Just another Sunday dinner at Minton...

Not that we ever need a reason to have a big dinner at Minton...in fact it's fairly commonplace...but we do seem to like pretending that there's a particular reason. This past Sunday it was in John's honour. He has been back in Bermuda for the past month visiting his sister and her new baby, Robin. Since he left his wife behind in Scotland and has therefore been footloose and fancy free, he has spent a fair amount of time at Bruce's. Afterall there is always something going on, a laugh and a drink (or ten) to be had, and it's never been a favourite with the wives...probably something to do with the ever-flowing booze!
Well, John is returning to Bonnie Scotland on Thursday so we just HAD to have a big roast dinner! Lamb with roast potatoes, parsnips, onions and squash, brocolli and cauliflower with my 'spashal' cheese sauce, brussel sprouts and homemade gravy. DELISH!!
As it turns out Bobby is heading back to San Diego on Saturday, giving us two reasons to celebrate...uh...hang on...not celebrate exactly. More like...um...oh, you know what I mean!
And then Lecia announced that the day was the three year anniversary of her arrival on the island. So, yes, celebration is the right word there. Until we realised that, given Bermuda's six year limit on work permits, we were actually marking the half way point of Lecia's Bermuda career. Hmmmm. Oh well, we drank and made merry anyway!!
Unfortunately I was the only person working the next day so I had to remain relatively sober, but the others? Noooooo. Full on, as we say in Bermy.
Now Shona, the beautiful dog above, is ball-mad and spends all her time attempting to draw you in to a game of catch, or kick, or anything. Here she is having dropped her ball on Bobby's temporarily vacant chair and is looking from Lecia to the ball, the ball to Lecia, and repeat ad nauseum, while Lecia groans and says no, repeatedly ad nauseum.
Well, it never takes long for Bruce to come up with something new and different to torture me with and in his infinite drunken wisdom decided it would be fun to see if we could get Shona to take the ball off my head. Right. Can you see her in the bottom right corner...eagerly watching where her precious ball is? Can you see those teeth?
It took her a few tries to figure out what she had to do....launch herself at my head, using the back of the chair as a touch point, and snatch the ball back with whatever force necessary. That ball would be hers once more, never fear!
Well, dear John was taking the photos and there are tons, all a variation of the theme above, with Shona poised in mid strike, and me cringing. But the time when she actually did it? That last time when her fangs scraped across my scalp as she scoopped up the ball as well as a wad of my hair? That moment when her jaws enveloped my head and I screamed and pooped my pants?
Nada. No click. No flash. Nothing. Zip. Zilch.
What a waste of newly highlighted hair and clean knickers.

Since I'm lazy...

I heard a song today for the first time in ages, an oldie that I love!
R E O Speedwagon....

And even as I wander I'm keeping you in sight
You're a candle in the window
On a cold, dark winter's night
And I'm getting closer than I ever thought I might

A love story....

Once upon a time there was a man, we’ll call him John, who picked up his life in England and embarked on a new life in Bermuda. This was 1961 and he left behind the love of his life, not knowing if she would commit to the move herself. He was a teacher, a good one, and later became Headmaster of one of the local schools.
To put you out of your misery (being a love story and all) of course she joined him…and we’ll call her Jane.
They married, set up home, and raised two beautiful and wonderful children.
‘Jane’ was also a teacher and she was superb, one of the best loved teachers at the school.
In 1992 ‘Jane’ was diagnosed with cancer. She fought a long, hard battle and finally succumbed in August of 1993. It was devastating for all who had loved her. She was the organist at her church and on the day of her funeral even the organ didn’t want to work properly for the first time, and since.
Today we buried ‘John’. He tried, he struggled, his children tried to rally him, but in all honestly, he had never been the same since ‘Jane’s’ passing. After a few years of illness he has finally gone to the place he has wanted to be for fifteen years.
‘John’s’ daughter, my life-long beloved best friend, stood at the front of the church this afternoon and spoke about her father. Told us things we never knew for he was such a private man. Things I wish I had known. He was a writer, a poet, an artist. He kept this all between his beloved and himself.
A month before ‘Jane’ died in August 1993, ‘John’ wrote her a poem for her birthday. His daughter knew of the poem as it had been ‘Jane’s’ birthday gift, and a few years ago, when the children put ‘John’ into a nursing home due to failing health and sold the family home, she searched high and low for it.
This afternoon, in church, she read this poem. Not only as a testament to her parents’ love for each other, but also as an example of her father’s deep, artistic, passionate soul.

