This past Thursday Scotty’s had quite an event – we were contacted to provide the venue and cater for a luncheon for the US ambassador to Belize, Mr. Vinai Thummalapally, and 40+ US citizens.  Scotty’s doesn’t experience many days of heavy business so this event was a big deal.  We happily agreed to the offer and started in on planning the menu immediately.  We could not offer our regular menu items since our grill does not accommodate that many orders at once so we recruited a friend to help us with the menu.  The decision was made to offer braised beef or lemon chicken with a variety of side dishes, drink and dessert.   We were told to expect about 40 people so we also had to order in additional tables and chairs from a local company.

The event was to happen right in the middle of my trip to Southern Belize so unfortunately I was not there to help out.  From what I understand it all went off without too many hitches.  Mom had to run out to the store a couple times but that was the extent of any problem that was had.  My mom had all three girls in working during the luncheon so we had a full staff operating.  There ended up being over 40 people and everyone was very happy with the food and venue.  The Ambassador told my mom that he liked the atmosphere and would be back with his wife.

It was an extremely hectic day for them but everyone did an outstanding job.  The exposure for Scotty’s was incredible and we were extremely happy to get the opportunity to have the event at our restaurant.

left to right: Jennifer Sutherlan, Anna Mc Fadzen, Tom Wallis (consul), (awaiting name), David Jones (vice consul), Honorable Vinai Thummalapally

On Sunday Valentine’s Day came and went and we had a special dinner at Scotty’s.  I’m not really in to Valentine’s Day personally but there are a lot of people out there who are so we obliged.  I got comments on my blue dress – why no red?  I wore orange last year and decided black would probably be a bit too morbid.  Last year we did something similar and it was a success – a pasta dinner by candlelight and romantic love songs playing in the background.  This year we had a $20 BZD special that included pasta, bread, salad, a dessert and a drink.  Our first customers that day were friends from Progresso and they ended up staying to socialize until closing time which was fun.  We really didn’t have a lot of couples in overall but we did have a few groups of Belizeans in to drink – towards the end of the night the singles crowd came in for some dinner too.  Overall it was fun and successful but there really isn’t a lot to report about the event besides that.

After Valentine’s Day I spent a couple days in Progresso since it was my weekend from the bar.  While there I went kayaking in the dark for the first time – it was extremely peaceful even though my arms weren’t very happy with me at the end of the trip.  Kayaking on Progresso Lagoon is always a cool experience for the simple reason that there is never anyone else around.  It’s like having the entire lagoon as a personal playground.  I’m sure it won’t stay that way forever but for now it’s a pretty cool experience.

Next up on the agenda is a trip south to Punta Gorda, Belize.  I’ve never been there so I’m really looking forward to this trip.  We’re leaving on Saturday and plan on spending a couple days in Livingston, Guatemala which would mark my first trip to Guatemala too.  Hopefully I’ll have a ton of exciting stories to report when I get back.

After a slight lack of adventures I finally have something to write about.  The Super Bowl came and went last Sunday and we decided to throw another Super Bowl party this year at Scotty’s.  Our party last year was successful and we needed a good day of sales for a change – the year has started out a bit slow.  The plan was to use our projector to show the game on a bigger screen, have a special game-day menu and drink specials.  Mom got to work on the food preparations with Vanessa on Saturday but we both decided to take a break to go on a boat ride that afternoon.  Capt. J was going out on his skiff that day and I needed a break from the barrage of hate emails I was getting from Will – why I even opened, read or responded to them I’ll never know.  So we set off in the boat that afternoon with no particular destination.

Our first stop was Copper Bank lagoon to check on a friend’s property – the lagoon was shallow so we didn’t spend much time there.  While we were there Capt. J beached the boat and we had a few Belikin before it was back out to the bay.  Everyone decided it would be fun to stop off at Cerros Beach Resort for a drink or two so we headed to their dock.  I don’t make it there very often for the simple reason that we don’t have a reliable enough vehicle for the roads to get there, but it is a very cool place to hang out or stay if you get the chance (http://www.cerrosbeachresort.com/).  On this particular day I had the unfortunate luck that one particular Belizean woman who happens to hate me was there with her friends and boyfriend.  So Saturday became the day for hate to come my way – all day long.  I guess it was a good thing that all of the blatant loathing happened in one day so I could accept it and get over it by Sunday.

