summer in the south, part two.

having lately returned from a long weekend at the beach in coastal south carolina, it's funny how much i've forgotten about summer in coastal south carolina.

1. sand flies on the beach. they are terrible little buggers with fierce bites, the kind of bites that draw blood and cause grown men to cry. nothing keeps them at bay - not skin so soft, not deet, not lighting yourself afire. they are evil, truly.

2. it never fails, all these many years, that on the beach, i am a magnet for families with children. no matter where i set up camp - and i can walk hours on the beach until i get to a spot sans people of anykind - within moments of settling in, families with children suddenly appear. And the families generally have children who love to do thinks like run past me at high speed, effectively coating me in sand. Or, when I sit in the surf, book in hand, gather right in front of me to splash about or search for shells. My theory, of course, is that harried parents with lots of kids can't stand to see childless people enjoying a nice afternoon of reading, napping, or relaxing in sand and surf and must do anything they can to spoil the reading, napping, or relaxing since they can't. hmph.

3. there is lately an abundance of pink and green in the dresses/shorts/bathing suits/beach coverups/jackets on the beach. it's very much like 1984 redux. remember the preppy handbook? the lifestyle is alive and well on the southeastern shore.

4. despite number 3, i can't help but want a couple lily pulitzer dresses whenever i'm home. seriously. and, yes, i understand how sad this is.

5. aside from lounging on the beach, nothing beats lounging in a hammock, reading a book in the early evening breeze.

6. atalaya, atalaya, atalaya - without a doubt, the most beautiful place in south carolina.

7. and who could forget the fabulous coppertone girl-type tan i acquire when i'm at the beach? oh, wait. that never happens. okay, who could forget the lovely pinkesque color i tend to take on, despite an SPF of 30? i like to think of it as sunkissed, as in 'oh, my, lynda looks so healthy and sunkissed after four days at the beach!' not 'girl, you are burned.' sadly, i promised vegan no. 2 tan lines. i'm not sure what i have constitutes actual tan lines - more like 'slight variation in skin tone' lines.

vegan hummus.

at the local whole foods/wild oats, in the deli, is a large bowl of hummus with a sign proclaiming: Vegan Hummus!

but, if i'm not mistaken, isn't all hummus vegan? i'm fairly certain that eggs or cheese or, you know, steak, doesn't normally show up in hummus.

signs of summer in the south.

1. the return of fleas. gross.
2. the return of humidity.
3. sunflowers popping up.
4. farmers market.
5. lots of white wine with friends.
6. bug bites.
7. a beach trip.


1. fleas. they're incredible down here. seriously. we've been taken over. i spent a fair amount of time at the best pet store in memphis, pet star. the dudes there have lots of tattoos and hair, and they love them some talk about fleas and what to do about them. i heart them.

2. humidity. one morning last week i opened the door leading from the house to the porch and was hit by a wall of humidity. as i gasped for breath and wiped the sweat from my eyes, i realized something truly horrifying: it's not even august yet.

3. sunflowers. okay, maybe these aren't such a southern thing, but two of my sunflowers sprung up. and the weird people that the street who have turned their entire front yard into a veggie/flower garden? well, they're now not so weird in my book. they've got zillions of sunflowers in bloom.

4. farmers market. the memphis market is pretty kick ass. and huge. it's doubled in size since last summer. this past weekend i picked up lovely looking squash, two beautiful tomatoes (one red, one orange), a jalapeno, some fresh bread, farm fresh eggs, and a cuke. yep, summertime fresh fruit and veggies are the best. especially when you can buy them local and/or organic.

5. it's been a summer of white wine, i'm most happy to report.

6. bug bites. mosquito bites, check. weird random bites i can't identify, check. spider bites, most likely check. i have a freakish looking bite on my left pinky. betsy looked at it yesterday and said 'i sure hope that's not a brown recluse bite.' and i said 'oh, god, do you think so?' so of course i googled brown recluse bites to, you know, compare my bite to those. the good news: it's not a brown recluse bite. my finger would have swelled and burst by now. the bad news: i am scarred for life by the images i saw. anytime something needs to be lanced and drained, you know it's bad. especially when is swells to five times the normal size and causes unbearable pain. google it yourself, but you've so been forewarned. gross, gross, gross.

