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Once again Memorial Day pulled into town and puked up her tangled horde of Tourons all over our beach and into our lives. 

Welcome back. We hardly missed ya.

I know I’m a dick and I rag on Tourons constantly but, honestly, it’s not without justification. I try to be laid back and love everyone and say everything’s cool but Tourons mercilessly bent on their very bestest vacation ever can generally become the biggest assholes you’ve ever seen. Believe me.

‘Course then again, they can also be endlessly entertaining. Souped up Tourons do some of the funniest shit you’ve ever seen. So maybe it evens out. 

I’m convinced it’s Mother Ocean what does it- like the lunar pull on the tides, she tugs at the saltwater coursing through our veins, loosening inhibitions and fueling the craziness. To locals used to her siren song it feels like a soft beer buzz but to Tourons it’s like mainlining heroin. No wonder they’re like puppies excitedly peeing on the carpet- they just can’t help themselves.

Whatever. Once again the 100 days war begins. Another Touron Season is spinning and we’re locked into the ride.

Don’t get me wrong, I love summer. It’s what Miss Carol and me live for. It’s the reason we live at the beach and will probably never leave- Tourons are just a part of our daily lives.

Like sand fleas and sunburn.

I can’t decide if my Mighty Whitey looks like something vaguely Mad Max/Road Warrior-esqe, ready to run full blown open across the scorching salt plains of a dying world relentlessly pursued by maniacal half breeds on nitro bikes.

Or.

An increasingly embarrassing feeble attempt by a middle aged guy pathetically grasping hopelessly at his rapidly disappearing youthfulness.

I had no idea.

This is much less about the view from our hotel room this weekend and much more about staycationing. New word. My word. Really.

This past weekend Miss Carol and me staycationed in Portsmouth and as usual it was an effing blast. Portsmouth is about an hour from home and we had lunch in a great new restaurant and then checked into the hotel and drank some adult style cocktails and then while Miss Carol napped I roamed and then we had us some adult style fun and then we took the water taxi over to Norfolk and Hooters (cause who doesn’t like some hooters?) for some more cocktails and then we walked to a great restaurant we had been to before but it had closed down so we found another great restaurant and had us some dinner and then took the water taxi back to the hotel for some more adult style fun and cocktails before calling it a night.

Whew. Run on sentences and staycations can be sooo exhausting.

But worth every penny. The staycations, not the run ons. They are a macro vacation on a mini micro scale and I can’t recommend them enough. Do it. They’re fun as puppies. Really.

Ya know when you’re having a crappy, shit fuck ugly day and everything’s prickly and sparking and all the sudden you catch a song, a song that maybe nobody else likes but strangely it hits you like puppy love and it flows over you like a cool breeze on a scorcher and makes you feel like there’s  light at the end of the tunnel and maybe you won’t have to kill everyone in your family?

It’s nice, right?

This is Mighty Whitey, our 1983 Suburban that I love beyond all reason. It’s big, it’s boxy, it drives JUST LIKE a 25 year old vehicle, and guzzles gas like I guzzle beer.

And yet I love it. 

It started life as a “go to market” vehicle for a little old lady out in the county and then years later it was bought by a local 4X4 shop and became a monster truck and then years after that it was bought by us. We use it when we go camping with the dogs because it’s so big that when we put the rear seat down we can pack in all our toys and stuff and there’s still plenty of room for Miss Carol to stretch out and nap and for Tug to walk around. It’s big. It’s our surf truck.

But it also has some fairly serious rust issues that have led to leaks inside the truck when it rains which in turn lead to all kinds of problems like interrupted naps and damp dogs. Not to mention the totally fogged windows that make driving Mighty Whitey in the rain an exercise in guess work. As in, I’m guessin’ I’m on the road, honey.

But I loves my Mighty Whitey.

So we kicked around selling it and buying something comparable, or just selling it and stuffing Cutter and Tug into Miss Carol’s Jeep, or having some pretty major work done and keeping it. And yes, I know, I know, in these green times we should be looking at leaner and greener but Miss Carol and me and Cutter and Tug crammed into a mini-micro-sub-compact is not a pretty picture. Trust me on that one.

New Suburban’s are about 60K so that quickly became a not a chance homeboy. We could just sell Mighty Whitey and use Miss Carol’s Jeep but, um, er, did I mention I loves my Suburban?

It’s long been a dream of mine to have a ground-up restoration done on Mighty Whitey but I thought that it’d probably be prohibitively expensive. Last week I stopped by the 4X4 shop I bought it from and spoke with the owner, who gave me a name and directions to someone he knew.

Saturday I went out into the county and met with the nameless person, who we’ll call Bob. Bob is the type of high quality country mechanic that just wants to do his high quality work and be left alone. He doesn’t advertise and he only does work for a couple of people-mostly project vehicles for custom shops and wanted to know how I got his name. After I told him and he looked Mighty Whitey over, he gave me a surprisingly modest quote and I gave him a check and we shook hands and I drop off Mighty Whitey on Friday.

And in two weeks I pick up a brand new Mighty Whitey. I’m tingly all over.

Another Monday morning again and like everyone else I had to go to work. I work all by myself in the unoccupied beach front homes of absentee homeowners. I’ll go weeks without talking to anyone but after centuries and decades of managing employees, if I never have to deal with one again I’ll be a happy guy. But that’s a whole nother story.

