How YOU doin'?

This was our morning at the beach: sunny sky, warm temperatures, miles and miles of open, pristine beach, and...a flock of deer!!

Can anything possibly top today?

Nemesis

No, those are not World War II mines planted in some European harbor.

This hideous spiky creature is the "goat head thorn." It is a byproduct of a grassy vine that grows on the ground down here - and the most pernicious thing is, you can't really see the thorns in the grass until it's too late. They adhere to everything, and if you have a dog, they are a constant danger. My poor little Lola got them embedded in all four paws yesterday on her way to the beach, and when she sat down because she couldn't walk, she got them in her tail, her legs...everywhere. There's nothing to do but pull them out, which is miserable for her and for me (because in yanking them out, they get stuck in my fingers!) They are everywhere. So I have to try to find some rubber-soled shoes for my dog...which she is gonna hate.....

Here's a video called "The Goat Head Thorn And You!"

They're a little bit firm in their views down here....

Week One's Highs and Lows

We've been here nearly a week, and it's remarkable how quickly I've lost my devotion to my "real" house at home, my possessions there, or much of anything back in my hometown aside from my parents and the Ravens. Of course, we have a housesitter keeping an eye on things back there, so it's not as though I've just left the doors unlocked and hung a sign on the door reading "burglars welcome." But the house we're in here at the beach is so lovely and so well-appointed that we lack for nothing. In fact, I think this must be the most well-appointed kitchen this side of the Julia Child exhibit at the Smithsonian.

There have been a few surprises. Today I learned, for example, that the island is in the midst of a coyote assault. Some ladies I met this morning were talking about having heard the coyotes howling and then the husband of one of them actually physically encountered the coyotes while walking their dog last night. Coyotes! I guess they're here for the deer, of which there seem to be hundreds. There are certainly hundreds of piles of deer poop everywhere. But I wasn't expecting to have to BOLO for coyotes!

I also learned that talking only to one's spouse for days on end gets old. Don't get me wrong: I love my spouse. And he is a very interesting person. But I was feeling a little bit isolated for a day or so there, not having anyone else to talk to. I don't really know anybody down here other than the two realtors who helped us arrange for this rental. The houses here aren't on huge lots, but they are situated so that you really never see your neighbors. Here's our house:

You just don't see anybody to the right or left of you, shielded as you are from the neighbors by stands of enormous live oaks and palm trees. But today I went to a group class at the gym and met a lot of nice people, and even though I wouldn't say I have become fast friends with any of them, they were someone else to talk to, and I felt a lot better after that. After all, without them, I wouldn't know the first thing about the coyotes!

It does indeed seem that everyone's politics down here are more conservative than mine (Romney and Santorum were in Charleston today, I think), but, to hell with it, I put my Obama car magnet back on my bumper this afternoon. Let the chips fall where they may.

I've also learned that for some strange reason, there are a lot of Ravens fans here in Seabrook. On our first day here, as I was heading to the grocery store I encountered an enormous clan of people all wearing Ravens shirts! And when people have asked me where we're from, and I say Baltimore, they all light up and ask me about the Ravens. I'm not sure why there should be a high quotient of Ravens fans in Seabrook, South Carolina, but there are.

It's been a tough week from the perspective of having left my parents back home, since my mother had a bad episode that could have proven very serious this week. In my absence, my cousin was pressed into service for doing the transportation around to doctors and the hospital. Thankfully, mercifully, everything turned out fine, although I learned that it is not the optimal way to learn that your mother is having a cardiac procedure to read it on your cousin's Facebook page. (She didn't have my cell #. I'm not blaming her and it was really creative of her to think of reaching me that way! I'm just saying that I don't recommend firing up your Facebook page while you're working out at the gym as the best way to learn that your mother is having a potentially life-ending cardiac procedure at that exact moment.) 

We are not any closer to reaching a final decision on whether we'd like to live here permanently, but it's only the first week. It got pretty cold for a few days (in the 40s during the day and in the 20s at night) but it snowed a bit at home; still, they do definitely get a version of winter here. The first few days we just ran around like crazy and got ourselves settled in. Now settled, we should be able to develop a routine, know a bit more where things are, and be able to inch a bit closer to knowing what we're likely to do. Because we've definitely had great moments like this:

We are not gloating because they are having snow at home!

Totally not gloating. (Besides, they were only flurries.) But here's how we spent our first day in Seabrook Island, South Carolina: frolicking with our dog Lola on the beach. She, and we, had a blast.

