Thor! & Crime Thoughts

Uh oh, Renee's in jeans (her only pair).



Guess what that means.



Movies!

Now where else could you go see a big budget movie like Thor on opening weekend and have absolutely no lines? I remember standing in lines that went around the block in NYC for movies that had been out for weeks!



We were completely alone until a few minutes before the movie started. I think there were about a dozen of us in all. Amazing. I had no idea the movie was in 3D and hadn't seen a 3D movie in decades, so was very excited to try on my new shades. Sweatshirt on - check. Glasses on - check. Popcorn ready - check. Diet soda - check. Start the previews! Oooooh sea sick...

So we thought the movie was pretty good. While it had a lot less action than we were expecting and thought the dialog was a bit corny, it kind of had the feel of the Iron Man movies, so was entertaining enough. Like Iron Man 2, I felt that the lead lady character was a little bit too dreamy about the lead male character (constant shots of her "iiiiiin looooooove") which took away from some of her strengths, but it wasn't enough for me to hate it. Thor's body wasn't so bad to look at either...

We got out to find it raining. There was pink mist over the sea, making me expect New Orleans-style humidity and cicadas, but it wasn't too bad. It looks similar this morning. I'm guessing summer is trying to make a come back.

Hey! Today is Mother's Day! Michael & I both give our shout outs to our favorite Moms! Happy 1st Mommy's Day to Kristen & Krista. I'll bet it feels weird being on the "other side" of that day for a change. Enjoy everyone!

A bit of island minutia:

So first all, the guys they caught in relation to the hold up of 17 tourists last November have been released due to lack of evidence. If they really have had the wrong men in custody all this time, what a shame. If the police force is really this inept, it's down-right scary. A business owner who commented on the release, said that they caught the guy who robbed his store, found all the stuff in the guy's house, and ended up releasing him for lack of evidence too. I'm not aware of a single fatal or major crime conducted here in the past 2 years resulting in a conviction. I don't know how much of it is just not having the right equipment/training (the U.S. has provided quite a bit of both - $3Million in the last 2 years!), or problems with the legal/lawyering end, but I sure wish they'd figure out it out.

I keep reading about how St Kitt's doesn't have the equipment, but I have to ask what's happening to it then? The US donated lab equipment, a vehicle, a laptop, uniforms, etc. last year and set them up so that they could use the Antigua lab services for forensics. Any of that happening? The EU has also provided money for security. Now they're talking about getting more training from the Israelis. Ok, so what are they doing about the prosecution end of things? Who cares if you catch the guys and then can't convict them?

Interestingly, the Minister of National Security has come up with a 10-point plan to make us more secure. Two of those items include allowing women to get easier access to mace/pepper spray and arming home/business owners. While I wonder how many of the bad guys will end up with access to the stuff being discussed, I will be more than happy to partake in some of the options being offered myself.

The next cost to go up here is the airport departure tax. Nooooo! One of our biggest gripes about this island is how hard it is to get from/to here. Unless you're going to Miami, it'll most likely take you 2 days to get home. The best you can do is land around midnight. There's usually a stopover somewhere - say St Martin, Antigua, or Miami - and you basically pay about $300 extra to go from St Kitts to wherever that stopover is and then to your destination. I've mentioned previously, that a "$49" LIAT flight becomes about $249 when you add up all the taxes. It's too expensive to go anywhere, so we're starting to get slap happy. So what's the latest? Doubling the departure tax for locals/residents (that includes us). It is now $37US. That's right; before Mike & I even step on a plane or boat, we get to cough up $74US. Ouch!!!!!! The increase takes affect in July, so it's a good thing our next planned trip is before that.

There's a census going on. I give credit to the poor census takers - that truly is a thankless job. Add paranoid home owners and it's probably even a dangerous one. Well, we haven't been home during the last 2 visits from our guy, but he left a surprisingly professional letter/brochure explaining how we can make an appointment and what the census is all about. Our rep even provided an email address. Well, let's see if he answers it...

Weird Day - Movies & Deer

So yesterday was a rather weird day. The St. Kitts Department of Culture (Facebook page) is having a free Caribbean Cinema festival all week. They're showing up to 47 movies - for free! - made by Caribbean people about Caribbean countries. Here are the movie trailers. The day movies are upstairs at MaPau Casino, or more specifically Sweet Lime's lounge room. We've been to this room before for Island Xpressions Poetry night (very fun) and it's still just as strange. The evening movies are at a new restaurant called Copper Chimney at the Royal St. Kitts (across from the Marriott).

Here's what Sweet Lime looks like from the outside. Plus there were 2 huge cruise ships just outside their front door.



Upstairs has nice seating - and of course the lounge.



Tina and I made a last minute decision to go to an afternoon showing with movies about Colombia and Barbados. It would have been a bit more pleasant had we not had the noise from the kitchen competing with the movie, but was certainly an interesting way to spend a couple of hours. Both movies had happy endings, so we left feeling feeling cheery. And cold - we would have stayed for the next showing but needed to thaw out. Next time we'll bring our cinema layers. Friday & Saturday will be movies for kids - again free - so take advantage of them.



