So it was time to trim. And as any beard grower knows, half the fun of having a beard is trimming it into something ridiculous for a day or so. It is amusing to the whole family. Except the wife. I enjoy every beard trim experience. I always hope that I'll trim down to a mustache and miraculously look like Tom Selleck or Billy Crudup's Russell Hammond from Almost Famous. But I never do. I don't have a classic Kennedy jawline. When I grow a stache, it looks creepy.
When I was finishing up my trimming, I decided to trim down one last time to a Latino-style thin mustache. When I was done, I realized who I looked like. It was not Selleck. Or Russell Hammond. It was Taylor Negron. From Easy Money. When he played Julio. Who was trying to win back Jennifer Jason Leigh. That, my friends, is not an exciting fact to accept.
In non-stache news, there are few/no virus concern here in South Carolina. They have had only 400 deaths, so they are anxious to open their economy back up. They have restaurants operating at 50% capacity, and almost all retail shops are back open. Most folks do not wear masks in public, but employees (and my family and I) do. My summary advice to cooped-up families in the DC/NYC/Boston area is this: get an Outer Banks/Hilton Head house reserved ASAP and get yourself down in the south where you can let your kids finish the school year with remote learning while enjoying the sun and surf.
My family got aggressive (in the pandemic sense) a couple nights ago. We ate indoors at a restaurant. It was a huge indoor room that was ~20% full. We couldn't keep all servers 10 feet away at all times, but we felt otherwise safe, due to washing our hands and distancing ourselves from other diners. Maybe we'll regret that decision, but it was nice to have a long-overdue return to normalcy. We ate at The Crazy Crab in Harbour Town, a family tradition meal during every HH trip. We all had crab legs. We've done it during each of our five trips here, and it's very fun now that my kids can fend for themselves.
Deciding when/how to inch back to normalcy is a tricky personal decision every family needs to make. But after 9+ tough weeks at home in NJ, we took a deep breath and made one small step. My wife and I accepted a small amount of risk for a shellfish (and perhaps selfish) reward. I didn't buy the ingredients. I didn't have to cook them. And I didn't have to wash one goddamn dish afterwards. It kinda felt like this:
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After the trim you got crabs?
The ladyfriend and I are slipping down to the Outer Banks for the next two nights after a socially distanced funeral this AM. Looks like rain all the way, but no matter. SE VA ain’t the tri-state area (at all) where this pandemic is concerned, but I’ve been fairly vigilant for 2+ months about hunkering down, and it’ll be nice to get down there.
OBX Dave, Hope the mere 22 cases or so of COVID don’t spike with a bunch of us tourons starting to coming into town.
And I trimmed up the beard for the TV spot a little. I still have as bushy a stache as I ever have. Mine comes in not like Magnum or Russell Hammond but more like H.I. McDunnough. Sexy.
So I'm jealous of these excursions to HH and OBX. My wife wants to bail on our yearly Nantucket vacation (first week in July) but I'm waiting until after the Phase II announcement (tentatively June 8th) for possibility of short term rentals being allowed in MA.
Having said that if we bail on that trip we'll definitely rent a place on the Cape instead. Thinking it would be less of a burden if one of us does get sick, we won't tax the resources/hospital on the island and could drive back home easily. Weird decisions for just taking a vacation.
My family and the families of my sisters and out parents were scheduled to go back to the large beach house we rented in Tybee Island in early June. We decided to reschedule early on during the pandemic in hopes that more time would lead to a better time for all. We moved the vacation back a month and are now scheduled for the week of July 6. I’m pretty damn excited about it.
Whenever you say Tybee Island I think of Mad Real World.
Nice 'stache TR! I've been rocking one since Sunday. Saturday I shaved it into a ridiculous mutton chop/ stache combo and kept it for about 24 hours. That's made the regular moustache seem somewhat normal to the people who have to live with me.
As far as schooling goes, we’re pretty much done around here. My oldest would be having her graduation tonight. Instead is tentatively scheduled for either late June or late July.
My youngest technically has three days of school next week but those are nothing days for elementary school kids at the end of the year. She just finished her last online assignment and is officially done with second grade. We’re going to go celebrate in the pool.
We are definitely sucking wind on the remote learning front. My oldest guy now knows how to do just enough to blow through all of his schoolwork in 90 minutes. My younger one still gets asinine projects in Design & Technology. We told him he doesn’t need to put any effort in. I can’t believe this will drag to mid-June for NJ kids.