Life definitely is moving at a different pace for us here, at least so far. The husband ensconced himself in his man cave (it's actually a bright and airy room built over the garage, with the most enormous tv mounted on the wall, a fridge (because walking down the 4 steps that lead to the kitchen is apparently too much for the people who built this house!), its own full bathroom (working in the man cave must lead to sweat, which requires showering), and - best of all - wireless internet) and he works all day from the aerie, with his weird telephone ear bug in place. The dog and I do what the dog and I do at home, except that we don't know where anything is here, so we go on at least one daily jaunt to find stuff - like good grocery stores, the dry cleaners, a Petco. It's very disconcerting not to know where stuff is. And then of course there is the daily insult to my senses as I drive past countless Republican Presidential campaign signs, all for candidates who are, in my view, repellant. Mitt Romney runs tv ads constantly here, because the South Carolina primary is coming soon. Fortunately, I don't watch much tv.

This morning I found a pile of deer poop on the deck next to the pool. I found this very unsettling, since the deck lies up a set of stairs and behind a locked fence. How the deer got up there I have no idea, but I don't think I want to see deer that can do that.

There is absolutely no nightlife here. None. As I was walking Lola around the lake this evening, it was already pitch dark by 630 PM and there wasn't another human soul visible anywhere. This may be a function of its being "off-season," but I am strongly suspecting that people here just don't go out at night. Out here on the island, it's a bit of a haul into downtown Charleston, so over the next two months I'll have to decide if I can handle living in a place where the roads are rolled up as soon as the sun goes down. Not sure about that. Not that I live such a wild nightlifestyle at home! But I could if I wanted to, and here I cannot.  That's a good reason to try out a place before taking the plunge into moving there...

It's Diffurnt

Never ever ever in all my born days have I seen such a foodstuff as this tube of something squishy that I encountered this morning at the local Piggly Wiggly. First let me say that I love a store that dares to name itself "Piggly Wiggly." And this particular chain also has its own tee shirts - which are pretty awesome and which I am pretty sure I am going to buy one of, the next time I go. And when they make in-store announcements, they begin with "The pig" (says buy this or that....) Love. It.

But WTF with this tube of offal? In fact, there was practically an offal section in the store - with bags of pigs' feet and chicken hearts and gizzards. I think if they had a section like that at Dean & DeLuca, they would charge an offal lot (haha) for it and have a sign saying "as seen on Iron Chef..." But this morning I encountered this tube of something in the store, just down the road past a million Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich signs. I am in Indian country now..... As my first mother-in-law used to say, "It's diffurnt."

The Loveliness of a Car Trip South on I-95 from Baltimore to South Carolina

It's been a long time since I've driven this far - last year we drove to the Outer Banks of North Carolina, but this trip is longer than that; and my days of driving my daughter to college in the Berkshires of Massachusetts or in Ithaca, New York are well past. And as much fun as she is, the dog isn't exactly the most brilliant of conversationalists, so it was just me and my wandering thoughts (and my iPhone) on the roughly 10 hours of straight, flat road between Baltimore and Seabrook.

But the roadside attractions were enough to make me despair of possibly living in this part of the world. Fayetteville, North Carolina, where the dog and I spent New Year's Eve, seems to equal Fort Bragg plus a zillion strip joints. (Plus one really super awesomely nice Marriott Residence Inn, where the dog promptly flaked out on the floor while I uploaded pix and worked on the blog.) Getting to Fayetteville took us past the obligatory 10,000 billboards for South of the Border (they make it seem so seductive there!), a tantalizing sign advertising the Ava Gardner Museum (loved her), and countless establishments that my husband refers to as (if you have children in the room, shield their eyes now) "titty bars." I guess the military installations sort of dictate that the t*tty bars follow, but jeez. What would Ava Gardner think?

Anyway, here's how I spent New Year's Eve 2011:

So I was on the road by 6 AM headed for Seabrook and as soon as I got here, I could feel the tension start to slip away. Everyone here is wearing shorts! In January! And the realtor reassured me that I need not fear alligators eating my dog - but I should keep my eyes open for the bobcats, who've been known to take out the unsuspecting deer.... BOBCATS!!!  I guess these deer, whom the dog and I encountered on our mid-afternoon walk around the neighborhood, don't know about the bobcat threat:

(City girl, me, thought they were statues - until they moved.....)

Well, here we are, then. Let the grand experiment begin!