All we're lacking is Imogene Coca on the roof....holiday ro-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-oad.......
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Thursday, December 29, 2011
What if an Alligator Attacks my Dog?
The last time we were in Kiawah (just up the road from Seabrook), there were gators all over the place. My first husband having come from St Augustine, Florida, I know enough about the South to know that wherever there's still, warm water, you might encounter a gator. Like in the ditch directly in front of my mother-in-law's house. When visiting her, I lived in constant fear that one would rise up out of the toilet while I was using it. These kinds of fears, to which I gave frequent voice, I'm afraid branded me as a "city woman," a not-flattering descriptor from which I never recovered in all 24 years of that marriage.
Anyway, there are alligators all over the place on Johns Island, home to Kiawah and Seabrook. So my question is: if I let my scrappy little goldendoodle out into the yard to romp and play in the warm sunshine, will I have to helicopter over her to ward off the gators? Or are January and February too cold for the gators, even in South Carolina? Fear of alligator encounters is not something I've had to deal with here in Bmore.....and the rats at least run away.....
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
The Big Idea
Christmas has come and gone (thank God, it's gone) and although Christmas Day took place a mere three days ago, my tree is down, the wreath has come off the front door, and all the presents have been put away. In years past we've left the tree up well into January and channeling our redneck roots have for many years kept the outdoor lights up until shamed out of them. But this year we've unwound Christmas with particular zeal for a particular reason: we are spending the next two months in a rented house in South Carolina.
It's fair to say I have already retired from practicing law, although I still practice a little bit; but the number of hours I spend on the representation of clients doesn't amount to one one-hundredth of the time I spent when practicing full-time. My retirement was the product of a number of factors: my one child was grown and a fully-funded graduate student, so the financial pressures on me to pay for her education had been lifted; my second husband makes enough money to support the two of us comfortably; and - the real deciding factor - in the space of just a few months I had two serious brushes with death that left me firmly committed to spending the rest of my days on earth in nobler pursuits than the quotidian practice of civil litigation. I have a ton of interests other than law practice, and I've followed them with abandon since turning the firm over to my former partner. As a friend of mine, recently retired, said: "I am so busy now that I can't imagine how I ever had the time to work."
But the same is not true of my husband. He is the dictionary definition of a Type A litigator. He is devoted to his firm and to his clients. He loves the tug and pull of litigation. He loves recognition. He feels that what he does is important. He enjoys the mental stretch of trying cases. He is extremely successful. And he has absolutely no earthly idea about what his life will be like if and when he fully retires.
Yet retirement is coming for Mr Type A, too, and we have lately given lots of thought to the question of where we would want to live when full-time work stops for both of us. Currently, we live in Baltimore, which is my hometown and which has been my husband's hometown for most of his adult life. (He was born and grew up in the country, about an hour away from Baltimore; but he has lived in Baltimore for almost all of his life since law school.) I have never lived anywhere other than Baltimore, and I have no idea how people do it when they are relocated. How do they find doctors? And, more importantly, how do they find good hairdressers?
And why should we move when we retire anyway? Our parents still live in their own houses and wouldn't consider retiring and moving away (not to mention moving into a "retirement facility." Anathema.) My husband and I love our house. We've only lived in it for about 6 years (we've only been married to each other for about 5) and we love it here. We love our house, we love our neighborhood, we love our garden, we love our community, we really love our city. We love the tension of urban life and we live smack in the middle of the City. (OK, we live in the Northern part of the City, but we are fully planted within City limits.) Why would we consider moving in the first place?
We hate snow. It is as simple as that. We have gotten to hate snow. And over the last several years, here in Baltimore our winters have been absolutely Arctic in nature. We hate shoveling the snow, we hate the power outages that come with the snow, we hate the slippery roads and the perilous sidewalks. We do not think snow is "charming" or "romantic." We do not think that when it blankets our vistas it casts a magical spell. We do not think snowmen are cute, we would happily get rid of the sleds that hang in our garage if anyone would but take them, and we are tired of nursing sore backs and arms after shoveling. This is Baltimore in a snowstorm:
(That is my car under there.)
