No, your other Left.

So Betsy has driven on the left. In a Jeep Wrangler. Oh yes. Just call me Bond. Betsy Bond. It was a breeze—a stressful breeze, but a breeze.

Today I went to the Pistarckle Theater with Nikki for a short tour. It is a small theater in the middle of a very artsy complex called Tillet Gardens. A small concrete wall that’s painted various amorphous shapes guards the small compound, which contains several eclectic shops, an open area bar, and this theater. It’s odd and charming, and has great acoustics.

Grocery shopping. Now this is fun. There are several stores on the island for food. Some gourmet, some bulk style, and then some everyday Harris Teeter/Kroger/Shaws—pick your poison. So I went to a grocery store right next to Kmart and stocked up on a few essentials. Because I was still trying to win over the island (the “I’m not a tourist, I’m just like you… kinda” routine), I tried very hard to be nice to strangers wandering the aisles. Little did I know that any smile is an invitation to be hit on. And Cory (from yesterday) told me something tonight, that on an island with such a disappointing ratio of men to women (he says 3 or 4 to 1 which may be exaggerated), men don’t kid around. If only he had warned me. But I found that lying (“Yes, I do have a boyfriend; he’s in Kmart”) worked just fine to deter my ardent suitors.

Speaking of creeps, I also learned about all of the lovely bugs that wander the island. Nikki and her 12 year old son Alex entertained me with tales of various crawling things like the black wormy things that spit out a numbing Novocain-like substance that can blind a person smart enough to lift it to his eyes. Or the fruit rats that live in trees and eat, you guessed it, fruit. Alex shot one of those with a BB gun. Awesome. And lice from the beach. And huge mosquitoes, cockroaches, etc.

They warned me because of their house’s design, which is so great. The east side has the tiled and shaded veranda that overlooks their pool and St John. On the west side of the house, each of the living room walls can open like a garage door, so on beautifully breezy days like today, the house was completely open to the westerly winds.

Tonight I saw Denny (the director) and Steve, her partner at the house where she has an apartment. The house belongs to two people on the Board of Directors for the theater, and they threw a small party for us. They have an amazing westerly view from the top of a hill, and we saw the green flash, whoop ti do (Once you see it from a 120 ft. mast in the middle of the Atlantic, you’re pretty set).

It was lovely to see Denny again after Barnard and the five minutes in Vermont in December. Even though I only worked closely with her for two years, it feels like we’ve known each other for much longer. We talked business a bit: the new scripts, new lyrics, new German translations, let’s make everything bawdier, etc. So tomorrow I meet her at 1 at the theater to go through each scene and each song to prepare us for Tuesday’s audition.

*Background: Denny was a theater professor of mine at Barnard. My work study job was in the costume shop, and then I moved to every other part of theater work. For Denny I stage-managed, dramaturged, translated, and music-directed. So that’s how I know her. Denny is now on leave from Barnard, and can retire in 2 years. In the meantime, she and Steve (who taught Shakespeare, acting and Comedia classes at Barnard) live in Vermont. Her brother, Waring, lives on St Thomas and is on the board of the Theater, so that’s why she is down here, and she asked me to come along, so that’s why I’m down here.

So after yoga on the roof under the stars (if only I had the southern horizon to see a bit of the Southern Cross), I’m to bed.

Also on the horizon- I’m also looking for day-work, and it looks like I’ll find it. But more on that later.