7. this weekend i'm heading to the beach - it's been almost a year. criminal, i know. i heart the beach. lastenia is coming, too. yay! sand, surf, friends, family...what more could a girl ask for? well, okay. there's obviously more, but you know. let's not be greedy.

surely this is a sign of...something.

yesterday i stopped at the local coffee shop with the worst name ever (cafe eclectic. for reals? could there be a worse name for a coffee shop? for anything?). i ordered a cafe au lait to go (kudos to the barista girl who said 'oh, sure! so medium? large?' i was totally on my way to ordering a small, but totally bought into her friendly-push-sell and got the medium). 

but i digress.

on my way into the local coffee shop with the worst name ever, i passed a priest. he was coming out, coffee in hand. as soon as i saw him, i went all 'eek' and totally refused to make eye contact. i mean, what's that all about?

but in amazing news, guess where i just came in from? belly dancing class. for real. and it was fun (save for the part on the info. sheet that said 'please refrain from bringing kids' ---- okay, so that isn't the part that bothered me ---- 'because it's often the one time a week our moms and wives in class get away from their kids and husbands.' oh, right...because we're all married. with children. of course). 

frankly, odd.

grr. i just lost this post! sigh. the bane of modern technology.

so. i opened my email this morning to find a new product available on flight oo1. i'm always happy for products designed to make travel somewhat easier and me less gummy upon arrival to my destination. at first glance, these new products seem pretty awesome in the 'refresh me upon arrival' department ... until you read the part about also being good for .... cleaning your cell phone ...and 'other personal gadgets'...uhm, eww!

southern gothic.

yesterday i visited sherry at the house where she is currently house/dog sitting. the dogs are great - a boxer and a bouvier des flanders. cutest. dogs. ever. especially the bouvier. she's a sweetheart. 

the house? straight up southern gothic of the very best kind. huge. brick. lots of wrought iron. tons of gardens with little wrought iron gates and fences and paths. fabulous built-ins. huge windows. ancient wallpaper. tons of books and art (she is involved with the orchestra, he is an art dealer/historian). not one wine cellar, but two! a french-country kitchen. and, in the back, past the yard, before and surrounded by the gardens, a pool. totally the setting for...something. i'd hoped to go swimming today, but alas had other plans. c'est la vie. the one weekend we have pool access and i have other plans.

but i digress.

this house is so beautiful, especially the library, where there is a marble floor in black and while, heavy curtains, a haunting painting of a haunted looking young lady. 

i don't think i could spend a night there. it would be much too creepy. but, oh, so lovely, too. 

oh joy.

so friday my computer and boxed up office belongings (a scant two boxes' worth, thank you very much) were moved to my new space with my new team. tomorrow the new position begins and i am so very happy. 

if i'd have heard my now-former-supervisor say one more time, with obvious joy & glee, 'i'm old enough to be everyone's mom here! i'm like the surrogate mom here!' i would have enacted a smack down. seriously. uhm, feeling bad you're back at work and not home with you annoying children? don't take it out on your coworkers. we don't want a mother a work. it's insulting. seriously. at my going away lunch friday, i finally told her that she probably thought i was younger than she thought i was. she looked at my blankly with her mouth in a perfect 'o.' yes, i said, if you were really old enough to be my mother, you'd have had me in your teens. 'o' her mouth continued to say. i'm almost xxxx, said i. the 'o' stayed put and she blinked like a deer in the headlights. 'oh, gosh,' she finally said. 'i guess i would have been in my teens!' 

garghh! she so doesn't get it. i'm glad i don't have to hear it anymore. 

onto brighter things. new position with new team starts tomorrow. yay. no mothering there, that's for sure.

the person who annoyed me most this weekend.

vegan no. 2 and i, along with the fabulous betsy,  stopped by a coworker's pseudo-hipster garage sale this weekend. when said coworker came up to say hi, i introduced vegan no. 2.

