Grand Cayman Island: The Third Time’s the Charm

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Mimi’s Bar and Grill at Morritt’s Resort

I’ve been quiet for a while. Why? I’ve been meandering!

With its turquoise waters and abundant sea life, Grand Cayman Island had beckoned me for years. Russ and I have tried three times to travel to this isle in the Caribbean Sea south of Cuba. The first time, the British government closed the island due to COVID, so we had to cancel. The second time, we were able to make a lodging reservation, but we couldn’t get a flight there (probably due to COVID).

We decided to try one more time and keep our fingers crossed. It did indeed come to pass, but not without challenges. Despite my best efforts to book us flights that departed/arrived at civilized hours, after I made our reservations, the airline changed its schedules and foiled my plans. We ended up needing to awaken at 3 a.m. to leave and then return around midnight. Because of this, we booked a hotel room at the Holiday Inn Express and Suites in Minneapolis (near the Mall of America) through Expedia for before and after our trip, and left our car at the hotel, which had cheaper parking than the airport. The place had great reviews and ratings, so I thought we were safe. I received confirmations for all our reservations, and we were set!

A few days before our departure, I had a question about the parking arrangements and called the hotel for information. My Cayman-dreaming heart filled with dread when the reservation person said they couldn’t find our outbound reservation. They only had our return one. They suggested I contact Expedia to sort out the mess.

I contacted Expedia and they were great. They called the Holiday Inn but were unable to work things out with the reservation person. They asked to speak with a manager but were told no manager was available for three days. We were leaving in two days, so that was no good. Expedia said they’d refund our money for the outbound reservation and that we’d have to contact the hotel directly to redo that reservation. So, I did. Luckily, they still had room, but now it was going to cost us $50 more. However, they’d upgrade us to a room with more floor space to make up for it.

This seemed like extortion to me, but I wasn’t going to argue. The success of our trip meant too much for that. But, as you can see, I’m not above calling out the hotel’s name in the blog post to warn others. I was glad we found out about the issue with enough time to rectify it so that we didn’t arrive in Minneapolis and find we had no place to stay! (We could have stayed with some friends or relatives, but I didn’t want to subject them to our early departure and late arrival.)

A ruddy turnstone eyes our food.

This snafu left me wondering what else would go wrong, but thankfully, nothing did. Everything else went smoothly and we arrived in Grand Cayman to 90-degree temps and 70% humidity. That was quite a shock to our Minnesota systems!

We stayed at Morritt’s Resort on the East End of the island. Despite being away from the thick of the action, we found plenty to do nearby as we gained confidence driving on the “wrong” side of the road in our rental car.

We enjoyed supper at the dock bar, watching tropical fish in the sea and shorebirds flit around the dock as the sun set. It was then I uttered, “Can’t do this in Duluth,” which was to become the slogan for the rest of our trip.

A school of tarpons gather off the dock at sunset.

Next up: Crystal Caves and Lionfish.

The resort cats enjoy their supper.

My Book has a Secret

/ mariezhuikov / 11 Comments

The April/May issue of Lake Superior Magazine offers an article about my magical realism short story collection, The Path of Totality. It takes the form of a Q&A, so I actually wrote much of it. 🙂 I was tickled to be able to use a word in the article that I recently learned: eponymous. (Thanks to blogger friend Vickie Smith.) It means a person or thing that gives their name to something. In my book’s case, it’s named after the first story. I was even more tickled that the editor kept the word in the article!

One question from the editor gave me pause. It was: What question have you always wished someone would ask you? I replied that I wished people would ask me if my book had a secret.

It does, and it involves the anchor story, “Invisible Connections.” A few other secrets are scattered here and there, but will only make sense to certain people. If you get a chance, check out the magazine to learn the secret! Better yet, read my book. It’s still offered at a discount at this link.

Three Neighborhood Bear Fiascos

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Photo by Tomu00e1u0161 Malu00edk on Pexels.com

My home on the shores of Lake Superior in Duluth, Minnesota, lies next to a large and wild city park. We’re often blessed by visits from local wildlife. While I was on a walk earlier this week, I learned a new bear story from one of my neighbors, and it reminded me of two other stories about neighborhood bears.

The story my neighbor told me happened years ago at the house next to mine. The incident involved honey, a black bear, and guns. Warning: things do not end well for the bear.

My neighbor said that the event even got written up in the newspaper, so when I returned home, I began a search. I found it! The headline from the Sept. 25, 1958, Duluth News Tribune reads: “Honey-Loving Bear Killed. Elaborate Trap Ends Bee Hive [sic] Raids.”

