hi again

This guy made a grand reappearance on Saturday at the top of the Quill. He wanted Jon's pumpkin bread. Jon is not known for his sharing skills. It was a staredown of epic proportion.

Thankful to be alive

The past two days were bittersweet. Bitter because I missed Thanksgiving with my family, yet sweet because there was no chance of me being trampled to death inside of Wal-Mart the next day. Which is not to say there was no chance of me being trampled that day, period. Making our way through the dark after the school’s belated Thanksgiving potluck last night, we encountered a herd of cows acting like they owned the road. I didn’t like the way they looked at me and was in middle of explaining to the nearest one that she belonged on my plate when we heard a snort. And not just any old snort. The Snort of Death. The snort of a red-eyed, fire-breathing demon. We looked down a side street and saw a huge black bull, standing in the dim glow of a streetlamp and staring us down. SNORTING. STAMPING. LIKE IN CARTOONS. My life flashed before my eyes. But, we came out of it unscathed, unless you count the holes he burned in our backs as we hurried past. I like to think that I escaped death last night.

The potluck was alright. We poured our hearts into a delicious sweet potato casserole only to be line-jumped by a dozen people who didn’t even bring so much as a can of cranberry jelly. But the highlight of the night was when Jon was reproached by a stranger who had finally reviewed her photos from the talent show last week and discovered him photobombing one of them. THAT’S WHAT YOU GET when you continually blind everyone in line behind you with your flash. I thought I’d never stop laughing.

Happy belated Thanksgiving, everyone!

It sure is!

Birthdays are the best! Jon woke up nice and early to get a head start on the coconut tres leches cake I requested. Sweet husband. But the cake mix had been infiltrated by millions of bugs, so… yeah. We’ll try again later with another one after Jon takes twelve showers and stops twitching. As my present to myself, I shaved my legs then listened to Arcade Fire on my way to meet him for pizza. Other birthday plans include opening the box my mom sent, opening the card Jon’s parents sent (we couldn’t wait to open that box: Jon knew there was candy inside), and going to dinner at a place called Largos. Can’t wait!

This weekend was pretty fun, too. Relatively. On Saturday night we experienced our first tri-annual St Eustatius School of Medicine-sponsored talent show. There were some dance routines, some musical numbers, and plenty of pelvic thrusting. Definitely not PG. But it was a night out with free food. The next day we attended a potluck put on by the Muslim Student Association. There was a smorgasbord of delicious Indian food, and all we had to do to get at it was sit through a 40 minute movie on Islam. I very nearly starved to death in the middle of it. If eating had been contingent upon converting, I would have done it.

Anyway, that’s about it. Today’s a good day. Kthxbai.

(PS -Thanks, Corinne, for the rad e-card)

so informative

1) Jon decided to go to bed early last night when I decided to watch "I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant". Luckily he wasn't asleep yet when I burst into the bedroom to excitedly repeat the narrator's final words before a commercial break: "Jenna's relief will soon turn to panic when she realizes what just splashed into the toilet is NOT a bowel movement." LOVE THAT SHOW.

2) The following conversation happened directly after we watched a preview for New Moon:

Jon: Maybe we should watch the first Twilight movie.
Me: Why? You want to watch the second one?
Jon: ..............we might run out of other movies to see at Christmas....

3) There was another waterspout! Sorta. It wasn't touching the water, and it was farther away than the other one I saw, but we actually got a picture this time.




...forget I mentioned it.

4) "I Can Has Cheezburger" was a category on Jeopardy yesterday, and Drusha kept asking "Can I have a cheeseburger?" It brought me more joy than it should have.

Diet Coke and a pizza, please

It's been a pretty boring weekend so far. Jon's got exams on Monday, so he's been studying non-stop. It's given me the chance to watch a lot of TV, think about Christmas, and improve my Freecell win percentage (76%! I'm a Freecell champion!). Though he did take a break yesterday for an intense CD-ROM Scrabble face-off to the tunes of Mika. I won. Later, I made cake from a German chocolate cake mix (sans frosting). German chocolate is my mom's absolute favorite - she's made it for herself every year for her birthday for as long as I can remember. If she'd given birth to decent children, that last sentence would have read a bit differently. Anyway, it wasn't until just this August (when I HELPED her make it for her birthday) that she explained to me the cake's title doesn't come from a country, it comes from a certain Mr. German who invented a new sort of chocolate way back in the day. For some reason this came as a huge shock to me. You see, my parents lived in Germany for several years and I'd always figured she aquired a taste for German chocolate cake while she was there. This new knowledge changes everything.

