in case there were any questions

This video will give you a pretty good idea of my life 'twixt the ages of 8 and 18.

My favorite parts were, "Most of my work is done on Sullivan's Island and the Isle of Palms, and then I also handle luxury homes in Mt. Pleasant", and the cutaway to the woman walking in to the sea.

I hope this video cleared some things up, thank you Eliza for sending this to me.  

I miss you already 40D

I can't believe I'm back on Sullivan's Island, lake lure becoming more and more of a memory.  This morning when I got up I was sad to use the fancy working coffee maker at Andrew's parents house, I miss the gentle sighing and gurgling of 40D.

Apparently anybody that has stayed at the lake house has had their own personal battle with this coffee maker.  Besides the fact that it's complicated and finicky, while it's running it makes this subtle breathing noise that is just human enough to be unnerving.  Using Amy's watercolors I painted my rendition of 40D:

"were you thinking of...coffee?  ::sigh::"

Yesterday in the car we were naming our favorite memories from the week.  I think mine was the night we were all still there, when Jay went skinny dipping.  Mostly because we were all together, but a little because I saw Jay's butt.  Plus, Jay going skinny dipping made it ok for me to go skinny dipping later in the week, and now we are the two cool kids who were brave enough to throw skin to the wind while all of the other wuss pusses just sat on the boat covering their modesty.

I also really liked when Dan changed the lyrics to Danity Kane's "Damaged" to be about him having water in his ear.  He actually didn't have to change too much...

"do do you have a first aid kit handy, do do you know how to get water out of my ear, are are are are you are you patient understanding cause I have got some water so deep in my ear canal!

I've tried every remedy but nothing seems to work for me BABY, the situation's driving me crazy, and I really want this water out of my ear, cause the lake I just jumped in left my ear so damaged, damaged, I thought that I should let you know, that my ear is damaged, so damaged, and you can blame the lake before.

So how you gonna fix it fix it fix it, how you gonna fix it fix it fix it?"

This could go on for hours, as it did all last week.

I also enjoyed the new nickname that Chana gave me by saying I looked like a brown merman, which eventually got shortened to 'merman' which then was changed to 'Merman' and eventually just Ethel.  After this point it took very little for Dan and I to burst out in to "Rose's Turn", much to everyone's chagrin.

But sadly all good things must come to an end, and so my lake lure adventure has.  I have another day in charleston to regroup and then it's back to the sunshine state for me.

For now while I wait for everyone else to wake up, I am going to go through my facebook pictures.  Be prepared for a lot of tagging!

as usual

Apparently the changes in latitude did not come accompanied by changes in attitude so I have still been waking up around 7am every morning, leaving me with at least 3 hours before I feel it's ok for me to go in to Andrew's room and start jumping up and down on his mattress. 

It's ok though as I've been enjoying my morning time regardless of not having anybody to share it with.  Yesterday I walked around Sullivan's Island, no particular direction in mind, and I kept stumbling on relics from my past. 

Not that I went to Sullivan's Island Elementary, don't get me wrong, I'm not part of that upper echelon of the Charleston elite.  But I do remember when this was the bus stop for our middle school bus.  It certainly didn't look like an old abandoned factory back then though.  It seriously took me several moments to realize what I was standing in front of. 

It did not take me long however to figure out what I was standing in front of when I turned the corner and saw this:

Apparently the owners of this don't exactly understand what it is though, as they have placed a birdhouse on top of it.  This seems kind of cruel and unusual punishment for the birds that would choose to nest here.  They'd get a joggling they won't soon forget.  I can't really see myself wanting to joggle next to a bird house anyways.  It just seems like it would be a mess. 

Other favorites from my walk  were the sullivan's island library seen here:

It only looks like a small library because that's the entrance.  It's an old military fort that goes back in the hill and down underground.  I also enjoy that there is an old volvo parked in front of it.  What is it about people from east cooper loving this style of volvo? 

Anyways, the most fabulous thing I found on my early morning walk was Rachel, riding her bike as usual.  And we met at one of my most favorite places:

Not so much because it's beautiful but because I've always been scared of this park.  When we first moved to Charleston my mom took us to this park to play one afternoon.  At some point afterword we found out that there were some kind of satanic rituals and kid snatchings that happened just over the hill beyond the gazebo.  I always felt like I had a brush with death that day.  And again yesterday with Rachel. 

