Catered To Blog

When I told my father after my freshman year in college that I no longer wished to become a nurse he pointedly told me that I then needed to get all the credits and certifications necessary to become a teacher if he were to continue to help with the funds for my education. “After all”, he said, “You will need something to fall back on if your husband dies.” At that time I was neither married nor engaged nor thinking of becoming either.

My Mother, however, had taught me to recognize which side my bread was buttered on and I did get the appropriate credits and certifications and spent one semester working as a substitute teacher before I gave up teaching for a living. I have taught woodturning and knitting but always on a volunteer basis to people who really wanted to learn. So where am I going with this? I now have a teacher’s schedule – hooray! I have summers off! Last summer, for the first time since I turned sixteen and got working papers, I had the summer off. It was wonderful – perhaps my Dad had a point about teaching.

Last year I took a partner, Tyler Anderson, who had been working with us for over a year and was indeed hired to eventually take my place. The first perk of partnership was summers off – and on May 16 I will be again off for the summer. We will go to our little cabin in Montana for most of the summer, spend a few weeks in Yosemite with my daughter and return on September 15 just in time for the hurricane months. So the Blog will be on hiatus for a few months. But if you need your own vacations do think about St. John – we’d love to see you.

I had a Civics class in the eighth grade, I remember disliking it, I remember being bored. Youth is truly wasted on the young. Civics is really interesting stuff – it’s who we are as Americans, it’s how we live and perhaps even how we die. How could I have been bored?

Since April I have been living a Civics lesson, I’m on Jury Duty. I will not pretend to love this, especially as it works in the Virgin Islands where you serve for three months. Yes, I said three months. If I ruled the Islands I would have a different system but it really is not quite as bad as it sounds. During that three months I may have to appear at the courthouse ten times, unless those dates are canceled, which they have been four dates out of the first six. This past week, however, I did serve on a Jury for the first time – Monday and half of Tuesday for the trial, deliberations until noon on Wednesday.

The legal processes of a Criminal Trial are interesting. We had a really good judge, the Honorable Michael Dunstan, and I think he did an exemplary job. He certainly treated us with respect, made clear our duties, and gave great deliberation instructions – in short, if he had been teaching the Civics class or had come to speak to us, I would not have been bored.

For those of us old enough to have watched every episode of Perry Mason, the process bears no resemblance to TV. In another life I was a certified Paralegal and had worked in a law office for several years in Estates and Trusts, so I perhaps had more of an idea of the workings than my fellow jurors, but no trial experience. I think the Prosecutor and the Defense Attorney did a good job – once again, not at all boring.

However, we had a hung jury and suffice it to say I would rather have another root canal than go through the deliberation process again. But alas, during the three months I may be called upon to serve on another jury. Perhaps, I need to renew my Zanac prescription or take to “the drink” as my Irish ancestors would say – it is not an easy process to pass judgment on the actions of others but I am glad I didn’t shirk this responsibility of citizenship because I know my voice was heard. And not to sound too sappy, I am glad to live in a country where I have a voice.

The SDM had a birthday this week, while I was serving on a Jury and didn’t get home in the mood or in time to celebrate it – rain date Saturday. So anyway, aging has been on my mind as well as in my mirror. Then the Cs walked in – the Cs are longtime repeat and favorite guests with a few years under their respective belts. Mr. C let slip out that Mrs. C now also had an age that began with 8 – Mrs. C would rather have kept that to herself, I think.

They are wonderful, active, and cheerful and I want to be them when I grow up!

Each year they come for two weeks and their enthusiasm for St. John reminds us of just why we love it here. Two years ago they were here for a terrible rainstorm and several more days of rotten wet weather. During the deluge a garden wall collapsed and mud and dirt ran down the side of the property and right into the swimming pool. The pool became a swamp overnight. We righted the situation as fast as we could and this year they are again back in that same villa, Seagrass Cottage, which has a lovely new garden wall with a new system of directing runoff.

The Cs, during all of this, were just wonderful – they knew this was a freak accident and that we would fix it as quickly as possible. It’s at times like these that I remember a story Robert Fulghum wrote in one of his books;

“One of life’s best coping mechanisms is to know the difference between an inconvenience and a problem. If you break your neck, if you have nothing to eat, if your house is on fire, then you’ve got a problem. Everything else is an inconvenience. Life is inconvenient. Life is lumpy. A lump in the oatmeal, a lump in the throat and a lump in the breast are not the same kind of lump. One needs to learn the difference.”

I know that the Cs know this and much more, at Catered To we hope they will be our guests for many more years and that we will continue to learn by their example.

We had house guests a few weeks ago and once again they reminded me why I love St. John. It’s always wonderful to see St. John through fresh eyes – when you are here every day sometimes you forget just how beautiful our island is.

