Last Minute Beach Trips

As the hot summer inches it's way towards it's own vacation thereby dooming us to months of unbearable temperatures in the high 50's, I took stock of my summer beach trips and realized I had not yet gone for a sandy slump this year. That's shameful really. Sure I went for a few breezy walks in the early Spring when the Hon's were here but there have been no trips to the beach that required sunblock and a bottle of water. I mulled this over in my mind and that very evening Brett says. "Let's go eat out at Folly for supper. I wanna look at something."

Brett tells me all about the different projects he's working on at the office but somewhere in the chats about trusses and lintels, all those building projects mush together in a never-ending labyrinth of mathematics and bearing loads. So when he stopped the car at the end of the beach and hustled along the sand at a pace my shorter legs couldn't match, I got winded and grumpy and just as the hungriness was creeping upon me, we arrived at one of his projects.
"Here we are!" he beamed.

Brett designed that! It's the new community center at the Folly Beach County Park. Brett was so excited to see it in person. I remember him talking about the project at least a year and a half ago and even remember him running off during an evening out at Folly to knock on some pilings at a nearby structure of a similar height. I remember the worries of wind loads and hurricane requirements and a strange basin on the roof that made no sense and then suddenly I was also very excited to see it in person. "This is that one?" I exclaimed. "It looks great!" 

We scrambled up underneath the new building and Brett did mental measurements and tested the give on some tension rods and pointed out angles and connections and areas where updrafts are a concern. 

"See the way that plywood is cut?" he asked. "I drew in it just like that. And they did it!"

We realized it had already withstood a Category 3 hurricane. That's important and great.

I thought his excitement was quite endearing and anytime I tried to take a picture of his happy face, he'd point me back to the building - as if that was more exciting to look at.

Then he took my camera away. 

Last weekend, after much busyness that kept Brett out of his beloved garage, he finally made his way back to his tools. He tinkered for but a few moments when I said, "Brett, it's perfect weather. Let's go to the beach." That sweet Fella thought for a minute, his fists full of parts and gadgets, and he took a deep breath and said ok. He laid all his potential back down on the workbench and we loaded up the Jeep with towels and sandwiches and a couple of books.
It was perfect beach day weather and the water was chilly and refreshing. We lazed and swam and people-watched and then I put Brett's flowing mane into a tiny ponytail and it made him rethink his polite endorsement of a beach day.

Big Storm Dorian

The Big Guy and I were at odds during the big storm. It was another of those will it/ won't it kind of storms and while I have more hurricane experience than Brett, he has more upper body strength and our differing ideas of “hurricane prep” meant that we squabbled and bickered while he boarded up windows I insisted didn’t need boarding and I fought to drag in my heaviest, beloved plants inch by inch. The last time a hurricane came through we disagreed on whether or not to evacuate, so Brett conceding and staying in town with my family, in turn made his family feel second best. In defense of the Unions, the storm never did show up (as we expected) and while I never pulled the “See. I was right” card I’m thinking that had I gloated, it may have made a difference this go-round when I said we didn’t need to board up the entire house. Apparently, storms in the Atlantic brew storms at Black Pig Farms. 

Ari and Nate also had a hurricane fight about the exact same thing we did. (It's that parallel lives thing we have.) So Ari and I had a high old time whining about our husband's incorrect storm priorities. Nate and Brett supported each other's thoughts through either end of the telephone. 

I brought Wilhelmina in for safety and she was even more terrifying by candlelight. 

We woke up in our dark, boarded-up house without power and stared at each other. “Now what?”

Brett ground coffee beans with a mortar and pestle and pretended it wasn’t too dark in the house to read. It was nice outside, as I had foreseen, so Brett played in the garage with his tools. We visited each of our parent's houses, threw out the melting contents of our fridge, and took sweaty naps on the couches. We cooked a weird, canned supper by candlelight which is a lot more disorienting and muggy than it is romantic. We discussed the fact that more humans have existed without lights and AC than those that have and we decided we are soft people. 

While our annoyance with the other still lingered in the air the way most foul things do, we started a puzzle on the coffee table. In search of any remaining ice cubes, Brett dug to the bottom of our freezer and I heard a soft, “our wedding cake.”

"Oh no." I said, snapping right back to that sweaty October afternoon that glitters gold in my memory. We saved a big hunk for our one year anniversary - mostly because someone told us to. Neither of us were particularly interested in eating a piece of cake that's been in a freezer for a year. Brett held the tin foil clump and looked across the house to me in the living room. 

"We're going to have to eat it!" he said. 

"Well alright! Unwrap it. What does it look like?"

