stx today,comments

trw--I just mentioned your post to my other half and he said, "I'd really like to go to that." Unfortunately, by the time I read your post, it was after hours for getting the particulars from the Landmarks Society. May I pester you for some info? Do we need to buy tickets in advance or can we show up and pay for them at the ballpark? If we can, do you mind giving a little info on which ballpark you are referring to? Anything else I need to know would be greatly appreciated. Thanks! KJ

From Dreary Pensacola Florida

Ok, you guys are living WAYYYY too good a lifestyle!
Anyone care to adopt an 64 year old Cajun transplanted to SW Florida and dreaming of warming his bones, catching lobster and spearing fish in St. croix ?"

Need to enjoy YOUR sunsets, watch YOUR kids chase crabs and YOUR sailboat races!

We're funny creatures. A scant four miles away we have a white sand barrier island. Once you get past the %$%$$# condos you can walk the beach for miles mostly alone. The water is mostly clear and when a hurricane is not beating the crap out of us, its a pleasant place to live.

The truth be known. YOUR water is clearer. The only coconuts to be found here is at the grocery store 🙁
My semi tropicals and Banana plants have frozen to a LUMP during the first winter freeze 🙁

On the positive side. News showing cars sliding into each other on frozen roads UP NORTH and snow up to your ying yang for months on end! A SEA of humanity around you at all times 🙁 The sky blocked by huge skyscrapers 🙁

IS LIFE GOOD OR WHAT !
George

Well, come on down, George! Lizard, I hope the hawk hasn't permanently chased away your bananaquits. I used to feed some & if I dared to be late they'd sit on the rail & squawk as loud as they could until I did my job.

I always used to go to the STT Historical Society house tours & loved them. Got to go inside the Castle which was really interesting as well as tons of beautiful homes. I don't know why they stopped having them but I wish they'd start up again.

Trade the water wasters are gone. The two guest we have left are perfect and we are having fun.
Today my sister in law, JJ and I went to the botanical gardens. Lovely place. I bought JJ and I some really awesome books at their little store. We came home and packed up mom and the wheelchair and all the other things I must take we I get mom out of the house, then downtown to Brewpub for nachos and chicken wings. Brother in law and hubby joined us after an all day motorcycle ride up on senic drive. While exploring Senic drive my brother in law fell off the side of a cliff and got pretty beat up. One look at him and we bought the guys some ice cream and then off home to doctor him up. Everyone is laughing about it but he really looks a mess. Thank goodness he was off the bike and walking when he fell. It is the first time I haven't packed a first aid kit for the guys to take when they go out. It seems that everytime we have guest from the states someone gets hurt exploring. Last time was a very stupid guest down at the tide pools. We barely saved him from being swept out to sea. The rocks gave him quite a pounding.

Tonight I am looking forward to getting JJ to bed and some quiet time to myself to read a little out on the porch. Beautiful cool night.

I agree with Trade, George, come on down.

Lizard I try to fool sugar birds too. I also have to watch out little teacup poodle so the hawks don't scoop her up. Although our rotties would love to get rid of her.

Trw, great thread.

Goodnight everyone.

Tam

RE the STX house tours. Go to the ballpark in Gallows Bay, just west of Schooner Bay Mkt. Be early, it will be crowded. Often several hundred people. Can buy tickets there, and they were taking credit cards, assume this year is the same (price has increased through). There's a deal if you buy all the tours I think, but perhaps not because the schedule does look different this year--and one tour is $100...but tomorrow is $35, I believe. They divide the cars into three groups, and if there are three houses, each group starts at a different house. Tie a different color ribbon on each group (on the antenna or whatever) and each group caravans to their houses in order.
One caveat--the plan may be different as I did not do tours last year, and my neighbor who used to organize the cars and parking is no longer on island--moved stateside after 25 years of retirement living on stx...so I imagine things might be done a bit differently now. Have fun. I don't know which houses are on the tour, (I'm off island) but they are often worth a look

just got home from work. the house tour tomorrow will cover the "ha'penny house,the castle nugent greathouse and the emerald cove estate, you may purchase tickets at the ballpark,cash or charge visa mc

ok i think we all know i work with alot of women and one of the first things i had to get used to was their constant movement to the music, if the music was good they moved, i do it to now as well i guess without even thinking about it,alot of the ladies i work with are up there in age and i still have to stop and stare when these women my granmas age just start doing the bump and grind at work, a good song will come on at work and the next thing you know the the arms are up and the hips are aswaying with the pelvic thrust and i stiil just laugh and think to myself how much i'd love to see my old german missouri synod lutheran granma just throw her arms up and move to the music in the cornfields of southern minnesota, it's sights like these that i see daily that make me glad i'm not in "kansas" anymore.

well i did a bad thing so i'm taking my big computer over to computer solutions in gallows bay to undo my bad thing and then i'm dropping tax
stuff off at oneils and then the garden center for more dcon and stump killer,i figured that i have way to much running to do that i could'nt do the house tour this week there are 3 more yet this month,if i could just get one more day in the week i could get stuff done.

