Unwritten

beach day with Conal, me and Maria

I am unwritten, it's just the beginning, the ending is unplanned.  I was almost finished with this blog when my trusty macBook decided to suddenly shut down on me, it's amazing the things that breakdown here.  It's like a vortex for things breaking down; both people and things.  I had everything done except for the ending, but I guess I'll just have to try it again.  Staring at the blank page before me, I'll search for the words and hopefully they will come to me again.

Lets start with last night.  Last night was my first night as a bartender at the Blue Marlin.  Who knew that I would come down to Roatan and become a waitress and bartender.  I guess I just do things in opposite order than most, seeking out my own way, my own path and sometimes breaking tradition.  I started my "work career" in corporate America, moving around small business and now almost finishing the dive master and waiting tables and bartendering.  I show up at the Marlin around 7 after another wonderful day at the beach with Amanda, Mo and Max at Sundowners.  Eddie gives me the lay of the land and then around 9 pm or so the power goes out.  No problem because they have a generator.  Eddie goes to turn on the generator and someone, one of our neighbors has been tampering with it.  We decide to light the candles and continue serving beers and maybe soon we will be closing down and drinking somewhere else.  It's Pete's last night and Joe's too.  People start filling in the bar and Eddie turns to me and says, wow we might actually makes some money tonite.  It's a fun crowd and after a couple of hours the power turns on again.  It was a good night, Eddie sure knows how to run a bar and the tips were decent.

my roommate's porno x rays and retard pills

I worked at the Argentinean on Tuesday again and have picked up a few more shifts this and next week.  I'm holding my own and trying not to get too frustrated that I have to share my tips.  I had two tables that tipped me $30 and of course had to share with the other waitstaff, which I don't mind giving for two of the three because two of them work their butts off, but the third doesn't speak English so never takes orders.  Whatever, it's better than at the other restaurant I worked here.  Tuesday night was slow, but I got to hang out with the always fun and sassy Maria Jose.  I had seen her Sunday at the beach and she was a pretty tipsy and sassy then.  I've been going to the beach a lot lately, working on my highlights and tan before I go to Colorado, I have to have something to show for my time here especially if I can't tell my boys back home that I am a dive master officially.  My friend Lanai might be helping me with the equipment exchange when I get back because he is an instructor.  He says he wants to do it in Lake Dillon in May when it's cold, I say no, I say warm, maybe a pool and I can't go too deep because I want my ear to be all better.  It comes a bit full circle all the time because my boys are one of the main reasons why I am here and doing my dive master, it's a bit funny if Lanai finishes my certification.  Really, my show should be a life... you can't write it better than real life.  You cannot make this shit up.

I saw Dreamboat again last Friday.  It was my first shift at the Marlin doing the tables and he pops in to say hi before he went to have dinner with his crewmates.  I took Amanda's shift at the bar because she had fallen down the stairs while it was raining.  She's an instructor at one of the other dive shops in town and can't dive until it's clear that her ribs are not broken.  We went to the hospital on Monday which was a bit of a fiasco.  We go into Woods Clinic to get X rays.  I tell the nurses that she needs X rays because she has fallen down the stairs, we don't have to wait too long and soon they are taking the X rays.  After the first slide was inconclusive the doctor orders a second look.  The X rays aren't that clear, you can see her spine quite well but the area that is hurt, her ribs that connect to her sternum where the pain is are very vague.  The doctor thinks that one might be fractured. So they take a second look, this time she thinks that they are fine.  Since it's very important to know if they are fractured or broken because she's a diver they ask for the specialist to come down and take a look.  If her ribs are fractured or broken and she goes diving they could puncture a lung and then she could never dive again.  So while we are waiting for the specialist, the doctor decides to put her on an IV with codeine for the pain and give her oxygen.  The nurse stabs her multiple times while trying to put in the IV, I'm watching as Amanda's watching me make horrific faces and the lady is stabbing her.  Finally the specialist comes and this time what do you know they put her in a different position to look at the ribs.  The specialist also asks again for her name, they've asked about 5 times for her name and age and the specialist also asks when she fell, which is something the other doctor did not do.  When we finally do get the X rays for her to take home they have her name completely wrong; it says Aminda Lawrence- not even close to her last name.  So for the final X rays they have her face the slide instead of take a picture of her back.  We had heard a horror story this weekend about a guy who had broke his arm and they took X rays of the wrong arm, we thought how hard would it be to mess up the ribs and wouldn't you say that if they were taking X rays of the wrong arm you would say something.  Oh, lessons to be learned.  Well, the X rays are inconclusive and she has to go back for more in a few days.  We go to pay and they are trying to charge her for the X rays that the doctors messed up, they also are trying to charge her for pain pills which she doesn't want and anti-inflamatory pills.  We discuss with them and take off the bill by about half and head to find the bus back home.  I had asked a few different people how to catch the bus back to West End and got a few different answers and we walked around for a little bit in the pouring rain.  The directions were something like take a right down the sidewalk across from the grocery store, down the side walk and at the end of it.  First of all there are so many little groceries in Coxen Hole and yes there are sidewalks everywhere.  We finally get it and walk down a sidewalk only street and find a bus back home.  At home, Amanda looks at her pills and they say retard on them.  She got retard pills for falling down the stairs.

dreamy Charlie, Dreamboat and me

Oh ya, did I mention that I'm living with Amanda now?  I'll get back to the Dreamboat story in a bit or maybe I'll tell it in chronological order from now on instead of jumping back and forth.  It's fun this jumping back and forth isn't it?  It's like me, I don't know what's happening next.  Today is where the book begins, the rest is still unwritten.  Ok, Dreamboat, he is a fun story.  So after he eats dinner with his crew he stops by the Blue Marlin.  I'm sitting chatting with Mo because the dinner crowd has calmed down, the band The Lyin' Fish are now playing and soon crazy Paul will start up his show of playing the Rolling Stones on the big screen.  A 100 ft screen on two plywood pieces, it's a bit comical.  Dreamboat comes up and starts chatting with us, Mo tells me that I can go and hang out with him and they don't need me anymore at work.  The boat crew, their newest infatiuations and my newest decide that they want to check out all the bars.  Being the only "local" I take them to Perry's Floating Bar.  We hang out there for a little bit and then head over to the new bar 50 Bar.  Amanda had gone home earlier in the night but we found her and a dreamy guy named Charlie at 50 bar.  We dance, we have fun, we kiss it's fun.  He was fun to talk with and to kiss.  He was one of those in your life that maybe he was a figment of your imagination.   A charming guy to make you believe in fairytales, so freaking cute and at least for the two nights that I saw him we could believe in fairytales again.  

