My friend and hairstylist Cindy and I have hopefully started a tradition this year. We went to the Caribbean to sit on a beach and do nothing for a week. And we got a lot of nothing into that week.

This year was Barbados, and the Hilton Needham Point Resort. It’s a big property with a couple of restaurants, a beach bar, several swimming pools and a beautiful beach with slap-yo-mama waves. Cindy lost a pair of sunglasses to those waves, I lost earrings and we both felt like we’d been put through the washing machine spin cycle. And unlike the States, they don’t care if you drown. Hey – the red flags are up, swim at your own risk ‘cause they ain’t goin’ in after you. We did it every day; it was a blast. And I’m pretty sure there’s a shark in the Caribbean looking cool in Cindy’s sunglasses.

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Traveling with a good friend is easier when we both agree to sleep with the doors open to hear the surf and feel the fresh air vs. the cold blast and hum of an air conditioner. Interestingly, the birds have figured out that most rooms have goodies in them, such as the sugar packets from the in-room coffee service. We awoke one morning to a tap-tap-tap, and found a bird had swooped in, grabbed a packet and was on the floor attempting to get it open. This happened several times during the week. I was fine with it, and Cindy was okay, too. But not so much with the monkey.

No, the monkey did not come into the room, but a local guy had a cute Barbados Green Monkey on a leash. All beaches in Barbados are public, and while locals are discouraged from coming through the hotel to the beach they are able to access the beach elsewhere, and there were a few vendors making their sales pitches to hotel guests. The guy with the monkey was looking for the occasional beer or a few bucks for pictures. Cindy spotted him down the beach and I heard, “Oh, no, no, no, no, no.” I vowed to keep the monkey at bay. She wouldn’t make eye contact with the man or the monkey. We did well until almost the last day when he snuck up on us from the side. I’m a sucker for a cute monkey, and he was on my lap in no time. Cindy ignored the whole proceeding as though we were on another planet. It really was a cute monkey, though.

Barbados Green Monkey

The hotel was hosting a Canadian insurance convention. One of the attendees told us that they were akin to State Farm, only in Canada, and we surmised that they were certainly there to party. If my Canadian friends see their rates go up it’s because the insurance company bought all the attendees’ drinks for the duration of the multi day event. I’m pretty sure most of them said to hell with the food, figuring the maraschino cherries and orange slices were enough sustenance and so instead hit the booze pretty hard. At a Karaoke event by the pool one evening we watched many of the most lubricated of them sing songs and dance in their bathing suits well into the night. An older gentleman whose wife was dancing away in her bikini with other insurance company friends made his way over to Cindy and me, and in an inebriated, close-talking manor decided he wanted to make us his new friends. He spent a great deal of time on one knee next to our table and his wife came over to tell him she was happy he was making new friends. And with his nice paid drink wristband we drank for free all evening. I couldn’t imagine my husband or any of my friends’ husbands doing such a thing and not getting bitch-slapped into next week. Maybe Canada is a bit more liberal than I thought! Come to think of it, he wasn’t the only husband who bought us drinks that week, either…

Like I said, the girls’ still got it!

Deborah