The Average Blogger

Number Nine...

Nine years ago, Not Your Average Blogger and I took the day off work to go kill some time in a hospital, and we emerged with a brand new boychild.

For the most part, I think we've done a pretty good job on the upkeep.  A few scratches, a few dents, but the Young Prince is still running great.

(Hmmm.  Wearing the same sweatshirt as last year, I think.  Or we are dreadfully uninspired in the clothing arena...)

As if the universe knew I was going to write about him today, a bunch of material came home from school yesterday.  He got all As and Bs during this grading period.  He took a bunch of standardized tests and the results came back that he's an ace reader and reasonably good at "nonverbal reasoning" -- what NYAB refers to as "FSO" tests. Also not surprising, his math scores were pretty abysmal -- but even this isn't necessarily cause for dismay -- there were 60 problems and he finished 30. Of those 30, he got 29 right.

So I suspect this score is actually yet another chorus in the "Dude, pay ATTENTION!" song. He CAN add and subtract, he just DOESN'T.  I also suspect that many of the B grades he got could have been A's for the same reason. I continue to believe that once he finally figures out that These Things Matter, he'll start acting like they do. Now it's up to me to figure out how to make them matter in the micro, so he'll be equipped for the macro.

He also brought home a note alerting us that his bus driver had died over the weekend, possibly (although I can't verify this,) preceded by some mishap at the school last week. ("He fell and had to go to the hospital, and the buses left late," Thomas said. I don't know if this means the man died because he fell, or fell because he was dying, or the two were completely unrelated.) In any event, this was a bit more complicated than grades, needless to say.  The YP was quite fond of this man apparently.  The guy used to call him by a different sci-fi name every day when he'd get on the bus, and those of you who know anything about the YP can imagine what this meant to him. So this is a note of sad growing-up-ness in a week of birthday celebration.

And yet, the kid still loves his Captain America gear. And his Tron shirt. Well, yeah. 

Last weekend, obviously, was gifts.  The haul included the above, along with a Kindle Fire, assorted Tron items and videogames. This weekend, NeighborGirl is home, so we are making a day of it and going to Steak and Shake, then to see Star Wars in 3D.  That pod race should be something else.  We are all quite excited. And if I'm lucky, I'll finally get a few decent photos of the kid where he isn't "posing" with ridiculous Steve Perry-esque facial expressions.

Happy birthday, YP.  I'm gratified that I will (probably) still be taller than you when you turn 10.

 

It's an Honor Just Being Nominated

Well, it would be.  I don't recall ever being nominated for anything, come to think of it. 

But! I was contacted regarding my interest in applying for change of venue, workwise.  I am equal parts gratified and horrified that I have priced myself out of certain markets.  I'm sure my boss feels the same way.

The Young Prince is taking an active interest in the political primaries, and for about five minutes there he was all fired up about SOPA and PIPA.  I'm not sure where this sudden civic interest originated, but it has led to some interesting dinner table chat.

The other kid excitement was we went to see all his old pals in the second show of the kid-theater season, which was Annie.  I like the show, I grew up listening to the record and it's amazing how many of the lyrics were still stuck in my brain. It was a well-done production, much better quality than the first one.  Will be interesting to see what they do with the third one.

And because the silly boy can't stand not having an audience even when he's in the audience, at one point in the play Daddy Warbucks mentions "Babe Ruth is the right-fielder for the New York Yankees,"  and my kid hollers out "Boo!"  from his seat dead center in the last row of the auditorium.  Not Your Average Blogger high-fived the kid. A big help he is.  I desperately tried to sink through my chair, face in my hands, while surreptitiously counting how many mothers of kids on stage whipped their heads around to glare at us. To his credit, the kid appeared to realize he'd been a bit too loud, as he too sank down in his chair and asked if he should leave.  

In other news, I finished the rough draft of my second book.  After setting myself a limited word count and still coming in 4,000 words long, my friend in publishing says it's too short. The good news is I know what I need to add and I know how much to add, so I still  might have it into a solid Real First Draft before March.