So when we envision our retirement, we imagine a nice, sunny place without snowy winters. And we'd like to be close to some water. In our heads, retirement looks like this:
So we're launching this grand experiment, in which we are spending two months in a rented house at Seabrook Island, South Carolina - a stone's throw (if you are Aaron Rodgers) from Charleston. We picked Seabrook for a bunch of reasons: first, we've visited its sister location, Kiawah Island, many times, and have loved it. Second, Seabrook is close enough to metropolitan Charleston that should we become starved for culture, we can easily participate in it. Third, Seabrook sits on the Atlantic Ocean, even though our rented house does not; but the ocean is literally steps away from our house, so we're good with our spot. And finally, we do not expect to see any snow in Seabrook and the only ice we are planning to encounter will be keeping our drinks cold. Yes, we know that in South Carolina they do get what they call "winter" - brrr, the temps may get into the 40s! But barring some weird climate freakiness, we should manage to avoid ice and snow this year. That is the plan, anyway.
Dog and cat are coming with us. The cat is good to go wherever we go, and we think the dog will love the beach and the ocean. (If only they could learn to love each other a little more consistently, that would be a good thing. Here's a rare moment of calm between them:)
To prepare for the Great Migration South, I have hired a housesitter; arranged all the household bills to be paid online; hired someone to handle snow removal in our absence (so that our sidewalks are passable, as required by law, and so that our house looks lived-in); and started packing. To prepare for the Great Migration South, my husband has bought us a portable wifi hotspot so that he can be sure he can work seamlessly from a remote location. (Our house has wifi and hi-speed internet. The husband bought the hotspot because he is nervous that for some reason the house's internet connections won't work.) And there, you see, is the difference between the husband and me. But, then, he's still working, and I am mostly not.
What are my fears about being gone for two months? I fear that one (or more) of our aging parents will have a medical emergency and need our help. I fear our house will be broken into while we are gone. I fear that my politics (liberal, Democrat) won't fly down there. I fear that my well-researched new hairdresser will convert my hair into something to the east of Calista Gingrich's. I fear that my beloved Ravens will get into the postseason and I won't be able to see their games on tv. I fear that I will have to remove my Obama sticker from my bumper. I fear that I will start saying "Y'all." Or, worse, its possessive: "Y'all's," as in "Y'all's niece is getting married next spring, right?" I do not fear becoming irrelevant (I'm a middle-aged woman, so I've already crossed that barrier) or forgotten (note to world: please forget me and lose my phone number!) I do not fear that my politics will become conservative (not in my DNA) or that I will miss the high culture of urban life (Charleston has plenty of culture, thanks, and as far as I can tell, fewer rats than my beloved hometown). I do fear that the husband will get antsy just hanging around the house with me and the pets all day. I see many many long walks in our future.....the poor dog will probably end up begging to be left alone to sleep in the sunroom for a change!
So here we go, taking retirement for a test drive. In an age of Skype and Facebook and multiple redundant wifi hotspots, probably no one but the housesitter will even know we are gone! Can it really be possible that this year we will actually be able to leave our house to celebrate my mid-February birthday? Because for the last multiple decades, my birthday has been snowed out every year!
It's fair to say I have already retired from practicing law, although I still practice a little bit; but the number of hours I spend on the representation of clients doesn't amount to one one-hundredth of the time I spent when practicing full-time. My retirement was the product of a number of factors: my one child was grown and a fully-funded graduate student, so the financial pressures on me to pay for her education had been lifted; my second husband makes enough money to support the two of us comfortably; and - the real deciding factor - in the space of just a few months I had two serious brushes with death that left me firmly committed to spending the rest of my days on earth in nobler pursuits than the quotidian practice of civil litigation. I have a ton of interests other than law practice, and I've followed them with abandon since turning the firm over to my former partner. As a friend of mine, recently retired, said: "I am so busy now that I can't imagine how I ever had the time to work."
But the same is not true of my husband. He is the dictionary definition of a Type A litigator. He is devoted to his firm and to his clients. He loves the tug and pull of litigation. He loves recognition. He feels that what he does is important. He enjoys the mental stretch of trying cases. He is extremely successful. And he has absolutely no earthly idea about what his life will be like if and when he fully retires.
Yet retirement is coming for Mr Type A, too, and we have lately given lots of thought to the question of where we would want to live when full-time work stops for both of us. Currently, we live in Baltimore, which is my hometown and which has been my husband's hometown for most of his adult life. (He was born and grew up in the country, about an hour away from Baltimore; but he has lived in Baltimore for almost all of his life since law school.) I have never lived anywhere other than Baltimore, and I have no idea how people do it when they are relocated. How do they find doctors? And, more importantly, how do they find good hairdressers?
