stx today,comments

I'm so sorry for your loss. Here in AZ, there are a couple of grief counceling places who specialize in people who have lost beloved pets. Some say it is as bad or worse for some people than losing a member of the family. Before everyone poo poos this, think of this. When you lose a family member, everyone is so sorry for your loss. When you lose a pet, there are people who will say " it's only a _____ ", so some people hold in their grief,making it worse. Again, I'm so sorry.

dougtamjj.... just wanted to express my condolences on the loss of your Dracula. Fifteen is quite old for a rottie so he must have had a really great life with you. Lucky you and lucky him. Dracula lives on in your memories and I'm sure you have great stories ... like the flopping bat wing ears... to tell about him for years to come. He will be with you forever in your hearts.

trw - the house situation is still being analyzed. A specialist is coming to STX to review some similar problems at Hovensa and the contractor said he'd bring the guy by my house for some additional info and advice. I still have to get in touch with the person handling administration of the probate for the estate of the recently deceased guy i bought the house from a few years ago. We can't start talking settlement until I get more info from additional contractors. Meanwhile, it's stress I really could do without!

tam - very sorry to hear your dog's passing. It sounds like you have been through the wringer lately. I hope that's the last bad thing to happen to you for a good long time!

I just caught up reading all the posts from the past week. I've been side-tracked with a "boat guest" (as opposed to a house-guest) and not online much other than the bare minimum to handle real estate emails, most of which I could respond to via my Blackberry instead of firing up the computer. A remote relative of my husband's came down from Idaho for a 10 day stay on Parrothead. There's no blood relationship, it's one of those things where her husband's aunt's husband is a cousin of someone or other who is a distant relative of my husband a time or two removed or something like that. Amusingly enough, she looked a LOT like one of my husband's female cousins who has visited us on STX 4-5 times in the past year and could probably pass for her mother. Despite being a total stranger to either of us when she got here, we lucked out as she's really nice and a Realtor up in Idaho, so we had enough in common to have a good time. I even took a couple days to take her to some of the tourist activities I had never done yet (rum factory and botannical garden tour, etc.) She decided that outings on the Parrothead and waking up at Buck Island and a private flight to Tortola and a few other things we threw in to keep her entertained were the kind of Rock Star Life her husband has always wanted, so she was teasing him about not having come along and she was here living his dream. I suspect she'll be back and bring him along next time.

Well life isn't done with me yet as more difficulties came my way this day. I always try to appreciate the bad as a learning and life experience and how would I enjoy and appreciate my joys and good times if I do not experience the down times. Such is life. For this day I will count my blessings to get me through. Tomorrow is another day.

Good night all. Just another day in paradise.

That sucks, Tammy. I know what you mean. It sometimes seems 2 steps forward, 3 steps back. It's the way things are going for me lately too.

Spent a chunk of change at the vet, more than I expected for sure but the pooch is worth it. I'm worried about Lizard. Hope his pal is OK & that we hear soon. No traffic today since it's a no-ship day. That's the silver lining to that cloud. 😉

Tammy, I hope everything goes great for you today. Thanks very much for asking about me. I was kinda going through some stuff last week, and then me and the family took a short 5 day trip to St. Thomas. We did little Carnival stuff, but we did enjoy being a tourist for couple of days. The little one loved Coral World and the Sky Ride, and we have tons of pictures for his album. Today is Friday and I'm finally catching back up on work.

A trashy bird got into my house. I heard lots of thumping & went into the living room where the dog was behind a chair bouncing around in excitement. The bird was about the same size as the dog & it flew up, hooked its toes in the screen & hung upside down for a while breathing heavily.

Shut the dog up in the bedroom & the bird flew onto the ceiling fan (off). I got a broom & after opening the slider as wide as it would go, tried to shoo it to the outside. No go. The bird flew everywhere BUT there. Opened the front door wide & after about 15 minutes finally manage to get it outside. I'm sure the bird was as thrilled as I was. Dog's not real happy though.