July 1993

‘Jane’, my love ----
After the winter
when the morning doves coo
I will remember.

Not that I could forget,
just that springtime will make you vivid.

We will recall
our youth, our unheeding.
We shall share memories as surely as
lovers separated only by earthly miles.

I cannot keep you
but commit these words to mind
and you can take them on your journey.

Isn’t it loss that wounds us most;
the sharp, the immediate,
the slow drip of years?

Yet your frailty will vanish in a trice,
the miracle of our prayers,
and it will be your radiant arms that
will, one day, welcome me home.

‘John’

I knew ‘John’ for almost my whole life and can honestly say that I wish I knew more of this side of him.
This is writing that would stand as amazing tribute to any man, to any love.
And ‘John’ is finally home in ‘Jane’s’ arms.

Giving up a dream

I’ve been trying to analyse why I’ve been so sad recently.
I understand why I’m feeling a little scared. After all I am looking at making a very big move. Whether it happens sooner or later, the decision to leave Bermuda is a huge one.
If things don’t work out in the USA I can always go to the UK, or even somewhere in Europe…Spain or France maybe?
And yes, I can come back to Bermuda. Definitely on vacation, and possibly even to live. I do have friends that I could stay with while I look for a job and somewhere to live.
BUT…the whole point is that I need to leave here in order to chase my dream.
And there we have it. The dream.
It used to be that I would be here for the rest of my life….have a wonderful husband, a beautiful home, a satisfying job.
I have overstuffed my apartment over the last years with beautiful objects d’art (albeit nothing terribly expensive, just valuable to me in their beauty), cooking apparatus, flatware and etc, etc, and stuff, with the hope that one day I would have the space to display them and use them to entertain my friends.
Recently I have begun a seriously brutal purge. Unfortunately when I leave I can store a very limited amount of stuff here, for a limited period of time, and it has made me think hard about what it necessary to me now…and in the future.
So far I have 3 bags of garbage, 3 bags of Good Will clothing, 1 bag of Christmas decorations (note that I haven’t even reached the closet where I keep all my Christmas paraphernalia!)1 bag of stuffed toys (seriously? Yes!!), and 1 grocery bag of empty picture frames, the latter three also for Good Will. And this is not including items that can’t be dumped into a garbage bag, nor have I even hit the kitchen!
I guess what’s happened is that with each, previously treasured, item that I throw away or give away I am realising that things really are just things.
And yet I still feel that I am throwing away small pieces of my dream each time. And that has made me rather sad.
Once I have a solid, new dream to look forward to I believe the sadness will be replaced by excitement….and anxiety!!
The good thing about the ‘plan’ is that I am going through it all with a friend. So that, kind of like Thelma and Louise…well, minus the car, the cliff, the crime, the police, and Brad Pitt….we can hold each other’s hand as we launch into a whole new life and say ‘Here we go!’

Should I stay or should I go now...?

"If I go there will be trouble, An' if I stay there will be double." The Clash hit the nail right on the head with that one.
After months of talking about leaving Bermuda, I got hit in the face with the cold hard facts on coming back from Vegas.
Is it beautiful here? Absolutely. And the weather? Perfect. It's a pretty good lifestyle too...always outdoors, in and on the water. And it will always be the place of my birth and a place I would be happy to come and vacation.
But.
I am not happy.
Rents and the cost of living are sky-rocketing and it is becoming financially un-viable to live on ones own.
Crime has taken a serious and very scary upward spiral.
The present Government is a sham and a shambles, and their talk of independence from the UK is like listening to spoilt children in the playground boasting about their toys with no notion of what their parents go through in order for them to have those toys.
I will never own my own home here.
I will never be able to retire here.
And the man-pool is murky at best.
I'm only ever happy when I am on the beach or when I am with a handful of particular friends.
At all other times I have been unhappy. And that is not a natural state for me.
So, I can blow this place and go look for my destiny.
Or I could stay and be bored and depressed.
Put like that there really isn't a contest, is there?