max and his ice cream

amanda and her wine

The day after Dreamboat night Amanda, Mo, Max and I decided to go to West Bay for a beach day.  The girls had some wine and Max had a few ice creams.  We sat under the grass huts for lunch and then worked on our tans for the rest of the day.  I was moving out of Pete and Bridget Jones' place and into Sunset Villas with Amanda, so we left the beach and moved me from one place to the next.  Amanda and I had many tentative plans that night but only ended up going to Kala and Chase's for indian curry dinner.  We were supposed to meet Conal and DMT2 at the Blue Marlin, we of course were running late and when we got there only Conal was there.  I needed to find Pete to give him the keys to his place because Bridget Jones was in La Ceiba figuring out what was wrong at a far superior hospital on the mainland.  We ran over to Sundowners and found DMT2 talking to some girl and he said he may or may not being coming to dinner, still no Pete.  I ran back to the Marlin and dropped the keys off with Fou for Pete in the likelyhood that he would stop by there, which of course he did.  We took a taxi to Kala and Chase's bungalow in the mangroves.  There apartment is awesome.  Most of the living space is outside with an amazing deck, a short walk to the beach, a fountain with a bench to sit and read and a boat slip for the owner.  There is also a jacuzzi but they haven't used it quite yet.  Kala was making amazing chicken curry and Chase had made the delicious naan bread.  We sat down to eat when Chase got a call, 5 minutes later DMT2 and the amazing Jenny Blenny show up.  I love Jenny Blenny and was so lucky to hang out with her.  There was 2 instructors, 2 dive masters and 3 DMT's so of course we talked about diving and shops.  Jenny is still on crutches but her spirit is still strong.  After dinner we headed back into town and stopped off at the Blue Marlin.  Jenny, Amanda and I are divers who have been out of the water and we saw the most amazing thing at the Marlin.  3 small eagle rays played for 45 minutes off the back deck where Tyll's keeps their boat.  Amanda said they were there just for the 3 of us.  Jenny said she loved how they would flip their wings so for a few seconds you would see the white underbelly exposed, quite coquettish like a girl showing the underside of her skirt.  Amanda said that they looked like they were learning how to fly.  I agree with them both and was so happy to see 3 eagle rays while not diving.  They floated back and forth in between the light and dark.

Saturday was another beach day!  The waves had picked up because a storm was coming and Amanda and I took one of the last water taxis out of West End to West Bay.  We met up with Chase, Kala, Conal and DMT2.  Chase and Kala brought their blow up turtles to lounge on and we lounged on the white mattresses at the Beach Club.  I ran into my coworker Maria who was on fire and a bit drunk.  We had a good time goofing around.  We also ran into our neighbors and dreamy Charlie.  Since there was no more taxis back to West End we hopped into the back of a the neighbor's truck and back to Sunset Villas.  At our place we had our second dinner party in a row.  Conal, two neighbors, dreamy Charlie, DMT2 and I ate Amanda's amazing pasta dish.  Someone had a little bit too much to drink and he entertained us for most of the night, our stomachs hurt from laughing too much the next day.  He slept on the couch and in the middle of the night I woke up to him coughing his brains out, but luckily he just needed some water.  The next night since Amanda made the boys dinner, they decided that they would make us dinner.  It was a rainy day and Amanda and I had been walking around Coxen Hole going to the hospital and then trying to find the bus station.  We had felt the rain on our skin all day and it's always nice for boys to cook for you.  Mo and Max came over and dreamy Charlie made an incredible dinner.  We had a good time and went to bed early.


I booked my ticket, or I should say after much hassle wit the travel guard people who were  of no help what so ever my mom bought my ticket home.  I'll be living in my parents basement for a bit, but it all comes full circle.  I'm leaving April 13th and flying out of San Pedro Sula.  DMT2 is leaving around the same time out of San Pedro so we might go together, but things can always change.  I can't believe it's set in stone that I'm leaving.  I watched Alice in Wonderland this morning with Amanda and at the end, don't worry I won't ruin it for you, at the end the Mad Hatter says to Alice, why don't you stay in Wonderland forever?  She says, well there are things I need to do at home.  I feel you Alice, no more wonderland for me soon.  I'm reaching out in the distance to home but still  having a great time here.  I have 2 good paying jobs now and an amazing roommate/friend, great friends and a good clean place to live.  It's so perfect I can almost taste it, but lets not get too ahead of ourselves it's still unwritten here.  As that song Nasha Bedingfield says " feel the rain on your skin, no one else can feel it for you, only you can let it in, no one else, no one else, can speak the words on your lips, drench yourself in words unspoken, live your life with arms wide open, today is where your book begins... the rest is still unwritten."

two eagle rays at the Marlin

Endings

The worst part about stories are the endings.  I can love a book up until the last page or a movie until the last moment and then it’s completely ruined.  All that good stuff before is ruined because someone decided that everything had to be perfect.  Of course, sometimes things do end up perfectly and of course I do love the occasional sappy chick flick or feel good book where the girl and the guy end up happily ever after and everything works out the simplest way in the end.  I’m lying, I love happy endings, but they don’t always come out in real life as a happy ending which is why I don’t know if I believe in happy endings.  I guess my story still has some more meat to it, more juicy details and gossip, more adventures and flirting.  It’s not over yet, but it’s coming to an end and I’m wondering what the ending will be like.

I can feel it in my bones that it’s time to leave and it’s time to have my ending here, that and of course the fact that the doctor said that my perforation is slowly healing now and it will take, he estimates, another month before I can get in the water and then another month for the pressure of diving not cause another tear.  I can feel that things are coming to an end here for me.  Maybe it’s like those athletes who retire on top, I feel like I finally have found a place for myself here. I’ve achieved so much with diving and have been so grateful for the diving I’ve done.  I have very good friends and have made amazing connections. There are those people, who say that oh you’ll come back, or I was supposed to leave and have been here for 3 years, but I can feel it inside- I’m going to leave and the part that makes me tear up is that I don’t know when I’ll be back.  I love this place with all its quirks and absolute absurdities, I also dislike a lot about it as well.  There was one night before Robyn left that Mo, Robyn and I sat down and were having a bad day and decided to make our top ten things that we hate about the island.  No good food choices, the toilet paper going in the can instead of the toilet, Mo has a thing about the To Go cups and the To Go boxes, never being able to find what you need when you need it, the electricity going off whenever it really pleases, the bugs: sand flies, mosquitoes, and cockroaches, the men who hiss at you, the men who ask you if you want a taxi to West Bay every day and then when you do need a taxi they are no where to be found, seeing if the atm is working, seeing if the internet is working, well there’s a lot of things to dislike, but there are some great things as well.

