receding urgency.

They say the first step is admiting you have a problem.

So, here I go, I have a problem, several actually, but for the sake of brevity, I'll just leave it at this one, I am an efficiency junkie.

I want things done in the quickest, most effective way possible. I want them done right.

There I've said it. All 3 of you who read this blog now know.

I heard that old country song on the radio the other day, it goes something like, "I'm in a hurry to get things done/I rush and run until life's no fun/All I really gotta do is live and die/ But I'm in a hurry and don't know why." I remember some odd years ago hearing this song on the radio when I was in the car with my dad and he said, "I think he wrote this song for me." My dad owns his own small business and runs himself ragged a lot of times and is the epitome of the efficiency junkie. Wonder where I get it from?

I really only realize this around finals, once they're over and my brain is still going 90 to nothing like I'm going to run out of time before I get everything "done", even though I have hardly anything to do.

See I go through my days incredibly too mindful of what I'm doing and how long it will take to do it and mainly how much time I have until I need to do the next thing, even when I have no specific deadlines to get whatever it is done.

example 1: Our first morning in Jamaica. I was freaking out because I thought I had slept until noon on my vacation and "wasted" time. What if I had slept until noon? I would have been...rested? But no I even had an agenda on vacation.

example 2: this morning. I was completely finished with finals. My plan: wake up and go to the rec, come home, shower, run errands, make chocolate things for family dinner, go to family dinner around 6ish. I set my alarm for 9:30 in case I didn't wake up at my standard without an alarm time of 8ish, well I woke up at 8ish and then went back to sleep and woke up at 9:30 and then freaked out a little and proceeding to hastily get dressed and get to the rec. Why was I in a hurry? I have no clue because I was back home, showered, and had my errands run before 2.

I've always thought I could be rockstar at coming in and making companies run more efficiently. I don't know if that's a job, but if it is someone should hire me.

I think I need to slow down and stop being so conscious of time because it's distracting and ridiculous. I'm welcoming the break and time at home to practice this.

hullabaloo.

I just finished my research project.

So I thought I would do a little blogging while I am waiting to get off work.

I think I've realized my biggest clothing trend pet peeve: the velour track suit.

I'm sorry if I just offended anyone who owns one, but only because it hurt your feelings, not because I regret saying I hate velour track suits, including yours.

I'm not a fan of matching track suits in general unless I suppose you are working out, or running outdoors and that is it. And then companies go out and make them in velour, a cheap imitation of some luxurious fabric and all of sudden, what is essentially workout wear becomes fashionable, solely based on utility. And I think the reason I dislike them so much is because I have seen them cost upwards of $100 AND I because most of the people I see them on are not flattered in the least by them; it seems that they think its the essential "cute and comfy" wear. I want to walk up and say, I know that is comfortable but throw it away. Okay that is the end of my rant about velour.

But while I am on the subject of fashion, I will admit that I just jumped on a bandwagon rather late, incredibly late actually. Saturday I bought...black leggings. The capri kind. Solely to wear under my favorite casual dress that is a babydoll silhouette and made out of really thin sweater material and the most comfortable article of clothing I own. I'm excited about them.

Oh and another clothing related conundrum, I took my ivory coat to the dry cleaners this past weekend and I picked it up today and they said they wouldn't clean it because it didn't have a care label, I'm assuming it got axed by the alterations people recently. But anyway I really need this coat cleaned so I'm wondering what else I could do? Plead with them to just do whatever they would normally do to a wool coat? It was Briarcrest Cleaners, which I've heard are good, but does anyone else use a different dry cleaning place that I could try.

I just found a recipe for Chicken Spinach Wheat Ravioli that I want to try soon, probably this weekend when I have time to do so much prep work, I'll report back on the results.

I will blog for real again some day.

but for now...

Mitt faces the music...in College Station.

it's the final countdown...

[cue the music...]

well I suppose it's not officially the FINAL countdown but for now if I can survive the next

1 day...presentation and portfolio due
2 days...final #1
9 days...research project due
10 days...final #2
13 days...final #done

I apologize for the lack of blogging lately, I will expand later about what's been going on, but for now it's back to school.

possibly cuter than courtney's new puppy...

...otters holding hands.

from the freakonomics blog...

November 5, 2007, 1:42 pm

Environmentalism Run Amok
By Stephen J. Dubner

An e-mail just turned up in my in-box. It was clearly selling something, and the text ended with the following thoughtful note:

Please consider the environment — do you really need to print this e-mail?

And what, you ask, was the e-mail selling?

Private jet travel.

Like the man said: please consider the environment.

things I love about going home. [weekend edition]

[not in order of importance]

1. eating at Mercado's. This is my favorite restaurant in Tyler, it's a super good mexican food place that has been around since before I was born.

2. playing with my dogs.

3. the feeling of "home".

4. sleeping in my bed.

5. NOT checking my email, facebook, etc. all weekend.

6. shopping with my mom and Kaitlin.

7. my routine of getting coffee when I leave CS and getting a big diet dr. pepper and rolo's on the way back.

8. my family's humor when we're together and how we laugh a lot.

9. completely forgetting for 2.5 days about all the things I need to get done in college station.

10. conversations with my dad.


And on another note, while briefly checking the news a few minutes ago, I saw this article from the post about the science behind crying in movies. I found it funny since it takes hardly anything to get me crying in a movie.

life lesson learned the hard way #821: you can't make pesto in a blender.

Or with a hand mixer.

Or by pounding the basil with the thing used to push the food through the food processor. [well maybe if you had hours.]

You have to have a good food processor then when the recipe says it only takes 5 minutes can you actually believe it.

This morning I was browsing recipes online at work - trust me there was nothing else to do - and I decided I wanted to have chicken and pasta with pesto sauce tonite for dinner, I got so excited about my delicious meal and I was looking forward to making it all day and after my last class I got everything I needed at the grocery store. I rushed home and prepared everything, [I planned on eating a late lunch/early dinner because I go to work at 5:30 and get off at 8 and have plans afterwards] and realized that chopped basil can only turn into paste one way, through a food processor, like the recipe says. I tried using my roommates little one to no avail, I'm still not sure how it works but besides basil flying everywhere and the amount that did go through not getting turned into paste, it was a horrible failure. Thats when I turned to the blender, mixer, and the pounding. Sadly all my efforts on resulted in about 5 tablespoons of something closely resembling sewage. I'm a little disappointed.

But I'm going home tomorrow and I'm very excited about that, and speaking of I need to go get some packing done.

size matters.

So my dad and I are planning a trip to Phoenix/Sedona/Grand Canyon in early January because I really want to see the area and it seems like a really good time while I'm out of school to take a trip with my dad. Anyway so I've been doing some google-ing trying to see what kind of travel info is out there about Arizona and today I came across an interesting quote in an article I was reading about experiencing the Grand Canyon, and how it is incomparable and whatnot,

"Dimension means nothing to the senses and all we are left with is a troubling sense of immensity."

