Happy Old Year's Night Day!

Thank you, dear gentle (and even if you aren't, there's a part that is) readers, for going through another year with me. Looking, laughing, whining, wining, working along the way of this year. For sharing with me, making me laugh more, slogging through the boggy parts, surprising me with oh my's. I'm grateful.

I'm wishing for you all more laughter, less tears. More graciousness, less rudeness. More giving, less taking. More peace, less strife. More warmth, less...oops, okay, I'm sure you're getting the idea. 

Norwich sketch - Old Year's Night

So out with the Old, in with the New! May your cups overflow with all things good and may the not so good be merciful. Be safe. Be happy. Be yourself.

Let the fresh wind blow!

Have a tremendously total Tuesday. Do something that takes you to the top.

Walkabouts

Though rainwater is still coursing down the hillsides, encouraged by occasional sun and rainbow showers  these last days of the year have been mostly filled with good strong light and blue skies, even while the occasional gusts blow. 

Christmas winds. I'd never heard that term until I moved to the islands; it is a phrase that works into the subconscious, especially during sultry summer days. It brings freshness, clean clothes on the line freshness, toppling me out of my heat torpor. Straight out the door.

On a walk, one of those that have no end point so you might as well keep on going, these are a few of the things I saw. 

Good morning, moon!

The noble ani. Squawk.

Probably my favorite stretch of road on Culebra. Most of the time.

If this isn't Culebra, there isn't a Culebra. Which might be entirely possible.

But so is this.

The day brightens, the sun climbs. Gears shift to checking my list and moving into chore mode. The profound skips lightly. 

Have a mark your time Monday. Do something makeshift.

Simple Sunday ~ Culebra Year End 2013

Old Year closing down

New Year beckons, clean your slate!

Step by leap, jump in.

Culebra Sharing

Sometimes I see sights around here about which I don't really understand enough to explain. At core level, though, I get it. I know I like it and I know it is Culebra, a hand in hand feeling like the proverbial favorite old pair of jeans fitting comfortably, in mind if not in body.

(I miss those jeans, finally worn out with use, not fashion intent - intricately sewn on leather patches, one a handmade birthday gift of smiling lips, my own terrible embroidery, symbolism of the worst sort - astrological signs of myself and a man I thought I was in love with, inside a sun. Yes, that bad and that good)

This has been around throughout most of the holidays, on the main street of town. It's like a...well, you decide what you think. It's always tidy, keeping to its space, not impeding traffic (unless you have a giant trolley to get to the ferry, I suppose).

The building it rests against was once a bar. Fancy that. It is just one of those Culebra things. It will be gone in its time.

What isn't gone and surprised me last night around 8:30 was a parranda truck, complete with police car in the lead, blaring some good music. They passed by too soon for me to gather my wits and my camera; at first I thought it was just a musically loud car until twinkles of many colored lights flashed off my retinas. 

Excuse the awful photo...I gathered my wits and camera but not quite the proper attire to be standing in the street, so I missed the best part and blurred the rest. Drat!

They hung out at Susie's restaurant for quite a while before heading up and around the hill and back to the main road. I thought I was ready, from my shadowed spot, but I wasn't. Parranda post Christmas day? At 8:30 in the evening? I don't remember parrandas going on after Christmas but, there are gaps in that net. If I rightly remember, it's more like, yes, ok Culebra, that was interesting. 

Today there was a post with a link on Lloyd Kahn's blog about a subject I love, wooden spoons, but had only some idea the history and depth and passion so well expressed by Robin Wood. I'm re-hooked, if not on actually carving them, yet, then at least delving into more background and examples. Lloyd has shared his newly found pleasure in carving spoons (if you don't know who Lloyd Kahn is, you're in for a treat. If you liked the Whole Earth Catalog, you like him already; he was one of the editors. If you like building with wood, domes, books on practical, close to the earth living; if you like skateboarding, surfing, fishing, gardening, he's your guy. And if you like someone who can help inspire you to all of those things, he's that too. In his past the middle of 70's, he hasn't stopped living every day in anticipation of 'what's out there and how should I get there? Walk, run, skateboard, zip line, swim?' Ok, I'm totally infatuated impressed and I'm not ashamed.

All of that to say if you have a love of wooden spoons, check out the link!

Another spoon maker, John McAbery (also a brilliant wood sculptor of art pieces). 

I might have posted these before, but they are worth seeing again. 
photo credit - johnmcaberywoodsculptures.com

Have a sensation of surety Saturday. Do something with singularity.