I once had a bat that got in my living room and tried to shoo it out with a broom. Ended up getting to the office upstairs and finally opened the window, took off the screen and closed the door for a couple of hours and off it flew....Thank God.

Tammy, when life deals you lemons, you got to make lemonade. Your attitude (I like to call it "altitude") is great and you will pull thru these bad times. Kiss JJ.....and what the hell, kiss Doug too..lol....

Charlotte

Tammy, I'm sorry to hear you lost your dog. It is one of the hardest things to get over because as terry says, very often other people don't understand how painful it is. My dog died in STX in 2001, and I still cried when I read your post because all the memories came flooding back. He was 16 - I was there when he was born, when he died, we lived in 5 different countries, and I had 2 different husbands! It was like he had shared my entire life. I have two new dogs now, but I still can't forget him. I'm glad you have other dogs already, I'm sure you will all be a comfort to each other.

Thank you all for your kindness. We are doing well and thankful that our dog is no longer in pain though we miss him. It is interesting to watch our other animals reorganizing their pecking order and roles in the house. Our female rottie and the one that passed away had a kennel outside and stayed in our cottage when it was hot. Neither one of them ever wanted to be house dogs. When the older one passed we brought the female, Angel, into the house. She is an alpha female and is bossing all the other animals around. I have to constantly remind her that I am the alpha female in this house. LOL.

Trade your bird story reminded me about a bat that flew into our house. I was up late one night by myself watching a scary movie. I already had the heebie jeebies because I had just discovered centipedes. So I was sitting there and some black thing swooped down towards my head. I threw myself to the floor trying to scream but the only sound that came out was ooh ooh. This thing kept flying around while I crawled on the floor trying to open all the doors. Finally the thing disappeared and I thought it was gone so I closed the doors and sat on the couch and just as my heart rate was getting back to normal the damn thing came flying out of a bedroom right at my face. I am swinging a couch pillow around like it was a baseball bat, reduced to whimpering at this point. It finally flew out the french doors. Now I am used to such critters like the egret that flew in to say hello along with the lizards and crabs. Such is life on St. Croix.

Lizard, still thinking of you. Hope everything is well with you.

well i never bothered looking for extra work, i spent time in the yard planting about a dozen new palms of different varieties that i had bought at the ag fair and then a bunch of stuff i had started from seed, and then i cleaned every day(4 dogs,2cats), the yard guys came over and the lawn looks so good when it's been mowed so i made a commitment to myself to mow it when ever it gets more than 4 inches thus saving some money, those mornings i did not have to work i got up early and just started putzing around the house and yard and i actually got stuff done because one thing led to another and well you know how it goes. i read online that the eco nazies are now complaining that stanford is not using solar power on his new construction because he does not want the hassle of panels nor the ugliness of panels and i guess why is that any of their business,he's rich and can afford wapa and tammy in this ever so politically correct world we are forced to live in nowdays you are not allowed to use the word heebie jeebies anymore because it denigrates jews, and i've never seen so many tall guys with zero body fat and no body hair in my life as i have this past week, lol it's really kind of creepy and hey tammy if you want to have lunch at christines,or anyone else for that matter i'll be there about 1 tomorrow

i have one gecko in each room of my house,they live above"cat" line and seem fairly content,the one in my office is the biggest and the most green,lol and he just hangs on the wall staring at me as i sit in front of the computer and then he'll get a burst of energy and chase down a bug snap it up and swallow and then he runs back to the spot on the wall above the computer and stares at me some more

and i now have puerto rican queen for a helper around the hosue, now if you've never had a puerto rican queen before you need to run over to camp rico or whim or any of the latino neighborhoods here on the island and get one, he is truly a breath of fresh air because he's just this hilarious queen and he's a good cleaner and all he wants is a place to stay whenever he needs to get away from his family and then food and cigarettes and so i told him he could stay here every other week in exchange for houshold duties, lol he shrieks,sings to himself and just carries on in spanish most of the time and i just really like the guy and well the dogs seem to like him,i don't know what the other half thinks because i never asked and so he came over today for a week and he seems to like bleach so we'll see,he's about 4 inches taller than i am and could probally beat me to a pulp but i told him if he ever stole from us i'd chase him down and cut his tattoos off and make lampshades and lol he started to shriek and carry on and i had to calm him down,lol i really do love the "misfits" i collect

Not politically correct. Me? LOL.
Trw if you and your "queen" get bored come on over here my house needs some cleaning. I feel like I never stop and it still doesn't get done. Oh well.

