Somewhere a Child is Crying

Greetings from Memorial Day at The Beach. Cars packed into every driveway, pool yard door alarms screeching, and somewhere (everywhere--restaurants, grocery stores, gas stations) a child is crying. So far, on the cusp of High Season, it's the crying that's most indicative of a big change, but right on its heels is how damn long it takes to turn left out of the SRB compound.

While the previous week was spent hanging with the houseguests, this past week found us Going Out nearly every day, and enjoying Adventures in Dining much more frequently than usual (at the same time as we're stoically eating up the leftovers in the fridge): Shorty's finally opened (and the food was great and Henry a slightly flappable host); we met up with Charlie, Susan, Diane and Billye at Carrabba's for a farewell-to-Billye gathering (the party was entertaining, but the food--yeccchhhh!); on our way to Panama City to pick up bagels for Susan and us, we hit Liza's Kitchen again (reliably yummy); and on Saturday, tho it was raining so hard the farmer's markets were all deserted, Cafe Bouchee in Seagrove (site of the old Yanni's Seafood Grill) was open and we had a terrific breakfast (S especially enjoyed her fried egg BLT).

For the first time at the beach, we took Squeak to the vet for her yearly shots--and guess what? Appointments are required! For twenty years in T'oosa, we just showed up at the vet's office and waited until our cat's name was called, enjoying the parade of labs and pekes and turtles and kittens, but those days are clearly over. Meanwhile, poor ol' Squeak seems to have become a flea hotel, and none of the over-the-counter meds are doing squat for the situation. Aiiyyy. A properly scheduled appointment has been set for Wednesday. Stay tuned. In addition to the indignity of being shown the door, as S backed up the Rav, she managed to crease a rear fender on a fencepost. Bleh.

Perhaps more distressing was the effect of the weather on the local environs: huge wind blew a dead tree in Topsail Park (down the road, site of the Earth Day festival) onto a power line and started a fire that burned 100+ acres over the course of three days. It wasn't until Saturday's downpour that all the little smoldering zones gave up the ghost. And conditions have seemd ripe for garden pests as well: this week we've been on high alert, tracking the ravenous hornworm. It's not clear yet whether we'll emerge victorious.



We did, however eat our first homegrown tomato--and was it ever sweet! Plus check out the eggplant in the wings . . .


In other news, Wii contagion spreads: Vonceil called to report that she left here last weekend and bought herself a game!

Product of Arthur Meyerhoff

The annual May reunion of our buds sported all the usual activities and some amazing new ones, the first of which was a spate of crabbing brought on by one mean sucker nipping Mikey on a toe. Since there were crabs to be netted, netted they were (at first with neighbors Karen & Phil's nets)--and then boiled up in sea water and picked to pieces at the kitchen table. YUM! Natch, we are now equipped with all the appropriate gear and man o man, do we have plans to use it! (Interestingly, other Sunrise Beach folks have never imagined these "relatives of blue crabs" fit for consumption and were very curious as to our methods of preparation and the outcome. Go figure.)

Recalitrant bugger . . .

We revived the bi-annual jigsaw puzzle routine, working our way back into it with an easy 750-piecer whomped up in record time. All hail Scott, our project manager! The usual roster of games was played: mah jongg, our no-limit poker tourney, limit poker, rummy-o!, with a little spite & malice (thank -you Kathryn!) on the side.

Speaking of Smackenz, not only did he win at jongg for the first time in many years, he also produced an incredibly winning paella. Other culinary highlights included Dr. Boo Boo's African wings, Mikey's gorgeous gazpacho, Joely's fabulous filets mignon (and hallucination-inducing maytag dressing), Sandy's piquant pozole, dukka with avacado oil ported all the way from New Zealand, Dude's darling angel food cake, and E's frozen confections, including a dark chocolate ice cream and pina colada popsicles. Libations were plentiful and seemed to involve the letter M: moscow mules, maragaritas and maitais--complete with umbrellas! Not to mention a jeraboam or two's worth of champagne. Before we were all assembled, 5 of us had Sunday Brunch at Fire, a nice little fine dining place in Grayton Beach: everybody liked his or her food, and everybody LOVED Scott's order of BBQ sammie, so this is a definite Do Again!

Dee took this pic of Scott's Triumph


JB gets credit for this shot of our main barkeep


Boys have their toys, and Mikey got his in the water with an assist from Dee & Scott and Squeaky. Poor old Sharkie had to help him haul it all the way back on her own!



Nothing came of all these clouds, at least not locally, but their roiling was mesmerizing. Tip o' the porkpie to JB for these pix:

The newest addition to B-A-R toys, Wii, provided hours of cheering, screeching, swearing and record-breaking acitivity. Our guests left with claims to all the top spots. You can see from these pix that the weather was, by and large, sunny & bright, but so heady are the Wii Fit challenges that hours would sometimes go by before folks remembered to go outside!

Joel at the camera again, above.

The week of crazy fun included making plans for VancouverCon 2010 and closed with not just the departure of our longtime friends, but of Karen & Phil, off for 4 months at Spider Lake in northern Michigan. Thus we are the recipient of their Miracle Whip and seasoning bacon AND a pair of hanging pots of geraniums--a version of the traveling mums come round again. We will miss them but are already having fun spying on their renters! In the past couple of days, E has eaten two of our home grown cherry tomatoes and we've enjoyed a short sweet visit from Vonceil.

Hurricane Season in the Wings

Marty Gilbert, an "ireporter" for CNN, captured this video of a mesocyclone somewhere very near here and we watched it on TV:

Two Times Lucky

Last Sunday we made a quick dash to Biloxi so we could get away one last time before Squeaky's attendants, Karen & Phil, take off for Michigan, not to return again until October. Good news on a number of fronts this trip: 1) Squeaky did NOT hiss at Karen! 2) we stayed at the IP (Charlie & Susan's fave) for the first time and liked it a lot and will not EVER return to the Beau Rivage. 3) E had excellent luck, first winning a drawing (with a mere 4 tickets in a drum that held thousands) and then parlaying the free play winnings into $1500.00, hitting $1000 on the dollar Wheel of Fortune machine. 4) S had good enough luck to come home only $200 in the red, so that over all, we made a tidy profit.

It didn't take us more than a couple of days, however, to dispose of the cash. In honor of our impending guests and continuing S's work at reclaiming the front of the house, we hired Ronald and his helpers Debi & Brent to rip up the floorboards and risers of the porch and replace them with Trex. Now no one will ever have to paint that sorry mess again! And Barefoot Lawncare came by to plant jasmine near just about every fencepost and picket so that by the time those suckers need painting again they'll be draped in evergreenery.

On the way home from MS, we stopped at a nursery outside of Pensacola and found some more tomato plants (and some eggplants too). And a trip to a local nursery netted us some pretty posies for the pots in the back yard. Amazingly, the nasty yellow-leaf-curl-virus tomato plants we've had a while are still setting fruit. Supposedly they will continue to do so if we can overlook their vile rotten aspects and let them live . . .

Otherwise, we're just hanging out and trying to empty the fridge and freezer in anticipation of the upcoming visit from Dee, Scott, Harold, Petra, Wendy & Joel--soon!