Free Range Friday ~ Leftovers are Beautiful

Leftover from the Christmas holiday decorating section, I forgot to post a photo of the up the other road neighbor's addition to the never taken down ornaments from last year. 

The new craze in recycled plastic bottle decorations appears to be cleverly cut fish. They are rampant on the street, though this was the group I'm showing you because it's my favorite (if you are on Culebra, they are on display on the Genesis street, you can't miss them). 

There were more than fish added. Flowers, wind chimes, bobbling bobbles - it is a plethora of plastic recycling ingenuity. Best to click on this and go bigger to get the truer effect. Even in real life, it's a bit much for the brain-eye connection to process. 

I didn't mean to slide into today's food part by cheating. No holiday meals were held at my home, I had no stockpile of anything (except chicken food and that doesn't count, though pound for pound they eat well I'd have to be damn hungry to indulge).

Then came departing friends bearing bags of what they'd not consumed, at least what they thought I'd enjoy. And I did. And I do. And I will.

Nelson Stark Shrimp Linguine 

Shrimp in broth with parsley
Linguine
Fresh parsley
Garlic - one or two cloves
Parmesan cheese, shaved into slivers (shaken out of the container if you must, but fresh is better)
Olive oil - 4 T - I never measure, so enough to make a not quite the skillet size thin circle
2 qt. sauce pan is big enough for 2 servings

Put on enough water to cook enough linguine for one or two, meaning almost to the top of a 2 quart pan. A circle with your forefinger to the first joint of your thumb is just about one serving of linguine. If that measurement isn't available it should be about a circle of an inch across. 

When the water is boiling, put in the linguine, slowly twirling it down with a large spoon. A large wooden spoon is perfect for this. 

While the pasta is cooking:

Slice the garlic thin. Chop the parsley roughly, holding a bit back for garnish. Sauté both in the olive oil briefly, enough to soften the garlic. 

Check to see if the pasta is ready, it should be just about done. Mix everything in a bowl,  garnish with the parsley and cheese, serve it up. This is sturdy enough to reheat another day. 

If you aren't lucky enough to have friends bring you leftover shrimp (and there is something inconceivable there, but we were four children to their two, that must be it) , cook raw shrimp briefly in boiling water or, preferably, by sautéing with the garlic and parsley. Shrimp cooks quickly! and overcooked is not a good thing.

Buen provecho!

Have a frolicsome Friday. Do something freely.

Breaking Traditions ~ Like Breaking Bad But Different

Ok, I have never watched an episode of Breaking Bad. It was recommended to me but I couldn't get through 15 minutes of it. I read a review of what it is about and I still don't know what it is about. But hey, I've never read the Lord of the Rings series either, or Harry Potter, and people I love dearly are passionate about them. What do I know?

I didn't get to Milka's for Santa showing up. I didn't get to the Christmas parade. And, instead of my usual merry making on Christmas spent with a slightly and ever changing cast of characters surrounding a core group for holiday dinner, I spent it instead with some long-time friends who used to live here and come back when they can. 

Beautiful inside and out and both can make simple into gourmet with a grin

It runs in the family. I should have gotten a photo of Jim making the steaks but I didn't.

Weirdly, Lorraine and I both have a Cuban connection from old family ties. So I brought guava and cream cheese, something we had at holidays, though I couldn't find Cuban crackers (then I did in Genesis, but I'd already got another kind). Then the girls added some of Zaco Taco's green sauce which I never would have thought of doing. What a combo! Of course, this is also (minus the green sauce) very popular here, but I always think of Cuba and my father.

This was going to be a lovely family portrait but a face or two wasn't quite ready and friends don't let friends look weird. Or they shouldn't. So instead, the festive board. Who else had venison steaks glazed with Cointreau? Good food. Good talk. Good friends. 

Salsa salad

and finally full, we looked over the bay, listening to the sounds of the parade ending.

The winds are blowing more softly now. There is something good and different in the air and it isn't Boxing Day. 

Have a tidechanging Thursday. Do something not tautological. 

Happy Christmas ~ 2013

I'm in a Christmas Paradise with all of the you's that read this bread on the water. Family & friends, near and far. Love is the warmth today.

Tiny Home Tuesday or Wild Windy Wonderful

If you blinked yesterday, the sky would turn completely into something different than the moment before. It cycled on, with no repeats, from morning until sunset. 

Before we begin the main event, first a word from our sponsor.

Please don't let her put me in the pot. I'm molting, it's natural! Do I deserve to hear 'no freakin' eggs in weeks, waste of time [insert bad words]'? I do not!