I read that and paused for moment and was struck by its application to God as well. So many times I know I start to ponder on the overall magnitude of God and because I can't wrap my mind around it, I will sometimes put up these pseudo boundaries and casings so that somehow the idea of God is shrunk to a nice Happy Meal version that I can digest. Shrunk so that I can be comfortable putting God in my pocket. Shrunk so that I can try to compromise His power and justify being fearful instead. Shrunk so that somehow the idea of God becomes less than terrifying. Shrunk so that I can pretend to understand things I was never meant to. Troubling because we like when we have things all figured out, definitely not when we realize we are not in control.

Foolish and fearful.

So far, my favorite book by C.S. Lewis is The Weight of Glory and I love how he describes our lack of capacity for the vastness of God's:

Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex when infinite joy is offered to us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mudpies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.

Just a few thoughts I had from reading that quote.

Oh, and if you've been to the Grand Canyon/Arizona, let me know if you have any ideas, suggestions, recommendations, etc.!

serious disappointment.

Everyone has made such a big deal about honeycrisp apples, so today while I was at HEB I decided I would give them a try and I bought 3.

Let me preface this with the fact that I have not eaten a whole apple, [and by this I mean like taken a bite out of an apple, I've only had apple pieces or slices] since before I had braces, circa 2000.

Apples, while pretty, don't appeal to me that much. I think certain foods got the "never eat again" stamp while I had braces, not because they don't taste good, just because the desire permanently went away I suppose while the braces were on, corn on the cob is another good example of this.

This past summer when I switched to HEB and discovered all the pre-cut things they had I also bought a bag of pre-sliced green apples. When I tried these, after I ate one or two slices I started to feel kind of sick and my lips and gums felt weird - can't explain it - and then a few minutes after I stopped eating it I felt fine. I thought this was probably because they put something on the apples to keep them from turning brown and my body didn't like that, so end of the pre-cut apples. Fast forward 5 months to now and the same thing just happened.

Weird.

However, even after the first bite before I felt weird I wasn't that impressed with the apple. It tasted just like a really crisp - which I appreciate - apple. So now I have this barely eaten, $2 apple here and 2 more downstairs. Stake your claim now if you want in on the discarded apple gold.

Pumpkin Ginger Nut Muffins

Real quick before I go pretend to be an adult for the day, I made this recipe last nite and these muffins are amazing so here it is:

1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup pumpkin purée
1/3 cup melted butter
2 eggs, beaten
1/4 cup water
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon allspice
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 cup chopped toasted walnuts or pecans
2 Tbsp well chopped candied ginger

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. In a medium sized bowl, sift together the flour, salt, sugar, and baking soda.

2. Mix the pumpkin, melted butter, eggs, 1/4 cup of water, and spices together, then combine with the dry ingredients, until just incorporated. Do not over-mix. Fold in the candied ginger and chopped nuts.

3. Spoon mixture into a prepared muffin tin. Bake for 25-30 minutes. Check for doneness with a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin. If it comes out clean, it's done. Cool on a rack.
Makes 12 muffins.

I left out the nuts and the candied ginger, but make sure you use all the spices listed, enjoy!

Oh, and for a little something extra, if you happen to have some cream cheese icing, a little on top is wonderful, like those pumpkin cream cheese muffins at Starbuck's.

Recipe from SimplyRecipes

some perspectives on adoption.

I was reading a blog by the pastor at FBC Grand Cayman, Thabiti Anyabwile, [also linked on the right], and soon found my way to another blog, [don't you love how that happens?] a Christian adoption agency in South Carolina where he was being interviewed about transracial adoption. I know it is a common occurence to see biracial families at my church and hear wonderful and heartbreaking stories about the process, but truthfully it is a very hard thing for a lot of people to not only approve of but accept as morally okay, which is ridiculous, but it's the way things are. This is a journey I want to embark upon one day God willing and so I thought it was worth posting about here. I haven't read everything, it's quite a bit but here are the links if you feel like digging though some Biblical truths about adoption and racism in general.

Pure Church - blog of Pastor Thabiti Anyabwile, really challenging to read on a regular basis, not just this once

Carolina Hope Christian Adoption Agency & their blog

Specific interviews on transracial adoption:

by Thabiti Anyabwile
by J. B. Watkins

An extensive article by Anyabwile on racism, ethnicity, our identities in Christ, and how this relates to the church, it's long but it's probably all worth reading, I'm taking it a little bit a day.

cold flannel pumpkin pants?

So it got cool here yesterday afternoon, in the mid-60's, and I was constantly in the mindset yesterday that it was "cold" outside, you know the feeling that you get, so last nite I took the opportunity to bring out my favorite pair of flannel pajama pants and I went to bed so happy because I was getting to wear them. I also made it a "to do THIS WEEK" priority to get my coat in to the alterations place so I would be sure to have it in case the weather gets legitimately cool soon. One can only hope. Oh the simple pleasures of life.

There are a few recipe blogs I read, and one recently posted 2 recipes, one for pumpkin biscotti which I'm eager to try out and also pumpkin ginger nut muffins. Maybe this weekend I'll do a little baking and let you know how they turn out. There's also another one for pumpkin praline tartelettes [served with butter pecan ice cream, no less] which sounds like a lot of time on the elliptical but it's a pretty complicated recipe, so maybe I'll try it when I go home for thanksgiving or when time becomes a less than a luxury again. Until then...

do you have anything for lifechange-itis?

After church this morning Barbara (who I teach sunday school with) invited to me to lunch wither her and Lynn (her husband) and Bill and Kathy (I have hope group at their house and Kathy is Barbara's sister). I gladly obliged as I love spending time with them and have grown very close to both families over the past year, kind of like a second family here in College Station. Lunch was great and afterwards I had my normal Sunday afternoon routine of homework, a few errands, and the rec tonite.

Coming home from the rec just now, my mind started to run away from me thinking about how I have such a short time left here and how valuable the community has become to me and all of sudden before I knew it I was sobbing uncontrolably driving down University. Not because I am worried about where I will be and all the details that entails, I just really hate life transitions where people I have come to love [immensely] are not at an arms length anymore. I like familiarity and I could go on and on about how I know I need to get out of my comfort zone anyway and trust God, etc. etc., but that's not what I'm getting at. Let's be honest, I'm emotional and I'm a crier.

Somehow I think no one was really surprised by that.

I'm sure no one likes that specific part of change, and I am not worried about not finding new friendships and community wherever I end up, but regardless, I am wondering if God would really frown too much if I started planning now to skip that church service in May where Butch makes his speech about seniors and leaving and everyone cries. Because I cried at that one last year and I didn't even go anywhere.

see below.

so I started a post about headphones a couple of weeks ago and just now got around to finishing it, but it published it as part of the entry for the day I started it. So, see below for the post about headphones.

universal health care is stupid.

