Wednesday, March 23, 2005
Half Moon Resort, Jamaica. Once a sugar plantation, the Half Moon Resort is a 400-acre retreat located on a beautiful crescent beach near Montiego Bay. Built in 1954, the resort has a grandeur that most of the newer resorts do not and you are thus transported into a world-that-was -- a world before the devastating effects of rampant unemployment, crime, and tacky architecture turned a good part of the island of Jamaica into a place that is pretty rough and tumble. In fact while there, a local paper reported a man having been brutally hacked to death with a machete... But that was outside the resort. Inside the resort, you are surrounded by polite and friendly staff -- all of whom bend over backwards to be helpful (without being obsequious) to the point that you begin to understand why the Brits loved their colonialism for so long. Some people with whom I spoke had been back to this resort five, six times under the motto: 'heh if you've found something this nice, why go anywhere else?'
The 11am Rum Punch and Pathetic Parenting. But for a change it wasn't my pathetic parenting. I'm talking about drinking a rum punch at 11am on the beach and me watching other parents' pathetic parenting. Except that they don't really parent at all as far as I can tell. These mommies and daddies are more like wound up Energizer Bunnies whose sole function is to make sure that their children never have a moment in the day that is not filled with constant onslaughts of entertainment and enticements to eat. What happened to plopping a toddler down on the beach and letting it eat fistfulls of sand whereby soon his imagination takes hold and he begins to build troughs and turrets? But no. The child is rather bombarded by the frenetic parent with a dizzying array of beach balls, shovels, pails, plastic sharks, inter-tubes, rafts, and toy boats. Overwhelmed by all the choices, tears begin to well in the child's eyes. Cue for the Energizer Bunny parent to pop a straw into a juice box and offer the child a granola bar. The best in show was the family sitting at dinner one evening with their kids -- each of the children had his very own DVD player and was watching a movie -- completely oblivious to the star-lit evening above and gentle lapping of waves nearby. Conversation and laughter? Huh?
Star Gazing. "I know that guy," I kept saying everytime the little man peddled past us on our way to breakfast. "I just can't think of who that is but I know I know him. Maybe he's someone from the gym..." "That's Paul Simon, Mom," said the son with a sigh. "Oh my gosh of course!" "And guess who that is over there Mom." "I have no idea. He looks familiar though. Who is it?" "Harry Connick, Jr., Mom...." Sigh. There was also a drop-dead gorgeous photo model doing a photo shoot in a string bikini. So gorgeous was she that the daughter and I surmised that the nine-month-old baby in tow must have been adopted or carried to term by a surrogate mother....What, is there some unwritten law that gorgeous, drop-dead models get to stay a smooth and flawless size two after child birth?
The 11am Rum Punch and Pathetic Parenting. But for a change it wasn't my pathetic parenting. I'm talking about drinking a rum punch at 11am on the beach and me watching other parents' pathetic parenting. Except that they don't really parent at all as far as I can tell. These mommies and daddies are more like wound up Energizer Bunnies whose sole function is to make sure that their children never have a moment in the day that is not filled with constant onslaughts of entertainment and enticements to eat. What happened to plopping a toddler down on the beach and letting it eat fistfulls of sand whereby soon his imagination takes hold and he begins to build troughs and turrets? But no. The child is rather bombarded by the frenetic parent with a dizzying array of beach balls, shovels, pails, plastic sharks, inter-tubes, rafts, and toy boats. Overwhelmed by all the choices, tears begin to well in the child's eyes. Cue for the Energizer Bunny parent to pop a straw into a juice box and offer the child a granola bar. The best in show was the family sitting at dinner one evening with their kids -- each of the children had his very own DVD player and was watching a movie -- completely oblivious to the star-lit evening above and gentle lapping of waves nearby. Conversation and laughter? Huh?
Star Gazing. "I know that guy," I kept saying everytime the little man peddled past us on our way to breakfast. "I just can't think of who that is but I know I know him. Maybe he's someone from the gym..." "That's Paul Simon, Mom," said the son with a sigh. "Oh my gosh of course!" "And guess who that is over there Mom." "I have no idea. He looks familiar though. Who is it?" "Harry Connick, Jr., Mom...." Sigh. There was also a drop-dead gorgeous photo model doing a photo shoot in a string bikini. So gorgeous was she that the daughter and I surmised that the nine-month-old baby in tow must have been adopted or carried to term by a surrogate mother....What, is there some unwritten law that gorgeous, drop-dead models get to stay a smooth and flawless size two after child birth?
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