Frenchtown

There is a district in Charlotte Amalie called Frenchtown, which is where almost all of the indigenous white people (not transplanted here like me), also known as Frenchies, live. They have an insatiable set of skills when it comes to gutting and cleaning fish, dropping the f-bomb with a serious accent and growing supermullets. "Tim," you may be saying to yourself, "I've heard of a mullet, a skullet, a brullet, a femullet, a feskullet and even the rare African-Amerimullet, but not a supermullet. What on God's green Earth is that?" Well, I've drawn up the following illustration to help you visualize it:


As you can see in exhibit A, the supermullet features mid-length, disheveled hair up front (the party). As demonstrated in exhibit B, it also features a bevy of extra long hair down the back (the after party). This combination of party and after party fully fits the mentality of a Frenchie as they can be routinely found working with beer in hand.

The Frenchie and the supermullet are not the only defining characteristics of Frenchtown - the district is also well known for its number of good eateries. DC and I decided to swing over to Frenchtown to grab a sandwich from the deli, as we were going to pick Justin up from the seaplane a few hours later and the deli was on the way. To accompany our half sandwiches, we each purchased a six pack of beer. Finding a cozy seat on a cement block 10 feet away from a gutting station (lovely atmosphere), we ate and drank our way through the meal. Since Frenchtown was relatively small and neither of us had ever really explored it, we decided it would benefit us to walk the streets and check out some of the other menus.

A pizza place here, a taco stand there, and a few minutes later we were at the end of the street reading the menu for a bistro. That's when a gentleman whose name I did not catch came up and asked us for 60 cents. I found this to be a very specific and peculiar amount of change about which to be inquiring, for two reasons:

1. Exactly sixty is tough to come by as many people I know take the quarters when they get change but leave all other denominations in the tip bucket, but more importantly...
2. You can't buy anything for 60 cents anymore, not even a cup of coffee. I'm ruling out the fact that he was going to purchase one stamp, because I think he probably would have just asked for the exact amount of 42 cents.

After regretfully turning down his request for the pocket change, he moved on to plan B; "how about one of them beers?" I was sort of shocked but mostly impressed by the audacity of his request - it was like asking for one cookie and getting denied, then immediately asking for two. Maybe that was his plan all along - go for shock value in hopes of impressing me, like "The Naked Man" move from How I Met Your Mother. Needless to say, it worked.

DC and I made our way back down towards the deli and grabbed a pair of seats on the patio area of the restaurant on the corner. Placing down what was left of our beer in front of us, and looking to kill an hour before we had to get Justin, we start to people watch. There was a creepy lady pushing an empty baby carriage up and down the street, there were some kids playing a game of baseball across the way. At one point a pretty girl went by and DC threw out the smoothest game he had with an unenthusiastic "Hey." When she didn't respond, but instead tripped over a rock on the road, he stood up and shouted with paradoxical enthusiasm, "good I'm glad you tripped!" She didn't respond that time either.

All of a sudden, we see our friend that had asked for the 60 cents. If I had been him, I would have cracked that beer open the second it was given to me, because down here beverages get warm fast and he was not armed with a koozie. While not armed with a koozie, however, he was armed with a keen sense of street survival skills. First, he searched around and found a bucket. Then he went from restaurant to restaurant, asking for ice. When one finally obliged, he cooled the beer down (until the mountains were blue), proceeded to McDonald's (told you Frenchtown had good eateries) and traded the beer for a sandwich. I could not believe my eyes. There was no way for me to know this when I first provided his instrument of merchandise, but I was at the onset of the chain reaction that hoisted the Beer Bartering Baron of Frenchtown to the halls of greatness.

My Merry Moustache Stings My Face

Alright, I know I've been MIA for a while, and I promise that in short order there will be posts about Frenchtown, overnight trips to St. John, impromptu camping trips and the phenomenon known only as "The Doodle". I just wanted to provide an update post so that my friends and parents know that I'm still alive.

The in thing this year is to grow a Merry Moustache. It is pretty much the same thing as a regular moustache, but it has an extra dose of merry. Please use with caution, though. I just tried helping a guest get ice and she thought I was this random creepster just hanging around the front desk. Point proven: the moustache does not improve game. however, by no means does this mean I am going to shave it off.

Good Form Sir

After a forty-five minute delay, I could finally get up and leave the room. I applauded the performance, as a good audience should, and made my way to the couch with Tiger and Jose.

This makes no sense to you. I should probably start at the beginning.

Friday started as most people's Fridays do - dreading work. It wasn't because I went out the night prior; it was because I didn't go out. If I'd gone out I might have slept, dumb and numb, through the night. Instead I stayed in, and was awoken at 2:30 am to the lovely sight of DC's guest from the States (DC and I share a room - remember this because it comes into play later) leaning over the side of his twin size mattress, vomiting into a garbage bin. Immediately, my chivalrous instincts kick in. "Are you okay?" I ask, "Can I get you anything? What can I do?" DC, laying awake and motionless next to his guest, replies, "I could use a water."

I got that water, but I brought it for the girl. DC was asleep when I got back, and she had no recollection of the any of this come morning, including puking. I couldn't fall asleep for another two hours.

