Sunday, October 29, 2017

How I Lost Weight with Ross

Once upon a time, there was a bold, handsome King named Ross.

Ross ruled his castle with a firm but gentle hand.  He was particularly enamored with his kitchen wench and was it was smiles all around when the kitchen wench provided him with an assortment of tasty, sweet treats, hearty meat and potato dinners, cakes, pies and fresh baked breads.

King Ross with his love of sweets and rum began to experience a hearty barrel about his midsection; and that barrel of belly, grew and grew larger over the years.  The kitchen wench pointed out on numerous occasions that the barrel of belly was going to cause some serious health problems.

The kitchen wench finally threw up her hands one day, wiped the sweat from her brow, and put her calloused feet on the ground firmly and said to King Ross, “Your diabetes is out of control and you simply cannot continue to eat like this.”

Ok, fun fairy tale enough aside, my darling husband is on the road to recovery.  We’ve been working incredibly hard over the last few weeks and the fruits of our labours are beginning to show.  He’s losing weight, blood sugar is now within the normal, healthy range.  Meal planning is still a chore but it is starting to get easier.

Those of you that are close to Ross, ask him about his love of salads!  He’s got a few choice words about each lunch salad he is presented with.  The best thing about this new diet I have Ross on, is I am also losing weight.  I must admit, I miss my mass doses of carbs.  We are surviving on mostly protein, fruits and veggies.  For me, I can make a meal out of mashed potatoes and gravy (this is a food group).  I love rice, bread, and potatoes.  Cake.  Pie.

Ross is going to be a lean, mean……well, we’ll just leave it at that!

So, in other news, my Thing 3 has moved to the Dominican Republic to live with us.  She’s been here for three days now.  Boss is her personal body guard.  As I write this blog, Thing 3 is in the pool, Boss is in the house lying beside the door that goes down to the pool and whimpers.  As soon as Thing 3 is done with the pool floaty, he will be allowed to join her along with the rest of the pack and the noise and insanity of four dogs in the water will begin!


We went out for a lovely dinner last night to support a friend with her new CD Launch.  There was a good sized crowd there to show their support.  The organizers had a draw for six CDs as well as six meals from the restaurant.  Staff handed out the draw tickets to all the attendees.  When they began to call out numbers, excited winners were claiming their prizes.  My friend and I were anxiously looking at our tickets and she’s calling out her number to be drawn.  After about five draws, I looked at her and said, “You have the same number as I do!”  She looked at her ticket and mine, and lo and behold, the gentleman that was handing out tickets, did not put my half into the draw box but gave it to my friend instead. I thought this was quite funny.  Thing 3 called over a staff member and tried to explain what had happened so he very thoughtfully went and got another ticket for us.  But, in looking at he had done, we now had two sets of tickets, but neither of us had a ticket in the draw!


So, after the draws were complete, we went to our friend who was giving away the CDs and she began to laugh when we explained what had happened.  I thought it was really funny.  She was so very thoughtful and gave us both a CD for what had transpired. And, we got them signed so that when she becomes rich and famous, we can flog them on Ebay and get rich too!

Well, enough excitement for now.  Off for my sacred afternoon nap and then NASCAR!

Thursday, October 5, 2017


Jarabacoa

For the first time, we have taken a vacation on the island.  Last weekend, we travelled to Jarabacoa which is in the mountains of the center of the island.  Crazy roads driving through the mountains…hair pin curves climbing uphill and downhill. 

I almost thought I was in British Columbia.  Tall pine trees, cooler mountain air, white water rapids on the river…and then, a copse of pine trees with mango trees and palm trees!

We went with our good friends, Bruce and Mary.  We spent quality time enjoying beverages and golfing.  What an absolutely gorgeous golf course hidden in a really beautiful setting.  Very lush and green.  The quench wench drove around the golf course following us with a cooler on his scooter selling us ice cold, frosty Presidente.  The guy had everything for sale:  hats, beer, and food.  It really didn’t matter what we wanted, he would run and get it for us.

