It has been over a week since I wrote. Not like me at all, but our trip to the British Virgin Islands for the Thanksgiving break has me off my regular schedule. Steve surprised me with a last minute trip to Tortola, the busiest of the BVIs. We took the ferry over from Charlotte Amalie and had a great time sitting on top and checking out all the construction on the coastline of St. Thomas. We could even see Little Taj by the Sea - the villa our apartment is in. I didn't realize how big it is until I saw it from an ocean view.

Tortola was so much fun. We rented a Jeep and drove all over the island, up and down the winding narrow roads. We stayed at the Lambert Resort, which is on the North East coast. I loved the beach - not great for swimming with the big boomer waves breaking in relatively shallow water, but what a great morning walk beach. I played in the waves once and then cleaned sand out of my ears so decided maybe I would be better off just walking along the edge of the water. :-)

Didn't take my laptop with me so I was computer and Internet less for longer than I can remember in ages. I had withdrawal, but my sore mouse hand quit aching. I did some reading while I was there but not much. Read an Agatha Christie type murder mystery by Marian Babson called The Twelve Deaths of Christmas. I am not a big fan of this type of mystery, but since it had Christmas in the title I was okay with it. The murderer lived in the boarding house where most of the story was set and was killing people in the neighborhood or along the bus or subway line. The one that had me shuddering was when a sharpened pop top from a can was used to slit the neck of a loud holiday drinker in the park. Yes, the book is old - it was written 1979. No pop-tops today littering the local parks in London.

I also read Erik E. Esckilsen's The Last Mall Rat. Perhaps the title drew my attention because I am having shopping withdrawal. No rush to the malls here in the islands the day after Thanksgiving. I was drawn right into this book about a 15 year old teen bored with just hanging out in the mall because he is too young to work. So, he offers his services to an unscrupulous shoe salesman, called The Chair, who was left without a sale by a very rude woman who had tried on 30+ pairs of shoes. Mitch offers The Chair revenge - he will follow the woman out to the parking lot and say anything rude to her that The Chair wants. So off Mitch goes, money in his pocket, to shout, Caveat emptor!" at her and scare her silly. It works and before too long Mitch has more work as the rude parking lot harrasser than he can handle so he brings his friends into the scam and they become the Mall Mafia. Teens who work in the stores love to get revenge against the adults who treat them so rudely because they feel they can because, after all, they are just teenagers. As to be expected, it gets out of hand and Mitch has to figure out a way to get them out of the mess they are in or they may find themselves in juvie. Great book to read at this time of the year when you think of all the people pushing through and crowding the malls. Maybe I am glad to be down here where we just have KMart!

I found the perfect book to read to the finicky little eaters - Little Pea by Amy Krouse Rosenthal. Little Pea loved to roll down hills and play on the swings with his pea pals and screamed with delight when Papa Pea would fling Little Pea off the end of a spoon. But, what Little Pea hated was candy. That's what peas eat for dinner and Little Pea forces his way through all five pieces so he can have dessert - yummy green spinach! How the illustrator Jen Corace was able to make green peas so expressive in this Chronicle Books title is beyond me, but she does. :-)

All for now.