That, or I'll temporarily ditch the fixes and instead start on a third book I've got banging around in my brain. I can get back to rewrites when Outburst Fever has run its course.

Tomorrow the great agent quest begins for my first effort.  365 agents in 365 days. I polished my query again, and picked 20 recipients.  That'll get me through Presidents Day, which should give me time to find the next 20.  

The kid's birthday is next week. Nine years. Good lord. All that attention-sucking aside, we are doing something right, because he has asked to be taken to Steak and Shake for his birthday dinner.  Happy to oblige!

Odds and Ends

Because it is winter and we are, for the most part, in hibernation mode and just watching endless hours of television (Downton Abbey, Justified, Arrested Development), I don't have a lot to report.  Work continues to be work.  School seems to be proceeding apace -- at least, I haven't gotten any reports to the contrary from the Powers That Be and the kid keeps bringing home papers with A's on them, so I'll assume all is well.

By the end of last week, I suspect I had several people ready to call the SPCA on me.  First, I complained on Facebook that Miss Amy Pond barks like mad when we crate her up for the night.  Now, yes, we could just not crate her, but there are issues with that.  We have to shut off the downstairs to enclose our cats, one of which has a terrible penchant for peeing on our upstairs rugs.  If we close Amy down there with them, no only will she go bonkers chasing them around all night, but she's also a chewer and there's no telling what our house would look like in the morning.    If we let her sack out with us upstairs, that means I have to get her up and outside and fed at 4 a.m. -- and she is not a quiet child.  She is high-energy, and upon being let off the leash is about as likely to follow me downstairs as she is likely to jump on the bed and attack my sleeping husband with claws and kisses. So, no.  I am full-on ready to go Shock Collar on her, but thought there might be cheaper/less nasty avenues.  Well, I was half-right.  Apparently there are collars that are motion sensitive and spritz the dog with something stinky (citronella, lemon, essences vary,) when they start yapping.  These cost about as much as a shock collar, and I wondered about their efficacy.  Nobody who responded to my Facebook post had tried one, but they all had opinions about what I should do instead.... which, well, thanks, but that's not really what I was asking about, now was it?  I am perturbed by this.  If I ask you, "What is your name?" I don't want to hear that you were born in Pago Pago. 

After that bit of amusement, I then went home and took her out for some exercise.  Because she is a strong little thing, but also rather obstinate and much more interested in barking at the deer than in chasing the tennis ball, it occurred to me that one way to wear her out would be to weigh her down before walking her.  So I fashioned a harness and hooked her up to the Young Prince's wagon, then told him to park himself in it and let her pull.

It was rather amusing.  We walked three blocks and she was just fine, trotting along, keeping up with me, la la la.  Then we went to turn the corner, and I could actually see the realization dawning in her little black face that OH MY GOD THERE IS SOMETHING ATTACHED TO THE BACK OF ME PANIC PANIC DANGER.  I made her sit. She sat, staring at it warily.  I made her walk. She started shimmying sideways to keep an eye on it.  I made her walk faster, and she broke into a run, trying to get away from it.  Well, of course, you can't get away from something that is hitched to you, so the noise scared her more.  The Young Prince tumbled out, and for once laughed it off instead of adding to the problem, which earned him several brownie points from me.  I made her sit again.  She did.  We walked home without further incident.   Once we got to our yard, however, I had Thomas get out,  and the change in noise sent her all bucking bronco terrified. 

So we have dialed that back a bit.  I am now dragging the (empty) wagon myself, to get her used to the noise.  After a few minutes of that, I hook it to her on a longer rope and make her walk.  I believe that eventually she will be well-suited to haul firewood and other assorted stuff.  And hopefully be too tired at night to kick up her Infernal Abandonment Racket. 

On the other insubordination front,  the YP hit a milestone over the weekend when we busted him looking at nudie pics on his DSi player.  A bit of prodding led to the expected (and highly embarrased on his part) answers of "I was curious/no, I don't do this on school computers/no, nobody in real life has asked me to get naked, nor have I asked anyone else."  So there is that. I think he was most surprised that we weren't angry.  Little does he know that his father had to do the first round of chatfest not only because, well, it's a Boy Thing, but also because I was hiding in our bedroom with a pillow over my head trying very hard to keep my laughing muffled.

