Raising the Beams

I've watched a lot of things being built on Culebra. Sometimes it's a small home, built by friends and family over weeks and months, no trenches dug for straight lines of concrete block, just one atop the other in wavy rows that somehow end up straight. With plaster and paint, you never see it again. Then there are straight proper builds, measured with snap lines. Sometimes it's just some T1-11 over a wood frame of 2 x 4's.

Then I saw the tree log posts for Susie's garden room. I've talked with Susie and Jacinto about the vision of it, but the reality is something else. It leaves me a little breathless.

I can watch men and machines at work all day...but that's just me

By this afternoon the concrete floor will be poured. Very exciting!

Some builds however, are very very different. It all depends on what is needed. It's pretty simple for these guys.

If you look closely at the holes land crabs dig, they know how to make an almost cement hard mud. I don't know if they have super spit or what does it, but if you have a land crab hole and want to get rid of what they dig out, do it fast before it hardens.

Raise high the roofbeams, carpenters!

Have a take it to the top Thursday. Do something terrific!

Hot & humid, no rain so far

Today has been a teaser. Breeze starts to blow, then quits. Sky clouds up, then clears. In a while it will cool off enough to take the dogs for a walk down the road. Hopefully the muddy parts will have dried up so that I don't come back looking like I dipped my feet in milk chocolate. It's not a good look for me.

More and more winter folks are showing up and it's good to see them! Sometimes I almost think my seasons turn more on who is coming and who is going rather than weather. I find, now that it is hot again, that I keep calling it summer, here at the almost end of November. I'm sure one day my brain will mush down to just hoping I remember what season I see all the extra people in. I'll have to go by Christmas decorations (some of which are already appearing, so maybe that's not the best idea).

I went by to talk to Susie for a few minutes. She is spiffing up the restaurant before its seasonal re-opening the day after Thanksgiving. Only Susie can have paint pretty much from head to toe and say "I'm getting excited!" and you know she means it.

It's looking bee youuuu tee full, Susie!

For now, I'll content myself with my home away from home. Playing with dogs is sort of like what people say about grandkids...fun, and fun to give them back as well. So very different than cats...most of them anyway. Regardless of the fact that my cat is in a pique once again at my comings and goings....mainly goings. Ah well, she's getting plenty of meal treats to make up for it...

Coolest banister rail ever (I can imagine one like it in an A frame in North Carolina..)

Great view from upstairs - better than it looks here

Culebra style birthdays and Yom Kippur too

One of the times I love best on Culebra is when a friend has a birthday. The people you see five times a day going hither and yon with a hello and sometimes a quick kiss and hug are around to really talk with, catching up on what is going on beside getting the mail, buying the veggies, heading to work.

Last night was Teresa's party, held at Susie's. We got there to find the photographer Zach Stovall, from Caribbean Travel & Life magazine taking photos of a dish of Susie's. Hopefully it will make the cut and make the magazine; good on ya, Susie! The sun was setting, the moon was up. Chuck pointed out beautiful sky happenings. Teresa was serenaded with the birthday song on each person's arrival, which means we sang it a lot! And with increasingly off key, un-harmonious vigor!

Travel plans for world flung trips were shared, hurricane Hugo (20 years ago this month and ravaging for Culebra among many places) was re-visited, appetizers were eaten, crowned with a fabulous cake from Susie that was icing on the plate licking good.

Birthday beauty

Down the canal at sunset

Not quite Moon Over Miami but we'd rather be here

"I was looking back to see if you were looking back to see
If I was looking back to see if you were looking back at me"
(Jim Ed Brown lyrics)

Don't ask, don't tell

Like what?

Thanks, Susie! Does she get the boat too?

Cake cutting 101: Daunting but not impossible (bug spray not included)

Yes, slim trim beautiful girls love their cake and eat it too!

It doesn't get much better than a soaker hose birthday present!

Happy Birthday, dear Teresa, happy birthday to you!

Teresa happens to share her birthday with the start of Yom Kippur, a time of fasting and atonement (the only Jewish holiday where food isn't front and center). It seems a bit unfitting, as she happens to be one of those people who I can't imagine having any need to make atonement with a higher deity or human, either one. Unlike my own excitable self, who could use o Yom Kippur a few times a year. It's a good day to take stock of the state of one's being - who have I ticked off and should make it right with? Of course, being the unobservant sort that I am, there are a few who never get on the list of atoned, so I am doomed to carry them around in my unrepentant life backpack another year. It doesn't keep me up at night. Much. I can't really say Happy Yom Kippur, but how about, *happier when it's over* ? Ah well, a bit of a fast after that all that cake icing couldn't hurt.