Whale, Whin I Wuz in Kowlige....

Write something funny a friend told me...
Now I'm under pressure.
I could write about Bigness whispering sweet nothings in my ear, a prelude to getting busy "Babes, bring me a ham & cheese sandwich when you come back... and 2 cokes"
I took too long and he had baked a sheet of chocolate chip cookies and eaten 1/2 of them...
But that's not all that funny, it doesn't involve torture.
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Here on Caye Caulker we get to meet a lot of groovy people from all over the world. Artists, musicians, teachers, students doing archeology research, students doing public health projects, peace corps workers, the list goes on every day with interesting people
We got a lot of solo travelers because its so safe here.
We get a lot of solo travelers that are lonely, and some are off their medication (male and female) seeking the untouched paradise that they read about in the travel guide from 1985.
We get a lot of solo travelers, engaged in bad date conversation. (the kind where one person is nicely trying to dodge a nuisance, but unsuccessful)
... and drinking coffee. (I usually signal the unfortunate one that its o.k. to escape while the other is using the bathroom)
Note to the guys: if you want to score with the girls - Dutch Treat isn't the way, they want the tiramisu and double latte paid for... by YOU!
I'm not complaining, listening to bad date conversation, makes for better entertainment than TV most of the time. Notice to the world: your server is a real live person not a jack-in-the-box drive through speaker.
I'm not working the evening shift right now, MCS is... tee hee hee.
No, I didn't warn her.
See what you miss when you don't live smack in the middle of the village?
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You have to read the next paragraph with a slightly stuffy Noth Kayolina accent.
Two old gay men came into the store. Not to buy anything, just to ask questions, waste time and sniff around before their "guide" rounds them up to go back.
Them: Whayl hellooooo thayr miss, whare dew yew come frum?
Me: Mars? (with a smile)
Them: hardy har har
Me: ...
Them: do you live here?
Me: yes (I can see that I'm not going to get away with the fake spanish accent this time so I start into the shpeil) I retired and moved to Belize 6 years ago, first living in San Pedro and then moved to Caye Caulker when San Pedro lost its appeal.
Them: retarred? yew look tew yun tew be retarred.
Me: thanks, I'm 45
Them: whale thayts too yung to retarr eneewayz, what deed yew dew?
Me: I was in print publishing, I had a small publishing company and in the mid 90s started doing design work for a Microsoft developer. (that's usually enough information - the lightbulb goes on, the ah-ha moment, we got her number, but not for these two men)
Them: dew yew lak livvin hair?
Me: yes, its paradise but its not heaven, its like any place, you always have things that you don't like and things that you like. (I'm always perplexed by this question, why would someone move way across the world to another country if they didn't like living there?)
"Them" splits into 2 personalities: Rich Old Gay Guy and Smart Old Gay Guy. Smart guy shuts up.
ROGG: my fraynd hair wonts tew teach kowlege in Buleeze.
Me: oh really, in Belize City or Belmopan
ROGG: whare evva
Me: that's nice
ROGG: whut deew yew do about haylth cayer?
Me: I try to not get sick, but if you do we have 2 doctors on the island, a full time nurse and now we have a pharmacy. If its life threatening injury, or if you're a British soldier, O.J. from the Oceanside Bar is our emergency guy for the island and he calls in the British Military Rescue Chopper. Cuba provides Belize with about 100 doctors on a humanitarian mission and we have one of the Cuban doctors living here on Caye Caulker. We also have a large public hospitalin Belize City and two private hospitals, Chetumal Mexico is just over the border and there's a big medical center there also.
ROGG: Kewbaw? Thayt Kaystro is the devil and he kayn go tew hayl.
I start looking around for hidden camera, thinking this is so corney, its got to be a setup. Am I on Candid Camera?
Me: The States is the only country in the world with a hard on for Cuba, they need to just get over it. And if you don't like Castro then you will hate Belize, because they LOVE him here.
ROGG: Kaystro won't even give his paypul tawlet paypa.
Me: I'm sorry you feel that way, have you ever been to Cuba?
ROGG: NO aynd yur just a big ole Kommunist, shame on yeew.
Me: time for you to leave and get back on your cruise ship. Buh Bye!
ROGG was really mad, but Smart Old Gay Guy was amused. Next time he should come without his travel partner, but who would pay the bills?
How did I know they were from the cruise ship? Clue #1, Their clothes matched. And by the time they get down to my end of the street they usually look like they are about to collapse. (Cruise Ship Customers = newly wed, over fed or nearly dead) How did I know they were gay? Other than the obvious (holding hands) One was wearing an ascot, the other had a tennis sweater tied around his shoulders, Reeboks so clean I WOULD have eaten off of them, coifed hair - with hair spray. Was that clear or natural nail polish?