When I was leading a discussion in class yesterday a student made the above remark. I sighed and climbed upon my soapbox to inform them that when we are having a discussion they are not allowed to make statements or arguments such as "X is dumb.", "Y is retarded.", or "Z is gay." because those statements do not lead us to any higher understanding. I instructed them that if they are going to give an opinion it needs to be backed up by something other than an insufficient adjective. The student then rephrased his sentence and said, "Universal health care is stupid because it increases your taxes." Hallelujah! By him finshing his argument I was able to then elaborate on that and present a complete picture of universal health care/higher taxes and therefore the students could then make an informed judgement on the issue. Getting them to think is so great. I am still working on the kids in the group that wrote this bullet point on their poster, "Saddam leads a country of oppression and is currently working with terrorist groups to destroy the west", ignoring the overall subjectivity of that statement, I asked the group if they saw any major flaw in what they wrote. "No." So, you don't think it is a little outdated? "Oh, well, that is just what was in the article we read so we wrote it on here." I then tried to communicate the importance of thinking beyond the words they read on the pages. It's only the beginning of October, maybe there is still hope.

Oh, and teaching is exhausting. Fun, and worth it, but seriously exhausting.

one more..

I also LOVE this one from delias.com:

isn't it such a gorgeous color?

it's back..

...the itch for a new coat. In almost 2 months, it will get cool/occasionally cold, and I can not wait. I have always loved winter for the sole purpose of the clothes I get to wear. Primarily the outerwear I get to wear. Coats are my #1 favorite thing about the cold. I get excited when I check weather.com and I see a cool front coming. They are my favorite thing to wear, hands down. So naturally this time of year the coats start coming out and I begin lusting after them. Right now on the top of my list are these 2 from Gap, hopefully they will go on sale in a few weeks,

I can see myself in them. And of course I'll have to bring out the superstar from last year, whitey the diva, after she's had a little altering I'm afraid. If I lived up north I would probably need a separate closet just for my coats because I would rock a different one everyday. Well maybe I should say that differently, if I lived up north and was a millionaire I would rock a different coat everyday, or at least every other day. It's bad, I know. Especially living in Texas, it's pretty ridiculous to have an obsession with coats, but I digress.

i've had it up to, well, my ears...

...with headphones.

Okay here's the thing. I have really small ears. I'll admit it, next time you see me, feel free to check them out, they're tiny. The earbuds that come standard with most mp3 players - including my ipod - do not even fit inside my ear. They just sit there, so unless i'm sitting absolutely still they're of no use, I quickly abandoned them.



Then I found this pair that are "L" shaped that are great. These lasted for a long time, but not without their own frustrsting tendencies. See the grey cap things, those are interchangeable. The headphones come with different sized sets of those to adjust for size. Naturally I needed the smallest. Well about 2 weeks after I had them one of the caps came off so I had a medium and small then about once a month a cap would fall off somewhere never to be found again until eventually I had two large caps on that hurt my ears.

Since then the last of the caps have gone missing and I've tried a slew of headphones, even the ones that kind of wrap around your ear, but alas, those are much too big.


Anyone else have this problem or any suggestions? I bought a new pair recently that are the same structurally as the ones above but the cap things are different and seem to stay on much better, but we'll see.

high school musical

No, no this post is not about the, in my opinion, over-rated disney movie.

It's about a recent phenomena administrators are experimenting with in schools. I'm talking about the playing [read: blasting] of music over the intercom system during passing periods.

The high school I observe does this.

The first day it freaked me out a little when I heard, "ohhhhhh, oh, oh, for the longest time..." begin right after the bell rang. I asked the teacher, "Where is that music coming from?", thinking maybe students had taken to carrying around stereos, with amps? or something? How were they allowed to do this? And why were they playing Billy Joel? His response was, "Oh, yes, they play music in between classes and when it stops it means they have one minute to get to class before they are tardy."

Oh. It was still bizarre when second period ended and Blink 182 came blaring over the intercom. No joke, Blink 182! I'm pretty sure I haven't heard them since sophomore year of high school. So I quickly realized there was no rhyme or reason to the song selection, the only requirement is that the music should be so loud in the halls it is nearly impossible to have a conversation. Or yank out someone's weave.

I'm getting used to it now. However today the music player thing was a little off. The "Most Random Cycle Ever" option must have been disabled because first we heard, "Just Can't Wait to be King" from, The Lion King, seriously, almost the whole thing, it was really hard not to grab the eraser and karaoke out in the hall with accompanied dance moves. But then for the next period instead of KT Tunstall or Hootie and the Blowfish or the like, "Provincial Life" from Beauty and the Beast came on [I think is what it's called, you know the opening song when she's in the town and then she goes into the Library and has the dialogue with the Librarian - yeah we heard all of that]. Now if it was hard to supress my desire to be a college kid and bust a move and sing into an eraser before, it was as close to impossible as it gets this time, but I held out and tried to be mature, just mature with a silly grin on my face. Then for the last passing period as I was walking to the front office on my way out the Lion King song came on again so I've had that stuck in my head all day.


It's gonna be king simba's finest fling...

anti-wrinkle cream anyone?

I'm getting old[er]. Here's a few things I've noticed I do differently as of late:

1. I'm in bed before 10:30 every nite. Sometimes later on fridays, and special occaision saturdays.

2. The latest I've slept this whole semester is 9:30, and that was only once.

3. My new favorite thing has become getting into a made bed. I have found I love getting into a bed that is made verses a bed that is disheveled - I used to only made my bed about once a week, not anymore! So sometimes, if I didn't make it that morning I'll make my bed right before I go to bed just so I can have the feeling.

4. After seeing 1-3, apparently I value sleep a lot more than I did before.

5. I feel as if I can talk & care about today's "youth". I don't think I'm apart of that group anymore.

6. I appreciate a clean house much more than I used to.

7. I'm shopping now specifically for business casual, it's a little weird and a lot of fun.

8. I'm picturing furniture and decorating ideas in my head for a new hypothetical apartment I will have in 8-10 months.

9. I've been vaguely thinking about budgeting once I have a real job with real money.

10. .....


In other news, here are some things I found worthy of note.

NYTimes:

1. Michael Gates Gill, who once made about $160,000 a year as an advertising executive and who now earns around $10.50 an hour making coffee at Starbucks, has written a book called “How Starbucks Saved My Life: A Son of Privilege Learns to Live Like Everyone Else,” and it is so admiring of the firm, one fears he has drunk of the Grande Iced Kool-Aid.
His story — divorced, broke, entitled middle-aged white guy with brain tumor and no health insurance learns to respect persons of other races who did not go to Yale. article

2. Apparently if you wear Crocs on an escalator you will die. Or you will be sucked in up to your waist if you fail to make a clean exit from the machine. seriously? seriously.

and there's this,

The news on this has been out for awhile but if you haven't heard, Ben Stein has a documentary coming out in February called, "EXPELLED: No intelligence allowed." Synopsis: educators and scientists are being ridiculed, denied tenure and even fired – for the “crime” of merely believing that there might be evidence of “design” in nature, and that perhaps life is not just the result of accidental, random chance & Ben Stein decides to investigate. Check out the website here.

you can call me ms. g

Yesterday was my first day to observe at a local high school. I kind of had a picture of it in my head the way things would go.

I would come in and I would sit at some table at the back/side of the room and quietly take notes, observing the students' behavior, social patterns, etc.

