stx today,comments

Nice that the deer are back - AWFUL that dogs were poisoned. Horrible way for them to die & whoever did it should be arrested.

so on thursday morning,my one full day off for the week,one of the neighborhood guys/kids(he's 17 so i'm not sure if he's a guy or a kid) came to the gate and set the dogs to barking so i went to see what he wanted,we did the crucian hand bump thing and i asked him whats up, he saw the grass needed cutting and wanted to know if he could take care of that, this kid/guy has been coming over about once a month now for about 6 months and we've always told him no because we use joseph's crew for the yard,so i told him no once again and the total look of dejection on his face is something i won't forget for a long time,he just put his head down and started walking down the road and i went back in the house, well needless to say i felt like a total piece of s%%t for turning him away once again ,the other half was sitting on the couch and i told him all of this and he just gives me the same strange look he always does when the human in me comes out and says nothing knowing full well theres nothing to say so i throw on a shirt and get in my car and go down the road looking for the guy/kid, i find him by the church walking towards the store and tell him to meet me at the house and i've got some stuff for him to take care of for me (i've got a honey-do list a mile long) the look on his face was also a look i soon won't forget, it's that kind of look you see when someone finally get s job and they know there'll be money coming in soon,i don't know, so i go get smokes and get back to the house and i showed him some shrubs i wanted ripped out and some trees cut down and blah blah blah so he runs home to get his machete and comes back and starts to work, while he's working i'm thinking "kid you're going to get grief from your friends for working for the homos", now we have NEVER had a problem of any kind here but i know how kids are with other kids, so he works fast,hard and efficient and has the job done in about 4 hours and i ask him how much he says 50 so i give him 60 and ask if he wants more work his face lit up and he said sure he'd be back tomorrow and i don't need to worry about paying him daily if i'm not here that he knows i'll pay when i see him so we walk the yard again and i show him more stuff and he says he'll be back in the morning and me being me thought yeah ok i'll see you when the 60 bucks runs out so he leaves and i finish my day off and get up friday morn and go to the 12 mile job get home about noon and see he's been chopping away at stuff but by then it was raining hard so i knew he was done for the day, the other half was watching tv and i asked him if the kid/guy showed up and he said yeah he was awake and heard yelling outside on the road so he went and looked and as the kid was coming in the yard at 7:30 his friends were coming down the road giving him s%%t about working for the homos like i knew they would and apparently he turned back to them and yelled back at them "I got a job" and then came in the yard and started to work, now remember,this guy/kid is 17 and peer pressure is a difficult thing at that age and it's even worse when you're dealing with west indian machisimo down here, i don't know, i really don't know what to say about the whole thing, i hardly know him but i guess i'm kinda proud of him for standing up to the peer pressure and i guess as long as he wants to work i've got that mile long honey do list.

trw--you are a sweetheart and I know there is a special place for you in heaven. It's amazing what a job can do for self-esteem, not to mention what a great thing it is for him to have a positive male role model. You made my day today and it's not even 7:00 am! Kim

Trade everyone up here kinda knows who did it, but it's one of those things that can't be proved and when the chickens start to disapear we know someones dog will die soon, it's just one of the harsh realities we deal with out here in the country, like right now a couple of the guys up here recognized one of the guys that robbed the corner store about a month back and are slowly looking for him and god help him when they find him, the lady that runs the corner store is sweet and nice and lavallee is just not the type of place you want to get caught doing stuff like that much less seen and recognized, i know it's wrong, hell we all know it's wrong but it 's the crucian version of island justice and because the police have been slow or unwilling to do anything about anything over the years the locals just take matters into their own hands and deal with it as they see fit generally the perps family gets the message first to have the perp do the right thing if that does'nt happen then the island justice thing tends to take over,like i said it's wrong but it's just one of the harsh realities of living here.