This woman’s rationale of her utter dislike towards me is so laughable that I can only come to the conclusion that there is a second, more realistic reason for it, and my guess is some sort of jealousy.  In any case our group of four walked in to the bar already aware she was present since her children were playing outside, so we weren’t sure just what to expect but we were all on guard.  I have had a few run-ins with her – if you can call it that – where she yells insults at me across a bar full of people and I ignore her.  I didn’t expect any less from her this day.  I was not disappointed – from the second I stepped in to the room she started in.  She literally yelled to her friends – maybe she thinks I’m deaf – as many insults as she could towards us.  It was so ridiculously obnoxious we couldn’t help but laugh about it.  That afternoon I learned from her that because I’m white and have a much smaller ass than her I could only get away with charging $10 to sell my body while she, and her ass, could easily bring in $50.  What can you possibly say to that?  So I stuck with my normal strategy of totally ignoring her – which, by the way, is extremely difficult when she was literally the loudest mouth in the bar.  Her and her posse finally left and we finished our second round of drinks and headed to the boat before sunset.

I don’t typically like to wish days away but I was extremely happy when Saturday night came and went.  Sunday started early for us.  I had my money on the New Orleans Saints, well; actually I had my alcohol on the Saints.  My duties that morning were to get the betting board ready, get the projector set up and help put up the black paper on every window to keep the light out.  By the time we were all set up and ready to go pre-game had already started and I had to jump in the shower to get ready for betting and kickoff.  People started to arrive around 4pm and they slowly trickled in throughout the game – at kickoff we were already packed and then people were still coming in and out up until halftime.  It was a huge success.  We were a little worried about turnout this year since there were two other bars in town running a similar event and last year we were the only bar in town throwing a Super Bowl party.  Everything ran incredibly smooth – we took the lessons we learned last year and applied them this year.  Our three employees were busy all night long, mom and I were running around helping as well so overall I think I saw about a quarter of the game but I was exceptionally happy that the Saints came away with the win and I won my bets.  Now I have a bottle of wine and a cold beer coming my way.

Next up is our Valentine’s Day special at the bar – here’s to another successful event at Scotty’s!

A couple of weeks ago I had the very cool experience of seeing a wild cat up close and personal.  Of course the events which brought this cat in to my life are very sad – it was a very young baby margay (http://www.belizezoo.org/zoo/zoo/mammals/mar/mar1.html) that had been orphaned and found by a Belizean in the jungle.  This cat is listed as an endangered animal so it was very sad to speculate that its mother had seen a worse fate.  A friend of mine decided to acquire the cat for the sole purpose of getting it to the Belize zoo located in Belize City – it is illegal to keep an animal such as this for a pet.  This little cat was so cute, but sounded just like a big jungle cat so it was a little nerve racking to be around the little guy.

The baby margay was very scared and simply stared at us.  He was maybe one or two pounds at the most.  In the cage he came in he tried his best to disappear in to a corner – we were glad to know that he would be in a much happier habitat soon.

The next day I coaxed him in to a cat carrier – appropriately a leopard print – with some tuna on a plate.  He seemed to be hungry enough since he went right in the carrier and I was able to zip him in for the trip from Corozal to Belize City.  So my friend and I plus another family all piled in to the vehicle and headed off to the zoo – we figured that we may as well make a day of it.  I had yet to see the Belize zoo so I was excited to make the trip.  We had called the zoo previously to make sure this was the best thing to do with the cat and they assured us it was and that they would take him in.

The trip to the zoo was about an hour and a half but we finally made it.  The skies were a bit cloudy and there was some light rain but we were determined to see all the animals.  It was probably ideal weather for viewing the animals since the hot sun wasn’t beating down.  First things first though, we stopped in at the front desk and told the attendant there that we had the margay to turn over to them.  They hustled around trying to find the correct person to check the cat out so they told us to go ahead and make our way around the zoo while they figured it out.

