Cayman.6--Fences

In Cayman there are fences everywhere--many of the properties are surrounded by something, especially concrete half-walls. One of the most interesting architectural elements that I encountered were the concrete fences made out of patterned blocks. The patterns and the colors varied.

(This one is from the front of the governour's mansion. I loved that tropical flowers often spilled over the tops of these fences.)

Cayman.5--Squirrels

Fred said that chickens are Cayman's squirrels. How true--they were everywhere--flying out in front of the car when I was driving, crowing around every corner, even pecking around the beach.



I was taking a walk in a neighborhood one day when I chanced on this slightly unhappy looking steer. (I was amazed to see animals on small plots in residential areas.)

Another site of chickens:

The name of this store makes me laugh. And the "Open! Open!" announcement is utterly charming.



This is local-ish fast food--Jamaican-style jerk chicken. It was very spicy and good.

Christmas in California.5

It's incredible here: you drive half an hour away from where there's no snow and you get to feet and feet of it.

Cayman.4--Tidal Pools

Coconut

I took as many walks as possible at Diana and Fred's beach just before sundown when the tide was out and you could see lots of living things in the water and just at the water's edge.

Sea urchin?

Brain-looking corral

Hermit crabs! Loved these little guys.

??

Not part of the tidal pool. Just a picnic table sunken into the sand

A conch shell! Loved seeing live ones on the bottom of the ocean when I was snorkeling.

Some sort of living plant in an old conch shell

Christmas in California.4

Photo credit: Francisco

Cayman.3--Sunsets

Diana and Fred are always raving about the Cayman sunsets. I've quoted Diana's wisdom on sunsets before, and ain't that the truth: sunrise was the ultra-late time of 7 a.m., and I was still too lazy to get out of bed for it. But sunsets you don't have to wake up for. And when you're on an island, sunrises and sunsets are all over the water.



This is from the top of a little viewing area at Camana Bay--an ultra-modern live/eat/work development.



This picture is from a sunset viewing on the top of the Ritz--striking because it was by far the highest up that I was during my visit. The island is very flat and none of the buildings are especially tall (see the setup for a wedding on the beach).

This was from Governour's Beach, which is just across from where Diana works. It's the beach in front of the governour's mansion. As an aside--this is the job I'm aiming for in life--you get to be the figurehead and don't have to worry about the actual politics. (I bet that line will come back to haunt me when I run for mayor.)

Cayman.2--Cemeteries

Many Cayman cemeteries are just beside the water. According to Fred, that land used to be nearly worthless, since you couldn't farm it. Now the cemeteries occupy very valuable land. And are quite a pain to move, so I've heard.



The cemeteries were loaded with colorful fake flowers. And many of the tombstones had on them photographs of the deceased (I haven't seen this since Orthodox cemeteries in Romania).



This little area of the cemetery was fenced off. I'm crazy about these concrete fences, but I'll write more about that later.



We walked through the cemetery on the way to snorkel at Cemetery Beach. I am crazy about snorkeling. I'd never done it before coming to the Cayman's (we always went to the beach in North Carolina, where the water isn't clear and the waves would pummel you if you tried to snorkel).

It was strange at first--you can hear every single breath you take and it feels like you're Darth Vader. Listening to myself breath, I couldn't remember how fast it was supposed to happen. But when you're out there looking at the corral and the tropical fish, you forget even your breath. Watching the fish is just the most peaceful thing. They are gorgeous--a variety of bright colors and shapes and textures and sizes. And the living things on the bottom are fascinating too--brain-looking corral and fan shaped plants waving in the water. I felt like I was in Finding Nemo and that at any moment the fish might just start talking to me.

The first time I snorkeled, Diana walked me through every step and snorkeled with me. The second time, I went to snorkel at the Wreck of the Cali by myself while Diana and Fred were at work. When I made my way over to the wreck, I saw something that I hadn't seen the first time: enormous fish. I mean quite a few and they were maybe four to six feet long. I was the only one snorkeling in the area and was petrified--I swam right back to shore. I found a nice looking man who worked at the near-by dive shop and asked him if the big fish were dangerous (heaven's sakes--I don't even know what a barracuda or piranha looks like!). He said that they were terrapins and that they are perfectly safe. I waited for some other snorkelers and divers to go over there before returning. What an awe-inspiring feeling to swim around something so large and wild.

Christmas in California.3

Photo Credit: Francisco

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Francisco's other grandmother (92) on receiving a gift of jasmine tea: "I will try this when I go home. Not tonight, though--it might tempt me to walk barefoot in the rain ... naked."

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"I can shovel snow with these!" --Francisco's 86-year-old grandmother, on receiving a pair of gloves for Christmas

Cayman.1--Diana and Fred's

(The view from Diana and Fred's balcony)

Last week I broke my self-imposed, dissertation-induced travel ban. Diana and Fred, my friends since we were all in the single digits, moved to the Cayman Islands two years ago (well, they moved to one specific Cayman island). So my visit to see their home was past due--and what better time to make up for that than December, when there clearly isn't anywhere near enough sun in St. Louis?

(The view from Diana and Fred's pier)

I took about a thousand pictures, give or take, and I clearly have to show you every. single. one. So my apologies in advance for that.

(One of Diana and Fred's many lizards)

(And again)

The fence that the lizard is standing on? It's made out of big chunks of corral. The funny thing is--the corral leads to all those gorgeous white sand beaches, but when you make it into a fence, it comes out looking black.