Let’s just say that I really, really suck at golfing.  And, that’s all I have to say about that.

We stayed at the Hotel Gran Jimenoa which was a very nice hotel right on the river.  So, if you have ever read my blog, you know I complain about the heat.  Well, we were in a hotel with air conditioning.  Yes, we turned the air conditioning on.  We left the air conditioning running at 18C.  We woke up at 4 am absolutely freezing.  My nose was cold.  I loved every minute of it.  Two heavenly nights of being cold and sleeping under blankets.  I think that was almost the best part of the vacation!

The hotel restaurant served good food.  Breakfast was the only meal that was so so.  The Dominicans really, really like mashed things for breakfast.  Mashed potatoes, mashed plantains, and mashed plaintains with mango and onions.  The plaintains with mango and onions was a lumpy grey/brown looking mass.  Ross was brave and tried it.  Can you say, “wall paper paste?”

This area of the island rarely sees gringo tourists and as a result, everyone speaks Spanish and very little or no English.  Good thing Bruce and Mary were with us as they both speak pretty good Spanish.  I didn’t realize how much Spanish I have learned as when we went for breakfast Monday am (no buffet), I had to order breakfast in Spanish.  I did pretty darn good because everything I ordered, we actually got what we thought we were going to get.  Can you say queso frito?  (Fried cheese is to die for!)

Ross ate beef both nights and enjoyed it.  I had chicken one night (very, very good cordon blue which they call “Gordon Blue”) and pork medallions in passion fruit the next night.  Both were fantastic.


The trip home was rather uneventful until we were approaching Moca.  The area around Moca and La Vega is a rich, agricultural area.  Large potato farms, corn farms and of course banana and plantain plantations.  We were almost at Moca when we came upon a truck hauling what we think was corn feed.  Now, when transport companies in Canada haul loads of feed, there are height restrictions, weight restrictions, proper ways of securing a load.  Well, not in the Dominican Republic.  This guys load was very slowly slipping sideways.  He would hit a bump and the load would shift some more.  This was an accident waiting to happen.  We knew this was rather unusual because as the guy drove through town, even the locals were watching, pointing and laughing.  We were scared to pass the guy because we knew that if that load finally went, the truck would roll and the highway would be blocked for hours.  We finally managed to get past him.  If there ever was a time for a cold beer, that was it so we found a Colmado on the side of the road, pulled up and the dear fellow working there sold us cold beer and we carried on our way.  (No cold beverages for the driver though!)

Ticks

This blog is from about three years ago.

I forgot to publish it.......


my bad......

I hate ticks.  We have been enduring an unbearable outbreak of ticks.  The hot, dry summer has been the perfect combination for these little pests to breed.  Our dogs have been banished to outside..tough life for a dog!  They have been sleeping in our basement bedroom which isn’t so bad because they have their own ensuite.  We are going through weekly baths and tick treatments.  Try bathing a 80 lb dog that hates water.  Jack and Shelby have cooperated extremely well but Boss has his own thoughts about having a bath.  Ross has to hold him with every ounce of strength he has while I give him the bath and treatment.

For the better part of three weeks, we have been fumigating and vacuuming up hundreds of these little blood suckers.  I am so sick of tick patrol but we think we have things finally under control.

For the first treatment (we didn’t really know what to do), we packed up all three dogs in the car.  Oh, how the boys love to go for a car ride.  I think they thought they were going to the beach for a run….Oh, I don’t think so…not on my watch anyway…horses, runners….not a friggin chance.  Anyway, we head off to Judy’s Pet Lodge for a bath and tick treatment.  Upon arrival, I take Jack first to the bath area only because he is quite cooperative.  In the tub Jack goes…Ross is still in the car with Boss and Shelby.  By the time I have started back to get the next dog, Ross is being dragged across the parking lot by Boss.  Now, when we arrived at Judy’s, I had left the back window open about a third of the way so they wouldn’t bake. 

