Susan M. Boyer

USA TODAY Bestselling Author
Agatha Award Winner

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Susan M. Boyer

USA TODAY Bestselling Author
Agatha Award Winner

  • Home
  • About
    • Bio
    • Media Kit
    • Photo Galleries
    • Privacy Policy
    • Stella Maris Books, LLC
  • Books
    • The Liz Talbot Mystery Series
    • Carolina Tales
  • Maps & Extras
    • Stella Maris
      • Who’s Who in Stella Maris
      • Stella Maris Map
    • Carolina Tales
      • Coming Soon!
  • News
  • Events
  • Blog
  • Contact

Me and You and a Bartender Named Boo

April 19, 2011 in Passing Sweet Time

Sugar and I recently returned from a much-needed vacation. Okay, he needed it much more than I did, but we are ONE in the eyes of The Lord, right? We spent two weeks in St. John–a milestone anniversary trip postponed several times due to the madness which is our life. Never mind which milestone–they are all special.
This was our sixth trip, and if we ever win The Big Pot, we’ll have a home on St. John. I hold Kenny Chesney responsible for all the college spring-breakers in the airport and at Trunk Bay. Kenny did for St. John what Jimmy Buffett did for Key West, and while I’m sure the tourism industry thanks him for that, I’d just as soon he sang about the beautiful coast of somewhere else. Nevertheless, there’s a lot of his music stored on my iPhone. I don’t hold a grudge.

This was as laid back a vacation as you could possibly imagine. We had a very private cottage on the hillside overlooking Reef Bay and spent many days on the deck, dressed in sarongs, reading and sipping rum drinks.

 Occasionally we’d slip out of the sarongs and into the pool.

 

Okay, we didn’t spend the entire two weeks at the cottage…

We snorkeled… One day we ventured out and snorkeled Waterlemon Key, a small offshore island. Another time I’ll tell you about the British guy who talked like Hugh Grant and wore interesting, positively shredded swim trunks.

We had beach days… We spent one day at Trunk Bay, which regularly makes Top-Ten Beach lists on The Travel Channel and in travel magazines. But Trunk Bay was crowded, and we weren’t feeling the crowd thing, so our other beach days were spent at Maho Bay and Francis Bay, which in my opinion, are just as beautiful as Trunk.
We hiked… We did the Reef Bay hike, and saw the petroglyphs– pre-Columbian rock carvings chiseled by the Tainos while they smoked pre-Columbian err…herbs and communed with their dead relatives. Well, that’s one of a couple prevailing theories, anyway, and I’m not buying that alien nonsense.

 

We explored… we tooled around the island in the Jeep, stopping whenever we felt like it to stare at everything beautiful. We had lunch a couple of times at a favorite bar in Coral Bay, Island Blues, which has great burgers.

 

But aside from the cottage deck, where we gazed at the crystal blue waters of the Caribbean, and a billion stars, and the moon, while sipping cool drinks, our other favorite hangout was–as always–The Beach Bar.

The Beach Bar is the home of the Three Pain Killer Lunch. They serve a most excellent grilled Mahi Mahi sandwich, and I washed more than one of those suckers down with three Pain Killers. What? Of course on different days. Well, except for the one day we had lunch AND dinner there. Yes, mamma, it was Aspirin, not Tylenol.

Our favorite bartender was a chick named Boo. I asked her what Boo was short for. “Tiffany,” she told me. I nodded, like I understood, and I guess I did. Everything makes sense when you’re viewing the world from The Beach Bar…

Peace, out…

Susan

Filed Under: Passing Sweet Time Tagged With: Passing Sweet Time

Why I Love Minor League Baseball

September 15, 2010 in Passing Sweet Time

Last night was the last home game of the season for the Greenville Drive, the local class A affiliate of the Boston Red Sox. You might be wondering what kind of name The Drive is for a sports team, but I couldn’t tell you. Lots of people in Greenville wanted to name the team the Greenville Joes in honor of Shoeless Joe Jackson, who was from the Greenville area, but whoever is in charge of such things at MLB wouldn’t hear of it. The controversy, et cetera. I digress.

The total experience of watching a Drive game at Fluor Field in the West End of downtown Greenville is sublime. The field itself is only five years old, and it’s modeled after Fenway, with its own Green Monster and everything. From the bar-top tables at the 500 Club, where we like to eat dinner, you can see not only the ballgame, but the Greenville skyline and Paris Mountain. Okay, the 500 Club makes most excellent fried pickles, just so you know.

When the weather is right, as it was last night–not too hot or humid–the evening air is soft on your skin. Greenville supports its team, so, even on a Tuesday night, there was a respectable crowd. The mascot is a big green frog named Reedy Rip’It (in honor of the Reedy River, which flows through downtown), and he along with a few cheerleaders kept the fans entertained and engaged. Okay, I love singing Sweet Caroline with a stadium full of people.

There was a bench-clearing altercation at the bottom of the fifth due to some unfortunate comments made regarding a play at home plate. This led to led to chest-bumping, then a full-fledged brawl. No one was hurt, but two players on each team were ejected, and the game was delayed for fifteen minutes while the officials sorted out who was getting tossed. We were sitting just to the left of home plate, and had ringside seats.

Anyway, the whole package is just fun. Big League games are fun, too, of course. But something about the scale of a single A game is just more accessible to me–more intimate. And at $9 a pop for box seats, we can go whenever we feel like it. We sang, and cheered ourselves hoarse. It was a blast.

Despite all the singing and cheering–not to mention a bottom of the ninth war party, complete with an aboriginal war dance by one of the pep team members in a grass skirt–The Drive lost last night. The South Atlantic League Championship series is tied at one game each, and moves to Lakewood New Jersey for games 3-5.