Only other news of note is that Saturday was a Winterfest school event that I got suckered into volunteering for from 10-4.  Imagine, if you will, five hours of Kidz Bop music and one hour of cleaning up.  (Can anyone explain the point of Kidz Bop to me? Why not just have compilations of the real songs? I mean, these aren't kid songs, and they aren't particularly kid-ified.  Seriously, how do you make Put a Ring on It or California Gurlz relevant to a 9-year-old? You don't! So why make a 9-year-old record it, rather than just letting all the other 9-year-olds lip sync along in their own hairbrushes? Do I sound old lady curmudgeon here? Or sane?)  Still, the kids seemed to have fun, and the Young Prince showed valor during the raffle drawing by consoling a kid smaller than him who started crying about not winning a Transformers prize. 

He's growing up, that one.  Shudder.

 

The Drama of Drama

So, the Young Prince's drama production is finally over.  He is sad. Myself? Not so much.

I'm not sure why my experience was so negative.  The production was great, the kids were top-notch, the YP had a fantastic time and seemed to get along with the group fairly well. I think, anyway.

The monetary investment was a bit steep for my blood, but I was OK with that by the end.

It was the investment of time and aggravation that did me in, I think. In this instance, I'm not at all convinced the end justified many of the means. Maybe it's because I've been a manager too long and I'm used to doing things my own way -- but I don't think so, because there were a lot of other rookies involved in this thing looking around going, "Really? That's how they roll here? Because that's messed up." I think it's more likely I've been a manager too long and I look at bad managers and think, "UGH STOP IT I DON'T EVEN LIKE PUTTING UP WITH NONSENSE LIKE THIS WHEN I'M GETTING PAID TO DO SO."

Like having a party where kids were expected to know to dump liquid into a bucket before throwing out their plastic cups into trash bags.  Um, yeah. There were 60 kids, four monitors. That's a recipe for success. And then one of the monitors got dressed down for abandoning her post -- when some kid had dropped a full cup of something somewhere else and she had gone to help clean it up. (This was not me, for the record. I managed to escape being a member of trash patrol.)

Or the fact that every parent is expected to sell ads (or cough up an opt-out fee,) but there's no list of who's selling where, so the "ad committee" has no idea whether they're making cold calls to business owners who are like, "Oh, Joe Blow works here; he already bought an ad for his kid."  Well, that's dandy.

Another problem seemed to be that assigned roles were not well assigned. It seemed to me that half the women on these committees did most of the work. (OK, yes, there were some men. But really, I'd say it was a 90-10 split. I'm not stereotyping, I don't think.) The responsibility quotient was all over the place. There were some women who were extremely organized, listened to their people and delegated well. (These committees were the best run and most effective, surprise, surprise. They also seemed to be the ones run by women who either had lots of experience with the group or had day jobs.) There were some women who were just "Argh, nevermind, I'll do it myself." (I sympathize with these women. I have a bad streak of it myself, but I try to tamp it down and share my toys.) There were some women who were wandering around going, "What should I doooo?" (Yeah, I hate them too.) And there were some women who were total martinets. "You go here, you do that -- I don't care if you said you had other commitments at that precise moment. Do it!"  (That went over extremely well, as you might imagine.)

Before he retired, my dad ran library systems.  It seemed like every year when he was making the pitch for his budget, the purse-string holders would ask him, "Well, why can't you just use volunteers to (put books away/check books out/unlock the doors/turn on the heater)?"  And his answer was, 'Well, to some extent, we do.  But we are a county service, required to provide materials to taxpayers, and volunteers are notoriously unreliable, for a variety of reasons." 

Yup.

But, hey, I learned a lot. I learned which committees to sign up for next time and which names to avoid. I learned a lot of ways to NOT do things if I'm ever in a position to commandeer a group -- which I suspect might be sooner than I would like, if the kid continues in this fashion.  I also suspect the purchase of a glue gun may be in my not-so-distant future. 