We made our way through all the exhibits and, as suspected, the weather was perfect because we saw all but one animal that day.  Most of the animals were in plain sight and walking around their enclosures.  The experience really felt as though we were simply walking through the jungle observing each of these animals.  There are over 125 animals at the zoo, all native to Belize and each exhibit provides a brief summary of the animal with a few facts.  I have visited the zoo in Portland, OR many times but this provided an entirely different experience.  I had never seen most of the animals that I had the privilege of viewing at the Belize zoo.  The kids were especially excited about each animal – there was some brief hesitation from some of them at first since they weren’t sure what they would be seeing, but that quickly went away and they were all running around to see the next animal.

The kids all decided that they liked the tapirs the best – probably because it was the one animal they were actually able to touch.  It was the first time I had seen a tapir though a few of my friends have seen them in the wild here.  After an hour or so we had seen it all and the kids were getting tired so we headed back to the front desk to see what had become of our little margay.  The carrier was empty and they were busy checking him out so now he’ll be safe in his new home at the zoo.

If you happen to make a trip to Belize in the future or you are here and haven’t been to the zoo yet; make sure that activity gets put towards the top of your list.  It’s a very worthwhile experience and a must see if you spend any time in this country.  Hopefully in the next year I’ll make another trip to the zoo to visit that little cat and see how he’s doing.

As I mentioned in my previous post we attempted to start a Christmas boat parade here in Corozal and there were high aspirations for this project.  The venture started off three months before December even arrived.  The idea emerged at the tail-end of a night out drinking with friends.  Mom and I were sitting around a table with Rod and Ken at Haley’s, a local bar, when the topic of Christmas boat parades came up.  Rod had been in a few big parades in Florida and thought that it would be fun to try and rally all the boat owners in Corozal to be a part of a boat parade here.  Unlike nearby San Pedro (on Ambergris Caye), Corozal doesn’t have this tradition.  Mom and I both thought it would be a lot of fun so we said we were onboard for sure (we don’t own a boat so our involvement wasn’t much of a commitment).

The three of us planned on having a committee meeting every Wednesday until the middle of December when the event would take place.  Our intentions were good, we even assigned each committee member a position (I was the secretary), but as the weeks moved ahead our enthusiasm waned.  All hope wasn’t lost yet; we had spoken to about 12 couples who all owned boats and told us they would be involved.  It really would have been a sight for the Corozal Bay if everyone had participated.

It became clear a couple weeks before Christmas that Ken and Rod would be the only two boats appearing in the parade.  No matter, we were still determined to make this happen and had planned on it up until the weekend the whole thing was to take place.  Then the weather turned and Rod still wasn’t even back in the country with his boat yet.  So the three committee members in country (me, mom and Ken) decided, with regret, that we would be canceling the boat parade.

Then Rod got back in the country and the project had life breathed in to it again; Rod convinced us all that it could still be done and they would decorate the two boats.  Two days later, and two days before Christmas we were on the bay in boats surrounded by Christmas lights and having an absolutely awesome time.  There were two boats with seven people total and we had our Christmas music blaring as we made a slow pass back and forth the town of Corozal.  We weren’t sure anyone would see us from shore since our parade had sort of fizzled before it sparked back to life.  There had been no announcement this would be taking place, but there were plenty of people along the water that night.  So we waved and yelled, “Merry Christmas” and spun the boats in front of each crowd we passed.

In the end we provided some entertainment for the kids along the water that night and for ourselves.  It is the start of a tradition for us as long as we’re in Corozal for Christmas and we may even add another boat next year.

This Christmas was a fun one – besides the missing my family part – we had a great day.  The holiday really started for us on Christmas Eve.  My mom cooked a dinner for the girls who work for us and we had some small gifts to give them so it was our version of the staff party.  We also invited a few friends to join us for dinner.  Mom fried a whole hogfish (caught in Belize) for our appetizer and then the main dinner was baked chicken along with a few typical holiday side dishes and it all turned out fantastic.  We closed the bar early so the girls were out the door before 8pm and since we would be closed for Christmas day and Boxing Day they had the next two days off.  One of our waitresses had brought over a sampling of the rumpopo her mom had made for the holidays.  Rumpopo is a traditional eggnog type drink in Belize that is made with eggs, cream, nutmeg, cinnamon and overproof rum and is delicious.  After we ate and opened gifts we all took a few pictures by the tree (fake).

