Yeah, I’m just trading in the song lyric related cliches lately. Sorry. I know people come up here for the non-cliche related premium original content or whatever. Or I don’t know. People come up here to look at the photos. Or because some search engine for “car eyelash” or “lower uncton” lead them here. Well, anyway, however you were led here, you are here now and yes, we have another song lyric as a title. A Death Cab for Cutie song lyric to boot.

Now let me explain as an aside here. Since about the age of 14, I have, no matter what, feigned dislike for whatever was “cool.” When I was 14, the New Kids on the Block were cool, so pretending I didn’t like that wasn’t difficult. Anyway, Death Cab for Cutie was popular a few years ago and I remember the song and I liked it, but I would never publicly admit that. Anyway, since now its been a few years since the song was popular, I was like it as a vintage kind of a cool. Oh who cares. I like the song and I used it as a title. If you have read down this far, you are a friend and will stick it out until I make an actual point.

Which is here. A couple of days ago, I visited the place that I would move to immediately if it were possible. I mean it is definitely in the top three of places I’d live if I could. Number one being a ski resort, number two, a palazzo in Florence and number three, George’s Island in Boston harbor. A magnificent green filled place that always amazes.

On Friday, it really amazed. The island was covered in a fog that had an actual smell to it, kind of like the air after a rainstorm. The fog covered part of the island and created a new atmosphere to the place and while I was there, it was silent, save for the horn of a distant light house. It was a good place to think as well.

I recently experienced the loss of a person to whom I have been close my entire life, a friend of the family who was like an uncle to me. In some strange way, I thought the fog was kind of like his soul leaving the earth. Soul meets body, soul leaves body.

Heavy stuff.

Anyway, happier times. Pictures:

Yeah, I went to a lame Billy Joel lyric for the title. Forgive me. I’m a New Yorker (transplanted Bostonian) but at the core a New Yorker and we’ve all had our Billy Joel moments.

Today I went to a graduation at Boston University for a friend’s sister. It was a long ceremony so I had a lot of time to think about how many times I’ve sat in the same circumstances. My first graduation was the one from sixth grade. Then I went to a graduation in 1994 for the class graduating before mine a year later. Oops, revealed my age. Anyway, that was the graduation when I heard the Billy Joel song in the title. Yeah, I guess it is a really on the nose graduation song, but somehow it fit that moment. Somehow Billy Joel fit that mid-1990s suburban New York environment I was in.

The next graduation I attended was my graduation from high school. I guess I was kind of disappointed that they didn’t play the Billy Joel song. It was kind of cold and our graduation speaker was an insurance salesman from Ohio. God love you Doug Ahrenberg, wherever you are. I’d been ready for high school to be over since day one of junior high school. The class will left me a smile, so I flashed a big one that day.

After that I had my college graduation and I was pretty happy at that one. I had plans (some of which worked out and others that did not) but it was a happy graduation. My parents said a guy kept yelling out “Raoul” next to them the whole time. Generally it was a good time. They played Green Day’s “Time of Your Life” at the ceremony. Now at the time Green Day was kind of this stoner band and them playing it at the graduation was kind of crazy and radical. Now I guess it is standard graduation fare.

Next up, I had my graduation from graduate school one. That was a hard one because I was quite upset that I had finished graduate school one without actually figuring out what I wanted to do with my life. Nobody played any good songs at that one and not the Billy Joel one. The day was the hottest on record and there were three hours of speeches and convocations and conferments and other big words.

I thought about all of these today. I thought about how similar they all were in how the speakers always wish the graduates best of luck with their lives, warn them that failures lie ahead and to pursue their passions. I guess I’m at the point now when I can actually judge if what graduation speakers say is actually going to happen. I mean I guess it is trivial, being that most people forget what they say a day after they say it. Or more accurately, an hour. I sat today and thought “yeah, figure out what you love. God, that takes a long time.” Failure. Ah, failure. Welcome that into your life. You will fail repeatedly, many times in many arenas, but somehow you will stay alive and keep going.

Like I said, the ceremony was long and I guess I had a lot of time to think. My own graduation from graduate school two is coming up in six months. I’m not sure if I am going to even go but an even bigger question is what am I going to do after? I had thought it was all laid out for me before I started. College instructor position for the next 100 years and then retirement but now I am thinking differently and have different plans. Or at least some kind of nebulous ideas of different plans. I guess that is something else for those graduation speakers. Life will take unbelievable twists and turns. But you’ll survive.