So on Sunday we all went out for breakfast at the Inn at Tamarind Court, dining al fresco and sipping Bloody Marys. Then it was off to the Annaberg Sugar Mill ruins in the National Park. The views from Annaberg are spectacular and it was a gorgeous day, sunny and warm but not too hot. After we toured the sugar mill ruins we walked down to Lameshur Bay and everyone went snorkeling around Waterlemon Cay, which is protected by swimming buoys so the snorkeling is safe from the many boats that anchor there. The snorkeling is great but frequently the current is strong – so take a friend with you and stick together.

After we snorkeled everyone but me took the trail up to the great house ruins with its great views and then went onto the Johnny Horn trail. The path is moderate to the first ridge and then from the gut you follow an abandoned road with a steep uphill to a ridge with a nice view of Coral Bay. You then follow the ridge down past the Moravian Church. I took the car and met them at Skinny Legs Bar and Grill in Coral Bay for, you guessed it, burgers!

I had stopped a while on the beach in front of Annaberg thinking it would take them an hour to get to Coral Bay there are some nice coral flats and island views, but they were speedy and made it to Skinny’s before me – I found them there sipping Pain Killers! Skinny’s is one of our favorite burger joints as I have mentioned before. But in the past few years they have gone Gucci on us and now have real desserts, none of them worth the calories in MHO, and I miss the Ben and Jerry’s bars. Nothing like a burger followed by a Cherry Garcia bar!

But back to the National Park Hiking – there are a number of really great hiking trails on St. John – this one the Johnny Horn, is made easier by having a car drop you at one location and pick you up at the other end. We prefer the pickup to be in Coral Bay so you can batch it with burgers!

Isn’t this is a strange title from a woman who rents villas on St. John? Well, I hadn’t been to St. Croix in over 15 years until last month when we went over to visit some friends who moved there and retired a year or so ago. Now I suspect that we got to see the best part of St. Croix – as we never ventured onto the “highway” but we had a great time and STX is really lovely.

Of course, this is coming from a woman who got two things she loves the first day there – homemade ice cream and real, red, tasty tomatoes. I’m almost ready to move for just those two things – but not quite ready to be really fat and I’m sure I’d eat more ice cream than tomatoes in the long run and that would be bad.

We went over on the Sea Plane with our friends who were visiting from Montana – he is a pilot and a retired air traffic controller so it had to be the Sea Plane. Great ride and sightseeing from the air was wonderful. Our STX friends picked us up and took us for a tour of the North side, we stopped at the Lawaetz Plantation for a tour. Mrs. Lawaetz was charming and informative and we had a wonderful tour. www.gotostcroix.com/lawaetz.

Then it was off to lunch at a little restaurant on the beach near Fredriksted called Sand Castles on the Beach. Afterwards we visited the Whim Estate Great House where we had the most animated and amusing docent ever!
Our friend’s lovely home is on the Northeast end of the island on Teague Bay and they have a lovely wall mural done by Denise Wright of St. John. Denise is a wonderful “Trompe d’oeil” painter – she has done some lovely walls in one of our rental villas, Altagracia, and I just wish I had a wall in my home for one of her masterpieces.

The next day we did another of my favorite things –a three mile walk on a beach. St. John has very few long beaches and this former Jersey girl likes long beaches. That evening we had a great dinner at a quirky alfresco restaurant called Savant.

The morning of departure found me in the farmers market getting enough tomatoes for our wonderful Catered To Staff – got to keep the troops happy!

The enemy of villas on St. John can be boiled down to one word – rust. Perhaps I could include corrosion and make it a phrase – rust and corrosion. We are a small island surrounded by lots of salt water and salt water is a wonderfully efficient element of corrosion. Stainless steel rusts on St. John!

I think the best example of rust and corrosion is beach chairs. We replace them about every 18 months in every villa. Why can’t the manufacturers use stainless steel for all the parts? The bolts and braces always seem to be galvanized and they start to rust in three months when the rest of the chair still looks new.

Refrigerators are the next best rust attractors. We sometimes have them entirely repainted at the auto body shop within three years – at six we are replacing them. My Mother owned our first refrigerator for over twenty years – it was still working when she renovated the kitchen and bought the autumn gold one. Remember the phase that followed avocado green? I had to talk her into a new bone one five years ago. Three refrigerators in fifty-seven years – we’d like to get ten years out of the body on STJ – the guts are still going strong but the body is gone.

Don’t get me started on electronic equipment – stereos, cd players, vcrs, etc – maybe two years. This is such a hard concept for our new villa owners who have never experienced this sort of attrition and contributes to the high cost of living on STJ.

Just last week we were visiting friends in St. Croix who had lived on St. John for many years. On St. Croix they are not experiencing anywhere near the corrosion levels we have on St. John – they’ve been waiting six years for their frig to rust so they can justify buying a new one! Larger, dryer island and a fun place to visit, but that’s another blog.

Blogs are strange creatures – sometimes topics far afield of those you meant to mention just crop up. Here’s one.

A few years ago my brother-in-law, who is not really my brother-in-law as he is married to my former sister-in-law – she and I used to be married to brothers – came to STT with his best buddy to go sailing on the buddy’s boat. The boat is moored at one of the marinas in STT and they were stuck waiting for some repairs. You may remember my comment about a hole in the water in which to throw money? Well the buddy owned one – she was gorgeous! So they invited me to come over to join them for dinner at a restaurant near the marina.