Brett grabbed two forks and carried the cake into the living room and we unwrapped it by candlelight in the still, muggy darkness. 

"It's a wedding day seance!" Brett exclaimed. "Ooga chaka ooga chaka!"

"How great if we could summon the day again!" I said, "It was so fun!"

"That was the best day." Brett added. "Remember how Gettsinger was obsessed with the rental toilets?"

"Remember that guy Mattie brought?"

We found our way back to each other and exactly one month early, we ate our anniversary cake chunk while sorting puzzle pieces as a lenient storm inched by outside. 

To make matters worse, Brett was just two or three days into his night class and when we had power, had to login for the next chapters of lifeless information. Here he is in the educational bunker. 

We're in Week Four of classes now and the pups dutifully sit with him from 7:00 to 10:30 each evening until he is finished. Grace sleeps by his feet and Pippa paces around, wheezes at him, checks that I'm still home and then has a short rest before making her rounds again. Brett obediently signs-in on time each day and mostly stays in his chair solving equations and distributing wind loads. Occasionally he comes charging out of the office room and leaps onto me on the sofa and then runs back, all the while squealing his maniacal heehee's. Sometimes, and only if the subject is particularly foreign and difficult, he'll come watch a whole 5 minutes of whatever show I'm watching and then shuffle slowly back to his desk, defeated and sleepy. 

I went into the nightclass thing thinking how bored I would be without Brett because I've grown reliant on his evening entertainment but actually, I'm doing great without him! What I mean to say is that I've been significantly less productive than I thought I would be and have instead been using the Brett-free time to watch all the shows and movies that I don't have the heart to make him sit through. I tend to let Brett pick the programming because he has too many opinions when I'm manning the remote. Let the record show that he is very willing to watch a rom-com with me, it's just that he points out any unrealistic elements and he laughs too hard at the romantic one liners. I also enjoy campy shows with endearing characters no matter how absurd the premise. Brett thinks "it's adorable" that I enjoy them and I don't like that. (But don't let him fool you. He gets just as involved in them as long as I pretend that he isn't.) So I'm enjoying catching up on the silly bits of tv that I'm too embarrassed to support publicly. Sometimes I can't wait for his class to start so I can go put on the next silly episode. Don't tell him I said that.

Enough About Them

Let's focus back on me again. Remember how I said the dogs have gone back to acting like normal, lovable critters? Well scratch that. We've had about four more fights, one more set of stitches and both girls are currently on antibiotics for the collection of puncture wounds they now sport, sprayed maniacally across their legs the way a little girl might bedazzle her favorite tights.

Brett and I are at the end of our violence ropes. Because Grace initiates the fights, I've been extra angry with her and bit more doting on Pippa and I think Grace can tell. After a handful of fights I became a little scared to be left home with them. Not because I was worried they would bite me but because I wouldn't be able to break them up on my own. So I've been watching them like an ecological researcher, distracting them from any imagined tensions or luring one away from the other when I foresee too much oncoming excitement. And you know what I found out? Pippa is the worst! Yes, Grace starts the brawls BUT Pippa dances around in her face all day long. She licks Grace's face, steps on her feet, follows her around... if Grace gets up, Pippa gets up. Pippa races her from room to room anticipating where Grace is heading and then beats her to that water bowl or that spot on the couch. It's completely infuriating. Pippa is the annoying little sister I never was! Right Ellen?

I now spend a large percentage of my day stopping Pippa mid-action. I won't let her lick Grace's face and I trap her back legs when she's trying to beat Grace to her favorite spot under the mirror in our bedroom. "Run Gracie run!" I scream. Maybe I've gone nuts, but I think Grace can tell that I'm playing defense for her and she wags her tail a little harder at me now. This is good timing because Brett and I have not been on the same page about who the culprit is. We've been having all kinds of "your dog" discussions and I would not budge that Pippa was being bullied. Once I accepted that I had been blinded by love, Brett admitted that Grace's maulings are a harsh over-reaction. Pip is annoying but she doesn't try to hurt Grace. Grace is a drama queen. So we've been keeping them mostly separate and when they are together, we will allow no excitement at all. The four of us are walking on eggshells at home and I don't like feeling awkward in my little safe space.

Our Vet, who not once has made us feel like incompetent dog parents, gave us the name of an animal behaviorist who may be able to decipher the origins of our pup tension. I know what you're thinking but we just can't get rid of one. We love them too much. And more importantly, Brett and I would resent the other if our dog was the one that got sent to a shelter. Unless they do something appalling, we can't justify that kind of betrayal. These are our obnoxious children! So now we're waiting around to give our nest egg to someone who will come over to judge us, and then make us buy little doggy jail cells and treat our pups like inmates in their own home. They're going to hate us.