There were only 3 other people in the room, but that just made us feel special. It was definitely nice to do something out of the ordinary and to take advantage of the efforts the Department of Culture made to bring them to us.



Michael had an even weirder day when he had to deal with a wounded baby doe. Yes, doe a deer, a female deer. Bambi, no less. Poor little baby was hit by a car.



I've mentioned spotting deer before, but this time we have proof that they're here. Unfortunately, this was a rather crappy way of coming up with it. Michael ended up bringing the animal to Ross University for a quick check. As it turned out, folks in Nevis had just suggested trying to test deer to see if they matched the DNA from those in the States. The Ross crowd took some hair samples and then gave the 4-6 week old fawn back to Michael for another drive down the peninsula to release it and hope the mommy would come back for her....before she gets hit again or gets eaten by a local...

So Michael set her down and was just getting ready to take a picture when she leaped up faster than lightening and took off into the brush. So picture deer here:


This is on top of the fact that Michael had close encounters with 3 trapped monkeys the other day. He saw them all in a cage (that didn't belong where it was) and walked up to a little guy who was holding his hand out to him. They held hands, while the monkey looked pleadingly at Michael, which resulted in some tears and a release. The monkey he bonded with ran, but turned around, sat up, looked at Michael, and then walked on. Why can't people see the humane side of animals as well as tap more into the humane side of themselves?

Anyway, add cow wrangling - where Michael helped round up about 10 cows for relocation (although they're still looking for a 3-legged bovine - I kid you not) and turtle releasing (when he finds confused little babies flailing around on the beach) and you have to wonder if Michael's becoming the animal/reptile guardian of the southeast peninsula. Go Mikey!

A Trip to the Movies

Ever since I mentioned the word "pool" it's rained sporadically day and night. The other night, we had probably the hardest torrential downpours we've experienced since we've been here. Incredibly, even though we've been off Jacumba since last October, I kept waking up in a panic that we needed to shut hatches and Mike felt like we should be catching the rain for our water tanks. I guess 3 years on a boat takes a while to shake off. Weird.

Actually, it's been nice to have the cooler temps and breezes. The power did, in fact, go out on Friday morning (8am). Unfortunately, they had a different idea of what constitutes afternoon and we didn't get power back until 2pm. Couldn't get any computer work done, so cleaned instead for awhile and then dove into a Clive Cussler book we found at the book swap at Shipwreck a while back. With the electricity going down like this 2 days/week, this could be a long two months; but on the other hand, our electric bill should go down...should.

Some friends of ours have a veritable farm in their back yard with every kind of fruit tree you can imagine, as well as some veggies in various plots dotting the place, and they've been handing out pazillions of mangoes to everyone they know. Their tree is still laden with them, so none of us are going to wont for these babies. I'm starting to freeze some so I can make smoothies with them. Probably good to alternate our pretzels with something with some nutritional value.



With the strange weather and rough seas, we decided to forgo some planned snorkeling and headed to the cinema instead. Looks just like any other movie house right? Mmmm. Popcorn. Just can't get enough.



We decided to see Ironman 2. We really liked the first one and thought the 2nd one was fun too. We were a bit confused here and there and am not sure why they dumbed down Gwyneth Paltrow's character. We think it was to give the new "hottie" in the film a chance to standout - although she didn't seem to be necessary except to kick some serious booty in one scene (we still don't have a clue who she is in relation to the story line). No one makes a better villain than O'Rourke. No one. Shivers.

Then we headed over to Pat & Steve's place (our friends' house, not a bar - although that would make a good name for a bar and the beer's good) nearby to catch up. We also decided to get a take-out pizza at Spratnet. We had heard a lot about this pizza, so were glad to at least cross it off our list. It was pretty good (better than the downtown, Pizza King which had also gotten a lot of praise from folks), but not something we'd make the longish trip to go get regularly. Our favorite pizza's so far are Spice Mill's and the Marriott's Pizza Shack (although it takes forever!). BTW, Spratnet & Pizza King have thicker pizzas, Spice Mill & Marriott have thinner crusts - so it's a matter of preference and mood. Anywho, I think Spratnet becomes a Ross U hangout later (although does seem to have a pretty good local following as well), so I can imagine gets a bit rowdy. Again, I don't think it would be worth it for us to brave the dark, narrow roads at night when we can get a similar atmosphere on The Strip, 5 minutes from us. Anyway, the pizza and beer were good, the company was great, and the view (as usual) was awesome. Not a bad way to spend a Saturday.

On a different note...One of our cats, Jack, has started playing fetch. He's figured out that if he brings his ball to us, we'll toss it for him, so now we wake up with the thing in our bed. Zura carries it around too, but only to take it away from Jack. Kids...