As we were sipping some very nice wine and chatting they both spoke openly of how much they loved their respective wives. Not that the wives didn’t sometimes send them round the bend, but they really respected them and loved them and missed them even on this male bonding week – and they were actually saying this to another woman! Notwithstanding the fact that I know and love their wives too, they really could just have been regaling me with their sailing exploits and broken boat woes but instead they were talking about their wives.

To me, the most attractive man is one who loves his wife and says so. I firmly believe that if these guys ever become widowers there will be a line of women with casseroles out the door and around the block. If I didn’t have a SDM of my own, I’d probably be in that line.

Of course, I made the mistake of telling them both how attractive a man is who is willing to say he loves his wife, whereupon each of them took one of my hands, gazed into my eyes with their best fake leers and smarmy voices said, “Eileen, have I mentioned how much I love my wife?” Guys, can’t tell them anything – but some of them are worth listening to.

So would you be wearing your green today? I’ve got on my green shirt, shamrock sequined hat, fake cloisonné earrings, Mardi Gras-shamrock necklace, and specs with shamrocks too! Is there a point where you become too Irish? I do call it quits at green beer – but then again I won’t drink the stuff when it’s not green.

On St. John we have a one block St. Paddy’s Day Parade, the Saturday before, usually quite amusing. We have a bonafide Irish Pub called the Quiet Mon, and lots of people willing to celebrate this fun holiday.

We have our good friends from Montana visiting us this week and today is their wedding anniversary – which we will be celebrating at Skinny Legs Bar and Grill in Coral Bay – only the best burgers for the Montana contingent.

Also starting tomorrow is the St. John Blues Festival, culminating with a fabulous concert in Coral Bay on Saturday night. St. John, a happening place!

Everyone has little rituals that they incorporate into life – little rituals that are comforting and calming. I rise every morning an hour before the SDM , make a pot of Earl Grey with Lavender Tea, bring it to the bedroom and read or knit for forty-five minutes before I get a cup of coffee for the SDM and we start on our day. Now that its winter and dark when I rise I get a bonus for a few months – the Southern Cross can be seen hanging just above Hart Bay every morning at 5:30AM – it’s just incredible!

One of the most marvelous things about St. John is the night sky ablaze with stars and planets. I wish I knew more about the night sky but there are several constellations that I can recognize along with some planets like Venus and Saturn. I was lucky enough to be here when Hailey’s Comet passed by in 1986. That was totally cool.

We even have a local Starlady – Kelley Hunter does a star-gazing program every year for the National Park, we went last year and it was great. Also she leads private stargazing nights on St. John by appointment call 340- 693-5849 for her schedule and services. Every month she has a great article in my favorite St. John newspaper, the St. John Sun Times.

It’s easy to get complacent about the wonders of beauty around us and sometimes I just forget to notice the night sky, but as soon as I start seeing the Southern Cross it reminds me again to look up.

In 1973, when I first visited St. John, I went on my first ever Day Sail and I’ve been in love with Day Sails ever since. Even though I live on St. John and could own a sailboat of my own, I’ve never wanted to either own one or learn enough about sailing to be a safe sailor. I have entirely enough responsibility in my life and it is heavenly to hand over all responsibilities to someone else for a day.

My idea of total pampering is to go out on a Day Sail with one of the Day Sail companies that depart from St. John. Someone else is in complete control of both the day and all of the maintenance that boats entail. Who came up with that funny and true definition that goes something like: Sailboat: a hole in the water that you throw money into? I’d rather throw the money at the Day Sail captain!

That first boat in 1973 was Brigadoon, run by a lovely couple, Ron and Jane Llewellyn. They made everything seem effortless, were great guides naming all the cays and islands and telling some charming stories along the way. Jane always served a hot lunch of chicken curry that was wonderful. They sailed out of Caneel Bay and retired many years ago.

Today I save the Day Sails for our visiting house guests and the boat I choose is Outlaw. Outlaw is a 55” Baltic sloop impeccably maintained and sailed by our friends Paul and Vicki who have been sailing in the Virgin Islands for over 20 years. I love the two seating areas – one in the sun one in the shade – and the SDM, who gets seasick from time to time, is frequently set to steer with Vicki watchfully checking his progress – keeps him from turning green around the gills! My daughter and her buddies are always found in the sunny cockpit or forward on deck.

It never matters to me where we sail – I just like being aboard and on the water for the day looking at the scenery and remembering just why I live here! There is always a mid-morning snack of some breakfast bread Vicki has baked and a stop for lunch at some place that has great snorkeling while she makes one of her fabulous gourmet lunches. The SDM is always happy with dessert, a course he only eats if it’s chocolate – because it frequently is some fabulous chocolate cake – last time it was Chocolate Cherry – yum!

The only struggle on the way home is to stay awake – it always feels like naptime to me. And of course the inner struggle not to remember the relaxing day of sailing so fondly that I decide to buy a sailboat!