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Miss Carol has a new boyfriend.

Nopey, nope it’s not the flowers. I gave Miss Carol a monthly arrangement for a year for her birthday many, many, many years ago. Little did I know that  just like herpes they just keep coming and won’t go away.

Nor is it the Australian dolphin sculpture that I scrimped for and saved for and winced for when I finally bought it for Miss Carol.

And it’s definitely not the cheapy deapy NOAA weather radio that I listen to every morning to plan my day whilst I make Miss Carol’s coffee.

Miss Carol’s new boyfriend is her brand new sleek shiny slender super sexy new iPhone 3G. She don’t know it yet, but she’s about to be smitten and carried away by it’s Appleness.

And I’ll miss her.

Miss Carol is corporate so she has had to put up with the Windows world, carefully and completely shielded from exposure to the wonderful beautifulness that is Apple and Mac. Poor, poor, Miss Carol.

But all that’s about to change and I can only hope Miss Carol remembers me.

Mighty Whitey ain’t lookin’ too good.

Six or eight weeks into a two or three week renovation I’m guessin’ it’s a ways away. BOB swears that this is the week that the heavy lifting will be done and by Saturday Mighty Whitey will be in the spray booth.

But he said that last week.

And the week before.

And, um, well, the week before that.

As credibility curls up and dies, I’m trying to remain positive and upbeat and hopeful that someday before I can’t afford gasoline I’ll be able to take Mighty Whitey and Miss Carol and Cutter and Tug down to Hatteras one more time.

But I ain’t so sure.

So another several weeks have passed and we’ve fought off both Bambi and bunnies in our relentless pursuit to watch slowly dying green plants slowly die.

I think we bought bad dirt. Can you have bad DIRT?

As if our farming incompetencies weren’t slack enough, we woke one morning to find that most of our pathetic garden had been an anemic salad bar for varmints. I rushed to Home Depot for materials and put our plants into prison. I also constructed string poles for the tired little green things we’re euphemistically calling green beans.

And then we watered and watched and watered and watched. At one point during the watching I saw our little bunny friend sitting in the yard staring at her imprisoned dinner with her ears slicked back and her big, dark, puppy dog eyes brimming with desire and I almost went out and opened the gate for her. But I didn’t. Instead, I kept waiting and watching while nothing really grows but nothin’s really dying either. It’s kinda like plant purgatory.

Miss Carol remains annoyingly bubbly optimistic about our future harvest but I’m not so sure tomato plants can survive the winter so I’ve decided enough’s enough and I’m gonna bring out the big guns. I’m gettin’ us some MiracleGro super duper plant food stuff and chemically jump start the garden.

We may glow in the dark after we eat it, but dammit, we’ll have us a tomato sometime this year.

OK.

Granted, walking the dogs twice a day every day gives me lots and lots of time to think and not much to think about, it still surprised me when I realized that not only have I somehow internalized their doody habits but have also unconsciously built an entire framework of poop rules to deal with having to clean up after them.

Welcome to my world. It’s fun, right?

I should just stop here, but, and yet, somehow I cannot.  So.

First the dance- when it’s time Tug suddenly stops, looks confused like WTF?, and jerks around at the end of the leash like a fish on the line, looking for a bush or something to tickle his butt. Cutter, on the other hand, pulls like a locomotive, his nose to the ground, grinding his way to the perfect spot.

Then the stance. When Tug assumes the position he’s all tippy toed looking like he’s passing a Buick and slowly inches forward plopping away. Cutter just settles in like an old man reading a newspaper and, you know, poops.

As a responsible pet owner I carry crappy plastic bags to pick up the boy’s doody like it’s the treasure that it is. And as a fairly lazy responsible pet owner I’m constantly alert for ways to shirk my doggy doody removal responsibilities.

Soooo. Now that I’m waaaayyy too far down this particular road to turn around and go back for directions here we go:

1-If we’re on the beach I always, always pick it up. The only thing I want squishing between my toes at the beach is sand. Really.

2-If we’re walking on the roads and they poop in a neighbors yard I always pick it up. People know where you live. It’s a small town.

3-If we’re walking on the roads and they poop in a rental and no one is home, it didn’t happen and I walk away whistling. Life is good.

4-If we’re walking the roads and they poop in a seasonal rental and no one sees it-see #3. Ahh, yes.

5-If we’re walking the roads really late at night or really early in the morning I usually pretend I can’t see it and do the walking and whistling.

Welp, there ya gots it.

More than you could ever wanted to know about the other end of my dog’s lives. I could probably simply simplify my life and just walk my dogs and pick up their poop and honestly how pathetic is this entire post?

Jesus.

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.