All of our design & technology products conclude with me cutting two holes in a cardboard box and zdaughter filming a 30 second video in which bullshits her way through how this cardboard box solved the assigned problem. She isn't learning much about design but she's developing some pretty solid bullshitting skills.
that's the only real skill i have, z
team russell has also enjoyed getting crabs at the crazy crab.
MA doesn't get out of school until June 19th. Our son is already doing the least amount of work possible to get a 'pass' grade.
Whit, we dunebillys on the OBX welcome you. I'd like to think that our residual BAC likely handles anything at least as effectively as bleach or hydroxychloroquine.
Whit, did you also see where Tortuga's decided not to do a partial re-open and will stick with takeout only? But they have outdoor picnic tables, so at least you may dine on grounds.
The wife and I biked up the street to the local bar and grill. Sitting outside on the deck enjoying a nice summer night. First time out in any way. Still social distancing but nice to be out and have a few drinks and food.
Obxdave I’m sure you can handle bleach and hydroxywhatevs but just confirming you have experienced a night of drinkin king with Whitney?
Best autocorrect ever?
Hahaha. Whit is the party king among this (and most) crowds. Well played, autocorrect!
Not a whole lot of social distancing amongst the young people out on the deck of the local bar tonight. Wife and I happily hid out in the corner.
The quarantine has had many unanticipated effects. For me, one of them has been an acceleration of my (likely) skin cancer related issues. I’ve spent so much more time outside than usual. Outside dumbbell workouts, far more road and beach running. Tons of pool time. This pale, bald head of mine isn’t where it should be at the beginning of the summer.
I just posted this on my FB page and the FB page of the church I serve:
I’d suggest anyone claiming the church is now “essential” actually attend church sometime to understand better what the church is and how it operates. The church doesn’t close. The church is not the building. Certainly space matters and has meaning, but it’s not the heart of the church and never has been! Next Sunday is Pentecost - perhaps tune in to a service then and learn about the birth of the church and what defines it! OMDL.
For the last 10+ weeks, church has been more than open and shall continue to be.
Just in case you’re wondering. Hope y’all enjoy your getaways and stay well!!
Does anyone still have a "But Mom you don't understand, I like Pi Lam" tshirt?
Amen, Donna
My wife and boys just left to deliver food to a teacher as a thank you gift. I'm alone in my house for the first time in months. The stereo is up LOUD.
What’s playing, Rootsy?
Extremely well put, Donna. I saw a friend’s FB post today that was insane. A respectable gent from Richmond, well-to-do conservative gent whose opinions are such that I usually at least give an ounce of concession to him/them. Not so much now. A rant about why do we think the government is the authority on health, what about the health derived for the soul from going to church, that kids missing little league are suffering lifelong loss (“PLAY BALL”), and other assorted inane calls to action whose most appropriate description would either be “baseless” or “reckless.” (To be kind.) When reading the first paragraph, I had thoughts of commenting, not with a rebuttal but a pondering of Hobbes/Locke-ian philosophy applied to pandemic times. By the end of the read, I treated it like I treat the ramblings of Teejay’s buddy outside the Irish Times. Moving on.
Good call to move on Whit. That’s my general bent unless I’m in a face to face conversation.
And Beggar’s Banquet got the call today from the turntable.
Really well put Donna. As some of you know, Mrs. Marls owns her own branding/marketing agency that specializes in non profits. Many of her clients are churches and faith based organizations. Over the last few months I have been witness to many of the online, stripped down services that her clients have been doing. I have been amazed at how wonderful they have been. Musicians and singers recording from their homes, pastors preaching from their desks, all without the trappings of ritual, but completely from the heart. Every one of those people wants to get back worshiping in person but they are making the best of it and doing it in a way that really shows what a church community can be.
Those demanding that churches open up are mostly using it as a strawman so that Buffalo Wild Wings can open back up.
A local section of the blue ridge parkway is closed due a washout and some downed trees. That means no cars and glorious cycling conditions. Crossed the Roanoke river gorge while a train whistled as it passed under me, set to a soundtrack of Ernest ‘Pops’ Stoneman singing “New River Train”. About as good as it gets for me, since I can’t hang out at buffalo wild wings.
