What's With All the Weirdness?

Yesterday was kind of a bizarre day. Sometimes we really feel like the world is just out to get us. . .stuff keeps happening to us that we couldn't imagine no matter how hard we tried. Like yesterday.

For a couple months now, we've had this weird tall grass/weed stuff taking over our backyard. It grows really fast, gets really tall, and has incredibly thick, strong roots so it's practically impossible to pull. We Googled some stuff that we thought it was (like crabgrass) and couldn't find anything that matched. So last night, on a whim, I thought, it really looks like stuff you see in a marsh to me so I randomly Googled 'marsh grass' (not expecting anything). As it turns out. . .that is in fact what it is. It's called cordgrass or spartina, and it generally only grows in saltwater marshes. Okay, so step 1 was done - we figured out what it was. Step 2 - how do we kill it? We start Googling that, and get all these hits about conserving the marsh grass and coastal erosion and preserving the wetlands. So apparently everyone is trying desperately to save this junk to prevent coastal erosion, and meanwhile we've somehow got it in our yard and there is nothing to kill it with because it's endangered or something. Maybe we can get the government to come dig it up out of our yard and transplant it into a marsh somewhere nearby? We ended up taking some shovels out there and digging up a few of the biggest patches (which was also fun), but there is so much of it out there that will literally take us years.

In addition to our yard turning into a marsh, it has also become infested with baby rabbits (possibly these are marsh rabbits who like the spartina?). So we can't get some sort of normal bug infestation that the exterminator can come take care of. No. We get infested with baby rabbits. We chased at least four of them off the other day when we were working in the yard. So if that's not bad enough. . .yesterday I go outside to scope out the rabbits and see what they are up to, and one of them has crawled up in this tiny niche between two boards of the fence. . .and died. So in addition to digging up marsh grass from our backyard, we also had to dig a dead baby rabbit out of our fence and dispose of it.

We finish all of this nonsense and decide to go play some tennis. I know, it's a bold move after the way things have been going. We head over to St. Andrews, it's slammed, so we make a U-turn and are sitting at the intersection of Playground Road and 61 waiting to turn right onto 61 and some jogger comes running up, apparently decides we're deliberately blocking his passage across the intersection (even though we've been sitting there waiting to turn for quite some time), gets really angry, and runs up and slaps our car as hard as he can. What the heck? Who just runs up and slaps someone's car? Cy was so ticked off by this (which is a rare event and should show just how well things were going for us yesterday), I seriously thought he was going to whip the car around and just run the guy over.

Dazed, we drive downtown to check out the courts at Colonial Lake. We pull in and this low-hanging tree branch scrapes the crap out of the top of the car (same car that has just been slapped by a jogger). And again, all the courts are full. We're like, what the crap?

So we head over to the public courts by the Citadel. On our way there, we see this Neo-Nazi skinhead looking guy on a motorcycle. He's wearing a black leather vest with studs all over it and there is a lime green mohawk sprouting from the top of his helmet. No joke.

We finally find a court over by the Citadel and it's okay (aside from being in the ghetto). It was a little hard to focus on playing what with the pack of dogs barking everytime anyone went past, and the loud music, and the fear of being shot. But we played, and made it home okay, and fortunately, there was no time for anymore weirdness after that.

Is it just us, or is all of that extremely bizarre?

Bloomin' like an onion

Okay, so I was trying to think of a clever title for this blog entry and in regards to "blooming," all I could think of were bloomin' onions, which in turn made me think of what might be my favorite scene from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, where Andrew is riding on the back of Spike's motorcycle and they have the following conversation:

Andrew: You sure you don't wanna stop and pick up some burgers or something, you know, road trip food?

Spike: It's not a road trip. It's a covert operation.

Andrew: Right. Right. Gotcha... I—I bet even covert operatives eat curly fries. They're really good.

Spike: Not as good as those onion blossom things.

Andrew: Ooh, I love those.

Spike: Yeah, me, too.

Andrew: It's an onion... and it's a flower. I—I don't understand how such a thing is possible.

Spike: See, the genius of it is, you soak it in ice water for an hour so it holds its shape. Then you deep-fry it root-side up for about 5 minutes.