I got to the high school and checked in with the front desk, got my little 'observer' badge, and made my way to the classroom. I got there and my teacher's door was shut and the light was off. This struck me as odd since it was about 10 minutes before class was supposed to start. I walked into the classroom next door where a teacher was making preparations for the day and asked about where Teacher Smith might be. She said he was probably at a meeting or something and would be right back. Okay. I kind of stood around and we made small talk and then a student walked in, and asked,

"Do you have Lisa Frank in your 1st period?"
"Yes, I do, can I help you?"
"Well, I'm not in your class, but my friend Adam Jones wants to ask her to homecoming and so I was going to see if you could give her a note?"
"Oh, Lisa already has a date to homecoming, Carter Creek already asked her and she said yes."
"Oh."

This felt a little leave it to beaver-esque and I wondered if the rest of my epxerience would be as innocent.

Teacher Smith showed up and we made introductions and then handed me a sheet of paper with the lesson plans on it and asked me if I would write some things on the board since he was running late. I got a little excited at this, chalk! I get to write on the board! I did that and then he asked if I would cut some poster sized pieces from the roll of brown butcher paper. Sure, anything you need. Teacher Smith was very enthusiastic and happy to have me there in the classroom, it was encouraging. When the students started filing in, I was on my hands and knees cutting butcher paper, in my cute wrap dress, trying to make sure I wasn't giving anyone a view of anything. Class started and Smith introduced me and then started talking about the new unit they were starting: Rights & Liberties! Specifically today they were studying the Bill of Rights. After a warm up assignment, and a few minutes of lecture, they were split into groups of 3 and had to come to a concensus about 10 rights/freedoms they wanted to have if they were starting their own country. Afterwards they got to walk around and see everyone else's and star one's that they disagreed with, and then we had discussion. I was on my feet the whole time passing out markers, looking at student's work, etc., by the second class Smith was having me answer questions, and at the end of the 3rd period Smith asked me if I wanted to lead the discussion!

"Umm...sure!"

I was supposed to lead an open discussion about what the students thought about their own rights, other groups, and one's they disagreed with. I panicked for about 2 seconds. How did he start the discussions before, what were the exact questions he asked?

The discussion went off without a hitch. Out of some deep place came teacher mode and the questions and prompting came out automatically. It was like I had been mediating opinionated high schoolers arguing about religion, marijuana, taxes, and gay marriage for years!

It was amazing hearing [some] of them actually think about what they were saying and thinking deeply about the ramifications of their decisions and completely heart-wrenching to hear of others complete intolerance and hatred. After class I was talking to Smith and he was highly impressed with the job I did and I told him about my desire for the students is that they would just learn to THINK. They would go beyond superficial, ad hominem arguments. I told him I wanted to change the world one high school student at a time. I momentarily wondered if there was a teacher worth his salt that didn't start out that way. Smith smiled at me knowingly and told me of his desires for teaching. We bonded.

I got to my car and sat for the first time in 3 hours, welcoming the tiredness, I left, changed out of my superhero teacher's clothes into a t-shirt and jeans to go to class. For the rest of the day it felt as if it was meaningful, that somehow my day meant something to me because I was doing something not for myself, like somehow I contributed a small bread crumb to society, to those high school seniors. I think because not once during my 3 hours in Smith's class was I ever motivated by how much I would gain, but only how much could I help these students. For once I had a break in my day from revolving around me.

It was good. I'm going back tomorrow.

help?

Okay so doing the posts about my vacation brought out the worst in my OCD. Does anyone know why when you space things perfectly when you're composing it changes it all once you click publish post? Like there will be extra lines or it will delete lines. How compact the font is, is always different. It would almost bring me to tears when I couldn't get everything spaced neatly. I finally took to editing the html code and that helped some, as I know nothing about it, I just look for patterns.

Anyone? Anyone? [Bueller?]

days 6, 7, & 8: Oiy!

Sunday

d-day! I had been thinking of sunday as d-day for the past couple of days, I think because the name Dean starts with a 'd' and because of the reference to the invasion of normandy except instead of the allied forces against the nazi's, it was the graham family against the hurricane. And except instead of us [the good guys] doing the invading it was going to be dean. Oh well. So I woke up around 8 that morning and Mom told me the power was going to be shut off in two hours. I wondered for a minute what was of dire consequence and all I could conclude was to recharge my camera battery and straighten the front part and little frizzies of my hair. So I did.


It was kind of cloudy but not too bad, you would never guess a hurricane was coming later that day, so since we knew we were going to be couped up for a while later with no electricity we decided to go our driving and walking around. We walked around for awhile, the streets of Ocho Rios virtually empty where they were usually packed with people and cars.

So after we took some more pictuers, particularly one Dad wanted with us all in front of a street sign "Graham St.". We got in the car and started driving to no real destination. We drove around a gated community that was being developed about 15 minutes west of Ocho Rios. We drove up some random hill. We drove around to where the local hospital was supposed to be, just in case, and never found it. We just drove and drove and then came back around lunch time kind of dreading the rest of the day. We got back and surprisingly the electricity was still on so we watched the the Weather Channel and Law & Order [USA and TNT were the 2 major American channels we had and they both play Law & Order like it's going out of style].

Dad had told us to make sure our bags were completely packed and ready to go, in case we had to suddenly leave, the night before, so there wasn't even any cleaning or organizing to do. I'm still not sure where we would have gone, the hills? I'm sure Dad knew though, he always knows everything, I'm sure he had some hidden cave in the side of the mountains already staked out and camouflaged with foliage ready in case the water was about to engulf our car or something. I saw it in my head, Dad calmly saying, "It's too late to pray when the devil comes." [his favorite, most used expression] and us loading up the car easily, as half our stuff was already in there and Dad driving up to the cave and it would be a perfect fit for our car and us as if he had a contractor ready it just for us. We would just ride out the hurricane in our cave playing gin rummy by a fire. I could see it. That's probably the real reason I wasn't worried about the hurricane because Dad wasn't worried. Dad always works everything out, he can dodge bullets, he's Dad. And I was with Dad so therefore there was no reason to worry.

Well they turned off the power at 2:00. After about 30 minutes it started to drizzle and the wind picked up a little bit. We left all the windows open and played cards. That got old kind of quick, sadly. Kaitlin and I played Operation on a coconut we found, only to be disappointed in the result, our coconut had clearly flat-lined a long time ago. Around 5 the wind and rain got pretty severe, for a thunderstorm, NOT for a hurricane. It stayed about the same for the next 3ish hours. I was disappointed. Dad and I had the videocamera all ready for some action. We got none. I went to bed at 9, later that I probaly would have if we had not had a little visitor. We left our front door open the whole time to let the breeze through and around 5 an older woman, gnawing viciously on a chicken leg, just walked in, crossed the living room to the open window saying, "OOOooh Rooobert! Look at doze waves, looks at da sea! Oh my my my!" Mom and I were sitting on the couch and Dad was upstairs doing something when she came in and Mom and I exchanged looks. Dad came down and introduced her, this was Miss Patricia Perkins, whom he had met earlier while she was preaching to someone on her cell phone.