So about a week ago I went to AKR to see the doctor again.  I went with my roommate, my own British little Bridget Jones.  She is sick as well and has had a hard time figuring out what exactly needs to be done to make her feel better.  She was scared and I told her I would go with her wherever she needed to go.  So we began first with Clinica Esperanza.  It was a Saturday and when we showed up the taxi driver said, oh the steel drum band.  We didn’t understand in our dysfunction of being sick, but when we stepped out and the taxi drove away we saw that they were having a party, with the steel drum band.  We wander along the clinic and finally found someone who said, yep they are closed today and off we went in another taxi to AKR.  At AKR we waited an hour and half because they were at lunch and then came late.  My Bridget Jones went in first and the doctor said she needed to go to a hospital where they could take more tests.  The doctor then gave me the news.  Yes, your ear is slowly healing, but he estimates another month and then after that he wants me not to dive because the eardrum will still be weak and pressure might cause it to burst or tear.  Sigh.  We then went in another taxi to the public hospital.  Picture a clay facade, a one story with Hospital Publica written on the front.  The front was the best part of the hospital.  It was scary, I thought that Woods Clinic where I went when I had malaria was bad.  The hospital was a maze of courtyards and wooden shacks.  We found the emergency room and asked if they could do the tests.  They wouldn’t be able to until Monday morning and the doctor at AKR had said that she needed the test as soon as possible.  We left the shack of a hospital and walked the few blocks to Woods Clinic.  The lab technician was at a wedding until 6, but she would be back so another taxi ride back to West End, because it was only 2 pm at this time and my poor roommate was tired.  They gave her two jam jars; one for urine and one for feces, then told her that she needed to keep them in the freezer until she came.  The poor, poor girl.  At 5:30 we caught another taxi and headed to Coxen Hole and the clinic.  We waited in the waiting room, they took blood, she gave only one of the samples in the jam jar and wrote her name on a piece of paper.  In the end, they said that she needed more tests, which they couldn’t do at the hospital, and that she would need to go to the mainland for more tests with correct equipment.  At 8 pm we found our second to last taxi of the night.  We get in, the driver is on the phone, then about 2 minutes later after driving through Coxen Hole, the driver turns around and says in very good English, by the way I am charging you $10 each to go to West End.  This is a taxi that should cost about $1 or $2 each.  We get out, my poor roomie has balls of steel to get through the day and to put up with all the uncertainty not to mention, oh by the way you’ve been in a lot of taxis all day and paid a pretty penny not to figure out what is wrong and now the taxi driver wants to rip her off.  We get home and she goes straight to bed.  Me, it’s been a long day.  I’ve decided that I will go home soon to Colorado.  I decide to go to the Blue Marlin and tell Mo that I’m leaving and have one drink. 

I haven’t really had anything to drink recently so Eddie gives me a screwdriver on the house because I have tears in my eyes.  I call Kala and Chase who are having dinner with his mom and DJ and tell them over the phone that I am leaving soon.  They show up at the bar and I start crying, I can’t hold it in any longer.  I am the girl at the bar crying.  There is always a first time for everything.  They give me big hugs and hang out for a bit, Mo who has been working comes over.  I tell her and Eddie my news in between tears.  Max is running around, playing his guitar with the local band that is playing.  I feel so loved to have these amazing people that I have met and become close with and so sad that I won’t see them everyday.  The local reggae band starts playing “Every little thing is going to be alright”.  Pete comes by the bar and we all get up and start dancing.  I’m fighting back the tears and smiling because these are the moments that I’ll miss.  Everyone dancing, having a good time and being with the people that I love here.  More friends come, a local guy named Artley who is a fisherman and a local playboy comes and talks to Mo and me and promises to take us on a fishing trip with Max.  He buys us shots.  Mo has been working at Blue Bahia, a resort here and her two new Spanish guy friends who are tech divers come by.  They are absolutely adorable.  I talk to them for a while and then DJ, Adam, Conal and DMT2 show up.  I end up talking with DMT2 and then end the night.

The next day good news comes in the form of a phone call from the Argentinean Grill asking me if I will work that night.  I love working there.  There are 3 other wait staff working; Johnnan, Diana and my favorite little Nica Maria Jose.  I’m the only native English speaker although the rest of the crew have their levels of comprehension.  The three managers Annalia, Uyle and Suaypa are so nice as well.  The kitchen is organized and clean.  Everything has a method of doing things and the night ended with a decent tip and the time flew by.  At the end of the night we are sitting around waiting for the money to be counted and everyone is speaking in Spanish, I’m trying to keep up but tired from the work and from the night before.  The Grill is closed on Mondays but Annalia, the Argentinean with her absolutely beautiful accent tells me I did a great job and they want me to work on Tuesday.  It was night and day from the other restaurant I had worked at and it was great not to be the only wait staff and to have a kitchen that runs well.  They give us pizza for dinner to go, which is very nice, but unfortunately I’m lactose intolerant.  I miss pizza the most, no I miss a lot of things about not eating cheese, but I used to live on pizza when I was in college and living in New York.  I go home and hang out with my roommates and give Pete the pizza.  We hang out for a bit watching Dream Girls and chatting more than watching the film.  I curl up on the couch at the end of the night and have sweet dreams.  Every little thing is going to be alright.

The next day Amanda and I had made plans to hang out after she got off of work.  Kala, Chase, Conal, DMT2, Adam and Maggie and I watch the sunset at Sundowners while I wait for Miss Amanda.  Great conversation, beautiful people and the talk of traveling.  Kala and Chase are heading to Nicaragua soon for a trip.  Conal is headed back to the UK in a couple of weeks.  It all seems to be coming to an end.  The beautiful thing about traveling is the people you meet and the hopes of seeing them again.  Amanda meets us at the Blue Marlin, we then head to the Dive where Brion James is playing with the talented Pia Flores.  We dance, people leave and then little Miss Amanda decides that it’s a perfect nite to go to this one bar to dance the rest of the night away.  Amanda, a friend of hers and DMT2 and I head in that direction.  Along the way we run into Fish.  I pop in the bar he’s at and have a great conversation with him for a minute and then head to the other dance spot.  Then little Miss Amanda goes and gets Fish and drags him to the dance spot.  Amanda is an Aries girl like me and likes to stir the pot.  Fish and I have another great conversation and I’m afraid that someone might have got a little jealous or maybe it was the horrible music, but he left shortly there after.  Amanda and I dance on the bar and then walk up the horrible hill to her house and agree that maybe we shouldn’t have danced on the bar, but we are girls and sometimes we do that.

Dorte and I had been collecting money for our boat captain and we were quite surprised at the response that we got from the community.  Many people helped out, including Mo and Eddie who for one night donated all the tips the received to little Marcos.  We were able to get the deposit for the operation but then because the little guy got a cold and they decided that cutting him open might not be the best idea they are again trying a new treatment.  Our boat captain came back yesterday and brought with him a letter that his wife had written.  

Tuesday night I work with Maria Jose, Jenni (a Canadian DMT) and a new guy.  Max, Mo, Eddie, Pete and Eddie’s grandma come for dinner.  The second night was better than the first in tips and I seemed to get the hang of it.  I love the people that I work with, especially the Argentineans and their beautiful accents.  MariJo (Maria Jose) and I decide to get a beer after work at the Blue Marlin where we run into some familiar faces.  I love speaking Spanish with MariJo and watching her speak to people who don’t speak Spanish as well.  Most of communication is non-verbal but it’s great when you can understand the words that match the movements.  The night ends in a familiar way.

