Fishing, Felines, Flowers, and Food...
Friday I took my laptop and a patio chair cushion to SAGA Humane Society to hang out with their cats. SAGA can always use help walking the dogs they care for, or socializing the cats - they have around 30 cats currently, in two rooms. The new shelter is so nice! Concrete, air-conditioned...and they own it. The previous location was wood (hard to sterilize!), no A/C, and rented. Most of the cats were in large hutches outside. I thought I could write while I sat with the cats and kill two birds with one stone. That was silly of me; this is how the next 90 minutes of my day went:
This orange was lobbying hard to come home with me!
The second room houses the more rambunctious kitties - mostly older kittens - who need more socializing as they chew on everything (kneecaps included) and have a lot of energy. The first room has the more chill cats, and both rooms have a lot of kitties that love to snuggle. If you have spare time, you can drop in during regular business hours to help with cats or dogs! I commit to spreading the word to raise adoptions and donations since I no longer have my pipeline to cheap items to donate (Nellis Auction), and my income has dropped considerably since moving to Belize.
Friday afternoon, we connected Alex (Architect) with a source for ICF in Minnesota. We continue to cross every appendage that we can build our beach house in ICF.
Saturday we had breakfast in town and decided to go to Secret Beach since the strong winds have the water pretty choppy on the reef side. Sunset Palace is still closed for renovations, so we stopped at Blue Bayou but it was really crowded/nowhere to sit outside. We headed north and stopped at Pirate's, as it wasn't very crowded. This is going to sound crazy, but we've never been to Pirate's, the OG bar at Secret Beach! We found lounge chairs right on the water, but it was also all stirred up. The cooler northern winds made it comfortable and we didn't need to get in to cool off.
This will also sound crazy, but if you've been to Secret Beach...you know how low the bar is set. Pirate's has, hands down, the nicest ladies' restroom! The building used to be a home, so that makes sense. Running water, stocked supplies, a ceiling fan in the stall...a toilet seat!!! Yes, these are all rarities. Wet 'n Wild had no running water, no toilet seat, and a 5 gallon bucket of cleaning solution with a cup to scoop - was that the sink..? Or for flushing the toilet...? I will never know.
Driving home we stopped at Castaway for the beer-battered fish; turns out, it's on the lunch menu only, but it was not quite 5 pm and they allowed us both to order plates. So stinking good!
A new "friend suggestion" popped up for me on Facebook - House of Leaves Landscape and Nursery - in Punta Gorda Town, in far-south Belize. Richard, the owner, posts photos of amazing orchids, gingers, tropicals, trees...and had a big sale with many plants for BZ$8! He can ship to the island via Tropic Air. I placed an order and I'll update later this week when my loot arrives. I'm so excited to have tropical flowers in our yard! The visit to the mainland inspired me to add more tropicals.
Sunday, the island had a planned power outage from 7-11 am; BEL was doing maintenance and our gas turbines are now up and running! This should (hypothetically) improve current flow/dependability to the island and support the increase in demand as "high season" approaches for tourists.
Knowing we wouldn't have power, I cruised Facebook to see what restaurants would be open and running on generators. We opted for Cool Beans, as it was their 2nd anniversary. The wait was long since it was packed, but as always, the food was excellent!
Huevos Rancheros, BZ$25
The water was still choppy and we imagined the same at Secret Beach, so we stayed home, using our "new" (it was finished in March) patio extension for the first time, really - setting out the deck chairs, lounging, spending hours out there. We Scotch-Guarded the cushions from our sofa. I'm going to try to use the carpet cleaner/extractor I have with water only (no solutions) to try to get the back of the sofa clean this week. It's not supposed to be washed that way, but at this point, the back is pretty ruined, it's worth a shot. If I can get it clean, we'll take the frame out and Scotchguard it, too.
Nathan threw a fishing pole in the lagoon and caught a Mayan Cichlid! We catch-and-release on the lagoon.
This week I have a lot of unexciting "to-do list" items to knock off. My feature on Ambergris Caye will be published tomorrow, my editor said it was one of the best they have received this year and she's excited to publish it - me too!!!
Enjoy your week!