In the meantime, we are taking a break.  The midseason performance is Annie.  I didn't even let the YP audition. I don't know that he would have been taken, but I didn't want to risk it.  I needed the break.

Instead, we are honing his skills on our own.  We are doing readings at home. On Monday, he is going to audit a hip-hop class (Yes. I KNOW.) to see if he wants to improve his dance skills.  (And yes, I'm hoping I can sell him on Swing and Ballroom at some point, but for now I think he should probably be in a dance class with a bunch of other high-energy young boys who can't sit still.) And we are going back to the time-honored tradition of getting homework done, reading when we aren't working, and focusing on how to be quiet and still. Wish me luck on that last one. I will need it. 

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. I'm grateful for friends, family, health and material comfort.

I'm also glad that's over.

Projects, projects.

I'm working on other things in other places at the moment.  Working to polish my public-facing image.  More on that in a few weeks, probably.

As for my more private (privater?) image -- I don't have one. But y'all, the Young Prince is cracking me up right and left. 

This weekend was his first performance (First two, really -- afternoon and evening shows.) He was great, and he had so much fun.  It really does make up for all the crap I had to do as an Involved Parent.  He's already waxing wistful that it'll be over after this weekend. So, yeah, on to the next audition.

In other YP news, he brought home two pieces of paper on Tuesday:
1: He made the "captain's list" for getting all A's and B's.
2: He got written up for "lying on the floor and being disruptive" during music class.

So, yeah, I'd say he's right on track.  It's getting harder for me to get worked up about this stuff. I mean, he's mouthy and opinionated and balks at doing stuff he doesn't want to do.   Yes, it's a problem and it will make life harder for him. It already does make life harder for him when he pulls it with me, though I'm not sure my methods are necessarily communicating the lesson I intend.

But the thing is, I'm getting out of the habit of thinking that it is MY problem.  I used to go into these meetings with the teachers thinking that I should be able to do something, I should be able to fix it, I should be able to make my kid behave even when I'm in a meeting at my office 47 miles away.

Know what? I can't. Go figure.  I can hassle him about it before and after the fact, but I can't Be There and Deal With It -- and I rather suspect that if I were to do so, the teacher would heartily disapprove of my methods.

So, yeah.  He'll figure it out when there are consequences.   Meanwhile -- A's and B's!  Yay!

Out of Sorts

Do you ever have days where you feel like you should be getting a lot done, but you've expended so much energy being stressed out and overthinking things that action is out of the question? Yeah, that's me right now. 

The kid's play is driving me nuts. Lots of shuttling for rehearsals, lots of parental involvement that I'm resenting. The latest is that I thought I signed up to put together a program but apparently signed up to sell ads. I HATE THAT SHIT. If I wanted to sell ads, I would not be on the editorial side of my business. I don't think they will kick my kid out if I don't make quota, though.  I'll give it a good faith effort and hope for the best.  Then there's a rehearsal tonight at 6, but a props meeting at 6:30.  Really? We can't just all start at the same time? Thpt.

Even the book is stalled. I'm 5 chapters away from being done with the second rewrite, but I couldn't look at it this weekend.  I was hoping to get back it tonight while the kid was at rehearsal, but no, 6:30 p.m. meeting about props.  Snarl.  Maybe I can work on it pretending to take notes while someone else blathers on about baskets and swords.

I have lots of stuff I should be doing around the house but I can't bring myself to care enough to get up and do them. It's basically been raining for 2 weeks, so doing yard work is a relative non-starter. We did manage to kill a nest of yellowjackets that I had a serious grudge against after getting stung two weekends in a row. A belt on my vacuum broke, so I need to replace that before I can do anything along those lines indoors. I should really clean my basement, but jeez, that involves walking down a whole flight of stairs before I even do any actual work and I need a nap just thinking about it.