I spend the night in the cabin in the woods and in the morning it starts raining again.  Mo decides to take Max to French Harbor to play on the playground at the Wendy’s there and I tag along.  After eating Wendy’s, another food that I was addicted to in college… I blame that squarely on my college roommate Jen.  We would do our laundry at the laundry mat and then go over to the Wendy’s next to it religiously every couple of weeks when our laundry started to smell and we had no more clean underwear.  Mo and I climbed in the jungle gym at Wendy’s with Max.  It’s been forever since I’ve climbed into a jungle gym and although the sign said no permite ninos mas de 12 anos o mayor, meaning they don’t allow kids older than 12 years or more, they didn’t seem to mind us climbing in the jungle gym and sliding down the slide.  After Wendy’s Mo and I decided to take Max to the arcade across from Wendy’s called the Game Connection.  $10 will get you 2 and half hours of pure fun.  Mo and I definitely had more fun than Max.  We played in the bumper cars, we threw basketballs into hoops, we pounded on drums to the tune of twinkle twinkle little star, we rode motorcycles and went bowling.  We were so excited about the 62 tickets that we got for playing the games but disappointed when we found out that they really don’t get you much.  Max got a small green koosh ball which he then lost after he had a bit of cry session from too much fun.  That is what happens when you go to an arcade, it’s so much fun, but then it has to end- just like my trip here.

A new bar was opening that night called 50 bar, it’s designed around divers.  50 bar is a term for how much air you have left when diving and 50 bar means that you are low on air and it’s time to end the dive.  50 bar is replacing Nova, which in Spanish if you break it down means no va- doesn’t go, which was the case for the old Nova.  Out with the old in with the new.  I met a great guy that night and was forced with a bit of dilemma and in the end of the night a bit of a funk.  Dreamboat is what we will call him.  Dreamboat has been living in Bocas del Toro in Panama for the last 3 years with his brother.  His brother decided that enough was enough and moved back home to the states.  Dreamboat found a friend who had a sailboat and decided to become their crew bitch and sailed on a catamaran for 4 days to get to Roatan.  Dreamboat and I automatically clicked, great conversation, he’s dreamy to look at but at the end of the night it had to end there.  Perhaps I will run into him again, but perhaps not.  It is the case with traveling, you meet people, you connect but you might not see them ever again.  I ran into Fish at 50 bar, but he seemed out of air completely and didn’t even say hi or introduce me to his new girl.  I was having a bit of a pity party for one and then dumped all over my good friend Conal who cheered me up and said well it’s all part of traveling darling as well as with life. 

I’ve been watching far more television recently since I’ve been out of the water these last few weeks.  I turn on the tube, which I haven’t lived with a television for the last 8 years and find a good movie to watch.  I saw one of my favorites Reality Bites recently and of course watched Extreme Home Makeover and cried my eyes out.  I caught half of an independent film on Showtime called “Last Stop for Paul”.  “Last Stop for Paul” is about two friends who, again I only saw half of it but I think it’s about two guys who travel the world in two weeks and spread the ashes of their friend.  These two guys go to Greece, Thailand, and Japan and end the trip at a Full Moon Party.  It’s a bit dry at first but I connected with it because they told the crazy stories of the crazy people that they met along the way.  They get thrown in jail in Thailand for not being able to pay for a night with hot women in a bar, they meet someone who had the bends, one of them misses the boat to the Full Moon Party, but in the end meets up with his friend and a girl he met in Greece.  The end they talk about their love for traveling as they spread the last of their friend’s ashes.

Well, this blog post is coming to an end.  I am hanging out with my best friend Max tonite.  I’m babysitting him and if I’m lucky we’ll watch Snow White.  I can’t remember how that fairytale ends, they all seem to end with the prince rescuing the princess by awakening her with a kiss from a deep sleep.  The princess should really just not get herself into bad predicaments and then she wouldn’t need to be saved,  but they are fairytales and they all end happily ever after.

Same shit, different day

Same shit, different day.  Same day, different shit.  Same shit, different drama.  I went to the doctor last Friday and my perforation is not healing like he thought.  He said to come back again in 2 weeks to see how it’s healing.  There would be an ear specialist on the island who could tell me more information.  The doctor wasn’t too optimistic, of course there is the language barrier, but he said that I might need surgery to have it fixed.  Really?  How can that be, I really am having a bit of bad luck.  I have one small little thing to do in the water to finish my dive masters training.  What do I do?  The surgery could work, but I only have 2 more months here.  Is it worth it to be here waiting?  I’m so bad with patience.  It’s the trouble of being an Aries girl.

So Robyn left.  Mo and I took her to the airport before I went to the doctors on Thursday.  The night before we had a bit of a dance party at Nova.  Robyn, Mo, Peter, Chase, Kala, Michael, Amanda, Conal, and Kala’s cousin and best friend that are in town and we went out to party the night away.  It was 80s night at Nova and we had a great time.  Good music and good dancing always makes a good goodbye party.  After the dancing we thought it would be a good idea to go to DMT2’s (that’s his nickname that even he doesn’t know that I made up) apartment in the woods, well it’s actually up malaria hill where I used to live and got malaria.  Is it bad when you like a guy’s house more than you like him?  I know he could tell at the beginning and I could too, but tried it anyway.  Well, it’s the cutest little top apartment.  Perfect cabin in the woods with everything minimal that you would need to survive comfortably.  Simple.  As the drinking, drama and shenanigans ensued; I fell asleep on the simple DMT2’s bed.  Well, as it was my roommate Pete didn’t come so I ended up not going home and staying in the comfortable bed.  An argument ensued between a best friend and a local dive master.  It’s so hard to communicate here, but on the same hand I’ve found amazing conversations almost every day.  People come from different backgrounds, they have different accents, different languages and different ways of communicating and more importantly everyone seems to dive so their hearing seems to be bad with all the build up and then at night we all go to these loud bars with local music or the iPod playing too loud.  And me, I hear half of what everyone says because of my ear infection or perforation now.  The infection is gone, but the hole remains.  But there are those beautiful moments where you meet someone and connect with them even if just for one of those small moments in time.  Well, the best friend and the local get into an argument about really I’m not quite sure, because remember I was sleeping?  I did wake up at a certain point, right in between the drama and could definitely identify with the best friend.  The local is a very good guy, but it was a bit like déjà vu.  A few months back the local and a few others and I were having a great Sunday at West Bay.  We watched the sunset, we had a few beers, we watched the crab races, and we watched the fire dancers and the local had too much rum.  The type of rum that makes his black eyes turn red and his normally sunny and nice disposition turn into looking for a fight.  He crossed a line with me and I put up my boundaries and then it became the type of drama that doesn’t go anywhere and can’t be fixed no matter what you do.  The next day sober, we made amends.  I’ve seen it again, with the local getting into pointless shit and having an argument.  I think the best friend and local worked it out later, but maybe not.  Well, the best friend and cousin went home and I stayed at the DMT2’s perfect cabin in the woods.

mo and me dancing

Since I don’t have to be at the shop at any particular time I was able to sleep in before taking Robyn to the airport with Mo.  DMT2 made some breakfast and then I went back to sleep for a few hours until I got a call from Robyn.  It was time for her to leave.  I went to the shop, found Mo and then we went to the airport.  It was bittersweet sitting around the airport with her until the last moment before she had to go through security.  As we were waiting, Kala, Chase and the best friend show up to pick up more of Kala’s Canadian gang.  Her parents and her sister and boyfriend were coming in.  Since Mo had driven the truck to the airport, we waited for the Canadian crew to go through Customs and drove them back to the Jenny Blenny House where they were staying in West End.  I stayed at the Jenny Blenny cabin with my mom when she was here.  Jenny is an amazing woman.  Blenny of course isn’t her last name remember?  She was a diver and great at finding the small stuff.  But then Jenny had a bit of an accident and can’t dive now.  It’s good to see how someone can survive on this island without diving, but at the same time I don’t want to be that survivor.  The Blenny House is much bigger than the cabins and an absolute retreat.  So beautiful, simple and looks out on the iron shore. 

