blog.DazMan.com

This is my first blog, ever, and let me warn you –

I usually write best when given a topic. To settle on one subject out of an infinitesimal number of worthy moments usually leaves me stymied and in a stupor. Therefore, suggestions for future writings and/or comments on the following, which are several recent moments meshed together, would be greatly appreciated:

Increasingly, respectful strangers call me “granny” rather than “tanty.”

“Wha’ you like ‘dis morning, granny?” was asked of me yesterday when I went to the fish market to get tuna. At $7 EC a pound (that’s Eastern Caribbean dollar, or $2.67 US), tuna is a cheaper food to feed my cat, Baba, than canned food is. Comes from living on a 152-square mile island with the Atlantic Ocean on its east side and the Caribbean Sea surrounding the rest, versus buying an imported product with high duty charges for something my cat won’t eat anyway.

I know I’m into my 59^th year, and the wrinkles around my mouth are from decades of smoking, but some of my facial furrows, and the indentations under my cheekbones, and the twisted look of the skin on my upper arms and thighs are from being about 10 pounds underweight. I might look wrinkly, and chronologically I’m getting up there, but I just don’t feel like a granny.

I teach two and a quarter hours of ballet a week to children and young adults, which means I have to demonstrate a lot of jumping, leaping, turning, bending, etc.; I teach an hour of tap to four extremely gung-ho women; and an hour of general dance at a private primary school where I also teach two hours of drama per week. Plus, I usually do a daily 10- to 20-minute exercise routine when I walk Baba (that’s another story). Also, for six hours every other week during the tourist season, I dress like a pirate and serve drinks, dance and try to entice at least a few of the 100 + German visitors from a cruise ship to enter a limbo competition while aboard a wave-bobbing, 76-foot schooner that was actually used in the movie, “Pirates of the Caribbean,” which was filmed here on tiny St. Vincent.

I can’t eat enough to compensate for the calories I expend. Two days ago my upstairs neighbor humorously chided me, again, with his simplistic, “Just eat more,” comment. Well, I certainly would if I could; I’m not shy about eating. If, for a week, I ate the equivalent of a Denny’s or IHOP breakfast special for $3.99 (I’m guessing at the current prices), had a $7.99 all-you-can-eat buffet for lunch, and a $2.99 Whooper for dinner, I’d probably put on three or four pounds. But St. Vincent doesn’t have restaurants with ridiculously low prices unless you want chicken and rice or fish and rice. How many times a week, though, can you eat those, especially when they all pretty much taste the same everywhere? And to cook humongous amounts of food myself, every day, from scratch, would not be cost effective either, or in keeping with my culinary temperament.

Anyway, I need to gain weight so maybe I’ll start being called tanty again. That’s all I have to say for now.

1. DazMan says:

   February 9, 2009 at 1:55 PM

   Congratulations on your first blog. Now that wasn’t all that difficult. If you are looking for a topic, why not tell us a little about the history of St. Vincent and the Grenadines? About the many islands that make up this country. Mustique is a story in itself, Bequia has a story and then there’s Happy Island. Am sure many of us would like to hear about sailing the Caribbean. Talk about it’s beauty but don’t forget to mention the mosquitoes.
2. ModemMadame says:

   February 9, 2009 at 4:46 PM

   Hey, if that’s what you want to hear, I’ll do it. However, I’m going to lean away from stuff you can read about on other websites or in a magazine or brochure. They definitely don’t tell you about the mosquitoes in those.