'oh,' said coworker. 'do you live in memphis?'

'no,' vegan no. 2 replied. 'i'm in from oklahoma.'

'i see,' the coworker said. 'so this is an internet thing?'

okay, in his defense, i'm sure the coworker doesn't know about the grad school friend betsy and i had who married someone she met online and, well, was killed by him before he killed himself.  if you know me at all, you know i would never, ever date online. ever. not only do i think it's scary and frightening (see example), but i can't help but think it's a level of desperation i won't ever possess. 

but i digress.

said me icily to said coworker, 'uhm, no. we've been friends for quite some time. we met in the tundra.'

grr. 

summertime, part two.

vegan no. 2 visited this past weekend. it was a lovely visit, a lovely time. i heart vegan no. 2! aside from the wonderfulness of seeing him again, we totally played tourists in ye old memphis and i attempted to make a gourmet-like vegan dinner. i chose this recipe from vegan yum yum and i have to say, it was a good effort. cooking with tofu is certainly not my forte (yet), but i think the dinner turned out fairly well. [as an aside: i decided to use mostly spinach and just a tick of kale and am v. happy i did. turns out kale isn't a particular favorite of mine]

as for vegan no. 2's visit, what didn't we do? we went to the national civil rights museum. it is awesome, incredible, overwhelming, depressing, amazing. we went to graceland, saw the prices to tour the mansion, and decided not to go past the gates and into the mansion. we did, however, visit several of the gift shops. graceland is lousy with gift shops. we ate vegan-friendly meals out. we listened to live music and drank at dive bars. we took zoe and angus bean for a long walk. in short, we had a fine time.

upon his arrival back in oklahoma, he wrote: 'two minutes after crossing into oklahoma, i saw a dead border collie along the roadside and it started to rain. i was not surprised.'

that's the kind of thing that makes a girl swoon.

best slogan ever.

so on saturday, at the local coffee shop, one of the baristas sported a t-shirt with the best slogan ever:

an awkward morning
beats a boring night

love!

summertime.

various summertime fun includes drinking wine outside; celebrating my new job - the offer was made wednesday and i start june 30. yay!; a visit from vegan #2, this coming weekend; and sun. lots and lots of sun, whether you want it or not.

summer is squarely here, though i suppose technically it's still 13 days away. i think overnight it maybe, maybe, got down to 80. saturday afternoon at softball practice is was hot, terribly hot. we soldiered on. i turned pink, as i am wont to do in the heat and sun. it generally tones down.

but generally.

not saturday. i radiated heat all night long. at brunch yesterday, someone exclaimed, loudly (louder than necessary, really), "girl, you are burned!" and i could not argue. it was the kind of sunburn i got years and years ago, when tanning sans sunblock was all the rage (thanks, 1980s).

and speaking of the 1980s, we revisited valley girl on friday night. the highlights:

• nicholas cage's eagle-shaped chest hair!
• the soundtrack - hello the Plimsouls and Josie Cotton!
  
• the clothes - tight jeans, skinny headbands worn on foreheads, stripes!
  
• the vocab - like totally for sure! gag me!
  

and, sadly, those highlights? totally the lowlights, too. here, the tag lines:

• She's cool. He's hot. She's from the Valley. He's not.
• Life in the valley: Hair, clothes, and attitude.

the original snark.

i'm reading the portable dorothy parker and am much in love. to wit:

little words
when you are gone, there is nor bloom nor leaf,
nor singing sea at night, nor silver birds;
and i can only stare, and shape my grief
in little words

i cannot conjure loveliness, to drown
the bitter woe that racks my cords apart.
the weary pen that sets my sorrow down
feeds at my heart.

there is no mercy in the shifting year,
no beauty wraps me tenderly about.
i turn to little words - so you, my dear,
can spell them out.