The one time I went to a Buffalo Wild Wings, I impressed my kids w/ my ability to throw down all of the order of the spiciest wings they have. They were impressed. Wasn’t so bad until the next day, when the sauce was on its way out.
Fug Buffalo Wy-ilt Winks. Way too much sauce on dare winks. No one wants drippy fuggin winks like dat.
Donna, right on.
I feel I need to submit an all inclusive Covid post prior to going back to office on Tues. That's a voluntary thing for yours truly. Lots of highlights. Too bad we couldn't have other non-death threatening reasons to stay at home for months on end w fam.
I too feel the urge to comment on maniacal (IMHO) posts of long ago HS friends. Cue the long ago jokes.. so far I’ve abstained like Whit, but I find that as the double hazy beer count goes up it becomes more difficult to stay away. We’ll see.
Separately, I’ve been on a major Joy Division kick. So there’s that. I find their meteoric journey fascinating.
As I’ve mentioned here before, my little island is part of the second Trumpiest county in Florida. So my FB feed is littered with nonsensical ramblings and straw man arguments. I refuse to comment. There’s really no point. None of those people are interested in listening. They’re all telling on themselves.
As for Donna’s extremely well stated point. That’s the essence of religion. I’m not religious for many reasons. My father is though. Extremely. Jesuit educated from elementary school through college. The quarantine didn’t stop him. And he never once bitched about opening churches. He’ll certainly be happy to go back to his place of worship but that building doesn’t define his faith.
Thanks, y'all. Glad you concur. Marls, maybe the little church I serve should employ your spouse and her expertise. Though I imagine we're small potatoes for her. We're the "low tech" online worship folks, for sure. While the church my husband serves is producing pretty polished stuff with synced-up pre-recorded and live stuff together and they're producing it themselves (pretty savvy AV folks, including him), my worship/music people go live on FB, and then I do from home 10 minutes later, with the dog barking and my fumbling about, making sure the camera is on, etc. But it's authentic and real and it's keeping us connected with the people, which is the point.
In other news, our oldest turned 17 today, and we had our first get-together with really close friends in nearly 3 months - 10 of us total (2 families of 5) at our house, outside most of the time, trying hard not to be too close together, etc. It was fun and nice to have other humans around. So that's some good news.
In other crap news - our group that has gone to OBX for 17 years, this would have been 18, decided we simply could not go the week of June 13. We can't because we're all pastors and can't leave with decisions about churches opening or not, online services that mostly pastors lead and put-together, and generally with all going on, and we live in multiple states, etc., so we asked the realty options, and tried to do a transfer to November...the realty was hopeful/optimistic - acted like this was a great solution, etc. - well, the owners refused. They know we aren't coming, and are taking our deposit. We simply lose our money. It just sucks. We all don't have this kind of money to throw around and it's just crappy we can't go and can't switch to another week. Jackasses.
Oh well.
Thanks for listening to my litany of the good and the bad in these days of COVID-19 that just keep rollin' on!
Y'all stay well ~
thanks for the update and advice tr. we may follow suit.
i missed this wright thompson piece on michael jordan when it came out a few days ago. it's a stunning piece of writing:
https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/29180890/michael-jordan-history-flight
Party King is back from the OBX. Terrific little outing. Had a spot on the beach, mile post 8. Beach was very crowded, but that simply meant that people were 25 feet away from you. Water was Maine/Cape Cod frigid.
Got Tortuga’s fish burrito and tuna bites takeout. So damn good. Hit the frickin spot. Cruised around in a Jeep with the top down, had a beer on the deck of the oddly vacant Martha Wood Cottage, watched the sun set over the sound, consumed a bunch of Guinness and other bevs, had a super nice time. Back home now. Already miss it.
Dave: we saw many reasonable OBX houses (price-wise). We looked in Duck and Corolla. Our issue is we have a dog in tow, which limits our opportunity set. HH houses weren’t too bad either, although generally pricier than OBX. Ocean water here closer to 80.
The OBX houses are so big. If you can find a virus-free family to join you, there are great deals to be had.
Sub-$2 gas eases the sting of the trip. And groceries down south are absurdly cheap. Makes eating in very budget-friendly. There are some meat restrictions around here, but stores are reasonably stocked. Sorry to burst CNN’s paranoia bubble.
Tiger is sporting the Mike Tomlin beard. This is a new fun way for me to root against Brady.
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