Any connection between the above photo and the following is purely a fanciful leap of the imagination by the reader/viewer.

This is not a talking bag of charcoal, that would be ridiculous. But it is a very cool bag of charcoal, the sort you would need if you happened to be cooking a pig in a pig cooking pit. All day. Smoke and cooking pig smells wafting wafting wafting. Arousing the neighbors appetites. You know who you are!

I know this is supposed to be about Tiny Homes today, but when I read the following article, it just made sense to post it. Because integral to the thinking of this tiny lifestyle is the doing. And doing what you think you cannot do. Because, barring physical inability (and that's a big bar, trust me, I know), anyone can do just about anything. Really. 

This is really long for a blogpost, but it's a great read. The photos are David Wegman's, so I can't steal them without asking him and hopefully it's too early where he is to ask him right now. Of course, half the people I know seem to be up and about at 4 in the morning, but I'm still not going to ask. Yet. You're stuck with my photos of wild skies, way down there at the bottom. 

Ship Happens: Building Manna with David Wegman - by Cara Cannella - Key West Citizen, Keys Style, Dec 2013

December 4, 2013 at 6:26pm 

On November 6, 2013, a year to the day I moved to Key West from New York City, I launched a boat built with my own hands and those belonging to David Wegman. Those four hands tell much of the story. Mine: soft, clean, used to scribbling in notepads and typing, and tentative with a power drill. His: large, paint-spotted, showing a lifetime of work and play on land and at sea, with muscle memory so fluid they can build anything in a flash.

David has built twenty or so boats of this style—a twelve-foot, seaworthy rowing dory that can also sail. In seven hours of shop time over a few days, we built it for a total of $240 (see below for breakdown of materials and contact information for ordering his lofted plans for it). 

With plans made out of old nautical charts taped together and cut to size, the building of this boat requires no intimidating calculations for a novice like me. Using basic power tools (skill saw, table saw, cordless drill, grinder) and a machete for hacking at hand-drawn oars, we built it in the Bahama Village front yard of the Chicken Preserve compound, where David has lived and worked among other Key West artists (and wild roosters) for more than three decades. 

I’m just beginning to understand how this boat—named Manna for my nieces Mia and Anna, ages six and four—fell from the sky. Over thirty-four years, I’ve traveled through many states to receive it. Circling several continents in double that amount of time, David met me here.

In 2001, the sailor-painter-sculptor-woodworker-musician took two of his five daughters on a Hudson River expedition in a sixteen-foot version of this boat with the addition of a little motor. They departed Saratoga Springs, New York (one of David’s many home bases, along with Key West, Maine, and St. Barth’s, to name a few) to row its entire length over two weeks just preceding 9/11. 

“I wanted to do something with my kids that wasn’t electronic,” he says of their building and exploring in the River Queen. “The main thing was to do something exciting. This boat teaches you how to row, how to scull, how to take care of something.”

Aurora—then eight years old, and now an architecture student in Boston pursuing a pilot’s license—and Crescent Maizey, then five, just out of high school and the proud owner of a Wisconsin driver’s license and new car—brought their pet bunny Sugar along for the ride. (A children’s book told from Sugar’s point of view must be forthcoming.) In order to be totally self-sufficient, David rigged a rainproof shield of PVC pipe and canvas, similar to those on covered wagons. The girls rested in sleeping bags on a buffalo skin rug likely found in a Dumpster, given his uncanny knack for finding treasure in unlikely places. 

At stops along the way, David engaged people in conversation about General Electric’s looming dredging of the river in an attempt to clean up an estimated 1.3 million pounds of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) their manufacturing plants dumped into the Hudson over three decades. The PCBs, still found in the river’s ecosystem as far south as New York Harbor, have also been found in people. David was on a curiosity mission, intent on raising awareness—mostly his kids’ and his own—of the issue. 

His life on the water began in 1971, less than a year after he moved to Key West from Fort Wayne, Indiana. He borrowed money to pay $1,000 for his first boat, a 30-foot Cuban refugee vessel with no motor, and used a parachute from his dragster-racing days as a sail. “I knew nothing about sailing,” he recalls. “But something said, ‘Buy this boat.’ It was an opportunity to get farther from Key West and explore.”

He must have sensed a similar sort of curiosity and clueless insistence in me when we were introduced on the morning of October 9 of this year over breakfast at Harpoon Harry’s, not long after he arrived in Key West for the annual transition between summers at his self-built cabin by the lake in Maine, and Caribbean winters on his 32-foot schooner, the Afrigan Queen IV. 