Photo Friday Submission - April 7 - Organized

Organized chaos at a street market in Playa Del Carmen Mexico. Details from three photos put together into one image. Shot during the Easter holiday 2005 with an old old old Olympus Comedia that I bought from a friend. Bigness and I took a little trip to to Mexico and became tourists ourselves. The camera has been handed down to MCS now and I also use it as a backup for weddings... just in case.
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Irony

Night Shift: Slightly Too Big Booty Cop making out with his girlfriend Fish Face the Cow and the police station radio is blasting Gloria Gaynor "I Will Survive."

Conclusion I drew from this: smart police officers make out with their girlfriends under the stairs behind the police station while on night duty, dumb ones do it right at the front desk with their girlfriend on their lap, and the sarge upstairs.

Riverwalk Purple Passion

A few days ago we went to the mainland with friends to Riverwalk Nursery between Belmopan and San Ignacio. The colors were glorious. Our friends bought travelers palms, we bought a mango tree and 3 coffee roses which have tiny white flowers that smell like gardenia.

Ornamental Peppers (I think)




Purple Bouganvilla

Big News on Caye Caulker

The police have started a manhunt for a local tour guide, because he broke into his neighbor's house and stole all her panties.
Too weird to be a lie.
News at 11.


I totally nabbed the cartoon off of Vitrolica's Webb's ite

Lost in Translation

A quick trip to Chetumal Mexico (civilization) to the Mall Las Americanas for printer parts and a Big Mac with fries. we leave at 6 a.m. and arrive back home on the mainland at 6 p.m.
I'm speaking Spanish to the immigration officer coming into Mexico answering a few simple questions about where I'm from and where I'm going. He understands most of what I'm mushmouthspeaking.
In the mall I'm speaking Spanish, I'm saying Spanish words, they are a bit jumbled up though. The sentence structure is not corect, but I figure if I get enough of the words out, they will reconstruct the sentence for me and give me an award for trying so hard. Bigness, whose first language is Spanish, keeps deserting me or acting like he doesn't understand what I'm saying. I'm getting the same dumbphased look from the clerk that I give when someone speaks rapid Italian or Cuban Spanish to me. I realize how I speak, but its like the glue is holding my tongue to the roof of my mouth. I SPEAK SPANISH, but I need to bark it. I speak it slowly like I speak English. The pronunciation is correct. I realize now that Spanish isn't spoken, its barked. I say the words and Bigness repeats them EXACTLY the same way I say them, except he adds the snappishness. I was snappish once and it raised eyebrowns and got teeth sucking directed at me. DisCULpe! Hmph! Por faVOR! I said to a small Mexican man who shoved in front of me. He turned halfway and cut his eyes at me. I raised my eyebrows and said disCULpe (excuse me!) again. It is all about the body language and inflection. I pursed my lips, put my hand on my hip and say quietly mutherfoker.

Me: Bigness, did you just see that?
Bigness: what?
Me: N E V E R M I N D, but I almost killed someone in spanish.
Bigness: Cho! (creole word for "yea, right!)
Me: let's go to the GNC and see if they have Emergen'C.

