Howdy y’all,
I hope I haven’t already overwhelmed and/or bored you with my long-winded title above. That’s a lot of random stuff, but I wasn’t sure how to sum it up into one theme. These stories are from different weeks of travel to different places. I will tackle them one-by-one.
Starting with the least-exciting: my boss has his first coconut. We were in St. Thomas, walking out of a hardware store, and there was a coconut stand. My boss had never tried one, so I boldly said “Dave, do you want to try a coconut? I’ll buy you one – you HAVE to try it!” Knowing my boss and his tunnel-focus on work (which isn’t a bad thing…he’s a good boss and an extremely successful Milwaukee Tool manager… but c’mon – we are on tropical islands every week… try a blazin’ coconut!), I figured he wouldn’t want to, but I convinced him. He liked it, and I even got him to pose with the coconut man in a photo for PROOF! Yes, we’re there to work, but when you skip lunch and have a nutritious coconut opportunity right next to you, you gotta seize that opportunity. I say it in Spanish because that’s how it sounds best: Hay que aprovechar! He liked the coconut but wasn’t able to finish all of the water (it’s not milk) inside, so we got in the car and he put it by his feet to take back to the hotel. Well, with me driving and dodging the inevitable potholes on the island roads, he got a sock-full of coconut water by the time we got back to the Marriott, but I think (and hope) he still thought the experience was worth it.
A guy buys me a chocolate milk: Some of you may have seen this story on Facebook weeks ago, but I have to blog about it, too. St. Thomas is my most-visited island, and I always stay at the Marriott when I’m there. St. Thomas is also where I stay when I need to go to the other U.S. Virgin Islands (St. John and St. Croix), so I’ve gotten to know a couple of the employees at the Marriott. There are a few restaurants/bars in the Marriott resort, so one night I decided to leave the loneliness of my hotel room and bring my laptop to the lobby bar to work on emails down there and chat with one of my Marriott friends, Brian. I wasn’t about to drink, but I had to order something since I was sitting at the lobby bar, so I had Brian make me chocolate milk (which I frequently request at dinners when traveling…maybe because I’m from the Dairy State). Well, I was sitting at the end of the bar working on my laptop with an empty glass in front of me. A gentleman sitting on the couches behind me must have seen this as an opportunity, so this guy (I don’t even know his name…let’s call him Fulanito) walks up and says to Bartender Brian “Give me 2 more Heinekens, and then another of whatever she’s drinking” as he points to me. I said “No, no I’m good, thanks.” He insisted, so Bartender Brian, with a smile on his face, went about making me another chocolate milk! (he had to add Hershey’s syrup to white milk). You can imagine the look on Fulanito’s face when a chocolate milk was placed in front of me and then put on his bar tab. HAHA! He looked at the milk and looked at me and I smiled and said “I’m just drinking milk.” He said “I don’t think I’ve ever bought a chocolate milk for anyone before” and walked away. HAHA! It was funny, and whatever his ulterior motives were to buying this girl a drink, it was gonna take an infinite amount of milks!
Wisconsin friend visits: back in March, before the chocolate milk incident, my Wisconsin friend, Melissa, spent her Veterinary School Spring Break with me. We went to St. Thomas and St. Croix (staying at the Marriott in St. Thomas), and she found out that I actually DO work when I’m in tropical paradise! Melissa, can you please vouch for me- I actually DO work on these islands! She’ll tell you that yes, while I’m in sunny Paradise, I still put in many hours driving around to hardware stores and sitting at my computer. She was able to do a lot of relaxing, and she made a few friends, but I think she may have gotten a bit lonely, too, with me being gone 8 hours/day like a typical job demands. Nevertheless, I know she enjoyed it, spent time in the ocean, went scuba-diving (legitimate scuba-diving…she’s certified and everything), and even trespassed over a fence on the Marriott grounds to go down by the surf when it was low-tide to find numerous exo-skeletons of crabs to take home. She’s very intelligent and reads more than anyone I know and is also fascinated with wildlife, even if it’s an exoskeleton of a crab; therefore, we had to preserve those fragile exoskeletons for the remainder of her trip as if our lives depended on it. Count on Melissa, the animal and nature-loving adventurist (with no sense of rules) to jump the boardwalk at the hotel and go down by the prohibited area of the beach on the rocks and find exoskeletons of crabs and other little creatures …. I think that she now has them on display in her college apartment as a pretty neat souvenir from the Caribbean, so that’s cool J. Her gaping mouth at the landscape and the blue waters on the drive from the airport to the hotel on the first day reminded me that most people don’t see this natural beauty much (or at all) in their lifetimes…I need to remember to sit back, take a deep breath of ocean air, and be thankful for this job, regardless of the inconsistencies and instabilities (and aging) it brings on (Traveling 100% of the time for your job is not all lollipops and roses). It helped me remember that I am in some of the most beautiful places on earth…appreciate it! Right, Melissa? (She’s known me for almost 10 years and knows that I tend to be a bit too uptight and stressed…but I’m getting better, right?)
