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Holy effin’ jaysus,  it’s that time of year again.

Today Hooper delivered our firewood for the winter. We burn through roughly two cords a year and every year when he dumps it I swear the pile is bigger.

I stare at it and then try not to think too much about how many times I’m gonna have to handle each and every log.

But then I do.

First I gotta stack it so the neighbors won’t laugh and point at me. Next, I move it one wheelbarrow load at a time during the winter into the garage so I always have dry firewood. Then I carry it an armload at a time from the garage to the stack on the hearth where I finally put it on the pretty fire that Miss Carol enjoys each and every night while the cold northeast winds howl and skirl outside.

And somehow that last part makes it all worth it.

It the not too distant past, I would not have gone near a Walmart. Waaaay too low brow for someone with the taste and refinement of an oceandoggy. Wally’s World was reserved for the inbred and the uneducated. People that had only a drive-by acquaintance with personal hygiene and that watched TV with their mouths open.  

Life’s little losers.

I did my shopping in specialty stores convinced that, even though I was paying top dollar, I was purchasing the best quality whatever for my money. If I HAD to visit a big box store I would drive the extra ten miles or so and go to a Target where I felt more at home buying my underwear.

But then about a year ago, something happened. Actually a bunch of somethings happened, the end result being that I was picking up more things on a daily basis than Miss Carol was. I got tired of making a dozen stops when I left the island in the morning and so, one day, I found myself in the Walmart parking lot. It was early, so I felt there was a chance I could get in and out without catching any inbredness.

I’m sure that there are people reading this that have shopped in Walmarts forever and are thinking to themselves-  whatever dude, you’re a dumbass, Walmart is great. And you know what? They’re right. I can honestly say that I am a new disciple of Walmart. I’m not sure if you pass through a sinister force field when you enter the store that lowers your expectations and IQ, but whatever it is, it works. I loves my Walmart.

And even though I’m mouth breathing when I read now, I’m pretty sure it’s just my allergies.

So anyway.

This is how Cutter and Tug spent most of their first months with us- little furry bundles with damp noses constantly napping. They were as inseparable as they were indistinguishable.

They would always sleep huddled up against one another as, I imagine, the entire litter had. Now that it was just the two of them, they seemed to cling to that closeness. Still do, as a matter of fact.

Early on their personalities began to emerge and diverge. Cutter was clearly the alpha male, constantly curious and always underfoot. Tug was happy sitting on the sidelines and watching, needing all sorts of patient coercion to try anything new. Tug seemed openly surprised by any act of kindness while Cutter took it as his due. Cutter reveled in his puppy cuteness, Tug was dismayed by it. Cutter pranced and Tug warily trudged. 

I think a big reason for their diverseness was that Cutter was one of the first puppies chosen from the litter and Tug was the last, silently watching as his brothers and sisters disappeared and as the plywood box they lived in got bigger and colder and lonelier.

Every time I tell Miss Carol about Tug sitting alone in the plywood box she cries which proves she has a heart.

So I tell it to her a LOT.

What a day.

Firstly, and really, this is it for the weather, NO SNOW. Loser weatherdudes had it all wrong. As late as this morning they were predicting 3-5″, which is pretty much unheard of in this neck of the woods, er, beach. The schools closed, the city closed, folks at the market this morning were talking about staying on the island and hunkerin’ down, drinkin’ beer and hangin’ out. And nothing. Not nada. Kinda’ like my striper fishing.

Dos. I’m finally letting Cutter and Tug run the beach. This is huge for me. I don’t know why it is but I’ve been really leery about letting these guys roll. Even though Tug has taken off a few times Cutter has always stayed close so I don’t know why I worry so much but I do. Maybe I’m becoming a pussy. When Boca and Largo were alive I thought nothing of running a couple of miles on the beach, knowing they were following me somewhere up in the dunes. Cutter and Tug get out of sight and I freak like a little girl. I’m such a sally, but I’m getting better.

Tres. Like anyone cares. I weighed myself tonight and after two weeks of no carbs I’ve gone from 195 to 188. Not svelte by any measure but certainly closer to something Miss Carol wants to see in a thong.

Fourthly. Our new President was sworn in today. Having lived in the DC area years and years and years ago, I was amazed to see the turnout for the inauguration. I only hope he’s different. You have to realize, I’m just a little jaundiced with the whole election thing. I voted for Clinton and hated him by his second term. I voted for Bush and likewise hated him.

Obama? C’mon buddy. Be superfine.

It appears Global Warming will be sweeping through our island again. According to the weather reports, we will have SNOW tonight. And SNOW tomorrow. And SNOW tomorrow night.

Did I mention it’s supposed to effing SNOW? Little frozen white fluffy reminders of my hellish childhood.

Being southern born and bred but forced to live with my family as a youngun’ on the Canadian border I am horribly snow scarred. Having lived at the beach for decades and centuries I’ve become grudgingly accustomed to the crispy cold nor’easters but SNOW is a hole nother thing. And I’m not likin’ it one bit.

I told Miss Carol to start packing but she just giggles and tells me to stop it.

I HATE cold weather. HATE, HATE, HATEY, HATE it.

As a small child I was forced to live with my parents and brother and sister on the Canadian border where it snows pretty much year round. 

It left me horribly scarred. Winter wise, cold weather speaking.

