jedi masters

my blogmate and i admittedly spend many hours of the day congratulating ourselves on negotiating six weeks in the tropical paradise that is st. lucia. i think we both kind of feel like we're getting away with something (because, well, we are). but even we occasionally stop feeling good about ourselves long enough to think more meaningful thoughts like, "wow, it's kind of weird that it's cold in chicago," or, on a really insightful day, "this is nothing like what we were thought it would be." truthfully, in preparation for our trip i don't think either one of us thought much beyond, "do these flip flops match this bikini?"

meet the parents:

one of the things we didn't really anticipate about life as a st. jude's volunteer was that there would be lots of other st jude's volunteers, all from different walks of life. we certainly didn't realize that there would be a whole community of such people who have been coming here in states of retirement and semi-retirement for years and years.

we call them the elders and we love them. they're smart and funny and have all done really interesting things with their lives. though there are plenty of retired doctors with school teacher wives, there are just as many doctor wives with retired contractor husbands. they kick our butts at trivial pursuit and, most importantly, they know where to get the good coconut buns. the thing about these people is that they know this island inside and out. they know where things are and how much they cost and which beach has the better snorkeling and which day they have lime cake at debbie's.

the elders have been doing this long enough to know that not everyone wants travel advice. as such, it takes a little (but not very much) work to get them talking. sidle up, get spanked at scrabble, and sooner or later the information starts to flow. come with beer and they start inviting you to stuff. we're still trying to coordinate some serious hiking with one of the couples who between them have at least one heart attack and one pace-maker.

i can only hope to be such a bad-ass one day.