Life, Books, Cats

Good news: Beach!  Yay!  It's gorgeous down here, if a bit too cold to swim. 

Bad news:  I, yet again, have suffered The Return Of The Mysterious Coughing/Headache/Sore Throat.  This is the third time now that it has come back.  I am not amused.

Pre-illness, the drive down on Thursday was nice.  We listened to country music most of the way, and I was forced to admit that over the top patriotic songs about how "This Is America" and such are now a guilty pleasure of mine.  Not as much as "I Wanna Check You For Ticks," however.  That song (whatever it's actually called) is a class all by itself.  It revolves around a country boy using that sentiment as a pick up line in a bar.  Deeply romantic.

My aunt (the Zutara shipper) and I should be able to resume watching Avatar soon.  I'm looking forward to showing her the second season.  It remains one of the best things I've ever watched on TV, and has a lovely Shirtless Zuko Quotient.

Which brings me to another rambling point- why do I fangirl?  And, more specifically, why do I seem to fangirl only animated/drawn characters?  I mean, it started with me insisting that I just liked Zuko for his character, but Season Three and the Beach Episode of Doom put a bit of an end to that.  Now one of my major online hobbies is watching other people fangirl Nightwing.  I am growing concerned.

Anyway, world, Happy Almost-Easter!

And my mom is going up to the mountains without me...  *Sobs*  She's leaving me with two siblings and dad to be the Only Person  In The House Who Can Prepare Food. 

In other news, the weather is now becoming jacket-less, which is nice.  First day of spring!  This is really the most beautiful time of the year around here.  All the dogwoods flower and everyone's lawns fill up with wildflowers except for those of most of our neighbors, people who engage in an odd practice known as "weeding".  We have a baby magnolia in the back yard and it might flower this year, which would be nice, particularly since it a few months ago survived having half of our old dogwood land on it.

And then it will reach 80 degrees Farenheit, and then 90, and then it'll be June and over 100 and I'll begin plotting to move up North. 

And then I'll remember that the beaches up there aren't as nice as Holden, and I'll change my mind.  I've only been to a couple beaches up there, thought- Cape Cod once, which was freezing cold and completely packed and overall Not A Destination I Recommend, though the hotel had about twenty cats and was awesome.  And a couple in state parks in Maine, which were not, as the tourist pictures had indicated, covered with baby seals, and then to one in Nova Scotia.  That one was best, because we were the only people there.

But none of them came close to Holden.  To be fair, none of the other Southern beaches come close to Holden Beach, either.  Myrtle Beach is tacky and packed, the Outer Banks are very nice but aren't really a place to just play in the water.

Holden is perfection.  No high rises- just family beach houses.    Holden is the sea turtle nests, and the three ice cream stores, and the Big Bridge that's still the biggest thing in the world.  It makes me want to spout out poetic purple prose about delicately twisting golden fronds of sea grass clinging to life forsaken on the guardian dunes.

The house there ithat we visit s my grandparents', and we go for Easter and Summer and Labor Day and...  yeah.

I'm actually looking forward to summer now.

Bring on the sweltering!  I've got my melodramatic descriptions!