Congress was supposed to be gone this week, but no, that couldn't happen, so the Senate is still in and we have to do regular news reporting work on top of our recess project work, which pisses me off. And other stuff's going on that is making me nervous. I'm told all will be explained this week. So glad I did my nails last night; maybe flecks of polish in my teeth will lead me to stress eat and gain 10 lbs instead of chewing my cuticles.

Then there are other personal things bothering me that are none of my business. As such, I can do nothing about them. It's a messy, irrational place, this brain of mine: I tend to be most bothered by things that I can't do anything about, which is of course the absolute biggest waste of time ever, since fretting about things that can't be changed isn't going to change them. Then again, if I did have the power to act, I would probably wind up punching someone in the mouth -- maybe several someones -- so it's just as well I'm hobbled.

But then, see, there's my boys.  NYAB has been plugging along and getting things done. He's taking care of all the must-do stuff that I can't bring myself to look at.  We're all fed and clothed and things are still running on time, no thanks to me at all. And the YP has been stellar. He stayed out of trouble this week. He's having a blast with this play on his end of things; learning a lot about production and about being a member of a team. He got into the gifted program last week -- though what that means is still a little unclear to me. He's reading and asking some relevant questions. He didn't take my initial rebuke well, but he did seem to hear what I said and claims to be doing a better job of writing in class.  I've definitely had to do less thumping on him at home. 

So, yeah, when I'm with them, all the rest sort of melts away and I can't even remember it. I'm lucky. I'm blessed. I wouldn't trade what I've got for anything.

All that agitation and stress will be there later, I'll get back to it. And the sanctum has its weak spots, of course. I'm sure the kid will do something to make me crazy angry, or the hubs will do something I find incomprehensible, and I'll do something completely stupid and irritating to them.  But you know what? That's fine too. I think everyone is giving and getting what they need for us drag the cart over the next hill, and that's what counts.

New This Week:

1: The Young Prince auditioned for a play and got a role. When he came out of rehearsal last night, he was incensed. "I'm a pawn!" he said in outraged tones. "I don't have a part. I'm an understudy." I suspected this was wrong, since understudies usually have some other thing to do in the chorus. He is not an understudy, he is a sidekick. With no lines, so he was still put out, but apparently he does get to be funny, so that was a balm. Since the role is not in the script, I'll be interested to see how this shakes out.

2: I suspect we got gouged on home repairs this week. Check out this racket: Our septic tank pump died. The plumbers told us that we had a pump running on 110 current, and that was entirely too small for the house we have; it should be a 220 pump. (Never mind that we have lived here 8 years with nary a problem.) They refused to put in a new 110.  The electrician who was tasked with replacing the 110 line with a 220 out to the tank told us that our junction box was recalled years ago and he would not put the new line in unless he replaced the entire box. So $5,000 later, we are flat broke, but we can now shower in certainty that sewage won't back into our basement and we can sleep in relative ease knowing that the house won't burn down. Unless we leave the oven on.

3: Work is weird. NYAB is working nights at home, I'm splitting shifts between home and the office, and I am all discombobulated. I have this nagging feeling that any day now I'm going to get an irate email from someone IN ALL CAPS THAT I HAVE MISSED A MEETING AND AM SO TOTALLY FIRED.

4: My house is a mess. That will get fixed this weekend.  Rah. Rewrite on the novel is going fairly well; I'm more than half done. Rah rah. My parents are jumping over assorted hurdles to come visit us and maybe bring us a dog. Rah rah rah, sis boom bah.

5: That's enough, don't you think? All in all, things are pretty good.  Kid's in a play! Plumbing won't explode for at least six more months! Electrician can go to Cabo! Things are humming along! Huzzah!

My friend baldowl shared a barf story on his blog.  It is sad that I have more than one I could share, and sadder that I am not sure I have the nerve to do it. Maybe when I'm done with my other creative writing.

Such Is Life

I wish I had some amazing photos or some beautiful words to share with you after my extended hiatus, but you'll have to make do with average -- and meager -- offerings on both counts.

What we did on our summer vacation:

Played with dogs.

Ditched the kid and celebrated our tenth anniversary with a visit to St. Louis and amaaaaazing seats at a Cards game.