Patricia Perkins is 64, a native Jamaican, and lived in one of the condos in our complex. Well, she stayed around for the next 4 hours and talked for almost as long. As the hurricane was disappointing, her stories and insight made the time go by faster. We talked quite a bit about Jamaican politics and the state of the island, the people, and development. She told us if the opposition party won the elections she would most likely lose her job [she is the top management of Dunn's River Falls, government owned - where thousands of people go a day, including us the day before - has been with the Parks & Recreation Department for 32 years] and would move to Florida and look for work. We asked her what she would do. She said she would probably be a greeter at Wal-Mart for awhile while she looked but it would be hard to find a comprable job in the U.S. We were a little taken back. That would be like going from the head of the San Diego Zoo or a Colorado ski resort to Wal-Mart greeter to put it in perspective. She wasn't bitter about it, not wanting it to happen of course, but just understood that was the way it would be. The opposition party won this past week and I wonder if she really will lose her job.





Monday

We slept with our windows open all nite as it drizzled outside. It wasn't too bad without A/C. When we got up we ate a hodge podge of leftovers for breakfast and then decided to go out driving again, mainly to look for a beach since the weather was gorgeous again and ours was closed so they could, "clean it up". We set off to survey the damage which was minimal, a power line down, palm tree branches and other foliage on lightly covering the roads. While we drove down the coast looking at the beach we didn't see an immediate access point. About 20 minutes west of Ochi, Dad decided to turn down a random road to see where it went. We passed a farm and made it to the beach where an American looking guy was leaning against his truck smoking a cigarette. Dad got out and talked to him. He soon signaled for us to get out. This clearly wasn't a public, well-kept, beach, you could tell even after the hurricane. But we got out and walked around. I heard my sister shout gleefully, "Crabs!" I looked down and saw little holes all over the beach and then saw a little crab the size of a dime, maybe a little smaller crawling furiously toward the water. He was so cute. We trod carefully along looking at the reef, grass, and debris that had been washed up by the tide during the hurricane. We saw a few more little crabs and then Kaitlin and I went crab-hole wrecking with sticks looking for more. We soon found a much bigger one about the size of a post-it, but more rectangular and compact in shape than typical crab. And he was like a yellowy-brown color. I immediately donned him Lester. Lester the "probabaly a molester" crab. He was definitely a molester crab if I ever saw one. And he was stinkin T.O.'ed! Kaitlin and I were chasing him around - he was faster than us, and he runs sideways! - and then Dad walked up and just caught him like it was nothing. He held him for a couple minutes and then after telling Kaitlin how to hold to hold him, passed him off. Kalitlin immediately dropped him after he pinched her, and Lester hightailed it the remaining 5 feet to the ocean. That was the end of our track star pet crab. Luckily we only knew him for about 5 minutes so there wasn't a strong attachment. And he was molester anyway.

We went excursioning a little more then came back to the house to see if the beach was open yet. Nope, they hadn't done a thing. Nothing else was open in town either except for a couple of gas stations that I suppose had generators, because the electricity was still out. We didn't want to waste the day so we went to the pool, where a lot of other people were and got some last rays of Jamaican sun. Dad and I played in the pool with some super cute black kids from 'South Jersey'. Then we came back up the room and pondered ways we could make a fake hurricane dean video that was really cool, like with boats flying through the air and us standing on the beach with fake rain, shivering, hair blowing wildly, with someone shaking a scrap piece of tin roof in the background for appropriate noise. Then we realized we need electricity for a lot of the effects we wanted to do. Defeated in our quest, we packed up the rest of our stuff and went to bed fairly early since there wasn't much left to do. It was a good day.



Tuesday

It was the smoothest and quickest exit we've ever made from any trip ever since we had already had everything packed and half of it in the car. It was a little melodramatic. No last checks, or multiple trips to the car, no "Wait! I forgot ______!"'s, we were in the car and leaving Ocho Rios by 8 a.m.

We got to the airport around 10 and where you check in is the same for everyone, its a ginormous lobby with airline decals on the wall representing where appropriate lines should form. Now, the airport had been closed since Saturday night and had only just re-opened that morning. The lobby was packed with people, you couldnt tell where lines were supposed to form, or where they started or ended, just thousands of people all over the place. We see the Continental area but had no idea where the line for it was. So we got in a line and Dad set off to figure things out. A few minutes later Mom, Kaitlin, and I heard a distinct, loud, Dad whistle. The lobby got a little quieter and we set off in search of Dad, we quickly saw him right by the Continental counter. We made our way through the sea of people with our luggage and got in a line with about 6 people in it and asked Dad what was going on. Apparently Continental only flies to 2 cities from Jamaica, Houston and Newark! So our line was uber short and quick, it was amazing! I cannot vouch for Continental's domestic flights and service [I think Courtney can though...] BUT if you ever go to Jamaica, fly Continental! I mean only flying to 2 cities [non-stop, I might add] verses the other carriers flying to a long list of multi-stop destinations, I mean it really couldn't get any better. I felt really bad though for all the people on standby, because there were a ton.

Our flight left on time and we arrived in Houston a little early, and on top of that from the time we landed, 5:01, to the time we had gotten through customs and gotten our bags it had been only 20 minutes!! I was getting a mocha light frappacino at 5:23 people! Amazing! I'm fairly certain it will never again happen in my lifetime.

That brings my little vacation story to an end. Hope you enjoyed!

days 4 & 5: more beach and river.

Friday

Thursday nite after we got home from Port Antonio, we watched the news for a little bit to see if there was any more word about the hurricane that could possibly be headed for Jamaica. Sure enough The Weather Channel was predicting a direct hit sometime on sunday. Cool.

I really wasn't concerned in the slightest for 2 reasons, 1) my only experience with a hurricane before this was when Rita completely missed the Houston-area coast and everyone got worked up for nothing and 2) we were on the 3rd floor, seriously what could happen to us up here - there's not even very much glass at all because of the shutters. And I was convinced if there was going to be a hurricane, it would make a really cool story, I didn't want to leave.

So I went to bed and slept like a rock. When I got up Mom appeared to have not slept at all and instead spent the whole nite worrying about the could-be hurricane. Dad, even though he had the same position as me, had called the airlines and done all that he could to see if there was any way off the island and there wasn't unless you had a private jet. Mom couldn't harp on that anymore.

So we made it another beach day and basked all morning in the beautiful weather on the beautiful sand in front of the beautiful water. Around 11 the water sports pimp [we had been approached every day since we got there] came up to see if by now we had decided on anything, snorkeling, fishing, jet skis, etc. Dad said me and Kaitlin should go para-sailing. Mom and Dad had already done this on a previous trip. We said okay.

Mom, Kaitlin, and I climbed on the boat and went off shore a little ways while being fastened into our harnesses. I said I would go first and so the guy kinda threw the rainbow parasail thing in the air [at first it looked like he was pitching it in the water] and magically it caught wind and wanted to fly away like a kite on steroids. He fastened my carabiner and let me go and off I went into the air. I don't know how long the rope was and I'm a really bad judge of distance, but I was pretty far up in the air and the view was of course amazing. You're so high up that even though the boat is moving at some given speed - enough to keep the slack out of the line - you feel like you're just sitting in a swing, in mid-air, with your feet dangling, hardly moving at all. I don't have any pictures of this because Mom grabbed the video camera case instead of the regular camera case, just this one dad took from the beach of us getting on the boat when I suppose he realized we got the wrong one. But you can take my word for it, it was pretty amazing.

