Tender Moments with Jon

Me: I love you.
Jon: Even though I'm all farty and bloated?

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Jon: [after a kiss] Would you want that to be our last kiss?
Me: No..... [a better kiss]
Jon: ....aww, really? Even if I was elderly and you could smell death coming to get me?

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Me: Pretend like you love me.
Jon: I can't feel my legs.

tick, tick, tick...

[A glimpse into the final days of my camera's life]

Sad, soggy, folded-over ice cream cone :-(

....BOOM

the opposite of 'couth'

1)  I DID THE WORST THING EVER YESTERDAY.  It was morning, we were at the beach, Jon took a picture.  So he goes to hand the camera back to me... I had it in my grip - butterfingers - and it landed, LENS OPEN, face-down in the sand.  So basically it's ruined forever.  I have a sliver of hope that it can be fixed when we're in Idaho, but who knows what they'll charge?  What if it ends up costing more than the camera's worth??  Or what if they charge us 200 bucks just to open it up and say, "We can't fix this"???  I have some anxiety concerning it.  But luckily Jon stayed my hand when I tried to throw away the old Canon Powershot A520 after buying the fancy Panasonic (less than a year ago!!  Blast my clumsy phalanges!!!!) so we've at least got back-up.  But, also, uggghhhhhhhh.

2)  Two funny things.

     a)  The brown bull and his harem returned to the lot across from Darcy and Lianna's house the other evening.  We were standing outside on the porch, observing the grazing herd, when suddenly the bull hacked a horrendous cough and his most recent mouthful of grass came flying out of his mouth.  We laughed for an hour.

     b)  After our Friday night pizza dinner, I was entertaining-slash-terrifying Pearl with this face:

 ...and after recovering from the initial shock, she tried to imitate me by jamming her fingers up her nostrils and FORGOT TO BREATHE.  She gasped for air; We laughed for two hours.

kthxbai

Happenings

Well maybe the best news of all - there's a NEW STORE. And not just any store - a store on our side of town. Hallelujah!!! Up until now, whenever we needed anything, be it toilet paper or ultrapasteurized shelf milk, we had to hike down to the town center and hit up the World's Nastiest Grocery Store. Always smelly, always filled with rude people who look you right in the face then cut in front of you in line (who does that??), always selling bug-infested cereals and cake mixes. And the walk back home from there is a mile uphill. Not a great overall experience. I give it a D minus. But now, oh sweet mercy, a brand new shop has opened up only five minutes' walking distance from our house. The world is glorious! They seem to have everything we might ever need, including fresh rolls from our favorite bakery and ICE CREAM BY THE SCOOP. You don't understand how beautiful of a thing this is. Let me explain. The gross grocery store turns off their freezers each night. Just imagine the gummy, freezer-burned result of ice cream that’s been frozen and melted and frozen again every day since it first made its debut on Statia. We made the mistake of buying a carton our first month here, and oh gahhhhhh. Ice cream is the number one thing I’ve missed since being here. I pined for it. I talked about it with everyone I knew. My mom bought me a Cold Stone gift card as part of my birthday present last year. The most memorable parts of my trip to Florida in April were when my sister-in-law Serena and I got double-scoops of Edy’s ice cream in Epcot and when Corinne, Kyle and I hit up the Baskin Robbins in Pompano Beach. And NOW, for a mere two guilders ($1.14) I can buy a vanilla, chocolate, Neapolitan, or butterscotch ice cream cone. They load it up fairly well, too, and actually smash the ice cream down inside – it’s not just a tiny blob perched on top. Our first day there, I had two. I’m so happy.

Also kind of exciting – I saw another iguana! This time Eagle Eyes Jon was with me and spotted it sitting on top of a vine-covered tree. It had never occurred to me to search the tree tops, but there it was, and there we were, WITH NO CAMERA. We watched it for a while before continuing our trek to Darcy and Lianna’s, where Jon did a pivot turn and left the house with their camera in hand. The minutes ticked by. The next thing I knew it had been AN HOUR since he left, and I’d just barely determined that he was for sure dead when he showed up, soaked with sweat. Darcy was with him – he’d encountered Jon CLIMBING THE TREE on his way home from class.

Speaking of wild animals, this happened:

This is the same bull from the video. These local guys had him all lassoed – to what end I’m uncertain. But he was angry, and we had to walk right past him to get home. Once we were at a safe distance I snapped a couple of pictures. This is the last shot I got…

…because I was running for my life as I took this. He’d bolted, and snapped one of the ropes. We scrammed out of there.

ALSO EXCITING – we’re going home during Jon’s August break. We’ve got our flights and everything. I’m going to Idaho early, as usual, so Jon can be less distracted for finals, then he’ll join me. We’ll spend a few days in Alberta too. Jon needs to sort out some student loan stuff and also get his EYE LANCED. He’s had this infection in it ever since Christmas. A sty I guess you call it. A sty! Anyway, sterility is an issue on the island, so it’ll just have to wait.

And lastly, this is my favorite church ever:

Really, who hasn’t had this happen to them at some point or another? Of course, when it happened to me, I started my posterboard project over. These guys just shrugged.

redo

Sorry for the haphazard post yesterday. I was short on time and internet bandwidth, so I compressed the video as small as I could and included little to no commentary. So let's try it again. This version should be better quality (I hope) so you can actually see what's happening.

This happened right outside of Darcy and Lianna's house. Lianna and I were chatting in the living room when we heard the dreadful bellowing of an angry bull. We ran outside just in time to see him (the brown one) lumbering up the road past the house, roaring. But then he abruptly quit and became boring, so we went back inside.

Twenty minutes later there was a ruckus outside. We sprinted out the door, camera ready, to see what was happening. Just a few more yards up the road, he'd encountered the black bull and was about to get his sirloin handed to him. That's where the movie begins.

After the camera stopped rolling, Lianna and I were in mid-panic (or maybe it was just me) and headed inside (I might have been running). But Lianna glanced back to see that the bulls, now both inside the fenced yard, were casually grazing side-by-side in this newly discovered lush paradise. Bffs, you might say. So we watched for another few minutes as they completely destroyed the yard...pawing up the lawn, pulling entire branches off the mango tree, having a grand old time.

The property owners, unfortunately, were off-island at the time. I almost felt sorry for them until I realized it's their own fault for having a flimsy fence and leaving the island for months at a time with no one left behind to watch their property. Dummies.

bully

Did this work? I really hope so, because it was awesommme. Probably the craziest/scariest thing that's happened our entire time here, and we GOT IT ON VIDEO.

Someone with normal internet please let me know if you can view it.