Andrew: Masterful.

Spike: Yeah. Tell anyone we had this conversation, I'll bite you.

Andrew: Right.

Love it. It has nothing to do with this post, but it's just so funny. Anyway, the real reason for this post is to express how super excited I am because one of our crape myrtle trees just started blooming for the first time over the weekend! This may not seem like a big deal, but they are little baby crape myrtle trees and we thought they would not bloom for another couple of years (which I was pretty heartbroken about), so it was a really nice surprise! And the blooms are hot pink, the color of flamingos. I feel like it's my birthday all over again (since I got the trees for my birthday and now they are blooming)!

Yes, yes, it's very patriotic. . .

On Saturday, July 4, at our house we celebrated not the birth of our country, but the birth of Cy. Of course people were making their typical jokes about being born on the Fourth of July (it's not like he hasn't heard every single one of those jokes a billion times before).

We started the festivities on Friday night with a trip to Chili's where our waiter called Cy "Boss" and "Birthday Man." (He was less than thrilled.) We got a free chocolate chip molten cake for his birthday though, so I guess it was worth enduring the silly comments.

On Saturday, we played some tennis then had breakfast at IHOP. Then Saturday night, we headed over to Frank and Andrea's house for some Pizza Hut pizza and break-and-bake cookies (Cy's birthday request). For his birthday, Cy had already received an iPod touch from me and rain barrels from his parents (pictures to come, along with aforementioned pictures of trees). On his birthday, he got the Ultimate Missions Collection (Mission Impossible 1, 2, & 3) on blu-ray from my family, and a plethora of tennis balls and some grip from Wes, Kelly, & Noah (tennis balls are always a great gift, and much needed).

Then we went home to watch one of the Mission Impossible movies and try to ignore the fact that all of our neighbors were setting off fireworks well into the night. The people behind us were setting off some huge ones that we could watch through our living room windows. That was kind of interesting.

Overall, I think it was a good birthday for Cy. Even if he is now only one year away from thirty.

Happy Barfday!!!

We arrived back on solid ground from our cruise on Saturday, May 30, the day before my birthday. I think we all felt a little shaky once we got off the boat, but I didn't feel too bad. . .until later that night. After removing the seasickness patch, and getting off the boat, I began to experience the worst seasickness yet. I spent most of Saturday night throwing up, and still felt horrible on Sunday, so we had to postpone the birthday festivities. My family went ahead and gave me my presents (Twilight, fabric for two purses!, the book Higher Hope by Robert Whitlow, and various flamingo-themed things) and then hit the road. It was sad that the plans for a pizza party got cancelled.
Finally, by about Tuesday, I was feeling enough better that the Shealys came over (with the cookie cake). We had cookie cake (yum - Rachel is probably still mad that she didn't get any of it), and Noah helped me blow out my candles and open my presents. I got a couple of vampire books that I wanted, and from Cy & his parents I got two crape myrtle trees for the backyard (pictures of trees to come in next post). Cy also gave me Wall-E on blu-ray.

Although my birthday certainly did not go as planned, I still enjoyed it, and I am now clearly getting old - at 26, I am closer to 30 than 25 now!

Cruisin' With Cocky: A Cock-eyed View of the Carnival Triumph

Hi there, this is Cocky, everyone's favorite traveling chicken. I recently accompanied the Browns and Shealys on the Carnival Triumph to the Bahamas. They were rude and wouldn't let me embark with them actually in the Bahamas since they smuggled me onboard, so all I got was a glimpse of those Caribbean blue seas! Here are some pictures of the fun things I did get to do while confined to the boat.

I made friends with several other animals during our trip. Oddly, they were all albino and they kept disappearing every time Cy or Carissa took a shower. I think it was some sort of conspiracy. I should probably notify PETA.


I enjoyed lounging on the chair on our deck as we said goodbye to the Ravenel Bridge and Charleston Harbor.
'S in da bag. Here I am riding in style in Carissa's new bag from the straw market in Port Lucaya.


Catching some Zzzz's in Rachel's bunk.


This mermaid needed to cover up her breastuses!