GNC Vitamins in Chetumal Mexico - its a miracle. I see they have Joven brand cream in every flavor except the one I need. They have lavender for calming, mint for stimulating, collegen and elastin, honey wheat germ, but no wild yam cream. Wild yam? Mexican wild yam is a natural replacement for progesterone (the hormone). Joven makes the best wild yam cream I've used. As any premenopausal woman can tell you... progesterone is very important. I'm getting low on the cream and starting to feel the panic rising. Hot flashes, insomnia, general craziness, crying for no reason and dry skin are all symptoms of low progesterone levels.
There must be a mistake. They have every other flavor and color.
Me: "Tell the boy I need the wild yam cream"
Bigness: (look of horror comes over his face - you would have thought I was asking him to buy me a bottle of douche - and then drink it for me) "Me no noh how fu say dat."
Me: "Its in a pink jar, tell them you want the one in the pink jar."
Bigness: "Gial, me no noh what dat is."
Me: (Is the temperature rising in here? Did someone shut the air conditioning off?) I'm mentally thumbing through my spanish dictionery, what is the word for pink? Como se dice pink? We went through this about 3 months ago, the same exact coversation and I settled for menopause vitamins WHICH DID NOT WORK.
Me: "Tienes Mexicana dulce papas creama, esta rosado" roughly translates to "You have mexican sweet potato cream, its pink?" My pronouncation is perfect, I note, as Bigness EXACTLY repeats what I said, translating from Spanish into Spanish. What I should have said though is, "Necesito la crema salvaje mexicana del ñame en el tarro rosado." I need Mexican wild yam cream in the pink jar.
Clerk shakes his head no.
Me: "Is that no, we don't have it or no he doesn't understand what we're asking?"
Bigness: Gial noh mek me do dis. (again with the look of horror - what's that all about?)
Me: (I try again) Tienes creama las como se dice menopause en Espanol? which roughly translates to "You have cream - how do you say - menopause in Spanish?"
Clerk: (head pops up) menopause? and heads over to the vitamin section. Finally a word that he understands.
Me: No gracias, no trabaja, es inutil (no thanks, no work, its useless) I've figured out by now that menopause is the same in both languages
Bigness: "Gial dey NOH HAV EET!" and slinks back into the mall, standing just far away that he can't hear me talking to myself IN ENGLISH.
I forget about asking Bigness to tell the boy they need to order it. I give up and pay for the EmergenC. The boy is happy we are leaving.
Bigness: I need to leave you alone to mek you speak it more.
Me: Cho! I travel all over Mexico without a translater and sooner or later I hit the right word.

Interview with United Nations Baby

Me: smile for Gma, let me take your picture.
She: (sh*t eating grin)

Me: give me a real smile
She: it IS real

Me: what's your favorite toy?
She: sticky tape
Me: note to self - stop buying dolls and plastic crap and just give her a big roll of duct tape, oh, wait a minute, I might wake up one morning and she's ductaped her mother to the bed, like how she locked her mother in the bedroom... but that's another story - and WE'RE NOT LAUGHING ABOUT THAT ONE! Maybe I'll just get her a new roll of scotch tape. Less possible damage.

Me: what's your favorite thing to do?
She: fwim at baby beach (near the split) and watch cartoons with Gpa. (Bigness will do anything to get away with watching cartoons - sound like anyone else you know?)
Me: what's your favorite food?
She: eggs and beans and monkey meat and katsup.
Me: monkey meat?

Me: who do you like better, Gma or Gpa?
She: Gpa
Me: why?
She: he gives me ice cream every time I ask him

On Grandparenting:

Me: time to bathe and bed
She: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Me: Babysitter has to go home
She: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Bigness: Gial - STOP THAT - shut your beak
She: . . .
Me: how did you do that?
Bigness: I put on my big ugly face
Me: Oh, I've seen that face once or twice

Illustration Friday - March 31 - Spring

She had the whole love spell thing going on, with the scent of gardenia. I know about these things. I had a love spell on me for a while, but had to scrub it off, too much of a nuisance. Men following me everywhere, I would turn around and hiss at them like a snake to get them to back off. I warned Bigness about it, but he fell right into the trap, like a flower to the bee.

This is a photo illustration that I did in Photoshop combining 3 pictures and applying several filters to the layers.

For more illustration Friday entries click here.

A Study in Pink

What I did this week (in my spare 5 minutes)

I had a commission peice to do, and it had been a while since I've painted in watercolor, so I did some practice peices. Many years ago, I took a short course in oriental watercolor techniques, and I have to admit its my favorite style of painting, although I don't do it much. I go through these fits and streaks. Last week it was just watercolor for me. I'm a better student than I am a teacher though, I've tried teaching this technique, and words fail me. Here are the practice peices, Wild Bamboo and Dragonflies.

Here's the commission peice.