Twiddling my thumbs

So I started my new job yesterday. I was supposed to start on Monday, but I came in on Friday for a brief meeting with Dan, my new boss, and he said 'Oh no, you take a couple extra days and relax, you just flew back. Start on Wednesday, it is the 1st then anyway.' Now while this is true, it really should have been my first clue that there was nothing particularly urgent awaiting the new employee.
And then he tells me that he is flying to Brazil that afternoon, and so not only will he be away for my first day, but he will be away for a month or more. Excellent!
He then gave me a ten-minute crash course on their payment system so that I would be able to pay bills as they came in.
Therefore on my first day, after aquainting myself with the computer system, the office in general, the ladies across the hall, the bathroom, the kitchen...you know, all the important stuff...I paid the rent for the office and for Dan's apartment, scanned a few invoices off to Brazil for instruction, and waited for the postman.
1.10pm Day 2. Still waiting. Sigh.
Bonus? Coffee with Cindy this morning for the first time in years. Weeeelll sort of...she had coffee, I had cranberry juice. And no, I am not trying to be holier than thou in saying that. I had a ciggie with my beverage, she refrained.

Leaving Las Vegas

So I just spent a fantastic week in Las Vegas, completely unexpected and last-minute, an amazing gift from my incredibly generous and thoughtful friend, Jill.
We saw all the sights, as you do, even though we have both been there before. We shopped until we really were about ready to drop….and I’m wondering if there is anything left in the stores for other punters to buy.
We got in last Thursday evening after a delayed flight in Atlanta. We had all been boarded on time only to be informed that “in case we were wondering why the Captain was standing outside of the cockpit” it was because they were replacing one of the windshield panels. Um. WTF????? Two HOURS later….with no offer of water, or snacks, or ALCOHOL!!!!!...we were finally off. Funny thing through this trip, on all four flights I was unable to sleep. Usually I’m out like a baby being rocked in a cradle. Not this time and that really sucked on the red-eye coming home!
Anyway, we hit the ground running with David Copperfield at the MGM Grand…literally straight from the airport to the show!...and he was seriously amazing. His last ‘trick’ was one I’d seen on TV and I was thrilled to see it live and be even more stunned, wondering how the hell he does it all!!
The next day Jill and I left Craig, our fellow-Bermudian-LV-vacationer (sorry Skippy, but denial is not just a river in Egypt, it was vacation), in the condo, ‘working’, and hit the shops. Much damage was done and I was totally exhausted, not being used to power-shopping! Having never been to Target before, I found a new love….Hello Target! Miss you!
That night we went to a ‘local’s only’, off-strip tapas bar to meet a new on-line friend of mine, and thus I met the most wonderful man in the world!!! We’ll call him Scott….‘cause that’s his name (lol). I will refrain from gushing about him to spare you all indigestion, but trust me, it’s not because I don’t want to gush!
From Fireflies, which I highly recommend, we headed to the Palazzo to meet up with Lanie and how great it was to see her again!
That night Jill and I learned a new lesson in friendship. Now, the internet doesn’t need to know the details of that, the important thing is that we had an issue, we faced it, dealt with it and moved on with a better understanding of each other. Go woman-kind!
I was a tad tired on Saturday morning having talked with Scott until sunrise, and so I skipped joining Jill and Skippy’s venture to IHOP, and beyond. Later in the afternoon Scott picked me up and took me to explore the Wynn, which was fabulous…we wandered around inspecting the lounges and finally settled in one of them for a cocktail and some particularly delicious potato chips…too many of which ended up on the table and bench, designating us both as people who should not be allowed to eat in public!
That night Jill, Skippy and I headed out of town to Prim to see (woo hoo!!!) Foreigner (YES!!) at Buffalo Bill’s Star of the Desert Arena. They were AMAZING!!! And Kelly Hansen’s voice is just as GD wonderful as Lou Gramm’s on the classic ‘I want to know what love is’ which brought the arena to its feet and lost me my voice!
Driving back into LV we were all looking for excitement….and in fact the drive itself pretty much did it as Jill went over the 100mph mark! My choice was the Lt. Col….Jill and Skippy chose the roller-coaster at New York New York.
I waited in the bar for all of them and got chatted up by some random who ticked me off just a small bit.
On the way home Scott gave me my first introduction to IHOP in the USA….more food than you can eat in three meals. And the next day we went around some of the shops (I finally got my first pair of proper cowboy boots…love you Boot Barn!), had cocktails at Blue Martini, BBQ’d some dinner, hung out with Cricks and Talos (Scott’s greyhounds), and headed to the Strip for some serious photoging!!
Monday and Tuesday found us heading out to Denny’s or IHOP for breakfast, then dropping Skippy off at Borders to ‘work’ (OK, I’m tearing the ass out of it, he really did work) and Jill and I hit the shops, credit cards a’smokin’!
On Monday night we headed in to Planet Hollywood hoping to catch a band I had heard the previous evening…they weren’t playing but we decided to stay for dinner and drinks, sitting on the Strip, watching the world go by, and I do mean THE WORLD…in all its gaudy, glorious, fantastic glory. Scott joined us and after dinner he and I headed over to watch a couple of the Belaggio fountain shows while Skippy and Jill headed inside to drink and gamble, respectively.
Tuesday brought the same day-time scenario. Truth is it was a blast just driving around with that pair. Jill and I could have fun in a barrel by ourselves but Skippy added just one more blonde to the mix for added comic confusion.
Since Jill and Craig had a conference reception to go to on Tuesday night I made plans to meet Lanie for a drink and gossip and then Scott picked me up for dinner at another local’s-type place called Bootleggers. Unfortunately knowing I was leaving him the next day I was unable to eat much and I think Scott has been eating doggie-bagged chicken fettuccine alfredo ever since! In the morning I was very brave saying goodbye to sweet Cricket and proud Talos, and even braver saying goodbye to Scott as he dropped me ‘home’.
Arriving back at the condo I found my flat-mates ready to head out for a day at the conference they had actually come for. Whoa. A day to myself. In Vegas.
I headed to the Fashion Show Mall, did a little more damage to the Mastercard and added a little to the wardrobe, ran into a couple of Bermudians in the Food Court, then headed over to the Wynn hoping to get more photos. But Scott is correct, it’s no fun doing that on your own. I sat and had a drink in the pool bar Scott and I had looked at on Saturday, where little misters installed in the table umbrellas spray fine bursts of water into the air, making it a virtual oasis in the desert. I could practically hear my skin sucking in the moisture!
Afterwards I went back to the condo and packed and tried to relax….I had hoped to hit the pool but some fat slob was hogging the patch of sunshine coming through between the neighbouring buildings. Jill and I had tried once before to do the pool thing, but by the time we got there the sun was gone behind buildings, and the water was bloody freezing. Again, WTF???
Our flight out of Vegas wasn’t til 11.30pm and Jill told me in the morning that she wanted to go to the conference’s evening presentation. A quick call to Scott had him skipping the gym and coming instead to pick me up at Harrah’s. We went to Paris and sat off in the bar for a couple of cocktails and laughs before heading into the Planet Hollywood mall to look at the shops and stroll around eating Italian carry-out before heading back to Harrah’s to meet Jill and Skippy. Scott and I said goodbye again and I was able to do it with minimal tears knowing…KNOWING…that I will see him again soon. We left Skippy for a day on his own in LV where I am SURE Hooters was on the agenda but I’m really interested to know if he made it to the indoor sky-diving place!!
Jill and I had an uneventful trip home, despite being so cold in the Atlanta airport! Considering our week’s shopping expenses we were loathe to spend $50 on Georgia Tech sweatshirts so I shivered it out and Jill bought an ‘Atlanta Diva’ long-sleeved t-shirt to help insulate….which she just remembered to take off before landing and stepping into the sauna that is Bermuda air.