Nowadays, my alcohol and sun thinned blood just can’t take it. Every winter I curse the cold and dream of moving further south, longing for my tropical island. I know I’m being petty and small. We get none of the grief of our northern neighbors with their blizzards and freezing rain and hell on earth.

But, today, as another arctic blast of global warming slams through, we are treated to a stiff northerly gale that will make your big ones freeze into little hard marbles. And as I walk our double Labs daily; daily emasculating myself, I wonder.

Why.

Why DON’T we move further south? I mean, I have all of the stick-to-it-ness of a post it note. 

And yet. When there’s a fire roaring and the dogs are splayed, sleeping, and the house is toasty, you do kinda get a warm familial feel to your life.

My confusion overlaps.

I was thinking today that I needed to add to the Cutter and Tug back story. I really wanted to. People are clamoring for it. Unfortunately for the hordes of Cutter and Tug back story enthusiasts, Miss Carol turned on the TV tonight and American Idol is once again burrowing full throttle into our homes.

Oh goody. My fave.

And it got me sparking. Just seeing Ryan Seacrest makes my teeth itch. Not another year, not again, not another seemingly endless season of relentlessly poor television, of vacuous emptiness. Please no.

And yet, it trundles on, mindless as a truck.

And we watch it, like a train wreck. You have to realize, my big thing is that I kinda admire the kids willing to pin their hearts to their sleeves and put their hopes on the line and perform for a Paula and a Randy and a Simon.

I just hate that they have to bravely perform for a Paula and a Randy and a Simon and endure their carefully scripted, commercially timed, comments. 

Makes me wanna stick toothpicks in my eyes. I thinkin’ I’m gonna be holed up in the Me Only Room listening to a lot of music in the coming months.

I went striper fishing this morning. Again.

Today it had seemed, at least on the face of things, that the fish catching gods were aligning themselves in my favor. I sparkled with confidence. The birds were workin’, dive bombing bait fish, (OK, they were a ways out), the solunar table was calling for a major feeding time at 10:32,(OK, it was 11ish) and it was sunny. What’s not to like? Surely the striper were lining up, just waiting for me and my rod.

I got my gear ready, donned my hip waders, and marched up to the beach, certain that I’d be bringing home the bacon, er, striper. Miss Carol was brimming with pride and anticipation.

And I fared the way I normally fare. Which is to say I got skunked. Nary a nibble.  After standing waist deep in 40 degree water for an hour and casting like a man possessed, I came up empty handed. Zero. Zip. Nada. Apparently, there were no marginally suicidal rockfish on my stretch of the beach willing to make me come home a hero.

This isn’t anything new. It happens to me a LOT.

So I came home and put all the fishing crap away and took Miss Carol to a bar we frequent and bought some rockfish instead. Blackened. It was way good. 

I win.

Firstly. I LOVE this photograph. Normally, my rampaging narcissism would never have allowed a picture taken by anyone else to grace my oceandoggy. But I love the story this tells. It’s a young navy wife waiting on the docks for her husband to come off the aircraft carrier and take her home. Love it. (Sorry for the graininess but it’s my photo of a newspaper picture- which helps a lot in the rampaging narcissism department)

Secondly. Miss Carol and me started our Annual Oceandoggy New Years Resolutionary Weight Loss Program. It’s something we do every year, not because we’re tied to New Years Resolutions but, because we are cyclical people and come January we are fat and happy people and need to drop a couple pounds. I’m 6′ and 195 so I need to lose a good 10lbs. Miss Carol says she needs to lose some too so we are cutting out carbs and eating like hunter/gatherers. Just meat and veggies. Sometimes we don’t even wait to bring it in off the grill and just stuff glistening handfuls into our mouths while we squat on the deck, the dogs glaring at us.

Then, if there are any leftovers our subtle struggle begins. When we’re not dieting Miss Carol goes out for lunch with friends and the leftovers are mine and mine alone. Now, however, we jockey for the good leftovers. Miss Carol will make her lunch at night snagging some of the best and I’ll hide my faves in the back of the ‘fridge when she’s not looking. Hunger does funny things to people.

Thirdly. I had wanted to have multiple active pages on the new blog. I had envisioned a website chock full of goodies. Unfortunately, WordPress has other ideas regarding the way in which I can do my bloggy. So. Instead of a multiple pages I have to change it and have multiple categories. I will try and post things to a particular category so that they are archived in an easily findable fashion. If I slip up and forget, tough. 

I’m hungry.

2008 is gone and, at long last, so are the tourists. They’ve finally gone home.

When Miss Carol and me first moved to the island, back when the earth was still new, tourist season ran from Memorial Day to Labor Day- what locals called The 100 Days War. It was brutal but compact. Every year, you knew it was coming, you knew it would be painful, but you knew you could get through it.

Like going to the dentist.

Then, several years ago, thanks to the City’s promotional efforts and Global Warming, the summer crush of Tourons began oozing into the shoulder seasons of late spring and early fall. Not a whole lot but, like sand in your bikini, enough to irritate.

Then the shoulders grew arms. The Tourons somehow collectively determined that Easter and Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Years had to be experienced at the beach to be enjoyed, were they to be enjoyed at all. So, Touron enjoyment being paramount in their collectively little Touron heads, that’s exactly what they did. Again, not many, just enough to set your teeth on edge. 

Now, Touron Season runs pretty much from Easter weekend all the way to the day after New Years before they are all well and truly gone; leaving us locals only a few miserably cold, windswept winter months to revel in our solitude.

And revel in it we will.