The threat of the St. Maarten car rental lady: I walked into the car rental place in St. Maarten, and it was my 3rd time there, and the intimidating lady at the counter recognized me. She was kind of grumpy the first couple times I was there, so I was sure to be perky and friendly right back to her. She took my credit card, verified my reservation, and said to the assistant “Give her a good one.” You’re wondering as you read right now “it’s a rental car place..aren’t they all ‘good’ cars?” Well, no they’re not! Haha. As I mentioned in earlier blog posts..there’s a different standard than the U.S., so I’ve rented cars the size of roller skates, cars that don’t lock, and cars that sound like they’ll putter out on every uphill. With that said, it’s a good thing this lady likes me enough to give me a ‘good’ one. Maybe trying another car rental place besides the company named ‘Budget’ would help, too. This was my 3rd time to St. Maarten but my first time to the hotel I had reservations for, so I asked her how to get there. She told me it was 2 minutes down the road, back on the other side of the airport. She continued to say “after the airport it will be on your left. You cannot miss it. If you do you get a spanking. It be that easy.” Haha! A spanking?? I laughed and said it had been many years since I’d had one of those, but they always hurt. Upon returning the car 3 days later, I was sure to tell her I easily found the hotel and that she wouldn’t need to get out her paddle. The rest of the week went well.
Flight convo with Nancy – dying of liver and pancreatic cancer: I sat by an elderly woman on a flight in early June. I was traveling home to Green Bay and we boarded from my layover in Detroit to head up to Green Bay. This woman looked to be traveling alone, but looked to be my grandmother’s age – around 75. She said hi and seemed to know what she was doing (where to put her bag, not to recline the seat, or listen her her ipod (haha) until reaching a certain altitude, etc. She looked like she had done this before. Her name is Nancy, and during our 1 hour conversation, I found out she was coming from Detroit like she does once per month, getting a trial drug that is being tested to replace chemo. Nancy is dying from both pancreatic and liver cancer. She was given up to 6 months to live – 9 months ago. She has grown children and grandchildren in Michigan, Florida, and Wisconsin. She talked of being a snow-bird who, for the past 40 years, traveled to Florida to escape 6 months of Wisconsin winters, and her last trip was this past year since both her and her husband’s health are fading. She spoke of the orange groves her son manages down there and how she didn’t know if she’d make it back. She travels to Detroit once per month for an experimental drug…after all, with a 6-month diagnosis, there’s not much to lose. Her daughter lives in Detroit so she stays with her and gets to see the grandchildren for that one week/month, and then she lives in Wisconsin for the other 3 weeks of the month – driving herself to and from the Green Bay airport, 90 miles south of the small Wisconsin town she’s from. She didn’t get choked up when talking about this because I’m sure she’s told her story before, but I got kinda teary-eyed! L She was such a blessing to sit by. We talked the whole 60-minute flight about our lives, and I told her she was a strong-willed woman with a determined mind and a loving heart. I took her hands and prayed with her…prayed for strength and also for acceptance of the timing of everything in this life – including the end of it. While her story was sad, to never know when you’ll go, it was also REFRESHING…REFRESHING to hear her speak of how she knows how much she’s blessed with…her children, her grandchildren, the ability to still golf, the support of family and friends and her local church. She said she has so many people praying for her, and that was strength for her. Nancy – I am praying for you, too! What a blessing to sit by you on our little flight to Green Bay.
Thanks for reading!! I have more adventures to share for next time...my allergic reaction in Barbados, my food poisoning in St. Kitts, and some happy stuff too. Have a great weekend everybody :)