Within minutes of meeting, I told him that I wanted to build a boat—that I was a total beginner thinking about enrolling in a twelve-week intensive course at The Apprenticeshop in Rockland, Maine. Why I mentioned this to a stranger, I’m not sure, but I know that I liked his straw hat ($14 at Ward’s Supermarket in Gainesville), and the fact that he listened closely. After rolling his blue eyes at the prospect of my paying $6,000 in tuition to learn how to build a boat, he said that one of his five daughters runs a surf camp in Costa Rica, where she built her own house. I could build a simple boat of his own design right here in Key West. 

My ears perked up when he described it as a “dory.” I knew that’s what Thoreau built and wrote about in “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers” while living at Walden Pond on land owned by Emerson. When I lived in Boston during and just after college, I would ride my bike out there to swim across it. A few years ago, out of the blue, I was overcome by a clear daydream of rowing my nieces across Walden Pond in a boat of my own making. 

“Don’t be afraid to do it because you’re a girl,” David said, reading my mind. I, who has never built a birdhouse; who only recently learned that when buying polyurethane, one should also buy a product to remove it from skin; who hires a handyman to assemble Ikea furniture; who, just over a year ago, was getting midtown Manhattan manicures on lunch breaks from work at Vogue magazine. I could build a boat without the support of a formal curriculum. Right. 

With my notebook and pen, David sketched his plans for it, not knowing what he was getting himself into. Beside his drawings, I noted what he said: “Has room for six people and a dog. Learn how to scull.” 

Over the next few weeks, we became acquainted. At one point during Key West’s debaucherous ten-day Fantasy Fest in October, he prowled the streets in a Big Bad Wolf get-up with me by his side, body-painted as the horizon. Even when he didn’t say much, his sculpture of a mermaid reading a book about a little girl (“Mermaid Dreams”) revealed plenty. I tried to keep track of his tales of circumnavigating the globe for eight years, hanging out with Keith Richards and Bob Dylan in St. Barth’s, and bailing water off his sailboat for more than a week straight amid an offshore hurricane with 150 mile per hour winds, eating only from the occasional can of food floating by from the bilge.

On November 6, we transported my finished boat, still wet with blue paint, by truck from the Chicken Preserve to the brand spanking new Stock Island Marina Village. Over the preceding weeks, David had designed and installed art inspired by local nautical history for that night’s opening of its Captain’s Lounge. He decided that a Champagne-christened launch of my boat would fit the festive atmosphere.

When we tossed it in the water, I jumped in and realized that I didn’t really know how to row, especially not before dozens of onlookers and twinkling camera flashes. David jumped in with me to demonstrate. Under a setting sun and crescent moon, within a month of meeting, we were like family in there. We laughed. He yelled instructions. I ignored them. When I finally got the hang of it, he got out. I rowed away from the crowd, basking in the first of many quiet moments this boat will deliver.

MATERIALS

Wood from Home Depot:

Oars - Two 1'x6' whitewood pine boards 

Sides and transom - Two sheets of quarter-inch-thick 4'x8' sanded pine Bottom - One half-inch-thick sheet of 4'x8' sanded pine

Other: Drywall screws 

Fiberglass strips

West System compound (105 Epoxy Resin, 205 Fast Hardener, 404 High-Density filler) Mahogany scraps Pettit's Easypoxy Polyurethane Topside Paint in Ocean BlueMiniwax Helmsman Spar Urethane

Contact Cara at cara.cannella@gmail.com or 646.623.8793 to inquire about plans.  

I really look forward to reading more of what Cara writes. And if you aren't familiar with David Wegman, you should be. I met him many years ago on Jost Van Dyke and though I don't know him well, his work, in many formats, is very impressive. Check him out.

The morning started out grey. Then the sun burst through. Then...well, repeat. But not the same. Huge, but only soul overwhelming. Sorry, visitors, we know. Enough is enough but it's not over yet.

 I don't know how the boat snuck in there. See the white caps on the water of the bay? It was blowing like stink all day and most of the night. Right now...all is calm and is not bright. 

Sunset was beautiful. I just didn't have a big enough camera lens. 

Have a topple your torpor Tuesday. Do something tingling. 

Bonus Christmas Edition

Because I love this sort of thing! I wish I could fix it to watch in slow motion.

Simple Sunday

Some sanctuary.
Chickens or goats? Pigs perhaps?

A fence means I'm stumped.

