from my other space: fallen

self delusion rendered to tiny bits of flotsam,

fading into the aquamarine.



ephemeral technology the lifeline that stills the drowning

the voice, velvet steel soft,

reminiscent of evenings of music, real food and secret promises.

feeds the soul.


fingers twitching to trace spine and skull in a single sinuous line.

hand trapped like a fragile bird in an iron cage,

sweet breath in my hair.

an arched back, an elbow, a flexed knee.

the slow rumble of belly laughter and a smile.

feeds desire.


the discovery of almonds, the same cadence walking.

the protective hand in the middle of my back,

possessive yet barely there not interfering with my freedom.

silly ditties, serious conversation and silence that never really is.

feeds the heart.


and decade old walls come a crumbling down,

bits of sand into the whirlwind

to fade into the aquamarine.

Last day of February

whoosh and It's gone. bye bye winter - get the hell out of dodge.

I may have missed 3 weeks of January, but SNAP - February wasn't much better. less snow, but holy hannah it was -50C a couple of mornings with the windchill. 4 days - 4 my car wouldn't start! In the 4 years I've owned it it was maybe 2 days a winter.

Ah well - the warming trend will continue. Even if it's a cold summer, it will still BE summer.

As for the rest of the vacation notes, those will get posted as I find the time. Suffice to say - it was GLORIUS!

Cannot wait to go back ;)

the too long weekend

Caught up with family, framily and famdamnily.
Wings at eagles,bbq, key lime pie at Table 10, grilled roasted beef at Kory's, stirfry with Devi, brekky with the girls, scrabble with Mailibu, bday drinks with Tararaboomdeay. Errands, and stuff for annette, gardening supplies and a pressure cooker, lottery tickets for Sheri and I. Martinis with Shane & Joe for the bday, shenanigans at OHans, coffee with Amanda's crew & cocktails with Patty's. Cleared some more crap out of my room, fought, almost lost but eventually won the battle between the cold and the running of the dAKar. Groceries, APPLE PIE, gas and fuel injection cleaner. Serious Martguerita's, Mikes Hard and a bottle of Wolf Blass along with great company. Today's plans all awry, Dan called away and Murray sick.

Murray promoted to THE chef at Table 10, looks like Chris may have a handle on a better job, Autumn made the range team (we nordquist girls seem to have an exceptional aptitude with weapons)The kitchen reno is delayed a week and Deb is off to Cowtown tomorrow.

Then its back to crazytown fallout from the fullmoon and the highrise stack of work on my desk that I need to clear before the boss gets back next Monday.

Nite.

past the ides of February

... and just realized that I am missing half the holiday stuff. searching.

In the meantime:
My big news this week is about my shopping trip on Sunday. As we know I have been losing inches - and I have almost pantsed myself at work when my black pants got too loose. So I took my fanatical paranoia of to Penningtons (they had a sale on) and determined that I was not leaving until I had a pair of pants that fit me.

Two armloads of pants into the dressing room, the sales girl shaking her head, and an hour and a half later, I found a pair that I liked AND were too big. OH NO I wailed to myself in my head. They're TOO big... and for sure the next size down will be TOO small... wahhhhhh. At that point the sales girl was starting to worry about me and came to my rescue as I threw the pants in question over the door and whispered "bring me a size smaller please" as if a normal voice would shrink any clothes she brought me.

Voila - she brings me the pair I like by MXM a brand that I have not been able to wear because they don't go as large as I used to be. (They say they do but they fit a size small) and it is 2 sizes smaller than what I was wearing in December. I swear I sat in that changing room staring at them for 15 minutes before I would even attempt them.

Hola my friend - they fit (they're a bit stretchy) but they fit well! OMG.... only $45. and then I found 2 more pair of same style different season for $10 each. I have now worn each pair to work - keepers all and tonight I am going home and tossing every pair of jeans I own larger than the ones I have on. (And my ass looks terrific ;)

And I started deep water aquafit (Y MCA north)yesterday - twice a week, and I think there is aquacize at the Y downtown twice a week too, and once the ice is gone I'll be walking to work again.

Woop Woop - we'll see how long this lasts ;)

However, the big fat lump that used to be my back is in the process of melting and has been reduced to what look like they may be side curves and 6 baby back breasts.

These days its all about finding that balance baby!

happy VD

I haven't been even remotely interested in Valentine's Day for over 7 years.

And now when I am, the distance slays me.

Thank the 100 little gods for the telephone and texting.

But it's still just not enough.

Holiday Sun-Wed Jan16-19

With Kory laid up we were sticking pretty close to home, mind you this trip was pretty laid back already and I was loving it. Magic coffee and a book 1st thing in the am while Bren fed the resort kitties.



A sashay out somewhere to have/get/pick up breakfast. A dip in the ocean, some beach time and then back to the rooms for a nuncheon - usually wraps from our forays at the local HiLo. A visit from Doc &/or Brent, a trip to town if supplies were needed (read beer, rum cream or cell minutes).



Some patio time with the brother, an afternoon siesta to avoid the worst heat of the day and any chance of sunburn;)and up again in time for some more ocean or a visit to the beach bar before foraging for supper. I would recommend this to anyone.

More specifically, Fri and Sunday nites were usually spent at least partly at Traveller's doing Jamaican Karaoke. Several shopping trips with Doc - awandering in order to figure out what we were bringing back with us. A visit or two to the local Cambio to exchange money. Making friends with the locals - some of the people staying in the condos have families that have been coming here for decades. What a cast of characters!