Ole Martinson used to live in the house next door. He was a beekeeper and had several hives. Oak trees also grace the yard, and bears are drawn to the acorns. That fall, a 250-pound bear was bulking up for winter and raided the hives. Martinson complained to his neighbors, who decided to help him with his plight. The article says that the residents, “had fired about 15 shots at the bear in three days, but never were successful in hitting the animal.”

Can you image people discharging firearms within city limits like that now? (Currently in Minnesota, it’s illegal to discharge a firearm within 500 feet of a dwelling or occupied building unless you have written permission from the owner or occupant.)

After the unsuccessful hunt, a policeman who lived at the end of the road (Royce Hanna), and another neighbor concocted a plan with Martinson. They strung a line of light bulbs from a garage to a field and a lookout was posted to whistle when the bear approached in the night. The whistle was the signal for the lights to be switched on.

According to my neighbor, who witnessed the event, the first night they tried this scheme, the lookout mistook moonlight glinting off the lightbulbs for the bear’s eyes and Hanna shot out a lightbulb instead of a bear. (Apparently, they didn’t turn the lights on before Hanna shot!)

The second night, the bear walked into the trap “with 35 to 40 spectators hidden nearby. . . Someone whistled at the right time, the lights flashed on and Hanna opened fire. The policeman’s first shot wounded the bear. His second killed the animal.”

My neighbor told me that Hanna almost lost his job because he had called in sick that day and then his boss read about it in the newspaper. I guess the lesson is, don’t give interviews to newspaper reporters when you’re supposed to be sick! He also said that someone else in the neighborhood had skinned the bear and kept the hide.

The second story happened last fall. The people who now live in Martinson’s house had multiple bear raids on their garbage can, which they unwisely left outside all the time. I could tell the culprit was a bear by the scat left behind. Have you ever seen bear scat? It can look like a pile of chocolate soft serve ice cream in a pile as large as a dinner plate, depending on the size of the bear.

To deter the animal, they rigged the garbage can lid with straps to hold it down, plus tied the container to a tree in their yard. I just laughed when I saw this. Like a few little straps would deter a huge bear! Here’s a photo of what their container looked like the next morning.

Score one for the bear! After this, my neighbors cleaned out their garage enough that they could fit their garbage and recycling containers in it. I’m not sure why they didn’t do that in the first place. Must be slow learners. Or maybe they thought it was only a racoon.

Anyway, knowing that the house next door has been a bear target for years is sort of fun. At least this time, the bear got away with its life.

The third story happened in my own back yard about fifteen years ago. We were eating breakfast when we noticed the bear. My former husband was so excited, he burst out of the house clutching some doughnuts AND RAN TOWARD THE BEAR. I ran after him, asking what he was doing. “I want to feed the bear!” he said. I must mention that my former husband was from Russia. I guess that’s just what they do.

The bear took one look at this crazy Russian running toward him and promptly turned tail. He climbed a tree in a yard a few houses away. Disappointed, my husband left the doughnuts at the base of the tree for the bear once he climbed down.

I don’t recall if the bear ever ate the doughnuts, but this story was forever cemented in the annals of family history. Remember that time your dad chased a bear?

Sea Grant is in Trouble Again

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Lake Superior

The current administration is trying to do away with Sea Grant and other environmental research organizations by cutting them from the federal budget. I am hoping that Sea Grant proved its worth when this happened in 2017 and that Congress will put it back into the budget. I just retired from Sea Grant, so I’m not privy to the latest info, but here’s a repeat of my post from 2017.

I feel for my former colleagues. This is stressful and demoralizing for them. Yet I’m sure they’ll continue their good and important work to understand and keep our waters safe, nevertheless. Sea Grant is still a kick-ass program, even though I don’t work there any more. 🙂

Why Sea Grant is a Kick-Ass Program (And Not Just Because I Work There)

Iceout

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Iceout is happening.

In the North, we stand on the shore in spring and yearn, with a visceral longing, for a break in the smooth white face of the lakes. All winter, they have been a study of white, defined by the absence of blue.

As my acquaintance, former National Geographic magazine photographer and writer, Jeff Rennicke says so well, winter iceover is like an “annual sensory deprivation experience—the specter of negative space—a long, white poem of silent syllables.”

Now, that silence has been broken. As I stand on the frozen grass of our cabin lakeshore, air bubbles underneath the ice gurgle and emit otherworldly moans like the cries of a mystical animal. Blowing wind shifts the ice and I watch cracks form in the thin nearshore skim.

As Rennicke says, soon the ice will crinkle and clash, ringing like bells. Leads of open water will scroll across the blank white page like exuberant cursive. The lakes will awaken, announcing again the spin of the planets, the truth of the changing seasons.