Well, after Mo and I went to the doctors, we went to pick up their laundry and Mo looked at me and I started crying.  It’s already been 2 and a half weeks out of the water, now I’m looking at another 2 weeks and on top of that what if I have to wait even longer.  Remember I’m horrible with patience.  Mo said it could be much worse and I could be in the predicament of never diving again.  As my sober sister Anne says one day at a time.  Well, with all the random drama and shit on this island one of the saving graces for people is diving.  As Fish, the 44-year-old dive instructor, once told me how he moved down here and quit his corporate bullshit in America, diving for him was a release.  It’s the moment for 45 to 50 moments where you don’t have cell phones, you don’t have people telling you their bullshit, it’s just you and aside from the other people you are diving with (making sure that they are ok), the only thing you have to worry about is yourself.  After you get to a certain level of comfort with diving even the worrying leaves.  It’s just you, the water, the fish, the coral and the peaceful abundance around you.  Watching a parrotfish eat coral, watching the damselfish fight for their 2 inches of square feet from the blue tangs or any other fish that want to eat their beautiful garden, seeing the barracuda watch you from afar with his evil eye, finding something you have never seen before or an interaction between the fish such as mating or catching their lunch is a sight that calms me.  The water is refreshing.  Being a fire sign I’m attracted to the water, and it’s changing life, like a fire.  The stormy days are as good as the perfect days.  Sitting at the Beach House at Half Moon Bay on a beautiful day or watching the waves crash during a stormy day while sitting at the Blue Marlin makes me happy.  The beautiful days have been a little bit harder, because those are the days for diving.  The sun shinning off the crystal Caribbean Blue Ocean, the clarity underwater most likely being 100 feet or more unless it’s after a day of rain and run off.  The water temperature is perfect, refreshing escape from the heat from above.  Yes, I miss it a lot.

I even miss the fiascos of the new divers, the instructing the new divers, watching them breath underwater for the first time.  The person who gets so excited by discovering a new fish that maybe I’ve seen a thousand times before and remembering the feeling of the newness of the underwater adventure and creatures.  It brings back the feeling and the emotion and you get to enjoy their moment with them and connect with them on that feeling and experience.  It’s exciting.  Well, at the shop recently they had another bit of a fiasco.  An older German Canadian gentleman came to dive.  He has had a bit of trouble with sea sickness but is the type of person to get on the horse even after he has been bucked off more times than he can remember.  True perseverance.  Well, Mo led a refresher course for him and then they went diving.  It was a rough day in the sea.  It seemed as if a storm was coming or maybe going.  The waves were big and knowing your limits is the foundation of diving.  The gentleman and Mo and Michael took him for a dive, but immediately the gentleman felt the seasickness.  Being on the boat would be worse than underwater and there was another group with Chase diving.  The sea gives and takes when it wishes.  After the dive they surfaced and the waves were big and the gentleman hadn’t fully recovered from the sickness before they went down.  He was tired and sick and had to be towed back to the boat.  After the ride back he had to lie down and recuperate.  His lovely wife came by and just like all couples she was worried but angry with him for pushing his limits.  The next day at the Blue Marlin I found the gentleman and Mo having a conversation about what had transpired.  The gentleman is quite articulate and a very charming man.  He is learning to write, taking a course in writing and said that he was writing about his experience down below the ocean.  He was humble in his demeanor about what had happened and knew that the situation could have taken a turn for the worse.  Speaking with the gentleman was one of those conversations that make me happy being here and above the water.  The connection and sharing of ideas and values makes life beautiful.  The gentleman tried again a few days later with a different dive shop on a calm day and then decided to take another trip with Mo and Conal to try diving again.  Unfortunately through miscommunication or misunderstanding or misperception the gentleman again almost got into a life or death situation.  I’ve heard the story from a few different sources, but what I pieced together is that after going to the reef wall the gentleman started to descend.  He is open water diver and has a limit of the depth that he can go to.  He descended quickly as Mo and Conal then saw him he was already too far away to chase after.  Luckily Chase and Michael saw him after hearing the loud banging that Mo was doing to get the gentleman’s attention.  Chase and Michael were at a lower depth because they were diving with more advanced divers, including a woman named Kimberly who is an amazing diver and gem of a woman.  Chase and Michael put air in his BCD to stop his descent and then the gentleman regrouped with Mo and Conal and slowly surfaced.  The most important thing about diving is knowing your limits.  As you progress along the certification and become a more experienced diver you learn the slogan “Stop. Think. Act.”  A good slogan for life, unfortunately in life as well as in diving sometimes we act, think and then stop.  Neither progression is exact and will get you the results that you want, but to live by one of them especially when diving is a must.  But a lot of divers don’t live by it.  Not to get too philosophical, (oh man- tangent- all these philo prefixed words: philosophical, philander, philanthropic what does philo mean?  It’s love right?) Ok, not too philosophical but to live here or maybe anywhere you need a base to live by, you need rules and boundaries.  I think that might be why people get into religion, that’s why they get into relationships that maybe aren’t the best but stable, we constantly strive to find something that defines us, we put labels on ourselves and others so we aren’t so lost.  Maybe that’s why people also push their boundaries and their limits.  The question I find myself asking is it to find our limits or is it to be destructive?  Well, stop, think, act works for diving.  That is what Mo did as she was slowly descending knowing her own boundaries before pushing her limits while banging on her tank to get his attention to stop his descent.  Hopefully the gentleman will write about his experience and learn more about himself and his limits.  Writing is quite therapeutic, at least for me and at the moment it is my religion in this crazy beautiful fiasco of a paradise.