Congratulations class of 2015. These are the times to remember and I hope you had the time of your life. HA. Two song lyrics. And they say there aren’t any original ideas left in the world.

Let’s celebrate with our graduates:

Yeah, I actually wrote those words. I’m contributing to the downfall of English.

Oh well.

Anyway, in an effort to cover as many cliches as possible in this entry, I am going to post a photo of a sunset. I realize that people photograph sunsets constantly on Instagram, again contributing to the downfall of Western civilization.

Wave goodbye to Western civilization:

But they should be. I mean look at this green darling:

I’m a connoisseur of all kinds of things. To boil this down easily, I’d say I was a connoisseur of images. One image in my mind connects to another image and a new image is born. When I was in South America, the images that floated into my mind were all of those magnificent movies I watched about the continent. Somehow, in the Cayman Islands, I was reminded of all of these sandy, island images I had seen. I guess it is pretty obvious because that is what the Cayman Islands are.

One image or group of images in particular stuck in my mind when I was there. Hold on because the connection in tenuous. I love old cheesy ads and in the 1980s, there was an ad for a perfume called “White Diamonds” by Elizabeth Taylor. It was a short ad but it was one of those things a kid watches and thinks of how glamorous the life of an adult must be. Oh how wrong I was… Anyway, this image has always stuck with me. If you can’t remember the image, pop it into google. You will make the connection between the images there and the image I will put here in a minute:

Yeah, I mean I did see some land during my trip. I mean there is land under the iguanas, of course but it is true that I spent a lot of time in the water.

Now let’s have a short aside about the water in the Cayman Islands. Let me wax philosophical about it here for a second. It is the greatest thing on earth. It is Mad Men premiere day, perfect slope black diamond, chicken and waffles, empty green line levels of damn perfection. It is always warm and always clear. And full of views. Swimming is fun. Swimming with views is fun-ner. I wear my snorkeling mask and generally keep my head under the water forever. I’d prefer the water. The dry land is kind of scary these days.

Anyway, so the views I experienced included fish and plenty of them. The next door, the “enemy” resort to my beloved Reef Resort is the Morrits Resort. I mean it isn’t the enemy or anything but it is that feeling when you take another green line. It looks almost like what you know but just a tiny little bit different.

Morrits is consistently full of fish. The Reef always has some under their pier but the Morrits always full of fish. And there is some kind of weird fish hierarchy where the “bosses” stay below and the newbies stay near the top. And the bosses look like all bosses — unhappy.

I like to call this one “fish staff meeting.” An inspired title, I know:

The Cayman Island is home to a wonderful place called Sting Ray City. It is an area of shallow water where stingrays swim over to you if you are holding calamari. If you aren’t, they don’t care about you. You are just an annoying pair of legs in the water and who cares.

The place was made famous in this lovely photo that went viral:

This woman is scared for no reason. The rays are like giant wet mushrooms who as I said, could care less about you unless you are a calamari. However, I don’t really like when they touch me because they feel like slimy mushrooms. There were people there who were out of control scared of the rays and people who were feeding them and trying to hold on to them for photos. It is all in good fun the trip. I’ve gone there a couple of times with my family and there is a lovely man from Trinidad and Tobago who takes us and smiles and laughs and tells jokes the whole time. More importantly, he brings food for the rays, so they love him.

The rays come for the food. And when the food ends, the show is over. Off they go to be stingrays again:

Every trip to the Cayman Islands includes a visit to my old friends, the blue iguanas. These ancient animals only live in the Cayman Islands and congregate around the Queen Elizabeth II Botanical Garden. They do kind of behave like the queen too. They come and go as they please and they bite if you get too close to them. Just like the monarch. And they are ancient too!!! Just kidding. I love Queen Elizabeth. Please royalists hold your commentary.

Anyway, so the day I visited I only saw one blue iguana. Usually there are about four of them wandering around, sunning themselves and generally ignoring everyone. I spoke to a man who worked in the garden who told me a tale of woe about the blue iguanas. A couple of days earlier, there had been a storm in the Cayman Islands and a cold snap had followed. I mean the mercury may have gone down to a positively freezing 80 degrees, so the critters had gone into hiding. How could they do this? The “cold” had driven them underground and they wouldn’t be coming out for a while. I told the man in the botanical garden that the critters should have visited in Boston in February and felt a real cold snap. He just laughed and threw the iguana another piece of celery to chew on.

Oh well.

Blue iguana days ahead for us all:

Oh no. I split the infinitive!!! The grammar police are coming to get me. Quick fish, hide me!!!: