Day 6 - Beach, bliss, & blistering heat

Saturday, August 20

The morning dawned warm and soft with light filtering through the Spanish moss hanging from the palmettos out front -- well, the three or four palmettos that were left, that is. Stupid development.

I got up 7:30 and started the coffee. Breakfast was an elaborate affair -- I had to wrestle cellophane off the darned cream-cheese-and-raspberry coffee cake. Oh, the trouble I go to in order to feed this rotten family! Bunch of ingrates! We also had croissants. Don't make me tell you how hard it was to get the lid off the margerine. I'm not sure retelling the tale wouldn't give me a nervous breakdown. Post-traumatic stress disorder, y'know.

Truth be told, the only person who got up with me was Wesley, so I spent the early morning on the porch, updating my trip report, listening to the radio (oh, the bliss of the Wave!), and just generally hanging out. Wesley was chomping at the bit to go to the beach, so he had barely eaten before he changed into his swim trunks and biked off to the ocean. I was still on the porch, writing, when he came back quite suddenly.

Guess what Wesley found in the ocean! Go 'head, guess. No, not a mermaid. No, not a dolphin. YES! A jellyfish!!!!! How did you guess? You are so smart! I looked in the kitchen cabinets, but there was no meat tenderizer in there. So we shredded a couple of cigarettes, wetted the tobacco, and packed it onto Wesley's stings. Within a very few minutes, Wesley felt much better, and he left for the beach again.

After a while, Woodrow woke up, and after he had eaten, he and I leapt into our swimsuits to go to the beach, too. This time I unearthed an umbrella in the storage shed downstairs. That was the right thing to get. I confess I didn't tell Woodrow about Wesley's encounter with a jellyfish. Woodrow, like me, has a flair for melodrama. I figured if I told Woodrow there were jellyfish in the ocean, he would flip out and not go swimming.

*I* was the one who flipped out, though. I waded into the water up to my knees and then waded out again. The umbrella on the beach made sitting outside very pleasant until the biting flies started nibbling on my ankles. Dang it!!!! I can't win for losing. Note to self: Bring bug repellant.

Emily joined us after a while. She walked up and down the beach looking for shark's teeth and shells.

The beach was getting pretty crowded. It was a Saturday, after all, and all the weekend people were turning up in droves. Interestingly, a group of 5 Mennonite girls also showed up. They weren't dressed for swimming, and all I could think was that they must be sweltering in their bright, plain skirts and long-sleeved blouses. They took turns taking pictures of each other until I sent Emily over to offer to take a picture of all five of them together. They gratefully handed over their camera and posed in a group on the pilings.

(I hope their photos turn out. The sun was behind them and the glare off the ocean must have been fierce.)

We finally packed up our stuff and left. Back at the Pink Flamingo, I took yet another sublime outdoor, enclosed, hot-and-cold shower, and then went upstairs to dress and sit on the porch listening to the radio. I had a glass of wine and a bowl of chilled peaches. Then they played "Blister in the Sun." I turned up the volume and sang along loudly. I probably disturbed the neighbors. I didn't care. It was faaaaaaaaabulous and exactly what vacation is supposed to be about!

We were going to go to Po' Pigs for lunch and leave directly for Charleston, so we all got dressed and ready to be away from the house for hours. But we forgot something. I forget what we forgot. Well, it's been a month since that day, what can you expect? My trip report notes are apparently not as thorough as I thought they were!

Lunch was even better than dinner had been a couple of nights ago. I told everyone who worked there how much I loved the place and that I would always, always eat here whenever I come back to Edisto. Wesley paced himself more reasonably about the food this time, so he wasn't in pain when we finished the meal. However, he did eat too much to get dessert. This time I got the nanner puddin'. Yummy!!!!!!

On the way to the car, we realized that we had forgotten something, so we headed back to the house. But we were soon on our way. I drove this time, and I remembered the cell phone, too. While Wesley napped in the passenger seat, I kept checking to see if I had a signal or voice mail. I was sure I had voice mail by now. I stopped in Hollywood for gasoline, and Wesley commandeered the cell phone. Now that we had a signal, he called his friend Jim to lord it over him that we were on vacation and Jim wasn't. This is a guy thing. I don't get it. Jim just went to Hawaii and called us a few times -- just to lord it over us that he was on vacation, and *we* weren't.

I could never be a guy. I seriously don't get that.