The Annual Vacation With Jeanne

 I have just returned from my annual trip to Hilton Head with my dear friend, Jeanne, and I am poisoned that it ended so soon! highly motivated to get back to work!  I am Jeanne is convinced that if I write every single day without fail for fourteen days, I will produce several masterpieces of prose that will stun the blogoshere!  I will establish a work habit that may actually stick!  Therefore,  in my usual energetic style, I am getting straight to work.  If I fail,  I will only have Jeanne myself to blame!

  First,  however,  I need a cup of coffee.  Also, a bit of breakfast.  I will definitely postpone web-surfing and a shower until after I post,  reserving them as rewards for a job well done!  Naturally, I do not actually require an incentive to produce a few hundred words.  I am an artist and a philosopher!  The words simply flow.  Why, the real challenge is to find the time to direct the veritable flood of nonsense wisdom and bile wit onto the screen!  With that thought in mind, I shall get right down to business writing about my trip,  as soon as I have had a quick peek at Facebook.  This is not procrastination,  it is research. I expect Those in the Know to understand this sort of thing.

 The trip itself could have been better could not have been better.  Although, there were one or two small annoyances which could have been avoided if I Jeanne had arrived more prepared to go with the flow.  Take, for example, beach chairs:  there are two very nice ones at the house which have served our purposes quite well for years.  Jeanne  I was perfectly content with them,  but I Jeanne began to fidget and fuss almost from the first moment we set them up on the beach.  Nothing would do but that we find better ones!

  Off we marched to the store -  well to several stores because it is after-season, of course, and few merchants still had any beach chairs in stock.  As our beach time ticked away,  I dragged Jeanne from pillar to post.  I We eventually had to settle for an inferior brand of chair (though, thankfully, they were clearance priced!  I am nothing if not a savvy shopper!),  I did,  however,  find a nifty little folding lounger which was really what I wanted all along,  although I did not know it before we set off!  It is so satisfying when things work out so pleasantly!  Mind you,  it would have been far more pleasant if that shopping expedition had not gobbled up half the morning!  I am nothing if not adaptable, but there really is a limit!

After wasting a couple of precious hours of beach time in that manner, you can imagine that I was fit to be tied anxious to get back to the beach.  Jeanne was very slow resigned, but slow! chipper, and we returned home with the -really, definitely inferior! - new chairs, which I we promptly shoved into the storage closet.  Picking up the original chairs, we eventually made our way back to the surf and the sand. 

  At the beach,  it took only a moment for Jeanne us to settle,  although I must say it is certainly lucky that Jeanne is I am so easy-going.  It is so annoying how one can only ever seem to tan on one side when sitting at the beach.  I said to Jeanne as she brought me a bottle of water, "It is really too much!  I have a lovely golden tan on the front but am pale as a ghost on the back! This beach sunbathing is for the birds!".  With that, I began to scramble awkwardly rise up gracefully out of my beach chair (wretched thing! we really need new ones!), intending to stride straight back to the villa in disgust,  when Jeanne reminded me to try the new folding lounger I had just purchased.  Of course I had already had not forgotten!  That is exactly what I had intended to do!

  I set up the lounger in a few inches of water so that I might be able to trail my fingers in the foaming surf as the gentle waves rose and fell along the shoreline.  It was all very much like in a movie and,  to be perfectly frank,  it was not even remotely possible not difficult to imagine Yours Truly as the heroine of "From Here to Eternity".  The entire effect was quite lovely,  if short-lived,  and I must really protest that a real friend would have given me warning of the incoming rogue wave.  I prefer not to mention the shortcomings of others,  but suffice to say that after I had picked myself up and mopped the soaked hair out of my face, I was forced to point out to Jeanne that she ought to have her sunglasses made as bifocals as her eyesight is evidently failing fast.  Soon after, I quitted the beach for a much-deserved cup of tea back at the house.  Jeanne opted to remain in her chair reading, serenely twirling her toes in the sand while the gentle surf lapped coolly around her ankles.  How irritating!  nice for her!

  I am not one to complain, as TITK™ are well aware,  but I really feel that when one makes the effort to plan a beach vacation,  the weather gods should, at the very least, provide the superb weather that any reasonable person ought to be able to expect.  In that regard,  I am sorry to report that we were sadly disappointed.  It is true that the sun shone brightly for five glorious days out of the six,  but I want to know why it always has to be cloudy and chilly on the last full day of vacation?  I was furious!  Jeanne was pretty disappointed.   She  I did her my best to cheer me her up,  but I she was out of sorts all day.

  Most of the week passed in this disagreeable agreeable fashion.  I am the essence of discontentment the epitome of congeniality in a traveling companion and Jeanne is the epitome of congeniality pretty good company, usually.  I complained constantly provided constant stimulating conversation,  while Jeanne fetched, carried, cooked and cleaned  lazed about enjoying a well-deserved break.  It was all very nice until the drive home when,  I have to admit,  Jeanne did let down the side a little.  I pulled out all the stops to make the journey enjoyable,  but this was where the limit of her perfections as a guest became sadly apparent.

  On the drive down,  for Jeanne's express entertainment (note: I require no distractions while driving - actually, I prefer no distractions at all while driving to be at my best;  in point of fact, if anyone in the vehicle so much as whispers one word to me while I am driving, we are apt to wind up in a ditch -  but I am otherwise a superb driver!),  I played several CDs which are my proven favorites.  I really feel that 3 CDs is a perfectly adequate selection of music for an eleven-hour car trip,  especially because the mixed artist CD was full of my favorites! classics which can be enjoyed over and over and over and over and over  again!  Jeanne did not appreciate my thoughtfulness nearly as much as I had expected, however,  so we made a trip to Barnes and Noble on the island and purchased several more CDs for the return trip. 

  I will not belabor the point,  but let me just say that I did my best to keep Jeanne entertained throughout the drive, and I assure you that singing along with ABBA and the POLICE and THE BEATLES at the top of one's voice for eleven straight hours is no drive down easy street!  Fortunately, I am an excellent singer - whatever some may say that I lack in musicality, I more than compensate for in volume - and I happen to know all of the words of all of the songs on every album I have ever owned off by heart.  This is why playing CDs several times through on every road trip is so helpful!  I am not saying that Jeanne is unimaginative, but it would not have hurt her to consider this aspect of the situation before she complained to Walter at the end of the trip about not having spoken a single word all day.  Although I always talk incessantly we always chat pleasantly while Jeanne drives,  for some reason she could not get me to give up the wheel  chose not to drive last Saturday.  Anyway, who cares?  I did the best any good friend could do and that is the end of the subject.

  On that note, I must get busy here!  The boys have an orthodontist appointment soon and good heavens! I forgot to get supper ready!

Good day to all!