A very typical sound in Corozal during the Christmas season – especially on Christmas Eve to bring in Christmas day – are the blasts of various fireworks and firecrackers that are let off all day long.  As the night continued on, more and more blasts are heard and we all knew that we would not be falling asleep before midnight so I grabbed a book and knew exactly when midnight hit by the obvious finale happening all around town.  In Corozal that night it sounded like New Year’s Eve sounds in the states.  After midnight I did fall asleep easily and was woken up by a 7:30am phone call so I drug myself out of bed and spent the next few hours hanging out with my parents and getting ready for the party later that day.

At 11am we were in the truck headed to Ken’s house for a ride on his boat to Progresso Lagoon.  My friend Matt and I were going to ride in the boat with Ken and then my parents were going to take a truck to the same party so that they would have a way to get back home.  It was a perfect day for a boat ride – the bay was calm and the sky was mostly sunny – we zipped over there pretty quickly with just one pit stop in the Copper Bank lagoon to catch Rod on his way over too.  Rod had his own boat and he zoomed off ahead of us, long gone by the time we even hit the Progresso Lagoon.  We got to the party around noon and the food was already out.  We were among the first to arrive and my parents got there almost exactly the same time we did.  Bruce and his wife Nicole already had the place ready for guests.  They had put a pig in the ground the night before and it had cooked all night long, there was also an abundance of Indian food purchased from one of the local men in town along with the various side dishes and desserts other people brought with them.  We all grabbed a drink and a seat to start in on conversation.  Slowly, more and more people started to arrive and by the end of it all there were about 40 people there.

The boat ride was already a far cry from the typical holiday activities when I was living in Oregon but it was about to get even better.  After dinner the water toys started to come out.  Water skis, tubes, a wakeboard, boats and kayaks; I knew that I wanted to water ski so I put on my swimsuit and headed out to the boat.  Matt hadn’t been waterskiing since he was a kid so he wanted a go at it too.  So Matt and I got on Rod’s boat with Rod as captain.  It was a ton of fun on two skis but I did take a nice fall to end my first trip around the lagoon.  It sort of stunned me so I passed the skis off to Matt and he got right up and made a nice spin around the lagoon before he fell.  I got back up on the skis and we made our way back to the dock were I made a much more graceful landing.  While all this was going on there was a big group of Belizean kids who were very excited to go on a boat so they piled on Ken’s small boat and from the dock it looked like an accident waiting to happen.  Luckily all the kids were wearing life jackets and the lagoon is very shallow, but sure enough, as Ken’s boat was coming back in to dock the kids were getting nervous because the front of the boat started to take on a little water due to the amount of weight on board.  Suddenly some of the kids panicked and went to the bow of the boat; well this was the very last thing that should have happened because as all their weight shifted to the front the boat took on more and more water.  Rod saw what was happening and ran his boat over to the scene to help as Bruce did a quasi dive in to the lagoon as the kids (most of whom have never been on a boat before) were insanely screaming in terror.  In the end everyone was okay but a few of the kids were very upset – I knew one of the little girls from other trips and I grabbed her hand as she was crying hysterically by herself on her way to the house.  We found her mom and eventually she calmed down, but it was quite an experience for them.

After everything had calmed down I went back out on the boat to try my luck at getting up on one ski.  I had done it before a few years ago during an Oregon skiing trip but it had been awhile, so I fell on the first attempt and the next 10 or so attempts.  At one point I did get up but did not stay up for any amount of time, but on my last try my hip popped and my leg went numb so I figured that was enough for the day.

Most of the guests left soon after that and there were just a few of us (who were spending the night) visiting before everyone made their way to bed.  As you may have already guessed I was extremely sore from my slalom experience but the worst part was that I actually injured the right side of my neck so for the last four days I’ve been nursing that.  We also attempted Corozal’s first annual Christmas Boat parade which I will write a separate entry on.   Happy New Year everyone!

