A lot of families I know have a vacation destination of choice to which they return annually. For my family, this hot spot is Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. North Myrtle, to be exact. This popular coastal locale is not exactly the Taj Mahal of beaches, but when my dad invested in a timeshare condo there twenty years ago it became our home away from home. Well, as homey as a one-bedroom condo the size of a walk-in closet can be. And I love it there. All two square feet of it.
Every significant person and place in our lives forms a unique colorful palette of memories in our brain. The colors on my Myrtle Beach palette, if blended together and brushed across the surface of an empty canvas by the hands of a skilled artist, would create for me a priceless portrait of the summers of my life.
Some of the most peaceful excerpts from my childhood, adolescence, college independence, married life, and parenthood lie within the walls of that condo and the invisible walls of that city.
Fifty-one weeks of the year I'm likely to subscribe to the notion that "Life is a bitch and then you die" but for that one week every year, the third week of July, my life truly is a beach.
Monday, July 12, 2010
Friday, July 9, 2010
Things I Believe In
1) Filling up my car with gas only after the gas light has been on long enough to require fervent prayer all the way to the gas station.
2) Waving to your neighbors. I know the Bible says to Love thy Neighbor. I'm not asking for all that. You ain't gotta love me. You don't have to give me eggs, butter, or baked goods either. Just raise one hand and kinda twitch it a little bit when you know I"m right in front of your face.
3) Picking up your dog's crap if it lands in my yard. Your dog is kinda cute.His poop, however, is not. It makes a mess when hit with the lawn mower and is gagalicious to wipe off of shoes or feet.
4)Publix cakes. I don't know who taught the head bakery mug how to bake, but daaaaaamn. That's some good eatin' right there.
5) Splurging for decent quality toilet paper & paper towels.
6) Huggies ability to leak and ruin children's clothing and beddding and anything else in its wake. I know some people swear by this brand but neither of my children's butts were too keen on being Huggied.
7)Not getting married if your private parts are ADHD and can't be comfortable in the same spot.
8) Tom Cruise's brainwashing ability.
9)Your personality extends to your hair follicles. I already know I never want to attempt to wax some of you guys.
10) Restricting leashes to dogs and sweaters to humans. If you are that worried about your kid getting lost, superglue them to your hip. It will look much less ridiculous, I swear. And the doggie sweater thing, that's just gay.
2) Waving to your neighbors. I know the Bible says to Love thy Neighbor. I'm not asking for all that. You ain't gotta love me. You don't have to give me eggs, butter, or baked goods either. Just raise one hand and kinda twitch it a little bit when you know I"m right in front of your face.
3) Picking up your dog's crap if it lands in my yard. Your dog is kinda cute.His poop, however, is not. It makes a mess when hit with the lawn mower and is gagalicious to wipe off of shoes or feet.
4)Publix cakes. I don't know who taught the head bakery mug how to bake, but daaaaaamn. That's some good eatin' right there.
5) Splurging for decent quality toilet paper & paper towels.
6) Huggies ability to leak and ruin children's clothing and beddding and anything else in its wake. I know some people swear by this brand but neither of my children's butts were too keen on being Huggied.
7)Not getting married if your private parts are ADHD and can't be comfortable in the same spot.
8) Tom Cruise's brainwashing ability.
9)Your personality extends to your hair follicles. I already know I never want to attempt to wax some of you guys.
10) Restricting leashes to dogs and sweaters to humans. If you are that worried about your kid getting lost, superglue them to your hip. It will look much less ridiculous, I swear. And the doggie sweater thing, that's just gay.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
I don't eat alone in restaurants. I just don't. I see men doing it more than women so perhaps it's more common on Mars than Venus. I always feel bad for people I see eating alone in restaurants and usually concoct weird scenarios in my head as to why they don't have a nibbling partner, when in reality I'm sure their story is not quite the country song I make it out to be.
So I don't eat alone, and I'm pretty spontaneous when it comes to food choices. Meaning if I'm out and hungry, I often don't decide where to stop until I see the restaurant sign. Which means I end up waiting a good 15-20 minutes for my order to be prepared.
Yesterday, I decided to be proactive. I considered all the dining options between my house and work and called ahead to a local Italian establishment. I drove eagerly toward my piping hot ravioli only to be greeted by a lethal combination of humans as I walked in the door: an old,old grandma customer attempting to pay for her carryout order + a brand spanking new employee behind the counter.
After the painstakingly slow-motion exchange of a handwritten check and a bag of food transpired between OOG and BSN boy, I approached the counter and told him my name. And then a look of sheer terror that only a BSN employee can muster crossed his face just before he sprinted around the counter, past me, and out the front door.