I had the chance to discover some local "not tourist" attractions - little teeny restaurants where they serve "real" food, rice & peas, plantains, dumplings, curried goat, oxtail, yams, callaloo, brown chicken, jerk everything from fish to beef and even on salad, coco bread, saltfish & Ackee, grilled lobster all at half the cost of the bigger restaurants - and my god the portions. I don't think there was one meal that I could completely finish. The flavours and seasoning to die for, and the joy of watching some of your meal being prepared right in front of you. Of course there was also the pattie man just down the road - always a treat, and I like the beef ones best. The plethora of small roadside bars is amazing, and I didn't find a single one that didn't have ice cold guinness for less than $3. Every time I went to a new place and ordered guinness it was an experience, since it is apparently rare for women in Jamaica to drink it. It's considered a "tonic", mind you the foreign export is 6.5%. But it is soooo good. The bonus was that once I'd been to one place, every time I went back they knew what I wanted.

And music music everywhere - The horn language of the cars, taxi rados, shop stereos, boom boxes, restaurants, all the bars roadside or beach, I swear Jamaica must have the highest number of speakers per capita in all the world. It was fantastic. People breaking into song at random moments, dancing along the verge of the road or on the beach and if I knew the tune I was singing too - not well perhaps but always enthusiastically. Whether they enjoyed my additions or were just amused by the crazy lady didn't even matter cause we all just laughed and kept on along ...

Kerry & Beffie landed at the RIU on Sunday. Brent P had to leave us on Monday, Asquith on Tuesday, but we knew that Thursday the Rowleys, Ray Ray and Charlie would arrive so there was some balance. I was just glad that I could park my generous seating capacity on the beach and not even consider winter.

Pants? Mittens? Coats? What the hell are those?

holiday saturday the 2nd, Jan 15 ~ the damage

Ocean, tropics, friends, lazy days - if only Brenda and I had known, one of us surely would have gone to watch the Steelers. Unfortunately, neither of us is prescient and so my dear brother stepped in a pothole when catching the taxi back to Mariners after the game (which we abandoned him to watch alone)and the ankle went one way and the knee the other.

Holy crapola was his leg swollen. Sat nite in a foreign country with the closest hospital an hour away, the local medicenter closed till Monday and the 800 number for our Travel Insurance agency NOT working. Thank the hundred little gods that it wasn't life threatening. Even the direct line for out country emergency calls put him on hold 3 different times for over half an hour on international cell phone rates. REALLY!

Improvise & overcome. Leg up and immobile, pain meds & red stripe until Doc could get a pair of crutches for him from Savannah la Mar - 30 miles away. At least he could get around the room a bit and out to the patio. Our friends the Rowleys brought in a metal reinforced knee brace from Canada the following Thursday which saved our asses I am sure. It was 8 days before he could crutch hobble the block to the restaurant for a meal NOT served in styrofoam or takeaway containers.



Thank goodness for friends, the fridge and the microwave in their room. Lots of company - Doc & Annette, Brent P, me & Ivan, Brent & Sheri R, Ray Ray & Charlie, Asquith, Statement, Kerry & Beffie - but still a hell of a way to spend half your vacay. Upon arrival at home his dad took him straight to hospital where it was determined over the next few days that he had a fracture in his knee and 2 in his tibia - so he's off the leg for the next 6 - 8 weeks. But since we did what our docs would have done except for the Xray etc, being in Jamaica was waaaay better than being in the -41 degree C temps here at home.

and in the meantime ....

a new religion that will bring you to your knees ... black velvet if you please.

gotta love the retro

from the holiday - told you I'd catch up

Thursday coninued: So I left off at the beginning of the great cake experiment. Suffice to say we were excited to see if it would turn out. I used a from scratch pound cake recipe, added an extra egg, an extra tsp of baking powder, several ergs of beating (after smacking Brent's fingers that he kept sticking in the batter) I had to promise him all the bowls to lick after:
and then we split it into two cake pans. We added a shwack of cocoa to half the batter, and then a bit more because it didn't smell quite chocolatey enough, and had some fun making marble patterns in the pan. Meanwhile Doc hacked up the fish outside with his machete - which we took away and replaced with an edged knife and started to get the fish stew he was cooking under the house going.
28 miutes later and VOILA - 2 marble pound cakes - almost left them in too long in fact. Then it was icing time - more beating - Annette did most of that - and garnished with flakes of choco-cinnamon stick Doc puts in his tea. Here is the result:


This is Doc cooking:


Supper was delicious ;) dessert was wonderful! And there's enough ingredients to make another.

And then it was Friday - brekky at Traveller's on the deck overlooking the ocean - a beautiful beach day. Hit the ocean and then to relax and enjoy our almond tree as we watched the people in the neighbourhood stroll the beach:



Big surf and I love my waterproof camera. Thank you Canon.



And Steve West is playing troubadour today. Where but in Jmaica?



After sunset it was back to Traveller's for karaoke with Brenda and Kory, Brent, Doc, Annette, Ivan and I - OH what a shoooow! And of course the lovely Brenda was a smash hit - songbird that she is:)

Little did we know that it would be Kory's last night out with us before the pothole incident that resulted in what we eventually found out was 3 fractures in his leg. But that's for another day.
respect!

singing ABBA - take a chance take a chance

take a chance take a chance
take a chance on meeeeeee

62 days

small things

A discussion about how to grow the fattest peas and what to use as insecticide on leafy greens and everything is all bettah.