I am very conflicted about how to approach this section of my story in Belize. Between the Super Bowl party and Valentine’s Day earlier this year I chose to end my marriage with Will. I don’t want to go in to any detail about the events that week and I’m not sure that I want to write about any part of it at all. Even though the decision was made by me, the months that have followed have been a period of my life full of pain and learning. I have realized a lot about myself in the last nine months. The pain comes from grasping the reality that my life as I knew it for the last 10 years dramatically shifted in a new country where I hardly knew anyone to draw emotional support from. Suddenly my family – especially my mom who was the only one here with me at the time – became immensely important, more important than ever before in my adult life. It was also extremely hard to feel sad about the transition without feeling guilty that I was the one who broke off the relationship and therefore shouldn’t have the right to feel sad. I had to come to grips with the fact that I needed to be able to feel distressed about the situation or I wouldn’t be able to move past it. Immediately I felt numb from being responsible for hurting someone so much, it wasn’t something I was used to doing and in fact was part of the whole problem. I was so worried about causing pain that I let a relationship continue on that I wasn’t happy with and instead of confronting the situation I hid behind a fabricated sense that I was doing the right thing by not making waves. So instead, I became bitter about the issues within our relationship by letting them simmer below the surface. My first lesson after all this was that I had to force myself to confront any issues that I have head on despite being uncomfortable doing so. My own happiness was dependent upon that – just because something is comfortable does not mean it’s the best situation for your life.

Being in Belize made me see clearly how different I had become from the person I was ten years ago. The biggest realization was that I had lost my individual self over the past years, or maybe I had just stopped looking. Somehow placing myself in completely new surroundings, far away from any comfort zone I knew back in Oregon, forced me to realize how unhappy I actually was. It became so abundantly clear that I was not able to fool myself any longer. So I made a dramatic decision and after the initial shock I promised myself that I would push my limits as much as opportunity would allow. If I was going to make such a dramatic choice then it seemed to be horribly irresponsible to continue to live in a comfort zone. I was excited to be in Belize for this new chapter of my life because I was going to be completely stripped of any familiarity which seemed to make it a bit easier.

It was slightly ironic to me that Valentine’s Day was coming up in a week and of course, since we owned a restaurant, we would be throwing a Valentine’s Day party. I was not in the mood to say the least. Valentine’s Day had never been a particularly important day to me so this year I really wasn’t in the mood but we set up a table for just our friends and then other romantic-type tables for the couples who would come in. We put a special pasta dinner on the menu and played love songs in the background all night. A few bottles of wine later the party at Scotty’s was over and my mom and I, along with a couple friends went to a local night club to check out the scene there. Overall we did really well at the restaurant that night but I was very happy when the day was over.

So a new chapter of my life started up February of this year and I had no idea what the future would hold or what emotions would come up as a result.

Garifuna Settlement Day fell on Thursday, November 19^th and my mom and I chose to close Scotty’s for the holiday. We did the same last year simply because we didn’t know what to expect on this holiday – we have to pay our staff double their wages if we are open on a national holiday and since it is still the slow season here it isn’t worthwhile for us to be open. In Corozal not a lot happens for this holiday – more of the celebration happens in the Southern parts of Belize especially in Dangriga. Since most of the town is shut down we decided to go out for a boat ride on a friend’s new boat. We left around 1pm and the plan was to go across the Corozal Bay in to Copper Bank lagoon and then on to Progresso lagoon to visit friends. The bay was fairly calm that day – a little choppy but as soon as we moved in to the lagoon the water became very still and the ride on the boat became a lot more fun. Our first stop was in Copper Bank lagoon and this started the barrage of mishaps that day. The boat’s reverse was not working and since I was in the front of the boat I would get the privilege to jump out of the boat and stop us from hitting a wall of rocks as we pulled in. This wouldn’t have been a bid deal if the engine had been cut much earlier but instead I got ready to jump out and as we got closer to the rocks and because of the deceptively slow speed we were moving at I put my legs out and my feet crashed right in to the rocks – they were no match for the rock wall so the boat hit as well. We had stopped but there was no finesse involved at all. We picked up the 4^th person to be on the boat and we were off again with a few more Belikin in the cooler.