The rest of the day we spent shopping and for dinner we went to Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville at my sister's insistence. The words 'tourist trap' couldn't be used anymore appropriately. I won't elaborate on how awful it was but needless to say my sister didn't get to pick again the rest of the trip.

Saturday

Well, we knew Hurricane Dean was coming so went to Dunn's River Falls on saturday, the one thing left we hadn't done that we definitely wanted to see before we left. We have been snorkeling and deep sea fishing before, so if that got scraped it would be okay. Dunn's River Falls is 600 feet of cascading waterfalls that flow from a river coming down the side of a mountain into the ocean. You start at the bottom and climb your way to the top, you start out in this chain with your group kind of pulling each other up but that kind of broke up after the first little phase. The water is coming down pretty fast and hard and it's cold and the rocks you are climbing are misshapen and sometimes slippery with algae. After making it straight up the first phase I looked down and thought, if I slip I will die. It was exhilarating. [Oh and the water looks muddy in the pictures, but its really clear, its just the huge rocks it's going over.]

The fear evaporated and I was quite shocked with my agility and cat-like maneuvers as I climbed up, quite the opposite of the way I was expecting things to go down. We stopped a few times for photo ops, to soak in the rushing water, once for our guide to push Kaitlin and I down this spot in the rocks where the water rushed down furiously and made a pseudo-water slide, and a few more times for me to get the river silt and rocks out of my chaco's - if I ever go back I'm definitely taking closed, dorky water shoes to climb in. But overall this was immensely fun and a good work-out, I felt really refreshed afterwards probably my #2 favorite thing after the river rafting trip.

We drove around some, went to see Fern Gully, an area that is very rainforest-esque, the growth is so thick and tall it closes out almost all sunlight [pictures below] then we got lunch and went home and set out around 3 to see if there were any more stores open to do a last bit of shopping but most were boarding up. I made a last minute purchase of some sunglasses and then we headed home. Raquel and Winsome had come by and taped the small windows above the shutters and brought down all the furniture from the roof. We had dinner that Winsome had made, fish [no heads or tails], vegetables, and rice, and then watched tv [mostly the weather channel] on the couch together with the windows open hardly believing the extreme warnings and predictions the weatherpeople were giving with such vigor. Their favorite word was "catastrophic". Right before we went to bed we flipped to CNN and saw the new projected path of dean was not straight for Jamaica but more directly west vs. wnw. I think Mom slept a little better. Tomorrow: d-day!

day 3: indescribable.

We decided to make the drive east down the coast to Port Antonio to "raft" down the Rio Grande river. Mom and Dad had stayed here before on a previous trip and is my Dad's favorite part of the island. We left Ocho Rios a little before 8 and expected the drive to take about two to two and a half hours. We got about 10 minutes down the road and from that point on the roads became almost impassable. There would be splashes of paved road for a couple of miles at a time but aside from those we barely got over 30 miles an hour and were constantly slowing to a crawl to go over parts of the road [more like just mildly packed, horribly rough limestone] where it looked like 2 contractors got in a fight about where they were supposed start and stop because there would constantly be huge horizontal chunks of "road" just missing. A couple of times we didn't see them until it was a bit too late and hit the spots with tremendous force and mom and I would get thrown a couple inches in the air. Fun times.

Four hours later we made it to Port Antonio, dropped off the car at the bottom of the river [where it met the ocean], rode to the top in a taxi where we met our raft captains, and began our journey.

The rafts were made of 10-12' long bamboo stalks with a bamboo seat made for 2 towards the back as you can see and the captain stood at the front and pole-d you down the river with a big bamboo stalk.

I cannot express and the pictures do not do justice how amazingly gorgeous this river is. When my parents told us we were going to go rafting down a river, I just assumed we were going down a [brownish] river. I was clearly mistaken. We go down 7 miles of river and it takes about 2 and half hours. If you ever go to Jamaica, you HAVE to do this. The landscape we floated by was breathtaking, the hills were covered in huge trees and ferns and banana plantations and the water was bright turquoise and crystal clear just like the ocean, it was incredible. You could see straight to the bottom and it varied in depths, sometimes only a few inches and sometimes several feet. As we went down we would occasionally reach quick little rapids where we would go down with a rush and then we would travel on lazily. We stopped at one point about 2/3 of the way down and got some true Jamaican cuisine that a woman was selling on the river shore and we went swimming for awhile. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

We then went into Port Antonio to look around and go visit the Blue Lagoon - the real one - and where the movie Return to the Blue Lagoon was filmed. Basically the Blue Lagoon is an insanely deep cove type area - it flows into the ocean - which is fed by a natural spring. Because of it's depth it is a brilliant blue color. It was also really cold, I didn't get in. Here's some pictures.

It was almost 6 o'clock and we decided to go ahead and drive back to Ocho Rios even though it would be late getting back and we were exhausted. It was going a little quicker since we didn't have to stop this time for directions and there was a bit less traffic. Well, scratch that there was less traffic until we got to Port Maria, a little more than half way home, when we were suddenly in a huge line a traffic going at a crawl.

I can't believe I haven't mentioned before now that this year is an election year in Jamaica. Their elections were today actually. So needless to say there was major campaigning going on around the island and we talked to everyone we met about state politics and the general feel is that everyone is fed up, not only with the current ruling party, but the government in general, however no one planned on voting. I am curious to see tomorrow the estimated turnout.

Well the traffic we were suddenly in was actually a long line of campaigners on their way to Port Maria for a political rally for the Jamaica Labour Party [the opposition]. We finally made in into the city and the streets were packed with many more people than cars as we arrived just when it started. Adults, children, everywhere you looked wearing green, waving green flags & streamers, blowing green horns, blasting some official song of the party from these huge speakers on top of their cars. All incredibly passionate and pumped up about the possibility of their party winning. I wondered how many of them were going to vote.

We made it through slowly but surely and were home around 9:30, feeling it was definitely worth the long drive. Here are some more pictures we took just on the drive.

now a word from our sponsor...

sorry to interrupt the regularly scheduled vacation blog post, but I've been cleaning/reorganising/throwing away lots of stuff and I realized I have a ton of these:

At the beginning of sophomore year when I moved ino the house I still live in now, I thought these storage container things were simply amazing [and they are] and I bought about 3 sets of these things, and they came in cubes of 6 that you assemble [that adds up to a lot of these things]. Well I've quit using them completely since them and I know I will never need that many ever again - I had crazy colossal ideas of storage for my closet when I bought them, it didn't work out quite as planned - so if you would like some of these storage cubes, they are currently unassembled in my closet and I would LOVE to give them away. So if you want any let me know!

day 2: walking on sunshine.

