Roadtrip: Myrtle Beach 2010

After working our tails off for the past couple of months, Harris and I needed a break. The annual Public Defender's Conference in Myrtle Beach sounded like just the ticket. Pancake houses, cheap T-Shirt shops and Calabash shrimp galore. The weather as Lady Di and I left the Boro was abysmal. Naturally, the Horry County Chamber of Commerce would make sure we wouldn't encounter anything like that up the coast, right? This was what it looked and sounded like:




Diane and I dealt with the weather the way one is supposed to deal with such things: we went to a Mexican Restaurant. She got a margarita. I opted for something a bit more adventurous. The waitress told me that many Mexican men drank a combination of tomato juice, lime, spices and beer called a michelada. Fizzy tomato juice. Ugh! I didn't order a second one (My fish tacos were pretty good, though).

The next day I set out for the Public Defender's Conference. We weren't the only game in town. There were bunches of groups about. Various nurses and police squads mingled with "The Southern Society of Electroneurodiagnostic Technicians". Hey, I'd've joined; I just forgot to get my paperwork out... Oops! Don't want to go in here. Not after the michelada incident the night before.

Cash bar for the perinatal crowd? Does your doctor know about this? Waddya mean that IS your doctor? Better not let those Church Ladies find out!

That rain was awful. The tennis courts didn't get much action...

...but at least the tennis courts were open. How bad does a storm have to be to close down an indoor pool?

Lady Di figured out the best use of our time there.

On Tuesday afternoon, we had a few gorgeous minutes at Sunset, before the rain started up again.

Not a lot of toys this year. Usually the conventions are filled with vendors selling services and books. One book vendor and the South Carolina Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers was it. I went to Myrtle Beach, and all I got was this crummy squeeze ball.

Outgoing Male.

Some goons did a number to our mailbox the other day. The event caused me to reminisce, as many minor events do, to days of yore (my yore, not your yore). I was hanging out at Mitch Brown's house some time in the late '70's, when a car rolled up and someone smashed-in his mailbox with a baseball bat. There's never any pattern to these sorts of things. Mitch was voted Friendliest in our class and didn't have any enemies; it was just a random event. 'Course, the lack of any specific animosity didn't prevent us from jumping in my 1970 Ford Maverick and trying to catch the guy. Ford Mavericks were not especially fast cars, but we gave chase nevertheless. We chased the dude for maybe ten minutes in and out of our subdivision, Town and Country. Finally, the dude shook us. Now, Town and Country was a pretty big subdivision (at thirty thousand people or so, it would have been the fourth biggest city in South Carolina), and, as was the case for many subdivisions built or that era, there were only four or five different styles of house, so maybe he just pulled into somebody's driveway and waited for us to pass. We drove slowly and ran our eyes over many a driveway over many a block, with no luck. We finally gave up and I decided to go home. I pulled into my driveway and saw a strange car. I walked up to the window and tapped on the glass. Out of the window peered our student body vice president, Steve Bates. "Dude!", I said (or the 1970's equivalent. Maybe "Hoss!" or "Man!"), "What are you doing? Do you know whose house this is?". He indicated surprise that, out of the 12 thousand or so driveways in Town and Country he could have selected, he had chosen my house for refuge, and that he was aware that the jig was up. He was contrite, and as meek as anybody carrying a baseball bat could be. I'm not sure whether he replaced Mitch's mailbox, but I'm pretty sure he apologized. I'm not expecting history to repeat itself here.

A Wisp of My Former Self.

I tell you, I'm worn to a frazzle! A murder trial and twenty-seven guilty pleas in two weeks'll do that to you, I guess. Plus all the planning and various and sundry activities outside of work are a ton to handle. I'll try to get back back in the groove.

Why am I like a bicycle?

...because I am too tired.

Jeez, Louise, I'm spent! My third murder trial in as many months and tons of pleas (or as current prosecutor and former ballet dancer Chaz Balish would put it plies). I am totally ready for the weekend.

R.I.P. Judge Cobb

Colleton County lost a good man this weekend. Magistrate William Cobb called 'em like he saw 'em, and didn't have any axe to grind. He was also funny, and had a country style that suited him. Back before Colleton County centralized the magistrate offices, Judge Cobb was in charge of Western Colleton County. His office was was only a couple of miles West of I-95 and the Boro, but it could've been a hundred miles away, based on its appearance. After you drove around in the country through various twists and turns, and parked your car outside of his building, you were met by five or six yard dogs of various sizes and breeds. They weren't mean dogs, but there was a flood of 'em. Judge Cobb would sometimes meet you outside to wave the pack back under cars and where ever else they'd been lurking. The Courtroom was small, and usually Law Enforcement and the Lawyers just went back to his office to work things out. If a case didn't make any sense, he'd throw it out or get the parties to work it out, even if there may have technically been a "case". I'll miss you, Judge Cobb.

Prunes.

What's the saying? Time heals all wounds? Or is it time wounds all heals? Either way. I was reflecting, as I do from time to time, about Einstein's theory of relativity. No, wait... I think that was Ben Stein's theory I was thinking about. Either way. As I took a look at today's breakfast- Raisin Bran and prunes (I'm not sure calling them "dried plums" is better)- I was kinda hoping it wasn't a metaphor for, you know, life. I sighed, and thought about Hank Williams, Jr.'s "All My Rowdy Friends Have Settled Down". Then I remembered a cautionary tale from my (relative) youth.