The rain made me so sad and forlorn. Perhaps the rain was why they would not let me embark. Maybe they were afraid I would start molting. . . er, melting.


Ah, twenty-four hour ice cream cones. Clearly the best part of the vacation.


Below, you can see me shakin' my tailfeathers on the tail of the boat.

Here I am on the jogging track. There wasn't much to the jogging track, yet people kept lapping me - what's up with that?


Trying my luck at the casino. Cha-ching!


Here I am posing for my formal portrait. I even put my foots out. Pendragon would be proud.


Singing a cock-a-doodle-duet with Dad during karaoke hour. He obviously needed my help on backup.


I put the "fun" in the Carnival funship!!!

Bahamas!

The last week of May, we boarded the Carnival Triumph with the Brown family (Dad, Mom, & Rachel) to cruise to the Bahamas. The ship was really amazing - tons of restaurants, shops, a mini golf course, swimming pools, water slide, tons of stuff to do, and food to eat constantly. It would have been perfect except for the seasickness. We heard that the cruise we were on was pretty calm, but we'll just admit that we are pansies and were incredibly seasick the whole time. (Some of us are still feeling seasick nearly a month later, back on land and will be going back to physical therapy.) In short, we like the idea of a cruise - an all-inclusive package with everything right there, but the seasickness was bad enough for us that we will never go on any boat anywhere ever again.


Having said that, there were a lot of fun moments (as the pictures below will show). We enjoyed the mini golf (especially when I nearly hit the ball off the side of the boat), we enjoyed Francis, our maitre d and his quality Indian accent, especially when he said "Slumdog Millionerrrrrrr!" We enjoyed the strange photographers (Pendragon, who told us to "put your foots" and creepy George from Serbia who said, "You make the picture look good, Angel"). The waiters (Dennis and Phar) were fun.

Our first full day on the boat was spent entirely at sea (barf). We got to spend our second full day in Port Lucaya, where we roamed through the straw market and then hit up the beach.


Our third full day was spent in Nassau, where we went on a kind of bizarre tour of the island, seeing several forts that had never seen battle, and other random landmarks, including a giant flamingo! Then we went to the museum Pirates of Nassau, which was pretty cool, until we came out and a semi-hurricane had appeared out of nowhere. We huddled together on this patio and watched a bunch of chairs and tree branches flying through the air, until we decided to follow this guy (who we thought was one of the pirates, but apparently just looked like one) through this sketchy alley which turned out to be the back entrance to the gift shop. Weird. After the mini-hurricane blew away, we waded through two feet of water on the streets of Nassau and got back on the boat.

Then it was time for another barf day. . .er, I mean fun day at sea. We spent most of that day making billions of towel animals and watching Get Smart on repeat all day long. By the time we woke up the next morning, we could step out on our balcony and see the Yorktown and the Ravenel Bridge (which honestly, we were incredibly happy to see). So yes, we did have fun, but we will never go on a cruise again.

ZOO9

Obviously, our blog has fallen severely behind. That's mainly due to prolonged illness, which I could blog about all day long and still not vent enough; maybe I'll come back to that later. . .

Today's entry is backtracking to the second week of May, when we went on our annual end of the semester trip to Riverbanks Zoo. It was really fun - we got to see a bear fight, which was pretty crazy, and the lemurs were actually out for once and not hiding from us.

There were also a couple of hilarious moments too, like when we overheard this lady tell this little girl: "Hold yo sista hand!" Or when we saw this little girl with a giant lollipop and her mom said, "You better suck that thing down to the stick!!! Dadgum $11 for a lollipop!" and the mom's friend replied, "I ain't never seen the like!!!"

All in all, a good trip. Below are some of the best pictures, with appropriate captions.

Bear Fight! It was kind of disturbing, but not as disturbing as the group of kindergarten girls yelling "Fight, fight, fight!" at the bears. . .

King Julian! "I like to move it, move it!"

Yeah, no joke.

Guy next to us: "I think that's called a musket. Look at the musket." (Oblivious to the giant sign saying 'meerkat.')

The real reason we go to the zoo every year: So I can take a billion pictures of the flamingo exhibit!!!