Happy American Thanksgiving! to those of you who are celebrating today.  For those of you, like me, who are not eating themselves into a food coma for one reason or another–Happy Thursday!

There are so many reasons that I have not been good about updating the blog for the last few months, so I won’t bore you by rehashing it all.  But in my own defense, I was in the States for 3 weeks–visiting friends, family, and attending two weddings of very dear friends.  And then right after I returned to Grenada, I started Divemaster Training, which is a very time-intensive endeavor to say the least.  So I’ve been feeling a bit tired, discombobulated, and haven’t really had that much to say.

But, today I took the day off because I have some sort of cold that I hope does not reveal itself to be the sinus infection that is making the rounds among my friends.  So blog I will!

The rainy season here is slowly, but surely coming to an end.  June and November are the rainiest months, and it’s not over soon enough.  Really, I shouldn’t complain.  The island rarely gets hurricanes, as we are too far south to be in most of their paths.  And, you know, the rain is good for making our lives better by enabling flowers and food to grow.  And most of the rest of the year the rain we get is barely noticeable.  But from mid-October until the end of November, the rain just pours and pours, day and night.  It encourages the mosquitoes to breed wildly, and they become REALLY terrible.

I can barely get any laundry done during that time because we don’t have access to a dryer (which normally, I love–drying clothes outside really makes the clothes smell nice and saves electricity, which is VERY expensive here).  There have been mornings when it looks like I might be able to get a load done, and so I get all excited and put some clothes in the washing machine.  But before it can finish, the sky goes terribly gray and it starts to rain sideways.  Which means the wet clothes sit in the washer and grow mildew and then must be washed again.  OR, I might actually get some clothes out on the line, but then it will rain for 36-48 hours straight without a break. Luckily, my wonderful friend Karen has a washer AND dryer at her house that she lets me use when I need to (although, last time it took a ridiculous number of hours to get 3 loads of laundry done, because a landslide near the local water supply station dramatically decreased water pressure in the area, causing it to take over an hour to fill the washer with water for each rinse cycle).

I think I need to rig up a clothes line in our living room before next June, because we just don’t have enough doors and chairs to hang things on to try and get the laundry to dry.

Thank you for your attention to The Laundry Report. Now back to more interesting updates from the island!

Just like in the States, Grenada is getting excited for Christmas.  Decorations are going up all over the place, and Christmas music plays all of the time on the radio.  Usually, it takes me about half a day to get completely sick of Christmas music.  But here it’s nice, because most of the music is written and produced by Caribbean artists, and so is very different than what I would hear at home.  Of course, you will also hear some popular covers of American Christmas songs by local musicians, but it sounds different so I enjoy it a bit more.

To me, the most interesting thing is that there are certain holiday songs by artists from the States that are played on the radio PRACTICALLY TO DEATH.  And when I say that, I mean that the SAME EXACT SONG will be played once an hour, every hour, every day.  They include the following:

Once Upon a Christmas by Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers

All I Want for Christmas is You by Mariah Carey

I think that Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers must have done a Christmas Album together at some point, because I hear a lot of holiday songs from them these days.  Who knew?

Breck is studying for finals right now, and should be done by the middle of next month.  We’re really looking forward to spending the month he’ll have off doing some things together–like diving!  And we’re also excited that some folks will come visit us during that time, like my Mom, and Batman and Sarah & their sprout and Sarah’s mom.

As I said, I’m in the middle of Divemaster Training, which takes about 5 weeks to complete with Scubatech.  They’ve struck a lovely deal with a couple of my friends and me, where they will train us free of charge, and then we’ll work the training off leading dives for them over the course of the next year.  If anyone is really interested in what I’m up to with that, I’ve started a section detailing what becoming a Divemaster is all about.

That’s about all for the moment.  But here are some questions for you to ponder until my next report:

Why are there now chickens living at the Texaco station?

What happened to the sheep that lived across the street at the Coast Guard Station?  Were they impounded?  Were they eaten?

Why is was it easier to get rid of the ants in our kitchen than those that are infesting our clothes closet?  Why for the love of little green apples are they living in our clothes?  How can such small ants bite so VERY HARD?  Can they be stopped?

Can my husband and I make it until the end of the no-tomato season here in Grenada without going insane with WANT of them?  They really are the best tomatoes we’ve ever had.  Ever.