Love your tenant stories, can't wait to hear the rest of them!!!! as a landlord, it never ceases to amaze me, what tenants can do. I've never rented rooms, but can see how it could get interesting. I had a bad.....tenant in my house in STX, scary!!!!

But on a lighter note, I have a friend that is also a landlord, she told me yesterday she got a check for the rent, the person had prorated the monthly rent and wrote the check for 29 days because Feb. has less days in it. So she called the person up and said, that is fine, but you owe me an extra day's rent for all those months last year that had 31 days in them!!! The person decided she would pay the "extra" days rent for Feb. Have to laugh!!
I look forward to more of your renters stories!! Hope you have a great day.

just got home from mardi croix, cane bay is packed right now,i'd guesstimate alittle over 1000, the floats were fun and everyone is getting just alittle drunk and really happy, i came home to get ready for work , this was a great way to see people you hav'nt seen in a year or since last years parade,lots of new people as well,i had to get a bag for all the stuff thrown from the floats to carry it home,left the other half at the party with a beer in one hand a jello shot in the other talking to brian about the jewlery he makes out of blown glass.really wanted to stay and hang but money calls

trw, I just love you 🙂

Thanks for all the tales - keep em comin' - I'm having a blast reading 🙂

Pia

i found a really sweet papaya at work last week so i saved and dried the seeds, i'll plant them 3 to a container on my next day off, geez one papaya has a couple hundred seeds but i think they'll look cool mixed in with my banana grove and sometimes it sucks being a white guy because black guys get to wear the coolest clothes with the greatest colors.

last week at one of my jobs i was waiting on a couple who complained the whole time i was waiting on them about how dirty the island was and how clean europe was and they were droning on and on and i was getting older by the minute as they turned themselves into crashing bores and i just thought to myself as i smiled and said pretty things to them, you're idiots and get off my island and i've made enough money this week lets go to the airport and i'll buy you a ticket to europe, now by saying to myself "my island" have i lived here too long because i'm starting to take offense at idiotic comments from clueless people or am i somehow accepting some type of ownership for the place i call home, or both. This is whats rattling around in my head right now,lol i think i have too much free time if i'm thinking about stuff like this.

trw,
It is home to some of us, natural reaction to the Nay Sayers!

trw, You can wear anything a black guy can wear...As far as color goes.. you live on an island. You should wear bright colors and it will also boast your ego. As I recall, your better half wears colorful shirts...

Or you could go au naturale like the white guy who washes his car in your yard. Maybe you'll start a really bad fad. 🙂

lol Trade you first!!!!! i don't know what it is about my property and being nude, one of my renters that i have not yet talked about was a nudist that i always called toothless

Went to Mardi Croix on Saturday with my guest in tow. My sister in law and I don't drink much and learned that alcohol and hot sun make for quick intoxication. Thank God for our very sober husbands who took care of us. When when I was dancing at Off the Wall telling everyone who would listen that my husband was a hunk of burning love he ever so gently told me I was adorable and put me in the truck and took me home before I could embarrass myself anymore. What a guy. Great fun, too much drink and sun.

trw, you can take some folks to an orgy and they'll complain about the dip.

lol dougtamjj, i do the same sometimes with the other half when he gets "cute and lovable" like you hahahaha but most of the time i just leave him there and go home,hey jimkelly loved your football joke BTW and my property is surrounded by very dense bush on 3 sides and on all 4 at one time, you could not see the house at all when we bought the place, i cleared the road side a few years back because at night it was just to creepy and claustrophobic and the naked people still showed up obiviously i'm ok with it but i think people told other people and next thing you know naked people in your yard sunning themselves and scaring the dogs, good thing i live on a dead end road!!! Charlotte i looked at the shirt i wear at my 12 mile job and realized i belonged in a hawaiian bowling alley, the same with the shirt i had to wear when i was on STT for 2 months, i mean cmon if you're going to make your employees wear tacky garish bowling shirts from hawaii at least buy good ones like tommy bahama instead of uniforms to you crap, i have about 20 really great tommy shirts with the colors that look good with my skin tone so i know they're out there restaurant owners.

