Bicycle Race.

I've mentioned a time or two that the Boro has lots of neat things for such a small place. Last night, downtown was blocked off for a professional bicycle race. How cool is that? I caught a few of the racers just prior to the race. Intense. They had men's, women's and children's races. I don't know if this little dude won, but he sure sported a winning attitude! The coolest part of the race was hanging out at a table by the restaurants, quaffing a few Italian beers as the bicycles whizzed by. For a few hours, at least, the Boro felt very "Continental".
Here's a snippet from the women's race. Fast women!
The dudes raced a little later. Couldn't hardly see them, but we sure heard them whoosh by.

Goody, Two Shoes.

Got me some Brass Boot walking gloves the other day. Deerskin with a sheepskin insole. I feel like some kinda cross between Dr. Doolittle and Ted Nugent.

roadtrip charleston

Lady Di and I started Saturday morning with a bang: we completed the Colleton County Rice Festival Rice Run 5K. She beat most of the walkers with an under 15-minute mile pace, and I managed to finish in just under 30 minutes. Another Clydesdale (er, heavy runner) and I lumbered along back and forth through most of the race. He beat me by a step. 'Course, we both got "chicked" by a 11-year old girl who scooted in front of us right at the end (here're the Results, if you're in to that sorta stuff). Yeah, yeah. Still, I bet I coulda beat her in a wing-eating contest!

After cleaning up a bit, we were off to The Holy City (that's Charleston, for the uninitiated) for lunch with one of Diane's most favorite former peers, Liz, and her husband, Charles, and the Med Bistro on James Island. From there we caught a movie, The Joneses, at the Terrace Theatre. The anti-conspicuous consumption message of the movie was evidently lost upon us; as we trundled off to to more shopping. I got a pair of cool new shoes at Phillips Shoes (I might show those off tomorrow).

We were playing the numbers, as you can see. Actually, do to the reckless action of a mean-spirited mailbox, we needed new numbers to go on the new mailbox and post we bought.

We like wild birds. We don't much care for squirrels. Neither do the people at the Wild Bird Store (squirrel-esque beard on the clerk notwithstanding).

They'll Get Ya.

Kids. What are you gonna do? You get some "that's my boy! (or girl)" moments; you get some trips to the Principal's office. A couple of months ago, Lady Di and I helped Davis move up to his cousin Rob's house in Greenville. Rob's kids were over, and I snapped this lovely pic of LD holding Rob's youngest. They actually got along quite well, in spite of the appearances here. I thought the picture was a pretty good summary of the relationship between parents and children: we love 'em; we do our best to teach them stuff; we sacrifice our wants for their needs (and sometimes for their wants). And they poke us in the eye. Of course, if you're doing a cost/benefit analysis, then children aren't a great investment. But it isn't about that, is it? Love is its own reward, in spite of everything. I like the way C.S. Lewis (he of the "Narnia Chronicles", "Mere Christianity" and "The Screwtape Letters") put it in "The Four Loves" (and I've quoted him a lot, through the years):

"Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in a casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless- it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation."

davis

Oldest son, Davis, stopped by the Boro recently. He's up in Greenville living with his cousin and waiting tables whilst he tries to find something in his field. Anybody need a Latin teacher?

Car.

I got a new ride after I sold the Manor. My last car- a rather sour acting gray VW Passat- was named Squidward. It's predecessor- my theretofore favorite car, a yellow Mustang convertible- was named Spongebob. I haven't named the new one yet. Hmmm. It's a Fusion (a Ford product), and, as you can see, it's black. Guess that makes it a Black Ford, just like my Uncle Bob. Maybe his name is Bob. I already had SpongeBob, though. I thought about Jackie Chan. I'm not sure why...

The Play's the Thing.

The Boro's a nice little town. Sure, we've got problems- every place does; but we've also got a lot of cool things for such a little place. Mostly, we've got people willing to take chances to have fun and help the community to be a better place. Last night, Lady Di and I attended opening night of a play: "The Importance of Bein' Earnest", an adaptation of Oscar Wilde's play of a very similar title by Ted Swindley, set in antebellum Charleston and Colleton County.

Jack Montgomery, played by Michael Weaver of Hilton Head Island, leads a duel life as Jack in the Country, and Earnest when he's in Charleston. While visiting his buddy, Calhoun Callaway (played to goofy effect by the hirsute Vaughan Spearman) in Charleston, he falls for and proposes to Virginia Lee Stonewall (nicely played by Christine Grefe, who lives in my old stomping grounds of Ridgeland, and is a juvenile prosecutor in her day job). Virginia Lee's mother, Octavia, played by Ruth Lucas, insists that any man betrothed to her daughter have a decent Southern pedigree before she'll give her approval. While Calhoun is gadding about at Jack's place in the Country- something Calhoun calls "Beauregarding"- he assumes the same alias Jack does: Earnest. Calhoun/Earnest meets, falls for, and proposes marriage to Clementine Coatsworth (played with youthful exuberance by Julia Crabb), Jack/Earnest's impetuous young ward. Clementine's tutor, the proper Livinia Primrose (played by Patty McBride), tries to keep Clementine focused, but has to fight her simmering desire for the Reverend "Pinky" Pinckney (played with fine comic timing by Walterboro attorney John Bryan). Confusion and hilarity ensue- as they must- over the aliases and identities of the principals, but all ultimately ends well.