MIND BLOWN.


So Jon bought me an earlier flight in December to get me out of his hair before finals. Apparently I'm a distraction. Now I'm going home ten days sooner, hurrah! Anyway, there's a list that's been sitting on the coffeetable. I've added a little to it here and there, and it's now ready for sharing.

OTHER THINGS I AM LOOKING FORWARD TO AT CHRISTMAS:

Going to a movie in the theater. Eating popcorn there.
Taking a long shower. Hot. Not having to turn the water off while I shampoo and soap up.
Drinking a tall glass of whole milk. Having some cereal with my whole milk.
Wearing real clothes. Oh skinny jeans, I've missed you.
Not sleeping on pillows stuffed with what seems to be shredded styrofoam.
Making Christmas sugar cookies with my ma.
Eating fruit other than apples and bananas and coconut.
Catching up on all the videos friends and family have posted to their blogs.
CHRISTMAS EVE FONDUE, a Sweet Family tradition.
Snuggling with Jon without having to unstick later. Also, not having facial perma-greeze.
Egg McMuffin, hashbrown, orange juice, with apple pie chaser.

PS - I'm going to be 24 in ten days. Apparently this year is my "Golden Birthday". I recently learned that term from my sister Annie. She was born on October sixth and is still a little bitter that she was too young to recognize her own "Golden Birthday" when it happened.

evening stroll

First: I AM SO EXCITED FOR CHRISTMAS. It's my family's year and we'll be spending it in frozen St Anthony, Idaho. CANNOT WAIT. I pretty much think about it all day every day, probably as the direct result of living in a third world country. Earth has never seen the likes of me eating a hamburger after four months of meat deprivation. Plus, I'm a little ashamed to admit how much I miss Penny. Jon thinks I'm a terrible person for missing a dog seemingly more than people, but I maintain that it's not at all the same thing. It's not. She doesn't understand where I went. We can't talk on the phone or email. She might forget me for crying out loud. Anyway, I'll admit that I had a dream three nights ago about my happy Christmas reunion with her. When I told Corinne that, she wrote back, "Was there slow-motion involved?" Perhaps. But she's living it up in Idaho and being the perfect little dog for my parents. Except for the other day when she took a dump in the middle of Petsmart when my mom brought her in for a grooming. The best part is that there were little kids around that freaked out, plugging their noses and yelling, "ewwwww that STIIIINKS!!" I laughed hysterically when my mom told me about it. Sorry mom.

Second: Last night was really fun. We went on another evening walk along Crooks Castle beach and saw some interesting things. PHOTO OVERLOAD:

Herons love beer.

Jon, sifting for blue beads.

Oh my gosh, I laughed so hard - so Jon picks up a pretty shell, turns it over, and a CRAB comes out, flailing its legs trying to get away. Jon drops it out of surprise. Apparently the impact scared it out of its shell. I'm fairly certain that's never happened. After the photo shoot, we propped its shell up right in front of his face and left, so hopefully he figured it out.

What in the H is this?? No clue. There were three all in the same area, about the size of ping pong balls, very firm, and full of swirling liquid. Jon reached down and barely touched this one, then jolted backwards and yelled something like, "Gah!!" Scared me to death, so I'm all screaming "What is it?? Did it sting you???" It didn't, but I guess the texture caught him off-guard. (?)

This crab tried to take refuge under Jon's shoe. Then Jon touched its head.

Somewhere in here we also saw the exoskeleton of a sea urchin, but I couldn't get my camera out in time before Jon stomped on it.

These goats are an inch from death. Srsly. Last time we were there, we saw a goat skeleton at the bottom of this cliff :-( And there they are, frolicking around, leaping and sliding and causing sand-avalanches (generally considered more dangerous than sand-moustaches). I watched them for like a minute and it took five years off my life.

A coconut tree growing from a coconut!! Has anyone seen anything more delightful??

And then, to conclude, oh my gosh, prettiest sunset ever on our walk back home. I took an unheard-of amount of pictures of it. Here are the best ones.

(spot the people swimming)

because you asked so nicely

More pictures from the rest of our long weekend:

We took the 4-wheeler out to "Whitewall" to see St Kitts and old Fort de Windt.

..aaaand this is why it's called Whitewall. Turns out it's an actual wall that's white.

The day after, we decided to check out the Botanical Gardens. They came with another great view of St Kitts, THIS time with a looking scope that we paid 50 cents to look through for five seconds.

On our way back from the gardens, we decided to check out Corre Corre Bay. Since the 4-wheeler was borrowed, we decided to trek down to a viewpoint by foot. We would have made our way all the way down the cliff if I hadn't been nursing an ingrown toenail. I could only wear flipflops and while excellent for avoiding putting pressure on a swollen, pus-filled infection, they're not really the best footwear for scaling a cliff. Here's a view from above - a reef protects the bay from the waves, making for good snorkeling (so we've been told).

kthxbai

This is why I'm hot

Reason #1) It was inevitable: I gagged on this pill. Made a loud noise and everything. Jon, a few yards away in the living room, leaned back in his seat to get a better view of me. His face was a mixture of alarm, confusion, and 'wtf?' Several long seconds passed, then he shook his head and went back to his TV show.

Reason #2) At the beach this weekend, he looked at me in disbelief and asked, “How can one person be so sandy and not be five?” He may or may not have used the term 'sand-moustache' as a descriptor.

Reason #3) Two nights ago, he made me sleep with a sock on because he was so disgusted by my ingrown toenail.

Not so fast. I'm taken.

Zeelandia

This glorious piece of heavenly heaven is Zeelandia beach. It’s been here the entire time we have, but this weekend was our first chance to go. (Being able to go to the places you want to go is FUN! I can’t WAIT for when we have an ATV.) We had the entire beach to ourselves, except for the two Parks volunteers tallying eggs in a turtle nest YES YOU READ THAT RIGHT.

Unfortunately, none of the eggs they dug up were viable. They all died from this unusually hot weather. Hey Weather, will you quit killing all the baby turtles already? Everyone HATES you when you kill baby turtles.

Here’s evidence of the nest that successfully hatched last week.

Turtle tracks!

Anyway, it was a great beach day. We jumped over waves, we splashed around, we watched pelicans fishing. But we didn’t swim.

Remember, this is that beach I told you about, the one generally considered a death trap. We played it safe, even though I’m not a thousand percent convinced of the danger. Half of the 2 people who have ever died there were drunk when it happened – in fact, a rumor has started that he drowned himself on purpose. But the other guy, the non-drunk one…his body was never found. So THAT’S disheartening. Still, I can see myself buying a life vest and a boogie board and heading out to where the waves break.

Some more pictures from our day of fun in the sun:

That’s the Quill in the background, btw. If you look closely, you can see St Kitts popping up to the left of the volcano. St Kitts is less than ten miles away – the closest island to us – but this was our first time seeing it. It hides behind the Quill and isn't visible from most places on the island.

Check out the piece of my hair stuck to Jon's face.

St Barth's in the background

That’s a pelican splashing down into the water. We were laughing hysterically at him. He would dive-bomb the shallows, and I’m convinced that a couple of times he actually stunned himself from the impact.

How much better would this picture have been if the umbrella were a cute, colorful one, instead of a black “Radiesse” one that Jon got for free from some medical meeting? WAY BETTER.

Island treat

We pass by this tree each week on our way to church. Usually there's a group of local kids hanging from the branches, collecting the fruit. Here it's called 'kenips', but on other islands they're called Spanish limes and/or mamone fruit. Our landlady offered us some from her own tree our very first day on the island and Jon and I both really enjoyed them, though some people find them hard to handle. They're sort of a mix between sweet and sour, with a weird, pulpy texture that would set my brother-in-law Darcy seizing. But we like them, so the other day I tried my hand at climbing the tree to find some.