Beautiful rainbow over the harbor by Charlotte Amalie on the way to work today. Brightens my day when I see one.

we had a rainbow in the parking lot at work yesterday,they are cool and it's great that we get so many of them.

the receptionist at o'neils just laughs at me when she see's me now carrying more tax stuff and i'm like please just fix this,i'll pay,no chainsaws at gallows bay hardware,caribe the toolbox or kmart but if i want to spend 5-600 on one at ace they told me it would do the work itself,it better clean the brush up and feed the 17 yr old guy/kid as well. The old west indian at caribe told me i did'nt need a chainsaw because i had a 17 yr old with a machete and i should'nt make the job too easy for him.

trw,
The Old West Indian gave you some good advice, not that it will make the job easier. If you rent a chainsaw and give it to the 17yr old guy/kid and he gets hurt by virtue of the chainsaw use, you may never own your home free and clear. Special permits are required for under age (18yrs old) using power equipment. Also check your homeowners policy for a Workman's comp endorsement.

yeah lizard i know,i actually worry more about him using his machete,but then these guys play with them instead of toys as children,to me never having been raised in "machete" i'm not used to them and i really wanted to buy the chain saw for the other half because i have this huggggge half dead tree in the center of my yard that the bee's tried to kill, the trunk on this thing is like 20 feet around and it's really a hazard when it rains because the branches get soaked and break off and on windy nights the rats loose their grip and fall out of the tree all the time and we'd hear this thump on the cars and then dogs chasing rats and we figured it out. sigh,life spent beating back the jungle up in the country.

hey lizard,you know the homeless guy that lives on the porch across from the roadside bbq stand which is across from the cop shop as you enter c'sted,he lives in the rust colored overcoat, well i drive past him 4 times a day when i work a double and i saw him picking up smoke butts one day and lighting up,well it's one thing to be a mentally ill homeless man but i just don't think you should have to smoke other peoples butts so i toss him a carton every now and then and then one day i saw him writing or drawing so i brought him some notebooks and markers and pencils and so now instead of wandering the streets all day long he smokes and does stuff in the notebooks, i've got the other half going through his clothes so i can take him some of them so the guy has a newer wardrobe to wear, he seems ok but when he looks at me there is just nothing behind his eyes, for about 4 days the guy just laid there and did not seem to move so i brought him a couple of sandwiches and a jug of water,i know they passed some recent legislation to build a facility here on stx for the mentally ill but jeez hurry up, the entire community has been watching this guy die for like 5 years now and it amazes me well no it does'nt, i've seen him eating a sandwich and drinking from a paper cup aliitle after the noon hour so i know someone downtown is feeding the homeless

trw,
Back in December of 2007, he was among the missing for a few days, the porch area was cleaned up. Then toward the end of the month he was back. Its sad!

molly malones on STT just called and offered me a job. lol i wonder if i should go buy another jug of febreeze and move back over.

trw.
The question you have to ask yourself, would your life be better on STT vs STX.

STX, i get road rage on STT, i did 2 months there, i've never had any desire for STJ, i was there for half a day back in the 90's,on the other hand my 2nd stepmother loves STT and would probally be bored to death over here on STX,so i really think 1 of the 3 islands has something that will fit the new people when they come done, lizard you and i have found our fit,as have the others that post on this site and like/love it here or on STT, i know i said that wrong but you get the point. Trades fit seems to be STT,we live where we fit.

Thanks for the info on the house tours. We did manage to make it. I will have to say the system is run like a well oiled machine. There were three houses, so our cars were lined up in three groups and we caravaned to each house with our group (of course there were color coordinated ribbons attached to the cars). So there we were, a little line of cars with the emergency lights flashing crawling through Christiansted and beyond. My husband joked that people probably thought it was a very long funeral procession. Each turn we had to make was fully manned by volunteers who stopped traffic to allow us to stay together. I now know what all of the retired executives from the mainland ended up doing--directing traffic and orchestrating the moves from one house to the other.

All of the houses were interesting and quite different. The first house we saw, the Ha'Penny House was the quintessential island house, at least in my mind. It was quite close to the water, with beautiful views from the veranda. All the rooms felt perfectly proportional, as they do in an older home (I think this was built in the late 1950s). It also had a covered gallery (I think that's what they called it) where the intention is to enter the different rooms from the outside. All of the rooms could be accessed from indoors, but to do that, you had to go from room to room because there were no hallways. The second house was completely different --it was up high on the hill with an expansive view of the south shore. Build in the 1700s, the Castle Nugent Greathouse had a lot of historical detail (any relation to Ted, do you think?). Again, a really nice view from the porch. The third house, Emerald Cove Estate, was a more contemporary design. It had a lot of curved walls and I didn't think the rooms were as proportional. However, it had a terrific view. Its view was in between the other two--near the water, but up a little higher (although not as high as the Castle Nugent view). Did anyone else get a chance to go? If so, what did you think? KJ

You're right about the old W.I. houses being so well proportioned. I heard that Doug White, the architect here on STT has gotten his fill of designing the modern mega-houses here & is going back to traditional W. Indian style. I hope that's true.

Yeah, STT is my fit but I sold my place tonight. Won't have to leave & no $$ changing hands yet but he wants no inspection, cash sale & will pay all expenses related to the sale including half the stamp tax. Completed sale will happen when I'm ready to retire. He's not ready to take it over & I'm not ready to leave yet. I won't have to do a thing to the place or deal with people trooping in & out looking to buy (that's a problem with a dog.) While it sure makes it simpler, I loathe the idea of leaving. It ain't gonna be easy.

Trw, couldn't you just mainly stay on the east end & avoid a lot of the road rage if you go to work at Molly Malone's?

ah Trade i love it here and if i moved to STT i'd have to start a new thread and i still have a few STX stories left in me yet just figuring out in my head how to tell them, it's odd but i probally has the best waiter gig ever when i was on STT but nothing else was right,and the place i lived had a view of stx so i had to look at that everyday. KLJ555 i am sorry i did not go on the tour today i have so much to do here at the house and there's never enough time to do it,i'm glad you had a good tour,i think the next one is the 13th.

Then stay where you are & skip Molly Malone's!

looked in the mirror and i no longer have a gangsta/pimp mustache

My brother and sister in law left this morning to go back to the states. I cried.

dougtamjj,
When my family members leave, I'm fine until they start!