No, the world hasn’t frozen permanently. Spring is coming once again to the North. And it is written in the iceout.

Switching a Website from GoDaddy to WordPress

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Northern Dreams — my current favorite image on my new photography pages.

Back when my first novel was published (Eye of the Wolf), I created a website using GoDaddy to promote it. That was over 10 years ago. Since then, the company almost tripled their prices and added an additional cost for a site security certificate. Figuring out how to add that certificate to my site was such a pain (Really bored? Read about that saga here) that I decided to quit GoDaddy before I had to do it again the next year. Besides, they were going to eventually do away with the ancient platform my site was built on, so I’d need to redo my website anyway.

Another drawback was that the GoDaddy platform was too old to integrate my WordPress blog into it. For a while, I had an RSS feed for my blog on my website, but that eventually stopped working. The only thing I could do was provide a weblink.

So, I decided the solution was to bring my website to my blog. Yes, this very WordPress blog! My New Year’s project was to figure out how to integrate them. Supposedly, you can just automatically move a GoDaddy site over to WordPress, but that seemed rather complicated. Other than for my photography pages, my site didn’t have a lot of content. I found it easier to just copy and paste the text from GoDaddy to WordPress.

The most difficult part was transferring my domain name (marieZwrites.com) over to WordPress. That took several phone calls to tech support and a few days of patience. (Patience = not my strong suit.) But it worked. Plus, the best thing is that WordPress doesn’t make customers pay extra for their site security certificate. It automatically comes with whatever package you sign up for. Yay!

My content about books was the most important because I had a short story collection coming out in February (The Path of Totality), so I needed a web presence to promote it. I put off working on my photography section until I retired from my day job and had more time.

Well, that time was this past week. I’m proud to unveil my new photography pages! The landing page has links to my nature-themed collections and my artist statement. The subpages are organized in “Water,” “Wood,” “Stone,” and “Sky” categories, The Water one has the most content since I am a watery person. I have at least one show set up for this summer, so I thought I should get my photography web presence out there.

If you see a photo that you like, let me know via my Contact page and we’ll work something out. I can also make my photos into puzzles, which have been very popular, or I can put them on yoga mats, tote bags, shower curtains . . . almost anything.

The site’s only been live for a few days, but I’ve already decided to add two more categories: Lighthouses and Travel. Even if that additional file space ends up costing me more through WordPress, it will still be cheaper than my GoDaddy site was. A win-win all around.

The Red-Haired Mummy

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I received notification about new results recently from one of the DNA-testing services that I use. (Note: it is not the beleaguered 23&Me.) Through this service, I had my maternal (mitochondrial) DNA tested. One report offered is called “Notable Connections.” These are “connections based on direct DNA testing or deduced from testing of relatives and should be considered as fun facts.”

Included in my results were some Swedish and Danish royalty and some poor bronze-age blokes who were dug up in England when modern roads were built. One connection sent shivers through me, however. It was for an Egyptian mummy named Takabuti. Her remains are currently on display at the Ulster Museum in Belfast. We visited that museum this summer! We went there on our first day in Ireland.

I racked my brains trying to remember if we’d seen the mummy. We must have because it’s a major display. But I don’t think we paid her a lot of attention. I mean, I’ve seen King Tut’s mummy, and after that, everything else is small potatoes. I also recall a vague distaste at seeing a dead body on display. However, if I had known I was related to this mummy, you can bet I would’ve taken more notice!

Takabuti. Image courtesy of the Egypt Museum.

According to the DNA site, Takabuti and I shared a common ancestor 6,300 years ago. She died and was mummified about 2,600 years ago in Thebes, which is now known as Luxor. The striking thing about her is that she has red hair. It has lightened to a golden color now, due to light exposure since she’s been on display. DNA testing on the mummy showed that her mother was European – probably from the Canary Islands or Southern Iberia (Spain and Portugal). Red hair is not uncommon in that part of the world. It’s thought to come from the area’s indigenous peoples who were known as the Guanches. They were believed to have originated in North Africa, specifically the Berber people of the mainland African deserts.

Takabuti was the daughter of a priest of Ammon-Ra, the sun good and the major deity in Egypt (like Zeus was to the Greeks). As such, her family would have lived comfortably and enjoyed the benefits of high status. Later, Takabuti was the mistress of a great house, and held high social standing. Although she wasn’t royalty, she was mummified to expensive royal standards.