Another night with DMT2 and the next night was a complete shitshow.  During the day I did some philanthropic work, no I didn’t give money, but I did give my time.  Marcos, our boat captain, has a “wife” and an 8-month-old boy who has been in the capital Tegucigalpa because he has a kidney infection.  Marcos is one of the best boat captains on the island, but has had little education and although he understands English he has never mastered the language.  Marcos had told me a month ago about his wife and child and that they were getting treatment for infections, he also told me that they needed money for the private hospital.  He was unclear about what exactly his child needed.  The young boy has a bad infection in one of his kidneys.  He is too young for a transplant and they have been giving him treatment before the next step which is to remove the bad kidney and hope that the other will sustain him.  Well, I had asked over the weeks, but with dealing with my other shit I hadn’t heard too much about it until the day of philanthropic work.  Marcos had come to Dorte to ask for a loan for his child’s operation.  The information he had given Dorte was a bit of a mis-mesh.  It seemed he didn’t know the exact amount, what has been done, what needed to be done but he knew that he needed money that he didn’t have so that his baby would have a chance of surviving.  He came to Dorte, but the amount was more than was possible for one donation.  Well, in my experience you have to look at your options on a whole.  For me, I’m not one to give money to people on the street, I don’t adopt children in different countries, I don’t usually feed stray dogs, in general philanthropy for me is more about figuring out the problem first, finding a solution and then acting on it if it can be solved.  I don’t usually act without thinking before action is needed.  Stop, think and act has been within me for a while.  Well, Dorte and I figured that even though they couldn’t give the full amount there were other options, there are many other people here who would give even just $10 to help a child in need.  I spoke with Marcos (in Spanish of course) and told him our idea of going to the different dive shops and people who could donate even just $10 for his son to have the operation to remove the kidney.  The operation is to be next Thursday and half of the amount is needed so that the doctors will perform the surgery.  Marcos did not want to ask for money himself for his own reasons and Dorte and I stepped in to help.  I don’t mind asking for help for a child, especially someone I know.  We got the information from him and more from his wife and put together a flier and started asking people and telling the story.  It’s easy to find a cause, to find someone to help here.  It’s hard not to want to help the crack-head not to do crack or to give the little kid on the street money so that their life will hopefully be better.  But your pockets will drain and your emotions will soar when you see the crack head on the street later higher than a kite.  And you’ll think you have wasted your energy, time and money.  But for me this is different.  It’s Marcos, I have spent the last four months with him every day.  And even though I have my own thoughts and opinions about him, his baby deserves a chance and if I can help or put in some effort, in the end even if it doesn’t give the results I wish for at least I know that I have helped.  We already have a few donations that make the amount for the half of the deposit possible.  A chance, even though it might be futile is available with a little work.

Later in the day, a bit exhausted from translating and working my brain and emotions I had a great conversation with Kimberly.  Kimberly is from Colorado, she lives up near Vail and is an artist.  She bought a house down here a few years back and is fortunate to come down here for a few months a year.  This is her escape, but because of things back at home she has been struggling to find her peace here.  To connect with another person, to hear their story and how they got to where they are at right now is a beauty in life.  Kimberly is an amazing diver, from what I hear, although I haven’t been able to dive with her since I’ve had my ear issues.  Kimberly and I were talking about life and relationships (what else is there really to talk about J) and she said to me “Same shit, different day”.  A connection, a yes, I know that feeling, a light bulb went off.  The feeling here, the shit, the drama on the surface and being out of the water has hit me hard.  Figuring if I stay or if I go.  While talking with Kimberly, Chase and Conal run past in a blur.  They had been in West Bay with the Canadian crew all day drinking.  They invited me to Kala’s for dinner.  I say my goodbye to Kimberly and head off to the Jenny Blenny house where the swirl of chaos is brewing.

The Canadian crew are a blast.  They are warm and friendly, sharing, caring all those good qualities you would expect from Canadians.  But from drinking all day and me being stone cold sober it was a bit of a whirl.  Fish was there, drunker than I’ve ever seen him.  It was a sad moment when he told me that he had been broken into the night before.  He had lost his prized scooter, his transportation, his way to travel.  Other things had been stolen as well, but I think he was most upset about his scooter.  In his drunken moment he said to me in so many words that he was sad that we had ended our adventure together.  But I told him in a non-negative way that it was his decision.  Does everything happen for a reason or is it just circumstance?  I had been chatting with my good friend Megan that day about how I might be coming home sooner rather than later.  She said that maybe it was meant to be, maybe it was supposed to happen this way.  It gave me something to think about for sure.  Well, Fish left and the crew started the journey down to the bars.  I was in the mood not to drink, to get myself as healthy as possible, but my roommate Pete was nowhere in sight with the keys to the house.  I had seen him earlier and exchanged the keys with him.  I told Pete that I might be going back sooner rather than later to Colorado and he told me that he is planning on going back to Boulder as well to get his apartment situated.  We could be back in Boulder together, which would be a trip and hopefully I could get him to love Boulder again.  Pete has said that he is leaving the island multiple times and has packed his bags and gone to the airport a couple of times only to see him later in the day drinking a beer because he has missed his flight.  I adore Pete, one of my best friends on the island for sure.  I don’t watch the tv show Lost that much, but what I have seen reminds me a bit of this island.  Is it an island thing or a life thing.  Of course there is the running joke about Lost that you are lost when you watch it, but the more you get into it the more you figure stuff.  Truly brilliant writing.  And from what I remember it’s hard to get off the island, people keep on returning or never actually leaving.  Kinda like here.  Not all who wander are lost.

The drama of relationships and misunderstandings came out that night.  Everyone I interacted with was in a weird mood.  It was interesting because earlier I had told Kimberly that being here I found so many beautiful connections and conversations.  I guess the off night is meant to be once in a while.  Like someone told me recently when I was telling them about my bad day, they said but the bad days make the good days so much better.    Wow, in the whole philo state of things; I think I might be more of a philosopher more than a philanderer or philanthropist.  Oh wait, is a phila different than a philo.  I should have taken Latin in high school.  I saw DMT2 who was completely in a different mood.  Granted, I don’t really know him, but he was at the bar with no shirt and sunglasses on in the middle of the night.  Same shit, different day.  He says to me I’m going home alone tonite.  Ok, all night long I wished I had found Pete so I could go home.  Apparently he was at home, sleeping.  I should have just knocked on the door and he would have let me in.  Well, other people’s drama got a bit too much and then I found Mr. 2.  Remember him?  I had kissed him a few months before, a truly amazing guy who when my best friend came to visit told me that I should date him.  Well, Mr. 2 was my saving grace that night, my buoy.  As soon as I saw him I had someone who I could have a good conversation with, a good vibe with minimal to no drama.  Besides of course the attraction which I’m still not sure that I want to delve into because shitty drama with other people it was good.  Well, my safety stop conversation with Mr. 2 helped me decompress and then my Pete came to the bar.  I love Pete and Mo.  The three of us are a little island.  Good conversation, good vibes, good times.  Even in bad moods or off days we can connect and love one another. 

mo and pete dancing like rockstars

The next day, DMT2 and I went to West Bay for a philanthropic event, a fundraiser for the Marine Park.  It was their 5^th year anniversary.  We met up with Rita and Fou.  Two other gems on the island and had a good day.  Later at the Blue Marlin with DMT2 asked me if I want to go to another bar with him to hit on girls that he had met and I say, actually that’s a little out of my comfort zone he tells me that he thinks I’m really great but he just doesn’t feel it.  Of course, not.  Again, I liked the idea of the house more than the substance.  Ouch, that was harsh but at least he was honest and I was honest too.  Same shit, different day.  After he left to flirt, I caught up with Rita and had a great conversation and as she’s getting her pizza delivered the guy delivering it tells her that he wants to marry me.  The pizza guy works at the pizza shop next to Tyll’s Dive.  I am the first girl to say that he is a nice guy and that he wants to marry me.  Of course he wants to marry me, and I’m sure that it will be a wonderful life and lasting relationship.  Does the sarcasm come through in my writing, because that sentence was dripping in sarcasm, after all he is an islander.  Then I found Pete at Nova.  As I was hugging Pete a friend of his comes up to hug him and accidently punches me in my left ear, the ear that doesn’t have a perforation.  Ouch, but I’m fine.  Sometimes you just need a good punch or a good nights sleep which is what happened after that.

