Before I type another key, first and foremost, I must apologize for being away for so long. I’ve broken my self-appointed rule of typing a daily entry and am deeply ashamed. I beg your forgiveness.
However, on a positive note, my cup of potential writing topics should be brimming over with a month’s worth of life lived. Sitting here, staring at this computer screen, I feel more like I’m wringing each word out of a damp rag… but, I digress.
I spent 11 days in Jamaica in February. A close friend had chosen Negril, Jamaica as her destination wedding venue. As fate would have it, while M and I were arranging our travel plans to attend the wedding, my mother-in-law expressed an interest in organizing a family vacation. Our Jamaican trip happened to coincide with my brother-in-law’s spring break from school, so the whole clan hopped aboard the Jamaica train for a week-long family bonding fest. Turns out that the glue that binds the Kuzyk/Schneider clan together is a mutual affinity for sun-bathing and rum – more specifically, rum mixed with a sugary/slushy banana concoction, a drink dubbed the ‘dirty banana’. Don’t be fooled by the cutesy name, this potion packs a nasty, time-released punch. (Side effects include vomiting, sensitivity to light, intermittent Jamaican accent and involuntary booty shaking in front of a crowd.) On the plus side, over-indulging in Jamaican rum also leads to hilarious photos and videos. Some might call them humiliating, but that all depends on which side of the camera you find yourself standing…. or stumbling. In all honesty, if my antics were captured on video I would not hesitate to release it into the infiniteness of the Internet for anyone to see, but, as unwritten social networking courtesy dictates, you must let the offending drunkard decide whether or not to go public with the scandalous evidence. To put it simply: Drunk and actin’ a fool? Posting on-line isn’t cool. (Eat your heart out, Johnnie Cochran.) Besides, you can always tuck it away for blackmailing purposes.
Here are some pictures I can show, though.
From L-R: Debra "Mama Bear" Schneid, Mike, moi, Molly, Erik, Cody and Kelsey
Shady spots on the beach are a hot commodity... Mike found one and staked his claim.
Mama S atop the Negril lighthouse, the most westerly point on the island.
No shortage of colour in Jamaican art... looks fab on our taupe walls.
As for the wedding, the bride looked gorgeous, dahhhling! I wish her and her new husband a lifetime of happiness together! Here are some pictures of their special day.
Kim and Mark Smith, both going right for the goods.
The gal-formerly-known-as-Rooney's bouquet. If you're lucky enough to know her, you know Gerberas match her personality to a T.
I enjoyed my time spent on the beach, but Jamaica isn’t really my bag. I’d give it a solid 6 out of 10. I love me some jerk chicken and hot sauce, and the time spent away from the resort was certainly welcomed. I was just… bored, I guess. While meandering around the resort, I actually found myself thinking about where I’d like to be instead of Jamaica. Eleven days was simply too long; after 3 solid days of beach-bumming I grow restless.
This Entry Has Been Sponsored by Nintendo and the Grizzly House
Two weeks after returning from the Caribbean, a group of girlfriends and I headed to the mountains for a weekend of debauchery and fondue. Our objectives were simple: eat a melted-cheese-slathered dinner at the Grizzly House (a local fondue joint and cultural institution), drink copious amounts of wine and bust some serious moves while playing Wii’s Just Dance in the privacy of our mountain cabin, away from the judging eyes of the general public. Shockingly, the newest electronic device in our cabin was the digital alarm clock circa 1978, so, needless to say, our television was not compatible with our Wii. Our television was barely new enough to be considered a television… Calling it an ‘old-timey moving-picture box’ might convey a more accurate idea of what we had to work with. So, with our hard-core dance battling dreams dashed, we did some pre-game drinking and headed out to dinner. Upon arriving at the GH, we were pleased to find that our table sat atop a raised, sectioned-off area of the restaurant. And we had our own television. Jackpot.
After finagling with the uber-accommodating manager and a quick trip back to the cabin to fetch our hardware, we were clearing an impromptu dance floor in the middle of the Grizzly House. (A brief side note: Anyone who has ever eaten at said restaurant is familiar with the phone system. There is a telephone at every table, at the bar and in each bathroom. On the back of each patron’s place mat is a rudimentary map with each phone’s extension number.) Once the sounds of Kris Kross’ Jump started resonating from our little corner of the restaurant our phone started ringing off the hook. Many of our fellow fondue aficionados soon came crawling over to participate in our gaming session; a stagette party, a pair of married couples on a double date (the ladies were a blast, but their husbands were drink-spilling shitheads), a slew of staff and anyone waiting for a table to open up. We ate, we drank, we danced, we inhaled hot-rock-emitting smoke until we couldn’t dance anymore. We staggered outside smelling like 30 years worth of fondue oil and looked like we’d just wrapped up a 5 hour spin class. Okay, I looked like that… maybe not everyone. It was a fantastic night. So good that I’ve been saying that I’m going to pen a letter of gratitude to the staff at Grizzly House. That’ll definitely never come to fruition, but I’ve been seriously thinking about it. If any GH employee reads this, thank you.
PS. I’ll post lots more photos on Facebook… as per my mom’s request.
isleofdan 