Blazing light had filled the room as I awoke the next morning. I felt incredibly rested as I squinted joyfully into the radiant sunlight. However, I immediately became worried that I had just wasted away half the day in bed. I wanted to be on the beach by 9! What if it was already 10? or worse, noon? I have been known to sleep that late. My vacation plans have already been spoiled! I rolled over and saw that Kaitlin was still asleep in the other bed and it became my paramount mission to find out the time. As there was no bedside clock [this could be foreshadowing to the considerable lack of clocks anywhere, and moreover to the lack of concern with the time in general in Jamaica] I struggled to think where I left my watch.

Oh! In the dresser drawer! I put my aggie ring on the band and put it in there for safekeeping. I was debating before we left whether to bring the ring or not for fear of losing it somehow, but then decided to use this opportunity to hone my "being-an-adult-and-not-losing-valuable-things" skills. I pulled out the watch and stared at the face. I turned it sideways and stared some more to make sure the thing was still really ticking. It was 6:15! Rested or not, that was entirely too early to get up, so I walked to the window and pushed one side open to make sure I wasn't missing something outside that could only be seen at that hour of the morning, nope, still gorgeous like yesterday, so I went back to sleep until I rose at a more respectable hour, 7.

Eventually we were all up and ready for a day at the beach. Mom, Kaitlin, and I walked down around 9:15 and Dad said he would come down a little later, he wanted to find a bakery first. So we played in the beautiful turquiose water for a little bit and then got our chairs positioned and began to bake. For the first 30 minutes I sat facing the water, occaisionally looking around at the lush hillside to my left with the white houses with terra cotta roofs built into it, unable to look away, as if I couldn't take it in fast enough. Halfway through the morning I starting forming an idea as to why a kept staring as if it would all suddenly disappear. Most of the time in our everyday lives, we get mere glances or snapshots of real beauty. I see an entire family out together enjoying each others company or the technicolor green that covered east texas this summer because of the abundant rain as I drove home, where normally everything is burnt to a crisp. Hardly are there bountiful opportunities to submerse ourselves in creation, and for this I only blame ourselves. We run around all the time trying to get more and more things 'done' as if when we get those things 'done' we are accomplished and we scarcely stop to slow down and just look around from time to time to look at the authentic beauty God has created all around us. So it took awhile for me to adjust to beauty being unashamed and then I pondered for awhile on what God was thinking when he made this part of the Earth. I didn't get very far, as I hardly ever do when I try to wrap my mind around God's but that morning was wonderful just sitting there. My mom and sister had flipped over a couple of times but I never did the first day, I stayed laying on my back, afraid if I did I would miss something even though the Jamaican landscape, as wells as its people, are never quick to change, and I feel as if there were an official facial expression of Jamaica it would be a lazy grin.

Winsome had lunch ready for us around 12:30 when we came up from the beach. Pumpkin soup and tuna sandwiches, both of which were amazing. Originally in my mind the day was going to go as follows: beach, lunch, beach, dinner, something else. Well after lunch we were all pretty tired so we took naps and around 2:30 Mom, Kaitlin, and I decided to walk around Ocho Rios and browse a little, while Dad wanted to go out driving around. My Dad always does this on vacations, he likes to just go off driving around to see whats there and so on. So we walked through several strip-type shopping centers [not getting as many blantant complements since Mom was there, but still obvious once-overs - we got used to it as the day went on and it didn't feel weird anymore - but realized it was just the culture and not that every Jamaican man wanted to take my sister or I down a dark alley] and then we came upon a large open-air type craft market where they have all kinds of hand-made souvenir type things: dolls, bags, paintings, jewelery, wood carvings, clothes, sandals, musical instruments, etc. As we came upon the market a vivacious woman, with named Dimpers came up and introduced herself to us and said, "Oh sexy ladies and sexy Mama let me walk with you and show you my friends shops." Okay, if this woman wanted to spend a few minutes walking with us around this thing that was fine by me.

The market is really just rows and rows and rows of poles and tarps haphazardly thrown together to form rows of shops that were each about 5'x8' and the owner of each shop stood or sat right outside it and when you approached said some form of,

"Come in and have a look, I have a special price today."
"Please come in, you don't have to buy, but just entertain me with a look."
"Come see, I have [insert random souvenir] special for you today."

At first I was obliging, going into every sweet persons little 'shop' as they called it and spending a couple of minutes looking at their things, even though I knew I wasn't going to buy anything that day. Then I realized all of them had pretty much the exact same thing, were using the exact same line, and Dimpers was leading us through every one like we were circus animals and the shop owners were the audience. I was beginning to wonder why this woman was still wasting her time walking around with us, I rationed it out as that in Jamaica they don't care what time it is, how long something takes, and the word efficient is not in their vocabulary, so I didn't care that this woman was tagging along trying to get us to buy something from her friends, which were in ample supply. After about 30 minutes we get to another shop, where the owner carves things out of wood, which are not surprisingly, just like all the other wood carvings we've seen [not to dilute the quality of the stuff - I mean some is junk - but a lot of it is really neat]. Dimpers turns to me and says, "Whadmondaryoubarn?" "What?" "Whadmondaryoubarn?" "What?" "Whadmondaryoubarn?" "What?" I look at Kaitlin because I could not understand what she was trying to ask me if my life depended on it. Kaitlin tells me she wants to know what month I was born. I tell her June. She sighs and looks away while I look at the wood things. After a minute or two she comes back to me and says, "Do you have defiansay at home?" I look at her and laugh and say no. Then she looks at me and tells me this is her son's shop and points to the rasta leaning against a pole.

Moving on.

We're almost done and Dimpers asks where we are staying and we tell her as we start walking in that direction. She is still with us and when we're about a minute from the entrance she says to my Mom, "So, sexy Mama, you going to help a lady out?" This woman wanted money for leading us around a place we were plenty capable and willing to do on our own! I was taken aback but apparently my Mom and sister had figured her out from the start. My mom gave her a few dollars I think and I was a little bewildered for awhile at her money-making opportunities. Did she not have a real job and just kind hung around on the streets until opportunity strikes and then siddle up to some Americans who happen to pass? Was this her only source of income? Was it her day off or had she just gotten off work and she thought she would make a few dollars in her spare time? It was beyond me and I wasn't bitter about it so much as just a little dumbstruck.

We got back home and Dad returned a little while later with new discoveries, one of which being Fern Gully, a couple of kilometers outside of Ocho Rios, which we would visit later in the week. We spent the rest of the afternoon resting around the house and enjoying the view out the windows until dinner was ready. Dinner consisted of jerk chicken [sooo goood, a carribean staple], rice cooked Jamaican style, and cabbage. It was reallly good, definitely compensating for the previous nite's meal. We went out and got ice cream a little later and then spent the evening together on the couch watching a couple of re-reuns of law and order.

Day 1: Welcome to jamaica.

So, where is jamaica exactly? Well for a good look at the geography of the region and the island, and to reference major points of interest throughout the posts, click here.