So the job at the Argentinean is off for the moment.  They can really only do on call work.  I talked to Mystery Guy, who still is so yummy, and his brother owns a local dive shop that is looking for an office manager.  Since I’m out of the water and quite good at managing an office it might be the perfect opportunity until I decide what exactly I’m going to do.  Should I stay or should I go now? 

Tonite I’m doing a much needed girls night with Amanda; a bottle of wine, a movie and good conversation.  She’s an Aries like me, her birthday is the day after mine and if willing I’m still here by then we will have a birthday party with Max whose birthday is the same as mine.  Max has a long list of birthday presents- motorcycle, plane, bicycle, water scooter, a watch- well he is going to be 3 so he can want all those things and still be happy with just toys.  For me, I’d love to be able to stay, to dive and to get job.  It’s not like I’m asking for an airplane. 

Wedding Crashers

robyn getting good karma

Blogging when you are in a bad mood is always a good idea.  I woke up this morning in my new apartment, on the couch because I don’t officially have a room because my friend Peter who was so nice to let me stay with him may or may not being leaving the island so I’m sleeping on the couch until he figures out what he is going to do so I can figure out what I am going to do.  It is great though to be out of the old house and closer into town.  Ok, so I woke up this morning in a bad mood.  My friend Christine in college used to wear a tiara when she was in a bad mood, well I don’t have a tiara on this island but I do have a cute dress.  So I’m wearing a cute dress and a baseball cap, that coincidentally Christine gave to me, to hide my messy hair and the fact that I haven’t washed my hair.  A shower would probably make me feel better, but sometimes its good to be in a funk.

Let’s be serious, my life is actually pretty great, but I’m allowed to have a bad day now and then.  Sure I’m pretty, witty and bitchy most of the time, but on the whole I’m usually in a good mood.  A little feisty, but not too bad, sweet to the core, rough around the edges.  Crap, this is beginning again to sound like an online profile for a dating site again.  The other night after I talked to my two good girlfriends, Liz and Courtney, via skype for 2 and a half hours I decided to check out that online dating site that I had joined before I moved down here.  I got a few emails just from being on for 5 minutes and received some emails, asking if I wanted to go out for a drink or something.  Such a freaking tease, I told them all that I was in Honduras and really couldn’t go out in Boulder for a drink on Saturday night because I’m here.  Only one guy got a little touchy about it and said, why does your profile say you live here if you live there.  Whatever Boulder’s home.  Anyway, yes, I live a charmed life.

Yesterday after moving my shit, remember I’m a bit in a pissy mood- my shit, out of Noelle’s house and down to the dive shop I met up with my new best friend down here Robyn.  Robyn is amazing; I can’t believe she is leaving in just three days.  That’s how it works down here you meet amazing people and then they leave or you leave.  (Ok Jacquie, stop complaining.)   Robyn met the love of her life here and now is making the move to Norway to be with her beau.  It’s a romantic story; their story intertwines the movie/book “The Notebook”.  They met here back in the early summer and traveled back and forth between here and there to be together.  One night Robyn makes her beau watch “The Notebook” and prefaces the story by saying that it’s a chick flick, but he loved the movie.  Later while on one of their rendezvous traveling he gives her a gift, it’s a book, it’s a story of them.  Ok girls start gushing.  So romantic and then at the end of the story of them he asks her to marry him.  Wow, there really are amazing guys out there.  So she’s moving to Norway to be with him and start their own grand adventure through life.  Robyn and I have a bit in common but we’ve got to similar places but on different routes.  Since she’s making the move to another country we have talked about her running shoes.  Metaphorical Running shoes of course.  When something might be too much for you and you run away, you don’t’ want to deal with something or how you are feeling and in your mind you think I don’t think I can handle this and you run away.  I definitely had to analyze myself before I came down her to make sure I wasn’t running away, although again my life in Colorado was charmed, I am on an adventure.  So, I told you I was in a bad mood right?  My fucking ear still feels clogged, I think the perforation might be healed but the gunk is still in it.  I can’t hear that well, which after a while gets so frustrating.  I just want to be back in the water again.  It’s hard to be in such a beautiful place, where all your friends dive and everyone dives and your purpose being here is diving and you can’t freaking dive.  A friend recently told me that this place can be your grave if you let it.  Doing things here, working, diving is essential so that you don’t get crazy, so that this place doesn’t become your grave.  Well, my running shoes are out.  I’m going crazy.  A few weeks ago there was this crew in town.  A crew from a luxury yacht that is cruising around the world.  Unfortunately one of the girls who was a steward on the boat got canned and the crew who became friends with Robyn has been trying to get her to go and join the crew.  She obviously is not going to do it, but she did say that it would be a great adventure for me.  Oh it would.  To see the world, to make a lot of money.  Sure it’s tight corners, but you get to see the world on a boat.  Well, last night Robyn and I had a bit too much to drink and started chatting up this guy who is a chef on a boat that is here for a month and then off to who knows where.  The three of us are talking and it was like this door opened with maybe running shoes that I could go on this boat and that I could do this and then come back to Roatan and finish my DMT later.  I’ve had some bad luck here; Malaria and ear infection- but overall it’s been great and I’m just in a bad mood, but the idea of escaping or doing a new adventure sounds thrilling.  The door is open for now and my life changing flashed before my eyes.  What should I do?  Of course, as Robyn tells me I’m more of a tea and pearl necklace girl than a hippie.

I am always attracted to the hippie guys.  The stoners, the live your life man, the go out and experience stuff guys.  But I might be a tea and pearl necklace type of girl instead of the hippie chick.  The tea and pearl necklace type of girl likes high heel shoes, she likes pretty dresses when she’s in a bad mood, she likes eating at nice restaurants and drinking good wine, she likes going to the museum or to a concert, she’s a girly girl who loves being a girl and loves the fine things in life.  She likes having afternoon tea with girlfriends (iced tea spiked with champagne of course) while wearing her pearl necklace that is an heirloom from her grandmother.  My grandmother loved the finer things in life and loved to travel, I got a few of my good and bad habits from her.  But I guess I’m also a hippie girl.  The girl who likes to camp, hike, ski, fly fish with her dad and has dreams of doing a motorcycle trip across the US, free as a bird, free like the wind and the crazy aung.  I can be both, I can be many different things, I don’t have to be one or the other.   I do think my tea and pearl necklace girl is shining through right now because the hippie girl has been taking over too much right now.

