Power Problems, Selenes 13, One Piece, Poker Run!
Last week saw MORE rain, lots of gray days, and not much worth doing out and about. On the upside, I haven't put gas in the cart in over 2 weeks, gotta take wins when you can!
Friday night, we were watching a show when power cut out. It was really windy all day, with brief periods of heavy rain, so it wasn't a big surprise to us when it went out. Time to turn on the USB fans and hope the outage didn't last too long...we eventually gave up and went to (sweaty) bed. Power kicked back on a few minutes before 1 am, and just under the four-hour mark, where fridge items start spoiling. We have no idea why power was out; BEL never reported anything.
Saturday was Selene's 13th Birthday; she seems to really like living here, she is much more active, but still not putting weight back on after her dental cleaning and tooth extraction. She's about 3 pounds lighter than when we moved here.
She looks pissy....but she's not actually.
Kit and Brian told us BelizeScapes had bamboo, so we went down to see and it turns out, it's araca palm that is 15ish years old, not bamboo - but Tomasita said she is expecting some timber bamboo this week, so we'll be heading back this weekend! I also broke down and bought a one-piece swimsuit at a paca on Back Street - I have been eyeing it for a week, maybe 10 days, on a manequin out front...we were killing time in town and seeing it was brand new, and $20BZ, I took the plunge! I think I last owned a one-piece in...1987...? 1988...?
Saturday was overcast all day, but I believe it was the first day in weeks that we had NO rain, so hopefully things dry out a bit.
Sunday, we woke to a mix of clouds and sunshine, hooray! Nathan's previous weekend was rained out, so I was glad he saw some sunshine on his days off.
We joined the South Ambergris Caye Neighborhood Watch Poker Run that afternoon - it was our first time doing one, and we talked Kit and Brian into going, too. It starts at Someplace South, which feels like the other side of the world to us, but in reality, is less than 4 miles south. Google Maps says that's a 25-minute drive from our villa. I think it took us a bit longer on account of the puddles! They are a bit south of the end of the paved road.
If you are unaware, Someplace South does 2-for-1 mimosas all day, every day - and they have a ton of different options! (Including just champagne, if you prefer not to have extra vitamins added to your beverage.)
I need for a restaurant in Tres Cocos to do this, so I can walk home!
If you are also new to a Poker Run, you earn a card at each bar you go to, and whoever has the best hand of their collected cards at the end, wins! Sadly, no one in our group won, but we all had a great time, and it was only $25BZ to join!
Today we also have partially sunny skies! YES! Our roof has NO water on it, for the first time since we coated it. I'm hopeful that the soft spots will harden up and cure if they get a chance to dry out.
BEL, our electric company, has warned us that power will be off Thursday from 7 am to 3 pm - EIGHT HOURS. Based on that, I'm not buying any new groceries; we need to eat through what is in our refrigerator. Their message was vague, so I'm unsure if power will be out everywhere for that full duration, or power could be out for a span of time within that range. I'm on the fence if I should freeze anything left in our fridge - again, 4 hours of no power, and your fridge items enter the danger zone. A full freezer can maintain safe temps for up to 48 hours.
As a little kick to the crotch, I had to log into my old electric company account today and saw this proud reminder:
Yes, it has been almost THREE YEARS since there was a power outage at our last home in Phoenix. I'm unsure if we have gone more than 3 weeks since we moved here, without at least a brief outage. Island life...!
Nathan will have July 4th off of work, a nice long weekend for us! We're going to try to go to Secret Beach, we haven't been to our lot since May 18th. I'm sure the weeds are out of control, and the sea lice are likely back. I'm getting close to punting my blueprints and asking a builder to design something that meets our criteria that would be in our budget...ugh. Although that doesn't fix our lack of road access. Tom Petty was right - the waiting IS the hardest part.