Grandma had my damn ravioli. And I did not want her cheeseburger. And I definitely did not want to sit there for 15-20 minutes waiting on BSN boy to get me some BSN ravioli. It was no surprise to me that BSN boy failed in his attempt to catch grandma. Don't let them fool you, hungry OOGs can hustle.
Hateful Boss Lady(who also happens to be the person who took my phone order) enters the scene at this time yelling at the kitchen to prepare a new ravioli STAT. Then she redirects her wrath to BSN, lecturing him about the importance of always getting the customer's phone number. The entire time she is scolding this poor kid I am biting my tongue and dying to scream "POT!!!!!" as she in fact did not ask for my phone number just 15 minutes earlier.
She finally walked away and I divulged this little secret to BSN which made him smile. At the exact moment he smiled, the bell on the front door chimed and we were all pleasantly surprised by the Return of OOG. She felt compelled to state the obvious: "This is not a cheeseburger." And we all nodded and smiled in the manner reserved only for the really old or the really special, and I found myself resisting the urge to yank the bag from her hands and perform my own disappearing act.
But I just smiled and waited, and waited some more because patience is a virtue. And in this case, a virtue that resulted in a free piece of tiramisu. :)
So I don't eat alone, and I'm pretty spontaneous when it comes to food choices. Meaning if I'm out and hungry, I often don't decide where to stop until I see the restaurant sign. Which means I end up waiting a good 15-20 minutes for my order to be prepared.
Yesterday, I decided to be proactive. I considered all the dining options between my house and work and called ahead to a local Italian establishment. I drove eagerly toward my piping hot ravioli only to be greeted by a lethal combination of humans as I walked in the door: an old,old grandma customer attempting to pay for her carryout order + a brand spanking new employee behind the counter.
After the painstakingly slow-motion exchange of a handwritten check and a bag of food transpired between OOG and BSN boy, I approached the counter and told him my name. And then a look of sheer terror that only a BSN employee can muster crossed his face just before he sprinted around the counter, past me, and out the front door.
Grandma had my damn ravioli. And I did not want her cheeseburger. And I definitely did not want to sit there for 15-20 minutes waiting on BSN boy to get me some BSN ravioli. It was no surprise to me that BSN boy failed in his attempt to catch grandma. Don't let them fool you, hungry OOGs can hustle.
Hateful Boss Lady(who also happens to be the person who took my phone order) enters the scene at this time yelling at the kitchen to prepare a new ravioli STAT. Then she redirects her wrath to BSN, lecturing him about the importance of always getting the customer's phone number. The entire time she is scolding this poor kid I am biting my tongue and dying to scream "POT!!!!!" as she in fact did not ask for my phone number just 15 minutes earlier.
She finally walked away and I divulged this little secret to BSN which made him smile. At the exact moment he smiled, the bell on the front door chimed and we were all pleasantly surprised by the Return of OOG. She felt compelled to state the obvious: "This is not a cheeseburger." And we all nodded and smiled in the manner reserved only for the really old or the really special, and I found myself resisting the urge to yank the bag from her hands and perform my own disappearing act.
But I just smiled and waited, and waited some more because patience is a virtue. And in this case, a virtue that resulted in a free piece of tiramisu. :)
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Tiramisu Talk
I capture pretty much every detail of my children's lives on film. I am not an anal person by nature, but I bore along with my kids an uncontrollable obsession to zoom in, focus, and click on the defining (and not so defining) moments of their existence.
What I am lacking in the realm of analdom, I make up for in the world of randomness. I have my share of quirks, and God sprinkles more than a heaping helping of random occurences into my daily life. When quirky and random collide, God's sense of humor becomes almost tangible to me and I feel an overwhelming urge to capture it in writing. I like to create a verbal snapshot, if you will, of all the things you would never believe could happen to one person.
I fell out of writing for a bit, but this official Blogger blog is my attempt to fall back in. And it was all inspired by a free piece of tiramisu I scored earlier today.
Now that I've sucked you in with my tease of lady fingers soaked in espresso, you'll have to wait until tomorrow to hear the story. I just wanted those who care to know that this blog is here.
What I am lacking in the realm of analdom, I make up for in the world of randomness. I have my share of quirks, and God sprinkles more than a heaping helping of random occurences into my daily life. When quirky and random collide, God's sense of humor becomes almost tangible to me and I feel an overwhelming urge to capture it in writing. I like to create a verbal snapshot, if you will, of all the things you would never believe could happen to one person.
I fell out of writing for a bit, but this official Blogger blog is my attempt to fall back in. And it was all inspired by a free piece of tiramisu I scored earlier today.
Now that I've sucked you in with my tease of lady fingers soaked in espresso, you'll have to wait until tomorrow to hear the story. I just wanted those who care to know that this blog is here.
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