I was tired ’cause once again I spent all weekend working. When Miss Carol and me don’t have house guests (which is rare since we live at the beach and Miss Carol is one of 12 and we have a million bejillion nephews and nieces and they all want to come to the beach but that’s a whole nother story) we work on the house and try to keep stuff from rusting, which is one of the things they don’t tell you about when you move to the beach. Everything rusts. Plastic rusts. If you lay awake at night and listen carefully you can hear your house rusting. It’s a constant battle. But, again, that’s a whole nother story.

I spent Saturday working on painting Casa Oceandoggy once again, two gallons at a time because that’s all my sanity will allow. But that’s a whole nother story.

I’m also getting the bay boat ready for another season and the catamaran re-rigged for easier sailing. But that’s a whole nother story.

My brother and his little cupcake are coming down next weekend so we can tear out the fence around Casa Oceandoggy so that I can build a new one. Fence I mean. But that’s a whole nother story.

But then tonight, at the end of a long day which was at the end of a long weekend I was walking the dogs, feeling a little beat down when a friend of mine, barreling home in the golf cart that he uses to clean pools on the island swerved, stopped, and offered me a cold beer so that he wouldn’t have to drink alone.

And ya know what? I just wanted to french kiss the world. It was quite possibly the best beer ever. 

There are times that I love being me.

So anyway.

When Miss Carol and I would go to work we would put Cutter and Tug in the small half bath off of our living room. They would sleep on their blankies (Miss Carol’s word- not mine) on the floor of the shower. They had all of their toys, food, water, newspaper, and each other. You would tend to think they’d of been happy.

Wrongo!

Once the doggy gate was in place they would commence to barking and whining something pitiable. I don’t know if they carried on the whole time we were gone each day but they were certainly still doing it when I’d get home for lunch and again when we got home at the end of the day. Cutter would be furiously trying to clamber over the gate and Tug would be sitting in the corner looking mournful and guilty.

Picking them up, both would nuzzle and nip at our faces as if we had been gone for years and years and they were worried they would never have seen us again. 

Beware giving your heart to a dog to tear.

It was movie night at Casa del Oceandoggy last night and we watched the eagerly anticipated Marley and Me. I have been waiting for this movie to become available on NetFlix ever since I read the book. I have often felt that Marley and Me is our generation’s Old Yeller and I was really hoping the movie would be great.

Even after it was announced that Jennifer Aniston and Owen Wilson would play the lead roles and even after seeing all the release posters showing Jennifer with Marley on her shoulders, I remained hopeful that Hollywood and Jennifer wouldn’t eff up another great story. 

My hopes were dashed last night.

Somehow, some kinda way, Hollywood managed to take a moving story about a dog’s life and death and turn it into a cutesy lovefest celebrating two blandly mediocre actors. And, oh yeah, did I mention there was a dog?

Except for the end, Marley was totally moved to the periphery. In scene after scene we watched as Jennifer was cutely perfect and Owen was cutely imperfect and Marley bounded around in the background chewing on things. Um, did I mention there was a dog?

Not only did Marley lose his story, he lost his identity. In the final twenty minutes or so every scene has a different Marley. They were changing dogs like a stripper changing costumes. Heeelllllooooooo, did I mention there was supposed to be a dog?

Finally, at the end of a movie largely devoted to Jennifer and Owen someone remembered that the dog has to die and it’s done in a grandiose style befitting a NASA space launch. Believe me, I’ve been there and done that and it ain’t nothin’ like that. Owen looks cutely imperfectly sad and Jennifer looks cutely perfectly sad, but life has to go on and hooboy, did I mention there’s a dog? 

I only hope that Jennifer and Owen made enough money on this film they can retire and not infect us any longer with their cutesy pithiness.

Oceandoggy’s take? Lift your leg and pee on this one. 

Good boy.

On the weekends we like to walk the beach and let the boys run. Yesterday evening when we went up they were tuggin’ in the wrong direction like boats in a storm and sure enough, when I released them they bolted. Gone down the beach until the onliest thing we could see was matching yellow Lab tails twitching on the horizon.

Which just makes me crazy. 

Cutter and Tug don’t have to do anything but laze around on the furniture and scarf up treats. I walk them twice a a day, every day, for a mile. On the weekends they get the run of the beach. They don’t have to clean up after themselves. They don’t have to help with chores. They don’t have to mow the lawn or do  long division.

All they have to do is come when then they’re ‘effin CALLED. That’s it. That’s all. Just stop what they’re doin’ and race in our direction when we call them. I don’t think it’s too much to ask and it makes me a crazy turd when they run like that. 

Which led to Miss Carol being a turd, which led to all of us being turds.

Turds by the sea.

I keep saying I’m going to write more, post more, do more. But somehow I don’t. 

It’s mostly maybe laziness, but not always. Like tonight, we had to take Cutter to the vet because when we got home his eye was squeezed shut, which meant taking Tug to the vet, which meant the entire clusterfuck of wildly excited full-on male Labs tussling with barely adequate veterinary assistants trying to corral them.

It made me giggle and the boys acquitted themselves well, giving almost no ground. But it was exhausting. Dog wrestling just flat wears you out.

I’m looking forward to the sunny sun-swept days of summer. Except for the Touron part.