gosh what an unusually familiar sight. Joey also explained to us that the button with pretty little star was the igniter... for the whole beast. It makes a hell of a noise while creating electrical shocks, mostly because it ignites all the burners and the oven at the same time by creating electrical sparks at each location. The only difference is whether or not you have turned on the gas, something I was actually hesitant to do by this time, golly gee why?


Again we attempted to turn everything on and I should mention Anne's dog Raz had snuck in my apartment when the door was left open and was also in the kitchen, bringing the total to 5. Little devil was not supposed to be there so he stood in absolute silence watching us. I thought his sneaky silence and freezing in place was actually quite adorable, not allowed but still adorable for a true shaggy dog. And then Anne spotted him, reminded him he did not live here so he gave us a bit of a dejected huff and left. Lovely.

And it was then that the Gods of the Ovens spit at us, laughed, and then left.


So in our infinite wisdom and experience we decided the tank must be out of propane, so Robert went into town for one. Now these suckers are full size and weight a ton. When they got back in a surprisingly short amount of time (no “island time” here) he and Ronan wrestled it out of the back of a truck and dragged it to the apartment and plugged it in. When they moved the old one they discovered it was still quite heavy and full. But just to check on things we went inside again turning things on with the new tank.. Sure as shit those burners lit like a dream, and so did the oven. So out they went to put the old tank back on. Guess what? The Oven Gods were still laughing. It appears something is creeping around inside the old tank occasionally creeping up to block the flow of propane and snickering.

So the poor gardeners proceed to unhook, drag, drag again, hook again, and press buttons again. Once again everything lights like a charm. I even let every single burner at the same time and left them running and it worked just fine. Then we decided to turn on the oven, a bit nerve-racking since earlier when the igniter wasn't working we could hear gas flow quite heavily and smell it. Not reassuring to people waving a grill lighter around. So most of us take a step back and we let Roberts have the honor of potentially blowing himself up. Darned if that puppy didn't light. We were all amazed and thanked our Oven Gods. And then they informed us they weren't done yet, and the oven began to start smoking. As my husband would say, head wall head wall head wall.

Robert decided it was simply dirty and pulled out the racks and grabbed a rag from the sink. He bent over and insisted that he clean the oven, not me. I felt a bit foolish watching somebody else do my job. But when he finished and lit the oven.. no more smoke. The racks went back in and the gentlemen left with my profuse thanks.


Of course the story CANNOT end of there. My oven actually did not continue lighting and the broiler didn't light at all. We spoke with Joey, AKA Mr. Astaphan, who turned out to be a phenomenal ass, and after a long bit of bitching he sent out an actual repair crew. They were here for about 2 hours removing part scraping parts and putting parts back. I felt more faith as they had actual tool kits (our gardeners had none and parts IN the tool kits for the oven and for cleaning little parts. When these Oracles of the Oven Gods finished I had a fully operating oven!!! My religion had changed.

Everything looks like it should, work like it should and warms like it should. To celebrate I baked a chocolate cake and put cream cheese frosting on it for Matthew. I also have my originally desired batch of chocolate chip cookies prepped and in the batters box (no pun intended, well maybe a little intended). Now we have to wait and see how it turned out.

Love, The Blonde

P.S. - I realized shortly after that there were no temperature marks on the oven either. So an oven thermometer (ok, 2 of them) was purchased and placed inside. There appears to be no control, it heats and keeps heating.  I wait until its ALMOST at temp and stuff in my baking quickly. After all this living hell... I can live with this. No one touch my stove! It now works!!  No touchy!!!