85th & 40th Birthday Lime

My mom, Monica, turns 85 on October 17. My daughter, Keshia, turns 40 four days later, on October 21. That's a lot of birthday for one family, so we're throwing one big Bajan lime for both of them, and I want all my favourite people there.

The afternoon belongs to Mom. She's 85, daytime is her time, and she'll be holding court from the best chair in the house. The evening belongs to Keshia, and it will get louder as the sun goes down. Come for one, come for both, stay until midnight if you've got it in you.

Come enjoy good food, good drinks, good music and good people, for as long as the night lasts.

2 pm

Mom's afternoonThe lime begins. Sun, snacks and hugs for the birthday girl.

5:30 pm to 6 pm

Cake for MomGet here before the candles. You'll want to see her face.

Evening

Keshia's nightThe music goes up and we dance her into forty, until midnight.

When

Saturday, October 17, 2026, 2 pm to midnight. Cake for Mom from 5:30 pm to 6 pm.

Where

Kenmar
Brighton Crescent, Brandons
St. Michael, Bridgetown
Barbados, West Indies BB12051

Open the pin in Google Maps

What to bring

Your own booze, and a dish or two if you can. Salad, snacks, fish cakes, whatever works. I'll be making mac pie, the Bajan way, without an AI recipe.

Parking

Plenty of street parking. We're also one block from Stade's Rum Distillery, in case anyone runs short.

RSVP by October 15

Let me know you're coming, and what you're bringing, so we don't end up with twelve bowls of salad. RSVP here

Where we're liming

Welcome to Kenmar

We're staying at Kenmar, a massive 9,000 square foot, three-bedroom house less than a five-minute walk from Brighton Beach. Follow the sandy lane at the end of the road and the sea opens up in front of you, calm, clear, and warm enough to walk straight into. At sunset the sky goes pink and gold over the water, and after the cake has been cut, that's where some of you will find me.

Kenmar is one of my long-term clients' homes, and I manage it for them on Airbnb. So if you fall for it (you will), and you want your own Barbados holiday here, you know who to call.

See Kenmar on Airbnb Get directions

The Ken-Mar sign over the side porch — Ken-Mar

Map showing Kenmar a short walk from Brighton Beach — Kenmar, steps from Brighton Beach

Stade's Rum distillery building on Brighton Road — Stade's Rum, one block away

Get to know Monica

My mom, Monica

Mom was born and raised in Barbados, a Bajan girl through and through. In her early twenties she left the island with my dad for university in Green Bay, Wisconsin, trading sea breezes for snowbanks. She came home to Barbados to have me in the late sixties, and then she made the decision that shaped my whole life. The US felt too dangerous, so she chose Canada instead. I thank her for that every single day.

She landed in Montreal, then moved to Toronto a year later without my dad, who had moved on to "greener pastures." So she raised me on her own, which was not an easy thing to do in the 70's. For my first five years she home-schooled me the Bajan way, and by the time I started school I was so far ahead I skipped several grades. She took me everywhere, all over the US, Canada and the Caribbean, and gave me a travel bug I have never shaken.

For more than 30 years she drove autistic kids to school on a school bus, and I'd bet every one of them remembers her smile. When COVID hit, we ran to Barbados to wait it out. She moved in with her sister Sheilah, felt the island wrap itself back around her, and decided to stay.

My mom is one of the kindest, friendliest, happiest people I know, with a quiet strength of purpose that I inherited from her. I owe her everything. Eighty-five years of her deserves a party.

A little rum tasting

Monica with a happy birthday dessert plate — Birthday dessert, always

Monica with family outside a Spanish-style doorway

Get to know Keshia

My girl, my heart

Keshia arrived at 9:33 pm on October 21, 1986, and my doctor almost missed it because he was watching the World Series. (The Mets beat the Red Sox 7 to 1 that night. I like to think he was glad he came.)

She grew up in my home in Toronto and fell hard for basketball early. She was good enough to earn scholarships to several colleges, until an injury in her teens took the pro dream off the table. She never left the court, though. Keshia is a basketball referee now, called her first college game this September, and is training to become an NBA or WNBA ref. Watch this space.

What can I say about Keshia? This gal hustles. Nobody hustles more than her. She had a couple of corporate jobs, then walked away from that world to have her two kids, Janae and Keon, and she is simply an amazing mom. She's there for everything, and she has raised them to be conscientious, smart, respectful humans.

In many ways Keshia and I are more like sisters, and some days she's more like my mom. We've seen the world together. Disney in Orlando and Paris, Paris again for her 12th birthday, the south of France and Italy for her 16th, and Vegas for her 21st, her champagne birthday on the 21st. Barbados, Cartagena, Manhattan. She has worked in my business for years, flying across the continent with me to meet clients in San Francisco, and she still works with me today. She stood beside me as one of my bridesmaids when I got married in the Mayan Riviera.

I am so proud of who she's become, from a little girl into the woman and mother she is today. Forty looks good on her.