When I was in, I think, my second year of Law School, a few of my buddies and I had been invited to a Halloween party. One of my buddies (to protect his identity, I'll call him "Randy") had been working construction while he looked for work more suited to his college degree. We'd all been extensively partaking of adult beverages that day, and, by the time we were supposed to leave for this party, Randy'd caked out. Now, during those days, almost any sins were forgivable; however, failing to rally for a round of pre-planned partying was not. We cajoled. We wheedled. We threatened. No movement. Finally, we pulled out the trump card: we cranked up "All My Rowdy Friends". Randy slowly, reluctantly, rallied. No time to pick out a costume, Randy went to the party as a construction worker. He went to the party where he met the woman he ended up marrying. I'm not sure if the story has a moral, but I like it, anyway.

Wodehouse Blues.

When it comes to my literary tastes, I'll admit to being an Anglophile. I've mentioned before that my favorite author is C.S. Lewis because of his clarity of thought, his wit, and, of course, his defense of Christianity. On the other hand, I also admire Douglas Adams ("Hitchhikers Guide to the Universe") and Christopher Hitchens ("God is Not Great"), who were fine writers, but definitely not Christian apologists. I was discussing these authors one day at the local coffee shop (Downtown Books and Espresso) with my buddy, J.D., and he recommended I check out P.G.Wodehouse, who is another dead English writer (as opposed, I suppose, to an Old English writer). "You've never read Wodehouse?", he asked. "No", I said, "But I did watch the movie with Patwick Swayze" (he and I both made the mistake of pronouncing the name as it is spelled, with a long "O". Apparently, Wodehouse pronounced his name like "woodhouse". It was his name, and I guess he can have pronounced it any way he chose; but the joke doesn't work very well that way. Anyway, J.D. was right: Wodehouse rocks!

Don't think you know his works? Maybe. Maybe not. You've heard of the T.V. show "House", right? Well, before Hugh Laurie was Dr. House, he played Bertram Wooster- a Wodehouse creation- in the British series "Jeeves and Wooster". I've only ever seen the YouTube clips of the show, but it looks like a pretty good adaption of the books. I tried to embed a clip, but all were disabled; however, you can click on the link below to get a sampling.

Jeeves and Wooster.

Presto! Pesto.

The colonoscopy on Thursday went, in the end, all right; consequently, I could get about the business of refilling my emptied tummy. Ah, but what to eat? Hmmm. Among the things I water each day are a couple of pots of spices. Among those spices is the fine looking basil plant pictured to the left. I consulted Chef Di, who informed me that basil was a key ingredient in pesto sauce, which, when applied to pasta, makes a right fine meal.
So, we snipped some leaves, which I chopped up. A quick trip to BI-LO netted some pine-nuts and a wedge of Parmesan cheese. Press some garlic cloves and add olive oil and, Presto: pesto.
We're not big bread eaters out on 590 Otis Road (well, Lady Di isn't...), but, as a treat, we figured we deserved some homemade French bread. We aren't poor, but we kneaded the dough anyway.
Toss it in the rarely-used bread maker, roll it down with the rarely-used rolling pin, then pop it in the oven, and... Now that's some fine French bread right there!
Mix the pesto in with some angel hair pasta, serve it with a glass of wine and a nice salad, and you've got a sixty dollar meal on the cheap. Yum.

Rite of Passage.

My colonoscopy is tomorrow. The procedure is just one of those things that you gotta get when you hit a certain age: a rite of passage, if you will. The doctor runs a little (I hope) tube with a fiber optic camera and itty-bitty snipping and collecting tools, through my intestines to see if there are any polyps or other things that aren't supposed to be there. If there are little things, they can be excised right then. If there are some not-so-great looking things in there, he can collect a sample to send to the lab. The procedure itself, while performed by a surgeon with the assistance of intravenous sedation, is supposed to be pretty simple. Sadly, before tomorrow's procedure, I've got to, ahem, cleanse the system, so that when the itty-bitty camera is threaded the wrong way down a proverbial one-way street, the traffic's all cleared out. I've got a lot, apparently, to "pass" before I am able to say, "this, too, shall pass".

Starting this morning at midnight, I've been precluded from eating solid foods. As I may have mentioned in days gone by, I love to eat. I go to bed at night looking forward to breakfast. At breakfast, I contemplate lunch. You get the idea.

So, whilst Lady Di prepares her tunafish salad for her lunch...

...I contemplate mine. There's always room for Jello? And then some. I can also have clear soda; hard candies; yellow, green or orange (but not red or purple) popsicles; clear fruit juice; low-sodium chicken broth and lots of water.

In addition to the few things I MAY have between midnight last night and seven a.m. tomorrow morning, there is one big thing I MUST have: Lots and lots of "action-inducing" fibrous water solution, called, I hope not ironically, "Go-LITELY". You may remember- or not: the movie came out a long time ago- the movie Breakfast at Tiffany's? Audrey Hepburn played the character Holly Golightly. The employee at the surgeon's office who gave me the super-sized bucket of the stuff is named Holly. I kid you not. I have stifled the urge to believe that that is the main reason that Dr. Calcutt hired her.

Anyway, I'll give you a report tomorrow or the next day. Right now, I've got to go. Really.