Next we would maneuver through a series of channels that separate Copper Bank lagoon from Progresso Lagoon. This is where our second accident occurred; since the boat is new, our friend’s experience operating it was also a little raw. This particular boat is a jet drive and it has a very tight turning radius so it was being tested on the frequent curves through our path to the next lagoon. At one point it seemed we were headed straight in to a bunch of mangrove on the shore but I didn’t really think much of it since the turns had been so tight, but then as we got closer and closer it was evident that the boat wasn’t going to make the turn. We all ducked at the last minute as we smashed in to the mangrove and managed a slow turn out of it. Since it would have been such a close turn apparently backing off on the throttle in the middle doesn’t work on this type of boat. Again, there were no injuries but we didn’t let anyone forget it had happened with the teasing that followed. Little did we know that we would still have a much harder crash later that evening. We finally made it through the curvy waterway and in to Progresso Lagoon. I was never so happy to see a lagoon in my life – I was starting to get a little concerned that we may not make it back in one piece.

After a short visit with our friends in Progresso we hoped on to the boat again as the sun was starting to set and took off back to Corozal Bay. None of us really wanted to be in the boat at dark so we weren’t going to be able to take our time. This time our friends switched the operator of the boat thinking that someone with a little more experience would get us safely back home. The ride back was amazing – the water was just like a mirror – the sunset was being reflected perfectly on the water. We were all in awe of the scene we were lucky enough to witness as we continued on to the bay. Unfortunately we did not make it to Corozal before dark so we slowed down and took our time through the bay. Then our third and final catastrophe took place. In a testosterone driven act the boat was sped up close to the shore of Corozal despite the dangerous amount of rocks that are hidden under the shallow water. We powered along closer and closer to a jetty of rocks that was directly in front of us – the three passengers started to yell to turn the boat away from the rocks but to no avail – the operator was not listening. We crashed directly in to the rocks and as the boat’s momentum was suddenly halted our bodies were all slammed to the left of the boat. No one was seriously injured and the boat made it off the rocks and back on to its appropriate dock not far from there. We finally got back on to dry land and I decided on the spot I would not be taking a ride on that boat for quite awhile – to top the day off I fell in to the bay as I got out of the boat. Cold, wet and a bit shaken I was very happy to get home.

The next day I realized just how hard we had hit those rocks; I could hardly move the left side of my body. I was so sore where I had hit the boat. Happily the whole day is something I can look back and laugh at since there were no serious injuries and the boat seems to be in tact (although it has not been in the water yet since then). Sometimes being in the water I forget that accidents can easily occur but I got my reminder that day.

The sunset we were lucky enough to experience

Yesterday our manager Vanessa got married to another good friend of ours here in Corozal and the reception was held at our bar. They got married by the bayside at another friend’s house and it was a very small wedding – my mom was Vanessa’s witness and I took a ton of pictures. When we first met Vanessa a little over a year ago she had vowed to us that she would never be married but, as with most things, attitudes can change dramatically and quickly, so this was the case here.

The day was perfect; beautiful blue skies, a slight breeze and not too hot. Vanessa was a nervous wreck – the tears had already been flowing a few times before I had even seen her to help get her dressed and ready. To calm the nerves she took a shot of Crown with my mom and me before the wedding. The pastor performed the ceremony in Spanish so I really only caught about half of it – having been present at multiple weddings I was able to follow everything as it was said – I really need to work harder on my Spanish though. During the ceremony the couple was as happy as can be – ribbing each other every once in awhile and looking into each other’s eyes with deep love; it was just like them. By 4pm the whole thing was over and I was headed back to Scotty’s to get everything opened up and ready. Everyone else would follow after a few more pictures. We had planned on closing down the bar for the event so when I got to the bar I unlocked everything and turned the music on. Everyone else started to show up about a half hour later and, wow, did they show up! It was supposed to be a small affair (maybe 20 people at the most had been invited) but people just kept coming in so by the time everyone had shown up we had close to 70 people in the bar. We had not planned on this many people so we were worried about the amount of food that we had. Luckily a friend of ours had brought two huge containers full of tamales as a gift. That completely saved us and there was enough food to go around. Since there were so many people I was incredibly busy handing drinks out and just making sure everything was running as smoothly as possible. Another friend of Vanessa’s had made a wedding cake and brought that which was beautiful and provided more than enough cake for everyone. I had to take a quick break after most drinks had been handed out so I rode around with a few friends – we stopped to take a look at the huge tigers penned up next to the circus tent in town.