The other reason I was dreading work Friday morning was because the rest of the crew got to go on this complimentary sailboat racing trip and I was privileged enough to hold down the fort. Its all good because I'll get my chance to go when someone else has to work, but it goes without saying I wasn't ripe with anticipation when Kiersten came in rocking photos from the excursion.

My shift ends and I can pull together my to-do list for the afternoon: 1.) beach with DC and Kristen, 2.) pick Justin up from the St. Croix seaplane with DC and Kristen, 3.) shop for family meal Friday with DC and Kristen. The thing about number two on that list was that we had no idea when Justin was getting in, so everything else was determined by the timing of that.

We get to Sapphire Beach and find a few beach chairs in the quickly fading sun. Ten minutes later we get a call saying Justin was landing. This was not enough time to get a suntan (read: burn my French-Canadian skin), but it was enough time to have an iguana meander by in a somewhat close range so that we could see Kristen's irrational and unprovoked fear of all things lizard on full display. Its pretty hilarious to see someone scared of a creature that would prefer not moving to moving, and whose m.o. in life is to eat bugs and leaves.

Fast forward through picking up Justin and dropping him off at his house. Now its time to get serious about family meal Fridays. The featured menu item this week (as selected by the anti-domesticated Kiersten because Beth has to work) is pre-made, oven bake pizzas. Price Smart was the name of the game as it is the island's mass merchandising center and it offers insane pricing. For example, I got a liter of Jose Cuervo for $13.49 (remember this because it also comes into play later). We got the rest of our supplies and made our way home.

Night rolls around and everyone arrives hungry. Time for Kiersten to shine - and shine she did. A more appropriate name for Kiersten when she is in the kitchen is "Special K" because she is definitely a special breed of chef. There are few scarier sights than Kiersten with two spatulas in hand about to open the oven. Five minutes into BAKING PIZZAS, one was upside down with its ingredients burning on the bottom of the stove. With some adjustments and help from her sous-chef Greg, everything turned out fantastic and the entire crew was full. The normal celebratory transgressions took place - DVD power hour, flip cup, arguing over flip cup, dance-off challenges that are pushed to a later date and on this particular Friday, a rubber band fight. I wasn't even involved, yet managed to get sniped out in the neck mid sip forcing a spit-take. Thanks DC.

Then night stumbles towards its demise as people have to choose between bed and Sib's. I chose bed. DC and Kristen chose bed. The rest of the party chose Sib's.

I was woken later in the night (I have no idea what time it was because the clock is on the far side of DC's bed and I was not going to look for reasons disclosed shortly). For the second night in a row, it was to Kristen making all sorts of noise from across the room. The first night the noises were hurls and spews of bile. The second night they were noises of an entirely different variety. Knowing full well that sometimes this is how the game is played when you share a room, I laid silent - pretending I was asleep - deciding I could wait them out.

Forty five minutes later, it was clear the deed was done (DC was rolling the bed, which is on wheels, back into its place in the corner of the room). Never one to let an excellent performance go unnoticed, I stood up, gave them a slow clap, exclaimed, "Bravissimo!", and made my way to the couch. Poised precariously on the coffee table to my front was a bottle of Jose Cuervo - the same bottle that I had purchased at a discounted rate earlier that day. It seemed to be staring at me, as if to say, "Good form, old friend. Have a drink of me on the house."

As I woke up this morning (and yes technically it was still morning for another ten minutes), I discovered that I accepted Jose's offer and that there were no parameters set in regard to the size of the drink. Half of the bottle was gone, and I was on the twelfth tee at TPC Sawgrass, on the last day of a four day tournament in Tiger Woods 2009. I was sixty two (yes 62) strokes under par. Somehow I even managed to shoot a 51. I cannot explain this.

Tropical Depression

While we are only a few hundred miles off the coast of the continental United States, I think the hardest part for people to grasp about our lives down here is the distance we feel from the people we love.

Yes we are only a phone call away. And believe me - I'm thankful we have that. But the impact of certain transgressions that most would call part of life have an amplified effect when for us it is relayed through a cell phone tower.

Thanksgiving turkeys are carved. Christmas presents are shared. Birthdays are celebrated. We pass on our cheers in a five minute phone call.

People get engaged and married. They have babies. Houses are built and homes are established. We share our congratulations through a text message.

Couples break up. People get sick. Loved ones pass. We offer our wholehearted but half-felt condolences and it absolutely kills us that we can't be there to do it in person.

While we may live in paradise, we suffer the consequences by not having the ability to be with the ones that we love when they need us the most. Or even when its not that serious - sometimes its just a trip to the bar or a family dinner that we are missing, but in truth we are missing so much more than that.

Today Kiersten was informed that her dog Riley was hit by a drunk driver back in New York. She was absolutely broken down and devastated, as she should be, but immediately (as we've seen with a number of tragedies that have befallen us) there was an onslaught of people acting as her support structure - poised and ready to help her in any way, shape or form possible. Suddenly its evident that while we may not be close in proximity to our nuclear families, we have a strong group that makes up our island family to help take care of us.

That is the reason I am so thankful to have the cast and crew of my life that I do down here in the Virgin Islands. That inevitable moment that pulls the carpet from neath my feet has not yet struck me, but I can rest assured that when it does "the faces on the wall" and I will get through it together.

P.S. I miss and love my family and friends back up north. Get yourselves down here to visit me pronto.