Got up at 4 this morning to haul six bikes to the airport for some triathalon folks who were staying up the hill. A very cool bunch of people from Minnesota. They did well in the race and had no injuries. These people go all over the world doing ironman and said that St. Croix even though only a half ironman was very difficult. They were also impressed with the beauty and hospitality of our island. So nice to hear. Hope they come back.

Heck, trw, send him my way! lol. I'm not that far from Campo Rico and never have time for housework. If he's looking for solitude and a place to escape, this is it.

The weather seems to be clearing up today now that the triathlete tourist crowd is departing island. Ah, well.

Meanwhile, it's that time of year to start thinking about the upcoming storm season and preparing for "just in case". The Hurricane Hunters arrive in a week to open up their facility for the season. If anyone has kids in school and thinks a class tour of their aircraft would be of interest, this is usually a better time of year to arrange that than in the middle of a storm when they are busy preparing for their next mission/flight.

I;ve been in Kentucky for a couple of weeks and am certainly ready to come home. This morning was pretty though. I took my granddaughter to breakfast before school. I left at dawn with a temp of 47. There was fog and it was so pretty. Almost made it worthwhile getting up so early and having to wear a sweater.

But tomorrow I head back to the sunny Caribbean. Dad is doing well and granddaughter had her first communion - my work here is done.

I'll see you all soon.
Linda

Welcome back Linda.

ah first communion is so cool, they get all dressed up and have pics taken and it's a special day, i honestly can't remember what we lutherans called it but i remember the day i was confirmed

i have never spent time in kentucky but i imagine that part of the country must be beautiful, is loretta lynn from there,she's a woman i admire alot

When I was a child in Tennessee, Loretta Lynn would visit our next door neighbors. They were some sort of cousins. Mom and Dad would go over and they would all play rook or spades. They would make pallets and put all us kids down to sleep. One night our neighbors daughter and I hid under the table while they were playing. We were eating sugar cubes. Well Ms Loretta started cussing. Wow, what a mouth. I got choked on a sugar cube which alerted the adults we were under the table. Well both of us got the belt and put to bed sobbing. Everytime I hear coal miners daughter I think I got whipped because of Ms Lorettas mouth. LOL

lol steven tyler from aerosmith cussed me out on more than one occasion when i worked at the "snob hotel" in minneapolis and one morning i kicked the hel* out of sean penns feet to wake him up because he was passed out under the piano and the night shift left him there because he is "sean penn" lol and well i truly could care less, we were opening and i just could'nt have a passed out movie star under the piano

was just out wandering my yard and found half a chicken, our yard has a 6 ft high chain link fence all the way around it with no way to get under, don't the chickens realize that those 4 things barking at them are dogs and that they should not fly over the fence into the yard because thats probally a good way to get chomped,ah life in the country

I saw one HUGE centipede today at a condo complex. At least 8 inches long and about half an inch in diameter. it was on about the fifth stair going up and I wondered why it was hanging out there. I took off my shoe and whacked it until there was no doubt it couldn't be revived. I didn't have a camera with me right then or I would be posting one really freaky critter on here tonight. Not big enough to eat a mouse... but more than big enough to scare tourists.

lol Alexandra, they really are kinda fun to kill are'nt they, you can just whack the hell out of them until you feel better, and i've noticed alot of land crabs on the road when i go to work at 430 am so drivers please be carefull,lol some mornings it's like dodgeball and so far i have not run over one., oh and i got a call to work a private party on sat night for cash