I sit here now at the lake thinking how Charleston is already becoming a memory.  When I plugged my phone in this morning I had 63 pictures to download from yesterday.  I need to get them sorted before the others start waking up. 

almost just like I remember

From the kites lazily circling in the sky to the egg house bracing for the hurricane that still hasn't come, everything was just as I remembered it on Sullivan's Island. 

Well almost everything, it seems the poodles have multiplied.

THEY ARE NICE! 

I like them.  Half the time they are all up in your business snuffling and shoving their big heads against you, and the other half the time they walk right past you like you don't even exist.  It's like kitty, only bigger, and times two. 

The drive up here was uneventful, I made it in time to watch Oprah with Andrew's mom, all my goals were accomplished.  So now i've got nothing left to do but relax and look forward to the lake.

And enjoy these two for as long as possible.

!!!

<3

Saturday afternoon

Saturday afternoon was spent at Eliza's parents home on Sullivan's Island. I guess they have been here for about 4 years now but this was the first time I had been back to Charleston since they built it and moved in. There has always been much debate about which of her houses was "the best". Her father, having been in real estate for all of our childhoods, moved around quite a bit so there are quite a few different homes that each hold special memories for anybody privy to be invited.

If not for the home itself, this one has to take the cake just for the view. This first video I took was standing in the pool and looking from the neighbors to the left over to the neighbors to the right. I couldn't take a picture because the view was too expansive, even from inside the house, so I had to take a video.

This second video I took while walking down the incredibly long dock to the boat house where we spent part two of our afternoon. I understand if you get too seasick to watch the whole thing, but it's pretty incredible. You can see the new bridge all the way over to the sullivans island draw bridge.

So the point of this post was supposed to be more about what an amazing afternoon we had, not just how incredible the view was, but I feel like being in such a beautiful and quintessentially charleston environment only added to the ambiance of the afternoon.

It started with Jojo and Katie hanging out in and by the pool with us. Margaret made us margaritas that were too perfect. It all felt very right, and like we hadn't ever left.

We had lunch on the porch before we went down the dock to swim in the marsh while it was still high tide. I don't think i've laughed that hard in a long time, in general. Just a whole afternoon of laughter and sly glances exchanged between old friends.

We had a break in the afternoon when we took Jojo back home and I got to visit with her Mom who I hadn't seen in quite some time. On the way back we picked up Meghan and Sam and began our second part of my Saturday of amazingness.

We took Meghan and Sam out to the dock to show them the view and enjoy champagne that Margaret has insisted we have (to much arm twisting of course). It didn't take long for Sam to find the rope attached to the crab trap and begin pulling it up. It didn't take long for decisions to be made that the crabs must be cooked and eaten.

I have to say, I feel bad for crabs. Meghan was quick to point out that I am pretty much constantly eating cheeseburgers, which may be true, but there was something about those sad crabs holding on to the bars of the cage for dear life, knowing the boiling doom that awaited them. It was just sad. I know, I'm a hypocrite, I can't help it.

Regardless of the carnage, it was the perfect end to an amazing low country day. The three of them feasted on crab while i took a nighttime swim in the pool and watched the headlights cross the new cooper river bridge.

As incredible as it was to be able to spend the day in a home like that, feeling like you had stepped in to a pottery barn catalogue, the very end of our evening was just as special. We finally got ourselves back to meghan's house where we found a huge container of shrimp creole that her parents had made. Meghan, Sam, and I ended the night sitting around the cozy kitchen table eating shrimp creole and laughing about everything.

from IOP to Sullivans

On Saturday I met Eliza for breakfast at the Seabiscuit cafe on Isle of Palms and then followed her to her parents on Sullivan's Island.

Everything about it was amazing, the perfect charleston day for me. I had the best bowl of grits and an amazing conversation with an old friend.

When I was following her to her parents house I knew I wanted to make a video of driving the bridge between iop and sullivans, because it was another one of those memories i will always have of growing up. Bouncing around from one persons house to another, freeze pops at Meghans and debauchery at Andrews poolhouse. I will always love this little drive over Breach Inlet.