Saturday Slows

I really expected to find going over to the big island yesterday a crowded experience but it was not only not crowded, it was less than normal crowded. Sort of. Maybe bouncy seas account for that. Maybe people expected it to be too crowded. 

Maybe, some were concerned, like the girl sitting next to me on the way back, little gasps of fear coming from her with apologies (I dozed as the waves took us on a natural roller coaster ride). That tends to put some people off, being splashed by waves while rolling about a bit. I rubbed her back, told her it was very safe and to enjoy it before falling asleep again. Oh what a comfort I am. She was kind enough to not throw up on me.

As this was intended to be a pretty casual trip, even festive! even holidayish! we planned on lunch at Lolita's, where we had to park about three blocks (they are not really blocks but if they were, there would be three of them) away. I hadn't been there in ages, the menu was bigger, the parking lot was more full. Still, the servers are just as smiley and super friendly as ever and we got served immediately. The margaritas are as good as always and the food filling. Not the Mexican epicurean experience of a lifetime, but good tasting, with hot sauce that is truly hot, along with fair pricing, it works. There were a lot of business people, a few families looking like Christmas has brought them together, with smiles all around. I'm not sure how many people were there, a lot is the scientific hypothesis,  but we were eating within ten or fifteen minutes, which just goes to show that Mexican food and microwaves have a good symbiotic relationship that does not much harm to either. 

Somehow at the end of the day, I inherited 2 baby 'rescued' chicks, entirely of my own doing, I assure you. The coop has a couple of baby enclosures that work well. Well. Except for the last time I tried this. Oh, safety inside was and is assured, but on being let out, they became canapes for the ever watching hawk. Oops. Nature takes care of business, I am only a diversionary handmaiden.

It was time to let tomorrow come on little 25 mph gust feet.

The one on the left doesn't seem too perky, but maybe he'll/she'll make it. It's a tough world out there.

Sun hide and seek has been the watchword this morning, so I tried to make a moment of it. A sun moment. It was blowing hard enough that these egrets, who normally fly at dawn, were still on Iguana Island, preening like movie stars, nuancing the phrase 'getting their feathers ruffled' indeed.

I'm done and I look fabulous!

I think you missed a spot there, Fred.

Then the rain started again and everyone has been left to their own devices. Except the not so perky chick who gets water boarded every little while. Not only am I a comfort in a stormy sea, but contain a heart of gold as a  chick caretaker. I almost make me get weepy.

And now the sun is shining again, so a dash out the door is in order. With an umbrella. The Bright Yellow Umbrella that is becoming dear to me. Thanks again, Karen!

Have a lovely Solstice Saturday! Do something solar.

Free Range Friday ~ Venison & Lobster & Friends

I wasn't planning on going to dinner. In fact I was going over to say I couldn't come over. With no phone signal and only a short walk away, it wasn't hard to do. My friends had come in from up North, staying in the home they used to own, which had its own weird goodness; the same but not the same. But I'd see them later in the week, I just had to let them know. That's what I thought.

The girls I've known since they were well shorter than me, the parents I've known as long, not changing much we've all stayed the pretty much the same height with shifts of time making some changes in all of us. The talk still flows easily and flowed into dinner, the dinner I wasn't going to eat. But the girls brought me a little plate 'just in case' I changed my mind (the last time we'd sat in that table space together they'd made me a birthday cake covered with cashews, because once, when house sitting for them, I'd eaten all the cashews and felt terrible, sort of, about it and we can laugh at each other as easily as with).

The wine was crisp. But. Did I want to try the venison burger they'd brought down? From the deer Dad had just recently shot with his new crossbow? Of course I did. Did I want some of the lobster they'd just caught today? I passed, it was legal but there wasn't much there (it was legal, just not jumbo) and I technically wasn't eating dinner. Maybe they'll catch another before they go and I'll say yes. The homemade red coleslaw salad was just right to offset the burger while a bowl of lovely sauteed vegetables went untasted by me. I know I'll regret that later. I almost regret it now. I'm still full.

The girls are in college and doing well - I felt like the auntie who could curse and laugh and let them know how proud I am of them all at the same time, also knowing that growing up hasn't been a piece of cake, even cake with cashews on it. One, my heart's own wild child, one her shadow gentler side, both smart and funny and passionate in their own ways of moving onto the stage of adulthood, one running, one walking. It's a good progression, even with the occasional stubbed toes. These parents do their job.