So we left for Jamaica on tuesday, august 14 from Houston around 10 a.m. and arrived in Montego Bay around 1 p.m. [no time change]. After breezing through customs we then were thrown an abrupt halt before leaving the airport because our rental car reservation had disappeared so Dad had to go through different companies to get us another one. Finally after over an hour of waiting the rental car guy drove us in the car to some other place, a headquarters of sorts for their cars by the looks of it, to finalize some paperwork, and then around 2:30, we were off to Ocho Rios!

Well, sort of. They drive on the left side of the road in Jamaica, and therefore all the cars have right side drivers seats. If you've never experienced this set up, its a very curious sensation. My mom and I were in the backseat with my sister in the front and Dad manning the wheel. As we were pulling out of the place, Dad says, "Just keep reminding me to 'stay left', especially in this crazy circle thing we've got to go through up here." In Jamaica they have 'circles', that they call 'round-abouts' that sometimes connect 2 or more roads instead of just a traffic light, and generally it's just proceed at your own risk, no yield or stop signs, just people driving all over the place with no regard for left or right sides of the street or whether or not it was their turn to get in or out of the circle. Dad was kind of apprehensive about this already, as him and Mom have been to Jamaica previously a few times and have experienced these mad traffic inventions before, and know you have bring your 'A' game to negotiate them successfully on the first try. We we're approaching the round-about and somehow 2 seconds later Kaitlin was yelling that we had missed the turn.

We were starting to go up a hill on a narrow street and all of a sudden a car flew around a corner in our lane and we missed a head-on collision by inches. It happened so fast, our gasps were late. Seconds later as were past the curve we see a line of cars zooming towards us in our lane, only scooting over at the last second and always with multiple honks. I became a bit concerned for our lives. Dad reassured us it was just the way they drive and that everyone honks at everyone else, not in a malicious manner, but more like, hey, you're in my way, scoot over, or hey, im passing you.

I tried to shreik quietly the rest of the day. We were looking for a side street to turn down to get going back the other way and then we saw a wide-ish one where some cars were waiting to pull out and some young Jamaican boys were walking around trying to sell olive/grape looking things. Right before we turned Dad went to turn on the blinker and he was met with the windshield wipers instead now going at full speed and instead of working on turning them off he got the blinker going, but for the wrong way as it was on the opposite side of the steering column, and in all the commotion managed to honk the horn for good measure as well. The boys selling the bundles of round things were laughing as well as the people watching us turn. We were pretty amused as well. We got turned around and after getting in the round-about and missing our turn only once, once we were in it, as well as quite a few 'STAY LEFT!'s, we were headed east towards Ocho Rios.

We arrived at our resort and were quickly escorted up to our new home for the next week by Raquel [our housekeeper] and Winsome [our wonderful cook]. We chatted for a bit and then Kaitlin and I wanted to quickly go down to beach for a look before they closed the entrance from our resort. On the way down to the beach [about a minute long walk] we passed several Jamaican men and everyone of them wanted to talk to us, imagine that!

"Hey princess..."

"Smiley, why don't you come over here?"

"Beautiful girls, come over here and talk to me."

"Where you girls going in such a hurry?"
Inaudible noise.
"Pretty ladies, let me show you something..come over here."
"Come with me pretty girls, I can show you a good time!"
Whistles and catcalls.

Kaitlin and I went onto the beach and played in the gorgeous water for just a few minutes, hardly noticing it however because we both felt so awkward, as there was still one man calling at us from across the way. We hightailed it back up to the room completely ignoring every greeting we heard and told my Mom we were never going anywhere without Dad again. She laughed at us and said he had gone to the grocery store with Winsome and Raquel to stock up our house for the week and would be back soon.



In the meantime we saw those grape/olive things on the table and asked about them. It turns out they are a native fruit called Genips [pronounced ginneps], [I forgot to take a picture, but I found this one in a google search] pictured here:


They are also known as spanish limes. They look like a minature lime from the outside, but their 'peel' is actually very thin, and once you tear it a little you can just push the little ball of fruity goodness out. The inside comes out in a ball, that is a pinkish color and fleshy that you put in your mouth whole and work off of the big seed in the middle. They are sooo good! I meant to look for them at the grocery store, but I forgot, I'm pretty sure they don't have them but I'm going to see anyway.

Dad returned later with our new friends carrying $12,000 in groceries, Jamaican dollars that is. It was about 6:30 and so Winsome and Raquel made a recommendation for dinner, John Crow's restaurant right across the street so there we went. Raquel recommended to me the steamed fish with vegetables which sounded really good and so I ordered it. Our food arrived and a plate was put down before me with an entire fish on it covered with various vegetables in a sauce.

Ok now when I say entire fish, I mean like in the movies with the head and tail still on it.

My dad saw me about to freak out and promptly covered the head and tail up with vegetables before I got a good look at it and showed me how the fish easily came off the bone. I took a few deep breaths and picked about the body part where a fillet would normally come from. It wasn't bad but I was so disheartened from seeing the whole fish it kind of ruined my appetite. So meal #1, not so great, but there was still hope.

We walked back home around 8 [it is pitch black in Jamaica by 7] feeling tired. My sister immediately went to bed, I followed around 9, with a weird apprehensive feeling about the rest of the trip which, looking back, I blame solely on the fish & catcalls.

coming soon!

In the next day or so I'll start posting about the Graham family vacation in Jamaica so stay tuned! Here's a preview...

Mission: MAN BAND

Remember these guys?



and these too,

and a little less known,

and who could forget [mostly everyone, especially if you never knew them to begin with],

So I saw a commerical for this new show on Vh1 a week ago or so and it looked too good [read: a huge trainwreck] to pass up. I set it to record and I watched the first episode last nite. I'm talking about Mission: MAN BAND, people. No, I'm not making this up, vh1 decided to take 4 washed up, former boy band members, give them a contract and a manager and see "if lighting can strike twice" according to one of the guys.

The players:

1. Chris Kirkpatrick. Formerly of N*SYNC [my boy band allegiances lie solely here]. Also, the 'host' if you will, for the others while they are recording, etc. in orlando, in other words theyre living in his way nice mansion. Chris' platform for the show is, "I drink too much and have done absolutely nothing since N*SYNC [career-wise or other], I'm kind of tired of being really lazy, this should be fun."

2. Jeff Timmons. Formerly of 98 degrees. His platform is, "I have all this other stuff going on in my life, [cut to several shots of him on the phone sealing deals and whatnot], I don't really know if this is a good idea, I'm not expecting much." Talk about your debbie downer.

3. Rich Cronin. Former front man for LFO. Remember, the abercrombie and fitch song?? That's them. His platform is, "I was diagnosed with leukemia 2 years ago and now I want to live every day to the fullest and I think we can really turn this into something big!"

4. Bryan Abrams. Formerly of Color Me Badd. ... Well, anyway, his platform is, "I work at a tire factory, my wife and I just found out were having a second child, were in huge debt, this HAS to pay off, we need the money really bad."

I mean with characters like this, how could this not be hilarious? I was laughing through the entire first episode that was supposed to be serious, but between them auditioning with Police's "Every Breath You Take", Jeff quitting and coming back, the comforters Chris had made with each of the guys' huge head shot screen printed on them, and the native american 'new beginnings' ceremony they took part in, I mean really. This should be golden.