Played with family. This is Totally Awesome Nephew Jude. I asked him how old he was and he said, "My mom says I'm 3."  Atta boy, Jude. Trust but verify.

We went to Hutsonville, where NYAB's dad grew up, just to poke around. Found the gravestones of his grandparents. The YP was much more taken with the park.

After the Midwest, we went east, to the beach.

And the many entertainment venues Chincoteague has to offer.

All in all, a good couple of weeks.

Then it was back to school -- which doesn't really look like much of a change from kindergarten, does it?

I also finished the first draft of my book and am furiously rewriting it now to add texture and depth and threads of continuity and all the other stuff that theoretically make books good. Between that and my day job, it'll probably be another two weeks til you hear from me again.  Maybe. I don't know. Every time I think I'm ready to hang up this blog biz, something comes along and gets me in a mood to post. We'll see.

Ready to Go.

Ahh, August -- when everyone in my neck of the woods takes a deep breath because Congress has recessed, and then passes out from the heat.

The Young Prince is wrapping up his second drama camp.  He got a bigger role in this go-round than last time, which is nice -- last time NeighborGirl and I sat through an hour and a half of mumbling and bad singing (I blame the directors/conselors for this, not the kids,) to hear him say approximately four lines. And I only really heard half of those. This time he is a narrator and has a one scene where he plays someone's .... boyfriend? Boy who's a friend? It's unclear.  Then he starts his third and final drama camp next week, which is off in the hinterlands because I'm a dope who can't read fine print.

I think he's learned a fair amount, not only about acting and singing and whatnot, but I'm hoping this has also been beneficial because he's been stuck in groups of kids all summer, so he's been forced to keep up his ability to function in a group -- as much as he ever had this ability to begin with. He's had to STFU when someone else is talking, and take turns, and I think -- after an altercation yesterday -- something might have finally sunk in about how to deal with different points of view. He got all  bent out of shape because he felt some friend of his cheated in a game, a matter that was the subject of some debate. It seems that rather than shine it on, he opted to quit playing and rid himself of cheaters.  As a result, some other gal called him a baby, and he wound up thwacking her with his script. Surprise, she told on him and denied ever having called him anything. So we discussed:

1: that his friend probably didn't think she had cheated and was probably quite upset when he stomped off, rather than just rolling with it.
2: that girls lie.  DUH.
3: that there are much, much better ways to deal with name-calling than smacking someone, which will only land the smacker in trouble. (Oh, right, this was the 49325832597th discussion of that.)

The reason I'm hopeful that something sank in this time is twofold: First, I got him to admit that part of the reason he got so mad when she called him that was because he knew she was a little bit right; and second, I told him the Winston Churchill story.  (For those of you who don't know -- WC was at a party and Lady Astor sniffed at him, 'Sir, you're drunk.' He replied, 'Yes madam, I am. But in the morning I'll be sober, and you'll still be ugly.')

Well, the kid was all over it. He wasn't sure about the "ugly" part, however. "Maybe I can just say, 'but you'll still be a brat'??" But of course.

So, we shall see.

I am, I think, more than half-done with the first draft of my latest version of optimism triumphing over experience, and I'm hoping to shop it around for publication soon.  Maybe. Perhaps. And all my delusions of grandeur will be validated or roundly mocked  as deserved, I'm sure.

Mostly, we are all just looking forward to vacation.  Beach, Illinois, Indiana, Beach.  Nice set of bookends, that.

 

Play Misty for Me. Wait. Wrong Misty.

We had the best weekend, y'all.

So, it was the 150th anniversary of the Battle of First Manassas out where we live. There's been a billboard up advertising a twin-pack DVD set of Gettysburg and Gods and Generals for weeks. About 17,000 people were expected to show up for the re-enactment slated to take place somewhere not on the actual battlefield proper. Roads were blocked, dudes hauling cannons around on little trailers clogged up the gas stations starting Wednesday afternoon.

You might be thinking we bought tickets and were part of the festivities and taught the Young Prince more about Stonewall Jackson and fifes and drums and what-all.

