Dog Days Of Summer

OK, so they don't really have dog days of summer here like they do back home. However, it's been in the high 80s, low 90s for days now. In fact, I think it's been over a week. There's been very little rain (I mean really... very little... just 15 minutes of rain here and there) and the air has been still. It's still not muggy and when the locals tell me it's humid I want to bust out laughing. South Carolina gets hot and humid, this place gets warm and still. (Not that I've lived here that long, but the locals have complained about the humidity when I couldn't even feel it, lol.)

Either way, it's been warm enough to be uncomfortable at bed time. Last night I didn't sleep very well. It's not that I kept waking up or anything, it's just that the few times I did wake up I wasn't comfortable. This morning was one of the very few times I woke up and stayed tired. I think part of it was the sleeping issue and part of it was the heat. The morning/early afternoon was just warm enough to make me sleepy. If I had a hammock here I'm not sure I would have been able to resist the temptation to take a nap.

Because of all this I didn't get as much work done as I wanted. I am planing to do a little catch up work tomorrow. Leszek (the producer) got in touch with me first thing this morning needing some information on the spell system. By the time I got the rough draft of that put together I was burned out. Still, I made great strides on the D20 System this week and will probably add more to it over the weekend.

Now, most of that may be of very little interest to you. Plus, of course, I don't have any pictures of that. However, I do have some pictures that I took right around breakfast time. I decided I better cook up the breadfruit we got yesterday before it went bad. I started by cutting it up and boiling it.


As you can see Isaac and Felicity liked it just having been boiled (not that I gave it to them, Isaac just stole a piece while my back was turned). I wasn't finished with it, however. Gabriel and I sliced it up and fried it.


It was good and the kids really liked it. We can make fries (like I did) or chips (which is what Gabriel decided to do) out of it. I think it would also bake nicely and I actually made some of it into “mashed breadfruit” with salt and butter. It's a lot like a potato with a fruity aftertaste. I do want to check out a few more recipes.

Once work was over (that is to say once I was too tired to work anymore...) I sat around playing a few games and waiting on Ben and Alec to get back from town. Michelle (a friend of the family who is the daughter and niece of other friends of the family) needed someone to go with her into Roseau again and Alec volunteered. Ben went along because we needed another bag of flour and figured it was a good opportunity to get that taken care of.

Shortly after they left, Rachel started getting a migraine. She ate some protein (black-eyed peas), had Abby go buy her a coke (she almost never drinks soda now), and went straight to bed. I did my best to keep the kids quiet and help keep her comfortable. The heat didn't help me with that...

Around 3PM I gave up and waiting for Alec and Ben and headed for the sea with Libby, Abby, Caleb, and Felicity. Right after I walked out the door their bus pulled up. It turned out neither of them wanted to go anyway.

While I was there I took a few more underwater pictures.


Here I have to point out that Dilian has informed me that my underwater pictures are no good. It's not me, it's not the camera, it's the location. He wants me to go somewhere else and get some real pictures of the Dominican underwater wildlife. I was planning to do that today, but I can't really take all the kids (mainly Felicity and Isaac) to where I want to go. Of course, if the boys go with me they can watch the little ones at our normal spot while I go sneak off to the other one for a few minutes. So, I hope to have some better pictures soon.

That's really it for tonight's post. By the grace of God Rachel is up and about already. She never even got real sick on her stomach (which was truly amazing considering the heat). Anyways, we want to watch TV. So, goodnight from Dominica!