So boys, boys also make me in a bad mood sometimes.  I talked to the mystery guy for a while yesterday.  Of course, he’s a bit of a stoner (who’d a thunk it?) and he’s smitten over his girlfriend.  Boo, well yay for him, but boo for me.  If I were totally a hippie chick maybe it wouldn’t matter, but I’m a tea and pearl necklace type of girl when it comes to old fashion values.  I’m still the sweet girl even though I’m a bit of a troublemaker.  It’s the balance between the good and the bad?  Or maybe, not to get too philosophical but maybe it just is and figuring out who you are.  I’ll come back to the boys a bit later, but lets talk about philanthropy and philandering.

Yesterday was a beautiful day, an absolutely beautiful day.  In the afternoon I rounded up Mo and we met up with Robyn at Half Moon bay in front of Sundowners to cool off and enjoy the hot weather before the storm came.  Max and his grandma and his great grandma and his great uncle were at the beach too.  His greats are visiting from Holland, his “ohme” or grandma lives here.  Max always cheers me up, maybe after writing this blog I’ll go and hang out with him for a bit.  Anyway, Robyn and I are tanning ourselves and chatting when I tell her that when I grew up I always wanted to be a philanthropist.  Of course, I also wanted to be a hand model, not like totally into being a hand model,but I honestly thought that I could be one some day and then when I got a scar and broke my thumb for about the 8^th time my hopes and dreams were dashed.  I think I was seriously upset about it for a few years, but never really told anyone.  Of course, I blame my best friend squarely for that.  Sabrena’s older brother loved comic books and whenever they would go to the comic book store her mom would buy her the Katy Keene comic book.  Katy Keene was so a tea and pearl necklace girl.  She was a model who had a very glamorous life.  Katy had a little sister with red hair named  “Sis”.  Well “Sis” admired her older sister and wanted to be just like her, but she wasn’t as old or as beautiful to be a model.  Somehow at such a young age I identified with “Sis” and one comic strip Katy got “Sis” a job to be a hand model.  I’m sure that’s why I always thought that the hand modeling business would be something I would be good at.  Well, long story short, Mo was actually a hand model back in Holland.  As for the philanthropy, I told Robyn I wanted to be a philanthropist when I grew up and she said she had always wanted to be one too.  But, as things turned out we became more of philanderers than philanthropist.  We just need to find our thropist and get rid of the derers.  Ok, silly joke, but it makes me smile.  We had a great time at the beach and we look over and next to Sundowner’s they are preparing for a wedding.  Robyn, the soon to be bride, goes over to help and I tag along.  A wedding on the beach.  So beautiful, we arranged the alter for the bride.  The bride was there trying to do it all herself, and I’m sure Robyn and I got good wedding karma by helping her out.  I should be pretty good at helping with weddings just by being a bridesmaid or a maid of honor more times than I think I should say.  (I am so lucky to have amazing girlfriends who I am close with you have found amazing guys and have included me in their special day, I’m lucky very lucky.  Not bitter, I promise.)  Anyway, Robyn and I helped put the alter together for the perfect beach wedding.  We got cut flowers from the hotel across the road and made it as beautiful as we could with the resources that we had.  The wedding, of course, was nothing like a wedding back at home.  It was small, low budget.  No florist, just her bouquet.  A simple wedding on the beach.  A little philanthropy for the day?

Well, later my derer side (remember philanderer?) came out.  I saw the Fish guy out and I could tell that something wasn’t right.  He’s a great guy, but he’s just not for me.  I had told him when we first started this thing that it wasn’t like I was going to marry him.  He was very worried about hurting me, because he is older and because he has this lady who has changed a bit of her life to come down to Roatan and live and perhaps to be with him.  It was fun while it lasted, but like most things it had to come to an end.  The end was a bit like it started, honest and straightforward.  A new thing for me and good for the moment.  He said, well I think I’m going to go home by myself.  I looked at him and said are you afraid of hurting me?  Well, it’s more that he’s excited about this other lady and the potential is important for him right now.  I guess I’ll just have to philander some place else J, ok that was a low blow of course and I’m a tea and pearl necklace girl.  I could tell that Fish was feeling bad about the whole thing so I told him my Aphrodite story.  I think at first he thought I was trying to change the subject but in the end he got it.  So for my last birthday I decided to have a toga party.  I had never been to a toga party before and thought what the hell, why not.  So I asked, ahem told, my best friend Courtney and her husband Todd that I was going to have a toga party at their house for my birthday.  They love me and I love them so they let me have the party, as long as I cleaned up in the morning.  I got the idea initially because my good friend Anne had been reading a book that someone had recommended to her while she was sobering up called the “Goddess Within”, at least that’s what I think it’s called, my brain has a hard time of remembering things word for word (I’ve never been able to quote books or movies word for word).  So, Anne started telling me about Persephone the goddess she felt she recognized the most within her at that moment.  Similar stories and similar gifts.  I thought about me and who I would be most like and it took me all of 2 seconds to tell Anne, I’m totally Aphrodite.  She of course agreed.  Aphrodite is the goddess of love and beauty.  She was married to Hephaestus, who was the god of technology, metallurgy and fire.  Hephaestus was the brother of Ares and son of Hera and Zeus (although some stories say he was the son of just Hera), kinda a boring dude.  Well, Athena- the goddess of knowledge and philosophy refuses to marry Hephaestus and Aphrodite is made to marry him.  Aphrodite, like many of the gods and goddesses was a complete philanderer.  She had many lovers Adonis, Achilles, Ares and she was the muse of many.  The goddess was fickle like most of those gods of her time.  I’m pretty sure she had something to do with the Trojan war and many other fiascos.  Pushing people together, getting involved herself and then ultimately making love win in the end.  Well, the sad and beautiful thing about Aphrodite is that she had one true love, Ares.  They battled over time cheating on one another, causing issues for all the people around them, but ultimately I think that Ares was her one true love.  Of course at my party Courtney’s husband Todd was Ares, but he’s not my Ares.  I do have my Achilles heel, who I think might be my Ares.  But he could just be my Achilles, it’s still early in my story.  I told this to Fish to let him know I’d be ok and also because it’s true, I am surrounded by love.  A lot of people have found their loves around me or without me being there.  Ex boyfriends have seemed to find their soul mates after me, I’m like a good luck charm.  I’m Aphrodite.

And as I write this I’m less in my funk.  I think it’s working.  The love is shining through, after all the best part about life is love.  The meeting people who fall in love, the preparing a wedding alter for people you don’t know, hearing how people fell in love.  If you can’t have love, maybe you can write about it?  Ok, that’s going back to being negative nelly.  All you need is love.

chase and i giving some west side love