Big Family News

Ahh Ellen. The most confusing bully I've ever loved. Her tiny body, her defensive grin. The way her eyes squish together when she smiles. I spend a lot of time thinking about Ellen. I fancy myself an exemplary people-reader but I can never quite anticipate Ellen's next move. What makes her choose eggs over fruit and yogurt? Why does she write so fast? Just how many craps does she have available to give each day? And most intriguing, who will she bring home next?

Ahh Lee. The most energetic entertainer Ellen has ever loved. Ellen brought Lee around in January and he's been performing for us since. Lee has a happy disposition, loves his Nana, and will happily carry the weight of a conversation because moody Ellen sometimes won't pipe up at all. Lee and Ellen have been smitten with each other since day one. Ellen started talking about marriage just two months in and Mom and I bugged our eyes out at each other. "I'm not going to get married yet. I'm just saying!" she defended.
Ellen and Lee go on to spend most of their time together and while Mom and I watched her fall in love, Dad remained oblivious and back in June, six months into their whirlwind love affair, Dad asked Ellen if she and Lee were serious. We all looked at Dad while crickets chirped. "Where have you been?"

So two weekends ago, LeeLee sent "footage" of the two of them and a song he wrote, and I made a little video montage that ended with a clip of Lee asking Ellen to come out to the dock; he's got something to ask her. We gathered for Sunday dinner and Lee was "running late" (he was on the dock) so I handed Ellen the video and she grinned and cringed as we all watched a slideshow of their adventures together.

Then she saw the ending bit and spun around and saw Lee way out on the end of the dock. Then she got all nervous and giggly and also a little bit angry that we pulled off a surprise and she had no clue. We had to push her out of the house towards Lee. "I'm not properly dressed!" she wailed.

If this dock could talk. What a special place.
I was creeping around in the yard taking photos with my zoom lens. They both caught me.

We had a big celebratory supper and precious Dad even baked them a tiny wedding cake. We also got a little goofy with the camera.

In even more exciting news, Ellen and Lee are using an already booked trip to Europe next month as their destination wedding. They are getting married on a Thursday morning in October in Paris, France. It's great news and all but we're all mad that we're going to miss it. Especially Dad.

Oh also, Ellen is pregnant and baby Olivia will be here in February.

Lately In Photos

Since the dog fight, Grace and Pip have gone on to act like normal dogs that coexist and maybe even like each other a bit ... until Brett gets home. Then Grace pretends to be afraid of Pippa and slinks around the perimeters of all the rooms in the house acting wary and sad. She curls up pathetically under the dining table while the rest of us are splayed out in the living room. Brett then dotes on Grace and all of her dreams come true. And when he leaves for work the next morning, she pops back into a daring explorer of the backyard and a big sister bully and she romps and naps and begs for cheese until Dad get home. Then she becomes a victim again. I have no patience for it.

Pip is unconcerned about it. She's capitalizing on snuggles.

In the nick of time, Brett finished the bulk of his garage jobs and workbenches...

and has dutifully reported to class from 7-10:30 for the last two nights. It seems awful and boring and he and I are both trying to be optimistic but he's exhausted and I'm restless. I'm going to write off having any kind of fun again until November.

We celebrated Papa Clint's birthday by locking ourselves into an Escape Room one afternoon and then having a family dinner. I loved the escape room and noted how bossy Brett became. He's so easy-going. It was odd to see him scampering around, barking orders at his folks. Clint and Susie were amused and calm about the whole thing, feeling no sense of competition to get out before the timer finished it's countdown. Jeff milled around in his slow and strategic fashion, offering one-liners and sarcasm. I really enjoyed it. We escaped the room with just two minutes left on the timer.

When we reconvened for family dinner, we found that Brett and Clint had the same idea to match Jeff's pink, plaid shirt. The Eisenhauer menfolk found this very amusing.

I have little else to report on as I've been cooped in my home for the last two months and I have used this time to scheme ways to create an additional income, partially for monetary purposes but mostly for purpose purposes. I've come up with two Etsy shop ideas so give me another three years to mull things over and I just might get those up and running.
Brett has taken me out of the house for food on a few occasions where he can tell that the cabin fever is getting the best of me. Here I am at Melvins feeling intimidated by such a large lunch.

You see how little I have to report on? Today we are preparing for the hurricane. Well, Brett is preparing. I'm writing a worthless blog post because I've already done the laundry and dishes and brought in the plants and I don't what the crap else to do. I'm getting progressively more grumpy as I write this. It's just dawned on me that I'm going to be trapped inside for two days with a melodramatic Grace and Brett's engineering homework. 

Help me!