And why should we move when we retire anyway? Our parents still live in their own houses and wouldn't consider retiring and moving away (not to mention moving into a "retirement facility." Anathema.) My husband and I love our house. We've only lived in it for about 6 years (we've only been married to each other for about 5) and we love it here. We love our house, we love our neighborhood, we love our garden, we love our community, we really love our city. We love the tension of urban life and we live smack in the middle of the City. (OK, we live in the Northern part of the City, but we are fully planted within City limits.) Why would we consider moving in the first place?
We hate snow. It is as simple as that. We have gotten to hate snow. And over the last several years, here in Baltimore our winters have been absolutely Arctic in nature. We hate shoveling the snow, we hate the power outages that come with the snow, we hate the slippery roads and the perilous sidewalks. We do not think snow is "charming" or "romantic." We do not think that when it blankets our vistas it casts a magical spell. We do not think snowmen are cute, we would happily get rid of the sleds that hang in our garage if anyone would but take them, and we are tired of nursing sore backs and arms after shoveling. This is Baltimore in a snowstorm:
(That is my car under there.)
So when we envision our retirement, we imagine a nice, sunny place without snowy winters. And we'd like to be close to some water. In our heads, retirement looks like this:
So we're launching this grand experiment, in which we are spending two months in a rented house at Seabrook Island, South Carolina - a stone's throw (if you are Aaron Rodgers) from Charleston. We picked Seabrook for a bunch of reasons: first, we've visited its sister location, Kiawah Island, many times, and have loved it. Second, Seabrook is close enough to metropolitan Charleston that should we become starved for culture, we can easily participate in it. Third, Seabrook sits on the Atlantic Ocean, even though our rented house does not; but the ocean is literally steps away from our house, so we're good with our spot. And finally, we do not expect to see any snow in Seabrook and the only ice we are planning to encounter will be keeping our drinks cold. Yes, we know that in South Carolina they do get what they call "winter" - brrr, the temps may get into the 40s! But barring some weird climate freakiness, we should manage to avoid ice and snow this year. That is the plan, anyway.
Dog and cat are coming with us. The cat is good to go wherever we go, and we think the dog will love the beach and the ocean. (If only they could learn to love each other a little more consistently, that would be a good thing. Here's a rare moment of calm between them:)
To prepare for the Great Migration South, I have hired a housesitter; arranged all the household bills to be paid online; hired someone to handle snow removal in our absence (so that our sidewalks are passable, as required by law, and so that our house looks lived-in); and started packing. To prepare for the Great Migration South, my husband has bought us a portable wifi hotspot so that he can be sure he can work seamlessly from a remote location. (Our house has wifi and hi-speed internet. The husband bought the hotspot because he is nervous that for some reason the house's internet connections won't work.) And there, you see, is the difference between the husband and me. But, then, he's still working, and I am mostly not.
What are my fears about being gone for two months? I fear that one (or more) of our aging parents will have a medical emergency and need our help. I fear our house will be broken into while we are gone. I fear that my politics (liberal, Democrat) won't fly down there. I fear that my well-researched new hairdresser will convert my hair into something to the east of Calista Gingrich's. I fear that my beloved Ravens will get into the postseason and I won't be able to see their games on tv. I fear that I will have to remove my Obama sticker from my bumper. I fear that I will start saying "Y'all." Or, worse, its possessive: "Y'all's," as in "Y'all's niece is getting married next spring, right?" I do not fear becoming irrelevant (I'm a middle-aged woman, so I've already crossed that barrier) or forgotten (note to world: please forget me and lose my phone number!) I do not fear that my politics will become conservative (not in my DNA) or that I will miss the high culture of urban life (Charleston has plenty of culture, thanks, and as far as I can tell, fewer rats than my beloved hometown). I do fear that the husband will get antsy just hanging around the house with me and the pets all day. I see many many long walks in our future.....the poor dog will probably end up begging to be left alone to sleep in the sunroom for a change!
So here we go, taking retirement for a test drive. In an age of Skype and Facebook and multiple redundant wifi hotspots, probably no one but the housesitter will even know we are gone! Can it really be possible that this year we will actually be able to leave our house to celebrate my mid-February birthday? Because for the last multiple decades, my birthday has been snowed out every year!
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