It takes a lot of folks to put together a play, and I'm lucky to count several of my friends among the folks that made this happen. The costumes looked great, thanks to Gilda Barnwell, who was in charge of costumes, and Bonita Cheney, who is the Historian for the Lowcountry Community Players. The show ended at 10 p.m., which is past my bedtime, so I had to scurry home, but I did manage to get a pic of Reverend Pinckney and Lavinia. Kudos to everyone; it was a lot of fun.

Walk This Way.

At The Manor, dogs Bo and Brady had their run of a big, fenced backyard, but laying around is what they did at the Manor most of the time, and I didn't pay a lot of attention to them. Since their move to Otis Road, their lot has improved. They're in a kennel most of the time now, but they get a walk every afternoon. Bo, the black Belgian Shepard, especially looks forward to his walks. By carefully marking just about every mailbox and storm drain he sees, Bo has managed in a very short time to accumulate quite a mass of land. Brady is not so concerned with all that. She had her run of the wild life, and lost a leg four or five years ago when she was hit by a car. She likes the company she gets on her walks, and leaves world domination to Bo.
Spring was a little late this year (Summerville's Azalea Festival had to make do a couple of weekends ago sans the azaleas, and, if you watched the Masters golf tournament, you maybe noticed that the camera crew tried to satisfy us with Wisteria instead of the azaleas Augusta normally has this time of year), but it's here now, and the flowers are as pretty as ever.
Man, what a beautiful day!

Roadtrip: Hilton Head Island

My Intended and I took a 24 hour vacation to nearby Hilton Head Island this weekend. We checked in to one of the many inns in the area...

The complementary breakfast wasn't half-bad. Enough food for the day, right? Not hardly.


If you go to a beach resort town, you got to go to the beach, right?

For lunch, we indulged in some wings at a sports bar. Yum.

The big treat of the weekend was a night of jazz and fine food and adult beverages at The Jazz Corner. We decided to scout the place out in advance of our evening arrival.


You can't make music without instruments. They told us we'd be right up front, and we were. The company, food and music were all outstanding. Young jazz phenom Grace Kelly (no, not THAT Grace Kelly), and the Bob Alberti trio played two great sets. She's only 18 years old, and has at least two c.d.s out. We bought her 2008 effort, and she was gracious (well, you knew that was coming, right?) enough to sign it. See? There we are:




I filmed a twenty or second snippet from the show. She was really good. Here's a Sampling from YouTube, if you want to hear more.

Sold.

There are strange people living in my house. Well, it's not actually my house anymore. And, in fairness, they did give me money.

Keegan Farms.

Lady Di and I made the brief trek to the outskirts of Round O to Keegan Farms, the home of organic and free-range foods. A lot of really fine restaurants order their meat from Annie Keegan. She's been in the Walterboro and Charleston_papers a bunch. She's a really nice lady.
Organic means none of the junk that makes cows and pigs angry...and NOBODY wants a mad cow. Now, where to you buy the stuff?


Not here. I'm not sure I want to know what this place is for. Think I heard a chain saw...


Hmmm. This looks like a good bet.

No frills here (but there is some right tasty meat).

Before they were bacon, they were pigs. This porcine wonder needs a publicist if he wants to avoid someone's breakfast table. Wonder if Charlotte the spider is available?

Now those are free-range chickens!


This hirsute fellow said he is Annie's Uncle. Hey, Unk, how 'bout go fix those fences?

Donnie Darko Visits the Boro.

Okay, maybe they're not dead ringers, but that is one creepy Easter Bunny.

Pillow Talk.

Not everything I got rid of in the great migration went in the yardsale. Lots of stuff just got pitched. My reading pillow had quite obviously seen better days. Most nights when I'd use it to read in bed, it'd leave a trail of crumbled foam rubber in its wake. I've used so much duct tape on it, it looked some sort of funky bondage toy. No question, it had to go, but that didn't mean I had to be happy about it. Why? Because I'm a guy. You've seen it in sitcoms and in beer commercials: husband/boyfriend reluctantly parts with hideous memento of a by-gone time. Stuffed mooseheads, velvet elvi, and novelty lamps find their way to the dump while some silly dude sulks. Clearly, the tattered reading pillow had to go, but, well, I'm a guy...

Garage Sale.

I've been way busy, of late. I got a contract on The Manor, and got to get rid of years of accumulated junk. Might be some gold in there somewhere. So Lady Di and I sorted, label and set out lots of stuff.

We're kinda new to this yard sale stuff, but we got a few shekels out of it. Enough for a nice dinner in Charleston, anyhow. Mostly, we just ended up giving a ton of stuff to Good Will.

Net result? We're pooped.