Boss can climb out of partially opened car window.

There is a Dominican family living next to Judy’s who has a number of free range chickens. 

Boss really likes to chase chickens.

Ross almost had heart failure trying to catch Boss as he chased the chickens and scared the life out of the family that lives there.  Boss is a big baby but looks pretty intimidating.  Ross is yelling at the family to catch Boss’s leash (we learned from the beach experience that it is a good idea to leave the leashes on the dogs) and they are backing up from Boss not really giving a rat’s ass that he is scaring the chickens half to death. 

I think Ross was angry…..

Our dogs should have movies made about them…..

Pothole, Fire and Cement

It has been an interesting week at the King Casa so I thought I would share my experiences with my three followers of my blog.

The black cloud of doom hanging over our heads started on Saturday morning.  As everyone knows by now, I broke my right leg and have been unable to drive the car.  My husband has been dutifully driving me everywhere and so it was off to the bank at 9 am Saturday morning.

I hobble to the bank to take care of business.  I came out of the bank to see my husband and several Dominicans standing around the car with the hood up.  Ross is holding a small, plastic cup and at 9 am, they are't having a friendly Cuba Libre. We drive a piece of shit car so I know that they aren't admiring the horsepower of our fine racing machine.   Our car had been on fire!  Holy shit is all I can think.  Ok, I will admit my response was a little stronger than that.

This is what an alternator looks like after having caught on fire:



Ross drives the car home with a friend driving along with us in his car to ensure we make it home.

We get home at about 9:30 to discover that we had been robbed.  Some enterprising thief decided that it would be a good idea to pry the iron bars off our spare bedroom window and relieve us of some of our earthly possessions.  We discovered a missing television, hammer drill, Ross's Kindle, Wii, mini laptop computer, and Ipod.  It should be noted that the laptop, Wii, and Ipod were all broken so we kind of got a good laugh about that.



Through process of elimination, and a huge bump on the nose, we know which dog finally got the thieves out of the house.  Gaby saved the day!  We are pretty sure that they must have tried to fight her off by hitting her with a golf club.  She's absolutely fine but insists on checking the bedrooms everyday to make sure all is well.

The damage to the window was just about the most irritating part.  Now we have major repairs to make and with the help of recommendations and talking to people, we have workers!




Prior to having the welder arrive, Ross had to take a hammer and chisel and finish knocking off all the window frame.  Damn thieves couldn't even do that right!!

First we have to hire a welder to reinforce the two other vulnerable windows as well as put the iron bars back in the damaged window.  These men were amazing on how well they did the work and how quickly.  We were most suitably impressed.

Now for the cement repairs.  I must admit this was a bit of an entertaining show but the guys that did the work were very, very good too. I have a cement frame around the window again and it just needs to be painted in a few days after the cement cures and dries.



I started this event feeling absolutely violated (they even went through my underwear drawer!) and incredibly angry.  This didn't help change what happened so an attitude adjustment was required.  When anything crappy happens in my life, I always try to find a lesson to learn or something positive/humorous. 

This is what I learned:  We have great friends that offered emotional support.  We have great friends that went out of their way to help us find the proper people to do the work that was required to fix our house at a very reasonable price.  Everyone who helped us in anyway (large or small) knows who they are and we can't say thank you enough times.  That's what good friends do, they help each other in times of need.  Not all Dominicans are nasty thieves and that there are those that genuinely want to help you without looking at you as a wealthy gringo/gringa.  (We have met many lovely Dominicans and my statement is a general one that is in no way intended to insult the great, good people that live here.)

This is just another huge pothole in the day to day challenges of living here.  I guess the most important thing is that we are unharmed (maybe a little emotionally scared) and our dogs are all doing just fine.

The car will be dealt with in due course.

Onward......and upward......