well i'm off to my 18 mile benefit job and for those of you that read this thread, my honey-do list kid/guy showed up about an hour ago to do some more work,cool oh at the god waitress at my 12 mile job has been high fiving me for about 3 days now and i get her to laugh so i guess i'm going to heaven, i'm teaching them at the "trw"happy dance hahahahaha just like i did with the ladies at the 18 mile benefit job and so now when these women i work with start sounding to much like an upset hen house i tell em lets do the happy dance lol and then they think i'm even stranger and more crazy than usual

trw
I've been following this thread, and I think it's great. It can really give newbies an insider view of island life, plus it's pretty darn funny.
But here's the thing....I have patiently waited for you to explain to those of us who don't know you....what is an 18 mile benefit job and a 12 mile job. I know you have two jobs and I assume one is 18 miles from home and the other is 12, right? But what's the "benefit", and can you tell us where you work?

Dougtamjj, I think there's a video of you at Mardi Croix on youtube. . .

Traffic was light today because just the Destiny was in. Lack of bad traffic can really brighten your day. At least ONE good thing happened.

Oh no Trade, I hope not. Just think it might embarrass those 5 adult children I raised. LOL. Paybacks. In any case, my brother in law is a professional photographer and took some incredible pictures. I hope he can show me how to post them. I won't tell you who I am but I bet you will all figure it out.

Today I took the house guest to Fsted. All the shops were closed but we went to turtles deli and hunted conch shells on the beach. Good day. Tonight I am planting seeds and propagated some really cool plants. Next week I will have plants ready for JJs PreK garden. Trying to teach the little ones to grow food.

Good night everyone.

Tam

thanks Juanita you're correct in assuming the milage on both jobs from my house the "benefit" part is the health insurance and other job benefits and i'd rather not name names, i assume both places have no no no things about that in their handbooks,i'm assuming legally i'm protecting myself by not giving property details and names and by naming names i feel i'd have to censor myself, i actually really like both my jobs but i am working more than 80 hours a week when you factor in the drive time from cane bay and eventually i'm going to have to make a descion(sp) about which job i like the best overall and i'll do that when i reach the point of exhaustion and total burnout and that generally takes about one and a half years and hopefully by then i'll have paid off the house,my taxes and bought a next piece of land. I brought home pineapple tops today, i've grown them before so i know it works so with my banana trees and the papayas and then the pineapples i should have a good fruit salad in about 18 months. i'm thinking of a new song for me about livin on red bull and cigarettes in the VI. haha

oh and Trade i think one of your boats is lost, it looked awful close to us when i was driving home tonight.

You can keep that one if it beaches itself. 🙂 I used to work your hours, trw but be careful of overdoing it. I did & the body's paying for it now.

Dougtamjj, have your guests finally stopped wasting so much water? Where is Capt. Jay? I'd like to hear about his day to day activities settling in down here.

Part of my busy life on STX is spent tormenting sugar birds. They arrive every AM between 8:30 and 9:00. I've tried to trick them with salt, sweet & Low, Pancake mix, flour anything white. They become very vocal until I put the sugar out. They come to the table with the sugar on it one at a time. One will take sugar off my finger tip but not in the palm of my hand. A few months back, I saw for a brief moment a bigger bird in flight hit and fly away with a smaller bird, feathers flew and I thought what the he&& was that. Well this AM., perched on my gallery was a Red Tail Hawk.(I think he was waiting for my little tormented friends). He was kind of scary looking and wasn't afraid of me one bit. I got a broom and chased him away. No sugar birds showed today.

stx's landmark society house tours start tomorrow morn 9:30 am at the ballpark, the other half and i are finally going to do this and tomorrow is the start with 2 south shore homes and then 1 in green cay.