We were in full swing from about 4:30 to 9pm so by the time people started to leave we were exhausted. It was also slightly draining emotionally for the simple fact that this was the first wedding I had attended since my divorce so that brought up all kinds of strange emotions. I’m not sure I could even explain that one and I tried my best to shove all that down somewhere where it wouldn’t surface. During the reception Vanessa had a ton of emotions going through her – she was excited and happy for her and Ducky’s celebration yet she was upset at some of the people who had arrived uninvited. Overall they had a blast and took their leave around 8:30pm to the honeymoon hotel we had set up for them in town at the Almond Tree Resort.

Amongst getting prepared for their wedding we had some horrible news early this week. My mom’s best friend passed away after a diagnosis of cancer just late August of this year. She lived in Oregon and this was extremely difficult news for my mom. Overall it has been a draining range of emotions throughout this week.

Back to the Scotty’s story…Our first big party after Grand Opening would be our Super Bowl party. In Belize American Football is not very popular but there was enough of a following between some locals and Americans we had met here that we decided a party was in order. Also it helped that my mom and I are major football fans so we wanted a great place to watch the game too and what better place than our own bar! The first problem was that we did not have a big TV in the bar – certainly not large enough to facilitate a party focused around watching it. So we decided to borrow Dave’s projector to hook up to the TV and project the game on the side of one of our walls. The battle was between the Cardinals and the Steelers and we made some marketing efforts to get people in for the big game. Flyers were printed and distributed, we sent out an advertisement to the expats via email and we hyped it up to anyone who came in the bar. We weren’t sure what to expect really but we were excited about it. We also tried to promote it by selling score squares for $5 a square which would pay out after every quarter.

The weekend before the party we had Dave bring in the projector to do a test run. The game was scheduled to start around 6pm our time which meant it should be dark enough at game time to avoid having to black out the screens and windows. We got everything set up and were totally relieved that it all worked – it also seemed to be just dark enough for everything to show up so we were all pumped for the next weekend. I really hadn’t followed either team but since Arizona is closer to the West coast I had to cheer for them and made a couple side bets just to make it a bit more interesting. So a bottle of wine was at stake for me.

Super Bowl Sunday finally arrived and we were in a scramble all day to get everything set up and ready to go for that night. We got the screen up and projector set up. As the evening grew closer we were slightly worried because it didn’t seem to be getting as dark as it had the weekend previous – it probably had something to do with the fact that it was a beautiful, bright day instead of slightly cloudy. So we started to get a little panicky when it was 5:30 and pre-game wasn’t visible. We went out and bought a ton of big black garbage bags and started frantically stapling them to the walls to black everything out. We got done – with a major group effort – just as most people started to arrive. It turned out perfect – we definitely had the biggest screen in town for the game. We had a special game day menu of nachos, pizza by the slice and hotdogs – we wanted it to be simple and quick. We had a packed house and everyone was happy – the game couldn’t have been better and of course came down to the wire. The squares were a hit and made it that much more fun for people who didn’t know anything about the teams playing or even much about the game itself. The vibe was fun and exciting and everyone was in to the game – cheering as if we were all right there in the stands. It was a total success, well, I did lose my bet for the Cardinals so I was short a bottle of wine but I was happy to give it up.

Most people left after the game but a few stuck around and it would mark the first time the bar actually ran out of beer. Overall it was a major hit and absolutely no one complained about anything – or we just didn’t know about any complaints.

The next big event would be Valentine’s Day but things in my life were set to explode in the few days following Super Bowl…