You'd be wrong. We got the hell out of town.

Honestly, it was over 100 degrees this weekend, and there was no way we were going to sit around outside watching guys in wool suits run around challenging each other with bayonets. And since we weren't going to do that, we certainly weren't going to venture out and sit in all that traffic to do something really exciting like grocery shopping. So we'd already concluded that one of two things would happen: We would stay home and go absolutely insane from being indoors all weekend because it was really too hot to play outside, or we would stay home all weekend, try to play outside, last about 10 minutes and then spend the rest of our time panting on the living room floor from overheating. 

Instead, after the kid's drama camp wrapup performance on Friday afternoon (he had a tiny part; he was a shopkeeper and a prison guard, though he did have actual lines,) we did some laundry, threw together a bunch of items and loaded the car with snacks and towels and chairs. Then we got up at 5 a.m. Saturday and drove 4 hours to Chincoteague. NeighborGirl came with us, which was completely awesome as she 1: serves as another boot on the neck of the YP, and 2: she and I share a worldview that involves raising our eyebrows and making fun of people who are not cursed with self awareness.  Going to the beach at Assateague was good news for us in both regards. We parked our vinyl chairs at the water's edge and proceeded to make fun of everyone whose bathing suit was too small, whose tattoo was too ugly, whose behavior was too slutty or whose pale fishparts were too sunburned at the early-early hour of 11 a.m. Meanwhile, Not Your Average Blogger and the kid flopped around in the surf. The YP also buried himself in the sand a few times, then ran back into the water and rinsed off.  It was great. We just sat and absorbed Vitamin D for about three hours, and then after a few minutes of debate decided we were not going to bop on back home that night; we'd stay over and head home on Sunday instead.

That required a bit of work on our part -- we had to find a room, and probably got the last vacancy on the island, and then we had to go buy clothes that were not full of sand and salt water.  I am pleased to report that my new car did remain fairly sand-free, especially considering what kind of shenanigans the kid was pulling (including somehow suckering NeighborGirl into carrying his filthy self back to the car because the sand was too hot on his feet. I know, she has much to learn.)  After getting lunch and tooling around the island for a bit looking at the scenery and the houses and so on, we checked into our hotel and spent another hour or so in the pool.  We then headed out for a night of entertainment -- we saw Captain America at the very old-fashioned theater and then had dinner at a place called Bill's which was not too bad.  Oddly, the entrees were the worst part of the meal. Soup, salad, sides, all amazing. Prime rib was more "meh, it's ok" rib.

After dinner we drove around a bit more, but it was fairly dark and there wasn't a lot to see. We headed back to our hotel and NYAB and the YP passed out fairly quickly. NG and I didn't last much longer, though we did finish a couple crossword puzzles.

Next morning we got up and had breakfast at the same Bill's as the night before. I took a shot and tried scrapple, and having done so I can safely say I see no need to ever go near the stuff again. The pancakes were pretty good, my omelette was not awful. The grits were pretty runny, though -- more like Malt-O-Meal than mush. I think the YP did not like this establishment, as the only time he showed any truly smackdown-worthy behavior was while we were sitting and waiting to eat.  Perhaps next time we will find a place with waterfront dining and toss him into the water when he acts up. 

After breakfast, we headed out to the lighthouse and climbed it to the top. NG and the kid pounded up there pretty much without stopping. I'm not in good enough shape for that, though I'm better than I might have been a month or two ago. After the lighthouse, we wandered back into town, stopped at the museum and spent way too long locating items in a scavenger hunt. A quick swing by Dairy Queen and it was time to head home, a trip that went fairly quickly and seemed even shorter thanks to NG's excellent taste in downloaded comedy routines.

I wish I could tell you I had photos of all this loveliness, but of course I left my camera at home like a dope.  But even this was a good thing; as it means I'm bound and determined to go back in two weeks and do it all over again! Frankly, I'm ready to buy a house there and spend all my weekends and most vacations there. But I reckon we should maybe spend more than two days there before making that kind of commitment, no?