Here's some of the horseback riders that unrelentingly marched up and down Diana and Fred's beach. I would like to pause briefly to make fun of them. It was funny to watch--they trudged slowly up and down the beach in a straight line in groups of up to maybe ten people--groups of tourists who, for the most part, had never ridden a horse before. The funny thing is, they probably thought this would fulfill their tv fantasy of romantically galloping up a beach. But there was no galloping--just plodding. Diana agreed--she said that the funny thing is that when you're up there, you just sort of want it to be over.

 

It really is a picture-perfect beach. I can't imagine having this always outside of my front door.

Christmas in California.2

Christmas in California

Quote

"'I wasn't expecting them,' she said, 'that's all. You see, I have no nurse for my baby just now, and I have to look after him myself. And also, I have to learn my part for a new film. And then, you know, I don't as a rule entertain in this sort of way, I ...' She trailed off when she realised that Kurt was looking at her with cynical intentness. She realised she had made too many excuses for wanting to get rid of the crowd. An old and famous actress had once given her the following advice: 'If you must make any excuse make one only. More than one sounds false. None at all is best. It's generally foolish to make excuses and give reasons. Never try to explain yourself to others, it leads to confusion. Avoid psychiatrists." Annabel had stored up every word, but sometimes she forgot to apply them."

--The Public Image, Muriel Spark

The Public Image traces an intricate game of making and breaking each others' public images played by a husband and wife in life and death.

A Random Assortment

St. John's Church, Lafayette Square

~ "I am Adam Lanza's Mother"--on the need for mental institutions for some people who have violent tendencies (who are currently only cared for in jails).

~ A social network to help you get to know your neighbors. (Going outside and saying hello also works.)

~ Ewww! Charles Dickens's cat-paw letter opener. 

~ Zadie Smith, "Joy":

And then there are all the many things that the dog does and says, entirely anthropomorphized and usually offensive, which express the universe of things we ourselves cannot do or say, to each other or to other people. “You’re being the dog,” our child said recently, surprising us. She is almost three and all our private languages are losing their privacy and becoming known to her. Of course, we knew she would eventually become fully conscious, and that before this happened we would have to give up arguing, smoking, eating meat, using the Internet, talking about other people’s faces, and voicing the dog, but now the time has come, she is fully aware, and we find ourselves unable to change. “Stop being the dog,” she said, “it’s very silly,” and for the first time in eight years we looked at the dog and were ashamed.

Occasionally the child, too, is a pleasure, though mostly she is a joy, which means in fact she gives us not much pleasure at all, but rather that strange admixture of terror, pain, and delight that I have come to recognize as joy, and now must find some way to live with daily. This is a new problem. Until quite recently I had known joy only five times in my life, perhaps six, and each time tried to forget it soon after it happened, out of the fear that the memory of it would dement and destroy everything else.

Let’s call it six. Three of those times I was in love, but only once was the love viable, or likely to bring me any pleasure in the long run. Twice I was on drugs—of quite different kinds. Once I was in water, once on a train, once sitting on a high wall, once on a high hill, once in a nightclub, and once in a hospital bed. It is hard to arrive at generalities in the face of such a small and varied collection of data. The uncertain item is the nightclub, and because it was essentially a communal experience I feel I can open the question out to the floor. I am addressing this to my fellow Britons in particular. Fellow Britons! Those of you, that is, who were fortunate enough to take the first generation of the amphetamine ecstasy and yet experience none of the adverse, occasionally lethal reactions we now know others suffered—yes, for you people I have a question. Was that joy?

 The whole thing is beautiful. While she distinguishes between joy and pleasure, focusing on joy, I think I call the thing she talks about, "sublime." (She uses that word once.)

~ "Dear Elizabeth," a play about the correspondence between Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell. I feel very frustrated that I can't go see this.

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Grading: Every bit as painful in Cayman as it is in the U.S.

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A local fisherman caught a giant barracuda off the pier today--I guess I was swimming with it yesterday. #cayman

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So glad I'm blessed to live in the US where we have things like Netflix and Hulu and Amazon Prime. #actually it's okay I'm in paradise #fine I sort of miss falling asleep to guilty pleasure tv

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"Sunsets are so much better, because you don't have to get up for them." --Diana

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Listening to the roosters crow, and remembering Fred on the wild chickens around here: "They're like our squirrels." #cayman

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A Christmas party with Christmas lights and Christmas music in short sleeves and 80 degrees. #cayman

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Got burned on the first day. And not evenly, either--in patches of splotches. #cayman

Traveling

I'll tell you all about it soon. But for now: I'm all packed up for five weeks and four distinctly different weathers. And lots of lovely friends along the way.

A Random Assortment

Waco at Christmastime via MT

~ I'm pretty demanding about compliments. I need about 40,000 of them a day. So Francisco sent me this: Emergency Compliment.

~ PAL on the difficulties of being a crunchy conservative in the country.

~ St. Louis has architecturally lovely schools. Here are some pictures (please click "Begin tour").

The National Building Museum and the Christmas Market, DC

NK has been itching for these pictures for a couple of days, so I thought I'd better oblige. Francisco and I joined NK and ZK (not related) for a stroll, which included a tour of the National Building Museum, one of the most awe-inspiring interiors in DC.

They were decorating and practicing for a Christmas concert.



I love the tops of the columns, which are larger than life. And you can just barely see the row of busts near the ceiling in the picture below. There are supposed to be 234.



In the evening we walked through a Christmas Market in front of the National Portrait Gallery/American Art Museum. It reminded me of how I imagine European Christmas markets are--prettily situated in front of grand old buildings.




This is just across the street--the Hotel Monaco (which used to be the Post Office Building).