Some meals can't be reproduced, even if you have exactly the same ingredients on the table. Though I do know a few people who have fresh venison and fresh lobster on their table not infrequently, it isn't the same table or the same friends. Though I know other friends with growing children that I dearly love, none are these. 

photo credit - unknown

Just in case you do come across some venison or spiny lobster, by your own kill or catch or shared with you, here is a good way to make a burger from the deer (3 or 4 minutes on each side, deer cooks quickly) and a special dish from the lobster. I'm personally a fan of plain boiled lobster and melted butter, but I've had it and made it many ways, most of them good. If you're more patient than I usually am, save the lobster shells and use the meat for a bisque. Never mind, I'll just give you a recipe. Don't forget to thank the deer and/or the lobster.


Adapted From a Bunch of Recipes Including How I've made My Own Lobster Bisque 

2 medium size boiled lobsters

2 1/2 cups chicken stock

1/4 cup dry sherry **** this is an important ingredient! if you don't drink, the alcohol cooks off but if you don't trust that, skip it. It won't be the same but it will still be good.

1 tablespoon butter/1 tablespoon olive oil

3 more tablespoons butter

1 sliced onion

4 ribs celery with leaves

1 clove

1 bay leaf

6 peppercorns

1/4 cup butter

1/4 cup flour

3 cups milk

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

1 cup cream

1 tsp. smoked or plain paprika 

minced parsley for garnish

Boil lobsters (how do I boil a lobster, MJ? Have a big pot of water boiling. Put in the live lobster - or not dead long - and wait for it to turn red, which means it's done). Let it cool and remove the meat. 

The easiest way to get to the meat is cleave the lobster in half longways, on the belly side. The most meat is in the tail but there is a lot more to pick out of the body and tentacles. I learned to use gloves to do this; spiny lobsters are called spiny for a reason and I have the scars to prove it. 

Chop up the tail meat and set it aside with the picked meat.

Saute the onion and celery in that 1 tablespoon of butter and 1 tablespoon of olive oil, just until softened, not browned.

In a large pot, crush the shells (they don't have to be finely crushed, just not big pieces). Add the chicken stock, onion, celery, cloves, bay leaf and peppercorns. Simmer these ingredients for 30 minutes. Strain the stock and set it aside.

Melt the 3 T. of butter. Using a whisk, stir in the flour, then gradually add the milk, sherry, a 1/2 cup of the stock and nutmeg. Season to taste with salt and pepper. When the sauce is smooth and has begun to boil, add the lobster and the stock. Simmer the bisque at medium heat, covered, for 5 minutes. 

In a small saucepan, warm the cream, but do not let it boil. Turn off the heat and stir in the cream. 

Serve at once with minced parsley and paprika for color.

Makes 6 cups.

You'll probably want half of this for yourself, immediately, so you might want to make extra. It's rich, delicious and addictive. Buen provecho!

I didn't bring my camera and if I had, I don't think I would have remembered to use it. Sometimes, that's how it goes and that's not a bad thing. Bring good friends to the table and you can have grilled cheese sandwiches, it doesn't matter. 

Have a fresh Friday. Do something with your friendships.

How Local It Gets

With a lot of sleep I was up early enough to watch the moon go down and the sun come up. To get to town and get to the beach. To eat half of a half of a rotisserie chicken from La Pista for breakfast, chased by ginger snaps from Vibra Verde. Ok, the chicken came after the ginger snaps. Who am I to resist simple pleasures? 

T picked me up to head to the beach, which first meant errands. While she was busy in the Post Office, I headed over to Vibra Verde to get something healthy. It's not my fault that these cookies started whispering my name. Loudly.

They make a great breakfast. Too bad I didn't have any milk.

Then we fed the cats. The cats eat and the humans chase the oh so very bold wild chickens away, because the chickens will chase the cats away. They come on like zombies, afraid of very little, especially cats.

Wary for a reason

Newly planted sea grapes. The water was too cold to go swimming, but it didn't stop a couple of visitors who were out snorkeling, heading toward the coral farm and most likely, the turtles who like to hang out there. 

On the way back we stopped at La Pista for chicken but it wasn't ready yet, so a trip to see Digna's natural jewelry was put on the non-existant agenda.

Just a small sample of her beautiful work

By then, the chicken was ready. I actually made it in the door before demolishing the first 1/4. The cat got a few bites of the breast. Luckily for us both, she doesn't like dark meat, because that's for me.

How junked cars are removed on Culebra. We missed the fun part of it being picked up with the dozer bucket. Our dozer operators can move anything, and they do. 

Home again home again. Some days are like this. And that's all I know about that.

Have a non-touristy Thursday. Do something tip-tappingly.