But it was a fun way to spend the evening.

Peace, out…

Susan

Filed Under: Passing Sweet Time Tagged With: Passing Sweet Time

I May Have Gypsy Blood

February 4, 2010 in Evidence of My Insanity, Passing Sweet Time

Last year I spent some time on Ancestry.com tracing my family tree and Jim’s. Okay, Jim is part Cherokee, and I really wanted to see if we could document this. No, I was not angling for a casino check to support my writing habit.

Anyway, I found no evidence of gypsy blood on my side of the family, but there was one branch I couldn’t trace past four generations, even though we ordered the DNA test that was supposed to put you in touch with your dead relatives.

I’m now thinking perhaps these folks were gypsies…nomads…vagabonds.

Because I am loving this mobile life style. We’re headed home tomorrow, and I DON’T WANT TO GO. The Hilton Garden Inn and/or a Hampton Inn now feels more like home to me than my own house. I have the system down here. And I don’t ever have to clean or cook…

(Sigh)

Maybe we’ll sell the house and just live in hotels. They even have a party room for Karaoke night…

I wish this didn’t appeal to me so much.

Filed Under: Evidence of My Insanity, Passing Sweet Time Tagged With: Evidence of My Insanity, Passing Sweet Time

It’s All About Attitude

April 24, 2007 in Uncategorized

This past weekend was incredible. Artisphere came to Greenville, and since we live in the west end of downtown, we steeped in culture all weekend long. Awesome. Painters, photographers, potters, blown glass, jewelry from all over. And the music. Blues, Jazz, Calypso, Gospel, African Drum and Dance. It was a sensory feast so sumptuous it was impossible to taste everything. But I tried.

My personal favorites were folksy-soul singer/songwriter Amos Lee, who had a crowd of all ages dancing under a perfect Carolina crescent moon Friday night, and Chocolate Thunder and Shrimp City Slim, who performed at the Blues Cafe–most days known as patch of concrete beside Postcards From Paris. Shrimp City Slim is a great blues band from Charleston. Chocolate Thunder, aka Linda Rodney, who has a set of pipes that rank right up there with Aretha and Patti, sang with them on Sunday.

This is a formidable woman. Not only is she a great singer, but the girl puts on a heck of a show. She tore up that stage dancing, and had a good time doing it. At one point, as an introduction to a song she wrote, When a Man Says I Do, she told us, “I come from a long line of strong black women. And I know, you got to keep your eye on your money and keep your eye on your man…cause if you lose one, the other is most likely gone.”

The punch line to When a Man Says I Do is, “It don’t mean he won’t.” And it’s a great song.

But the thing that struck me about Linda was her stage presence. I don’t think she’d mind my saying that she is voluptuous. More voluptuous than I. And…she did not dress in clothing designed to hide her curves. Her bright pink, black and white blouse did not hang down to the knees of her jeans. And the girl was accessorized. She looked great.

She danced like she had the combined gene pool of Tina Turner, Michael Jackson, and that girl from Flashdance. The girl got down, is what I’m saying. And she was not embarrassed one bit by her size. At one point, she slowed it down and sang Summertime, joking, “us big girls got to take it easy.”

Maybe if this whole getting skinny thing doesn’t work out for me, I should consider changing my worldview.

Peace, out…

Susan

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Blather and Profound Notions, Passing Sweet Time

Hey Y’all From St. John

August 26, 2006 in Uncategorized

Okay…I was still there when I wrote this, but I couldn’t get it uploaded. Internet access in Paradise is not all that reliable…

Everybody has their favorite vacation spots. So far, St. John is my favorite place on the planet. Now, I’m willing to concede that there are an awful lot of places I haven’t been yet, but check this out…

This is the view of Cruz Bay from our room at Estate Lindholm. http://estatelindholm.com/

And this is Honeymoon beach.
Notice that there is no one else there. My favorite kind of beach…gorgeous, secluded, and mostly private. It’s one bay over from Caneel Bay, where folks with tons of money loll about being pampered within an inch of their lives. I’ll take Honeymoon and my own private cabana boy (who I am legally married to) any day of the week.

Anyway, the reason I’m blogging from vacation…well, two reasons, actually. I needed to get out of the sun for a while, and you’ll never believe who I ran into just the other afternoon… No, not Kenny Chesney…I understand he’s on tour. But, I myself have personally seen The Chicken Crossing The Road. In the act!!

Her name is Henny, and she was accompanied by her friend, Penny.

One thing about St. John, everyone here is so friendly. So I just walked right up and asked her. I said, “Ah, Henny, you would not believe the wild speculation and outlandish tales that circulate back in The States about why exactly you cross the road. I wonder if you might tell me, so I could pass it along, what exactly is your motivation?” And do you know what she said? (We should have known.)

She said, “Susan, Penny and I are out hunting for our mangy old pair of Roosters. They’re out bar hopping in Cruz Bay when they’re supposed to be back at the coop taking care of their honey-do lists. We just checked The Quiet Mon, and they’re not there. Now we’re headed on over to The Beach Bar, and we have to cross not one, but several roads to get there. When we find their sorry tail feathers, we’re going to pluck ’em and roast ’em over a spit…or maybe see if we can get Uncle Joe to barbeque their sorry hindquarters, although he generally is much more particular about his chicken.”

So there you have it…straight from the hen’s mouth… Like so many women throughout history, she crossed the road chasing a sorry rooster.

And just one final question…why is it that no one has ever asked why the donkey crossed the road? I have to tell you, it’s far more common down here!

Peace, out…

Susan

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Passing Sweet Time, Road Trip

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