Funny thing is that at some point on Tuesday afternoon I think Jill and I reached ‘vacation relaxation point’ and everything was hilarious. I wish we had been able to stay longer and have more of that. Sometimes it just takes time to let go of the everyday reality we’ve left behind and let loose and have FUN.

We arrived back in Bermuda safely and I enjoyed the approach and landing as much as I always do. All the tourists looking out of the windows for some kind of land to touch down on, and all they can see is water…..the Captain is saying ‘We are making our final approach to Bermuda’ and they are straining to see out of both sides of the plane to see what the hell we might actually land on, and only seeing ocean!! Until….until….suddenly a coral athol or two, then a bit of land with some trees…and….all of a sudden you’re on the ground!
It’s always a thrill landing in Bermuda. Just SO beautiful. And always home.

On the drive back Jill did have a hard time with the speed limit but we made it without a speeding ticket!

And on that drive we discussed the fact that we both SO did not want to be home, here in Bermuda.
Jill’s been lucky enough to be away a few times recently and take care of her ‘rock fever’ and she has her plans for the big move to New Zealand next year.
But on leaving Las Vegas, we realised finally, completely, totally, that neither of our futures are here any longer. No more fish bowl. No more limitations. No more lack of choice…in everything/anything.

For me? Change. Big change is a-coming. How and when? Who knows. But it’s a-coming.