Smell that Salt Water?

Date: Friday, December 29th, 2006.
Time: 1657 hrs.

It's the first day of my New Year's vacation and I'm down at Tom's beach house for the weekend. It's been a nice day. April went to work this morning and I started packing when I had consumed enough coffee to faintly resemble the rest of humanity. I walked around the house, jacked in to my iPod, packed all my entertainment gear for the weekend; including but not limited to my guitar, guns, laptop, PDA, cell phone, iPod, two books, and PJ pants. I got on the road around eleven and got here to the house around 1. Tom is coming down after work, but I got to come down early and spend some alone time in the beach house, which I appreciated a ton. I like my private time and sitting here in the house is the first real "tommy-time" I've had in awhile. No Internet, no phone calls (yet) and a full bar... whatever will I do to occupy my time?

Well, I started with vacuuming the house, dusting the layer of abandonment off the tables and counters, setting up the dog fence in the backyard, turning on the heat in all the rooms, and going to Food Lion to get grub for the weekend. That's been enough to keep me busy for the last several hours. At the moment, I'm taking a break from my iPod audiobook to converse with you all before getting back to the routine and vacuuming the last room.

Speaking of strange stuff today, what in the hell is pickle loaf? While emptying the various dead and decaying things the last tenants forgot to take out of the fridge, I ran across this wonderfully hideous substance brightly stamped with a .99 cent sale sticker, proudly proclaiming "pickle loaf." What in the hell is that? Don't the people who work in the food industry have some guidelines at which they have to stop being creative? Pickle loaf is NOT a food. It's not! Ok, here's why: First, "pickles" aren't technically a food, they are a nickname for the process most commonly performed on cucumbers, but also done to other kinds of food to preserve them. Second, no cucumber ever grew in a loaf! Third, I thought the word loaf was reserved for either bread items or certain kinds of meat dishes.. and whatever the hell this is, it is NOT a meat dish. It looks like the paste one might use to patch a floor tile back on the Jefferson's show in the 1970's. It has all the right colors, but maybe heat needs to be applied to make it turn into actual spackle. I'll report back on that when I've set it on fire and discovered the results.

Ok. My inner sense of unrest is rearing its ugly head again. I can't rest when I know there are things to do around the house still. I still need to vacuum Tom's bedroom, sweep the porch, and clean up a little more. I'll be back later...

1803  hrs.

Ok. I've been to the liquor store now and I'm equipped with a fifth of Absolut Vodka. Additionally I got the digital cable working and now the cable modem just came online. Now, I just wait for Tom and April to get here with the Cranberry-stuff I use in my fru-fru drinks, and I'll be good to go. Meanwhile, I'm on the phone here with this guy, Patrick from the cable company who's getting my Internet finalized. Actually, I'm on hold. That's the good thing about the Internet. There's no such thing as "on hold" with blogging. I've been away from the computer now for over an hour and did you even notice? Nope. Not a bit. Imagine just sitting here scrolling down for the virtual hour, waiting for me to come back with some little bit of virtual wisdom, only to poof off again in ten minute.

I think that's going to be my mantra this weekend. 1.) Go do dumb stuff.  2.) Come back and blog about it. 3.) Rinse and repeat. You people out there are lucky we're not charging you for pay per view blogging. Me, Tom, and April and a few fifths of liquor and a 4 bedroom house with a jukebox in the living room all weekend. It's gonna be a hoot-n-anny. For those of you don't know, there are actual stages of southern gatherings.

Get together: Two or more people sitting around talking about nothing.

Shin-Dig: Same as get together, but there's liquor OR music involved.

Hoot-n-anny: Same as Shin-Dig but there's liquor AND music involved.. and usually guns.

Picnic: Any of the previous three listed above, plus a pig pickin' and followed by the hanging of a black man in the tree outback (cause' there's always a tree 'round somewhere) and we break out the "good sheets."  (You'll have to ask Ed about the definition of a picnic.. he's the black guy who told me that one... so don't burn MY house down about it... well, even though he's really as white as they come...) the dude has no "soul" side to him except when he's singing, in which case he's the next James Brown.. woooo.. speaking of: James Brown died last week... I wonder if there was a picnic?

Ok.. back to the drinkin. I'm slowing down now.