Yeah, no luck. The clusters near the bottom have long since been picked, and I was too skeerd to climb up very high. So, it was sort of lame. But then, TA-DAH, Laura just happened to drive past as soon as I'd climbed down; One of her sons jumped out of the car, swung up through the branches, and the next thing I knew it was raining kenips.

Delicious lychee goodness inside.

Jon's got Friday and Monday off! It's going to be the best weekend ever, especially since we're borrowing a 4-wheeler from one of Jon's school friends. FINALLY we get to check out some of the far-away beaches. Hooray!

Tastes just like it smells

When we left Idaho, Penny had just discovered the joy of chewing all the dander out of Gunner's fur. Most of the time, he didn't seem to mind, but on that rare occasion when he resisted, things would rapidly go downhill.

My mom says they get along much better now, so put your little minds at ease. Over the fighting, that is. That dander-chewing thing is definitely vile.

I AM NEVER LEAVING HOME WITHOUT MY CAMERA EVER AGAIN

Yeah, I totally saw a waterspout yesterday. AN EFFING WATERSPOUT. It was maybe the single coolest thing I've ever seen. Since I didn't have my camera, I've decided to document it in the second-most legitimate way: Paint. Today's your lucky day!

The color of that sky was not easy to come by. I had to use the custom color palette. You're welcome.

Don't try this at home

I had another fall. I don't know how it happened, but one moment I was preparing to leave the safety of ...sitting down... to go round up a snack, and the next thing I knew I was sprawled halfway across the couch, which was sliding away from me, with my legs tangled up under the coffee table. Whether or not I hit my knee on the glass top, or on the wicker arm of the couch, remains to be seen, all I know is that ten minutes after the incident I started screaming when I saw the thing that popped out of my patella.

I'd appreciate silence on the matter of all those leg hairs. Knees are really hard to shave, okay?!? Jon says I ruptured a blood vessel and that's what caused all the swelling and the purplish-black mark on top (unpictured). Anyway, at least I got a decent bruise out of it all.

PS - Last night during Wheel of Fortune, Jon says "I can't wait for when someone gets caught on the wheel and dragged around". I could not possibly have thrown my head back harder or laughed more loudly, short of causing myself further injury. He's pretty much the best person to have around.

take 2

We went hiking again yesterday, but this time we trekked down into the crater of the Quill. Last time I was too scared to. I’d heard rumors from not-so-legitimate sources of plate-sized tarantulas down there. But after going up and down the volcano last time without seeing anything but some goats, some lizards, and a million crabs, today we went for it. Plus, I’ve decided that tarantulas are the least of my worries, because there was the ugliest, hugest, fastest yellow and red spider that went running along one of the arches of our porch a while back that I swear would have jumped on my face and eaten my eyes out if I’d have gotten within ten feet of it. I had nightmares for a week.

Anyway, the hike. So partway up we stopped to rest on some boulders. There was a rooster off in the underbrush, rummaging around for a snack, and he kept getting closer and closer. We figured as soon as he looked up and saw us, he’d take off squawking up a storm like all the hens tend to do, but he really didn’t mind us at all. So weird. And he didn’t just walk past, he decided to hang out for a while with us. You know. Fix his feathers and stuff.

Even when Jon grabbed him, he hardly cared at all. He sort of protested for like three seconds and as soon as Jon released his grip the dumb bird just strutted right past us to go peck at our water bottle. Silly rooster!

Later, I almost stepped on this snake:

Here’s Jon beginning the descent into the crater:

CRAAAZY tree:

Aaaand can we talk about this picture? WTH??

Anyway, all in all, not as scary as I'd thought it would be. Though there were a couple of times when we were in the deepest part of the crater that I'm sure Jon would have preferred to just put a blindfold on me and lead me around, like removing a horse from a burning stable. I'm sort of a wimp.

I promise that the next time I write, it won't be detailing another hike to the Quill. Sorry if I've let you down.