The Quiet One

...And I thought I was having a bad day

The day wasn’t actually that bad… but I saw this on my front porch and just had to pause.

This is an unused hanging flower pot. As I was walking by, I noticed a flash of iridescent green. Intrigued, I looked closer.

It’s a little hard to see in the photo, but this is a good-sized Japanese beetle. Actually, to be more specific, it is a good-sized Japanese beetle’s butt. The head is stuck in the hole. The beetle, near as I can tell, is dead.

I think that’s a pretty good definition of “a bad day”… or, maybe just “a bad idea”.

No more waiting

…well, unless you count the sync-ing which, for 16 gigs (that I fully intend to fill up), might take a while.

That’s right. You heard it here first race fans. I got my new phone.

I’m at home, holding the child at bay, while I frantically sync, re-sync and go shopping on the Apps Store.

I have a blissful whole weekend to play with it…

…as soon as I order a pizza for Cici. She’s quite the negotiator. * sigh *

Calculating vacation

Many of my vacations can be actually mapped out into a certain, almost mathematical formula. This is what my earlier vacation would look like:

• Anticipation (+ 1)
• Getting things done before leaving (- 5)
• Anticipation the night before (+ 2 and - 1 for lack of sleep)
• Boarding the dog and having to look into those sad, sad eyes (- 5)
• Packing the car with family who would rather still be on the Internet or watching TV (- 3)
• Packing the car at the family’s pace because you planned ahead and left LOTS of time (+ 3)
• Traffic on I-95 (- 3)
• Getting lost on some little country road in NC as the sun went down so I couldn’t see the teeney road signs (- 3)
• Looking for dinner on said little country road during a violent thunderstorm (- 3)
  
• A beautiful room with a comfortable bed (+ 10)
• A goat barn to explore (+ 5)
• Friendly goats and barn cats (+ 5)
• A good breakfast (+ 5)
• Plenty of time to get to the beach (+ 2)
• 5 “are we there yet” questions (- 5)
• Ice cream while we wait for the key card to get into the condo (+ 5)
• Condo at the top of a 3-story walk-up with a lot of luggage (- 5)
• View of the beach from the condo (+ 10)
• Days of child entertainment (+ 5)
• Seeing family (+ 5)
• Too much sun (- 3)
• Good eats (+ 4)
• Checking work email from the beach (- 5)
• Not getting my iPhone when I wanted it (- 5)
• The long drive home (- 4)
• The fact I wasn’t driving to Ohio (+ 3)
• 10 “are we there yet” questions (- 10)
• Coming home to a clean house because I thought to clean it before I left (+ 5)
• First day back at work, no crises (+ 2)
• Second day back at work, maybe there was one or two crises (- 5)
• Third day back at work, the stress kicks back in (-10)
• Fourth day back at work when you realize you’ve been in meetings all week and haven’t gotten anything done. (- 20)

I’m aiming for a zero or a nice positive number. Add this trip all up and you get the Post Vacation Funk integer (- 21).

The Post Vacation Funk is an itchy feeling that maybe you made a mistake with the whole coming back home thing. It generally passes back into some kind of equalibrium (with another little flare-up when the credit card bills show up in the mail at the end of the month).

I wonder if there is any way around it. Retirement, perhaps….

iPhone update - the saga continues

So one more day of wasted hours trying to upgrade my phone. Still long lines and understocked stores. I will just have to wait.

I hate to wait.

UPDATE July 15: Still waiting

UPDATE July 17: Still waiting… but Mike just went ahead a prepaid for a couple of phones at an ATT store downtown. We’ll probably get them next week. In the meantime…

still waiting.

Disappointment

Well, we got up early to go get me my new phone. Figured who in their right mind would leave the beach at 8:00 in the morning to go to an AT&T store.

Well, we got there a little before 9. There were about 25 people in line… in the rain. Mike did some scouting for me (on the way to Starbucks) and found at that there had been two people in the store for the past hour AND THEY STILL WEREN’T DONE.

I looked ahead of me. I looked down at Cici (who demanded to come). I left the stupid line.

We’ll try again later.

Honestly. How hard is it to upgrade a stupid phone?

UPDATE: Well, since I got back and got on the Internet, I’m really, really glad I left. If I had actually spent most of day in line, I would have found out that I couldn’t get the model I wanted… and if I had settled for a smaller memory version, they would have disconnected my old phone and then struggled to get my new phone running — most likely leaving me with nothing for my trip home.

I’m going to just wait for a bit.

Yikes. What a completely embarassing screw up. I dearly hope heads are rolling at Apple and AT&T.

Captain Bill's -- Memory vs reality

It was rainy at the beach so we ventured about 40 minutes north to Morehead City today with Cici, two cousins, an aunt and two grandparents.

My brother thought it would be a good idea to take his two boys kayaking. I thought the crew going out for lunch seemed the better option.

Captain Bill’s restaurant sits on the edge of the intercostal waterway (the strip of water between North Carolina’s Outer Banks and the mainland). Morehead City is a port town and all around the restaurant are fishing boats.

My parents used to bring us to this area when we were kids and I have specific memories of both Captain Bill’s and another restaurant down the street: The Sanitary Fish Market. I remember walking down the pier (the wide-eyed child from land-locked Ohio) as the fishing boat captains were coming in bring the biggest, ugliest, most amazing prehistoric creatures up out of their boats and setting them on the piers. It floored me and set alight a lifelong fascination with fish and fish markets.

That was my first little disappointment. No fishermen, no strange creatures of the deep gasping their last breaths at me. I think we just hit the timing wrong. There probably would have been a much better show for evening.

The restaurant itself was just as I remembered it. A long building, build on a glorified pier with long tables big windows. It’s bright, airy and gives a feeling of cleanliness.

Again, my memory was a tad different from today’s reality. I remember lots of people. Lots and lots of people and the smell of fish and hush puppies. I remember a flock of seagulls screeching outside and watching a parade of boats come in — everything lit up by the bright, setting sun.

Today, we were just about the only folks in. There were a couple of seagulls hoping for something outside the window, but they weren’t trying very hard. The sky was still gray, the kids were restless and the kitchen hadn’t quite cranked into gear so the food was a long time coming. Mike and Shelly took over child entertainment duties. The lack of customers actually worked on that front since they could take over a private room and play “Red Light Green Light” until the food came. That left me at one end of a long table still moping over some work email that I had stupidly decided to read and my parents at the other end. I eventually got down to… you know… taking dumb pictures of my feet.

(That always makes Cici scream with laughter. “Mommy took pictures of her FEET! That’s so WEIRD!” Yeah… well….)

I didn’t really get out of my funk until I handed my new Flip video camera to Cici and cousin Audrey on the way home. Audrey, at age 5, is a natural director and completely took control. They made up stories and sang songs and pretty much entertained me completely for the ride home.

I’m still working on where and how to upload video (the wireless connection here at the beach is a bit unreliable). Stay tuned for that. In the meantime, here’s a photo of how the day ended… at the third family party in as many days, at a beach house on the windy North Carolina shore.

Cici is trying to fly.

You GO, girl!