Almost Perfect Rainy Day

The imperfection? Losing in spite of the inspired use of "quoit".

Perfection

No photos today, because it's the same view. But . . . it's beautiful. Today the world is giving us the most perfect "caribbean vacation" weather - postcard worthy, sunny and hot. I went for a swim around 11 (and just to be clear, when I say "swim" I mean float on my back and occasionally wave my arms to propel myself from one end of the pool to the other but not so strenuously that I splash water on my sunglasses), and instead of immediately showering, and putting on real clothes, for the first time this trip I just sat around the pool, reading a mystery novel and sipping cold coca cola from a glass bottle until I got too hot and had to go back into the cool water. Then more sitting around the pool. Eventually I slipped on a loose cotton dress over my bathing suit, ate a yummy lunch prepared by one of the housekeepers - a local green called calalou stir fried with garlic and onion topping steamed rice.

I just moved my things into the bigger room that I'll share with Zach for the next few days. For the first time in the 5 years I've been visiting my parents in Belize, I've managed to get a friend to come with me. Zach's arriving tonight,, on the 5:00 flight from BC, and I have a feeling that his arrival will stir things up a bit, or at the very least force me outside the walls of the hotel. We already have a date to visit the local butterfly farm on Wednesday. I saw it years ago, but it's now owned by friends of my parents, and is apparently doing a booming business. So check back on Thursday; with luck I'll be able to show you a Blue Morpho.

(P.S. I can't bring myself to talk about it yet, but I finally gave my mother permission to mail in the Idaho Bar application I completed before I came down here. So I guess it's semi-official. I'll be looking for a job in Idaho sometime in the next few months.)

A little rain

Before
After

Action Shot (Almost)

A fair few intimations of mortality today.

Geckos are one of the cooler things about tropical living, or at least I think so. I mean, as lizards go, aren't geckos pretty darn adorable? And they also eat bugs. Which are one of the less cool things about tropical living. So it's a win-win. I'll choose more cute geckos and fewer biting insects any day of the week. I was taking this shot of a gecko and moth and mosquito for a friend who likes such things and just as I pulled my camera down the gecko made a lunge and took a chunk out of the moth. Of course, I couldn't capture that on my crappy camera. This last moment of the moth will have to satisfy my photojournalist urges.

My parents' place has plenty of little geckos scuttling around the walls and on the ceilings. They used to have a lot more before they got a cat named Emma. This morning I saw Emma skulking into the house with something yellow, little suckers on its toes. That part of the predator-prey cycle makes me sad.

This afternoon the crypt that was being built next door by the digger singing Goodnight Irene was filled in a traditional Garifuna ceremony, there was a blocks long procession from the church to the cemetary with chanting and singing and just a little wailing. I didn't take any photos of that - it seemed a little insensitive. The Australian medical students sitting around the pool didn't have a problem playing voyeur however. Maybe I should have just given my camera to one of them?

Hammock

Vacation

It's been a pretty gray day. This is as sunny as it's been. Not that I'm complaining. It's beautiful. I woke up this morning after a long night in bed, making up a little sleep deficit I'd built up on my lovely trips to Portland and Alabama and the annoying early morning flights and drives that they'd entailed. I dressed, headed down to the dining room and had myself some fresh creole bread and a cup of tea. I'm not a paying guest at my parents' bed & breakfast, but I do get some of the perks. Maid service, someone to wash the dishes and clear away the crumbs . . .

After breakfast I read for awhile. Then I changed into my bathing suit and swam a few lazy, slow laps under the gray skies. Some online chatting out on the balcony (I brought my laptop and the place has wireless . . . god I love it here) rounded out my morning. The afternoon: more reading, a nap, and a quick perusal of the job boards at the resort across the valley from my Idaho home. I'm broke. I hate it. I think I need to do something part-time, answer phones, make coffee, book appointments, greet guests . . . something to pay for more plane tickets to Alabama. To make it possible to stay in Idaho, my beautiful ridiculous cabin, for as long as I'd hoped. To postpone the need for a full-time job, a real job, a real life. I like this fake life a lot. I'm not ready to give it up.

Right now, I'm sitting on the balcony again, this is my view, listening to the rustle of the palms and banana trees, listening to the grave digger (really a crypt builder, but grave digger sounds better) in the cemetary next door singing "Goodnight Irene". Who would want reality when their fantasies look like this, even in gray?