Tragically, Takabuti’s life was cut short between the ages of twenty and thirty. Recent scientific analysis revealed she met a violent end while running, killed by an axe blow to her upper left shoulder that was likely instantly fatal. She may have been trying to escape an assailant, possibly during a period of conflict – perhaps at the hands of an Assyrian soldier or someone from her own community. A magic poultice was packed into her wound to help it heal in the afterlife.

How did an Egyptian mummy get to Ireland? The DNA site says that following the Napoleonic Wars, during a period of active trade in Egyptian antiquities (known as Egyptomania), Takabuti was purchased in 1834 by Thomas Greg of Ballymenoch House, Holywood, County Down. (Perhaps, because of her red hair, he thought he was bringing her back to her homeland?) She made history as the first mummy to be unwrapped in Ireland, with this significant event taking place on January 27, 1835, at the Belfast Natural History Society’s museum. The unwrapping generated considerable scientific interest, particularly in Belfast, then the commercial center of the Irish linen industry, which took special note of her fine linen wrappings.

The cover of a book about Takabuti shows a reconstruction of her face and the face on her coffin.

We know so much about Takabuti because she was the subject of intense academic study. Her face has been reconstructed. A book has been written about her, and she’s also been the subject of a short story. I haven’t read that story yet, but plan to soon. (It’s in Matters of Life and Death by Irish/Scottish author Bernard MacLaverty. Yet another retirement project!)

I wonder if her unusual red hair contributed to her high status is Egypt. Although I don’t have red hair, my mother had it. But hers came from her Scottish/Irish ancestry. My relationship to the mummy is a fun link to history. You can bet if I ever visit Belfast again, I’ll stop into the Ulster Museum and pay distant, distant cousin Takabuti proper respects.

Book Author Panel

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Note: The time on this graphic is incorrect. The event is beginning at 6 p.m., not 5 p.m.!

Hey, this Thursday at 6 p.m. Central, I’ll be one member of a four-author panel for my publisher, Cornerstone Press. The event is being held at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. If you can’t make it in person, it will also be live streamed and available afterward on their YouTube channel.

I’ll be reading from my speculative fiction short story collection, The Path of Totality. We’ll also be doing a panel discussion and taking questions from the audience.

I’m looking forward to meeting my publisher in person for the first time, along with the other authors!

Bringing a Dulcimer Home

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Learning to play the hammered dulcimer is one of the activities on my “Things to do When I’m Retired” list. I love how they sound – rather like someone banging around on the inside of a piano – and I’ve attended several dulcimer festivals over the years, which piqued my interest.

Dulcimers come in various shapes and sizes. Hammered dulcimers differ from the guitar-like mountain dulcimers in that they are larger and are often played on a wooden stand. Instead of plucking the strings, musicians hit them with lightweight mallets that look a bit like wooden spoons. The instrument has ancient roots in Asia and the Middle East, where they’ve been made and played for as long as 5,000 years. Like I alluded to above, hammered dulcimers are considered an ancestor of the piano.

I know a woman in town who teaches the dulcimer. One of the first things I did after my recent retirement was to arrange for a lesson from her. We met at her house where she showed me the secrets to playing this ancient instrument. She had two dulcimers set up side by side in her living room; one for her and one for me. Unlike other instruments that I’ve learned, the notes on the dulcimer don’t follow a linear progression. It’s more like a box, or several boxes.

The instructor taught me how to play scales and gave me a chart that shows where the notes are located on the instrument. As we practiced, two deer wandered by the picture window in front of us at dusk. Were they drawn by the music?

She also taught me how to tune the dulcimer. By the end of the lesson, I had played my first song! It was only “Frere Jacques,” but I was pretty pleased. I rented the instrument from her that I had been playing. It came with a handy carrying case and stand, and was easy to transport to my car.

As I drove home, I felt like my cargo was some grand prize that I’d won at the fair—like a huge teddy bear. I couldn’t believe I had my “own” dulcimer for a month! I set it up in my office and even though it’s been a few days, I still feel a tickle of disbelief and excitement every time I see it.

I’ve been practicing. I don’t have any sheet music, so I’ve been playing songs by ear. I’m not sure I could remember how to read music anymore, anyway. I have “Frere Jacques” mastered and am now working on a favorite song, “Walking in the Air.” I’m just working on the melody for now. That’s all I can handle. It’s coming along.

Although I didn’t have any trouble at the instructor’s house seeing which strings to hit, I’ve had difficulty seeing them at home. My aging eyes aren’t the greatest. But I think finding the proper lighting or changing out some bulbs will help. I’d hate to let that stop me from playing.

Learning a new skill has been fun. Playing the hammered dulcimer is a good alternative to writing. I like that it’s played standing up. That gets me off my butt and onto my feet, which is a good thing. Here’s to not sitting down in retirement!