Edisto Beach

I'm back!

If you're thinking what I'm thinking, then you're thinking this blog might be a bust. But NAY, I will keep trying. Hopefully sometime soon my life this blog will start to take shape, and have a clear direction.

Recently, as I have every 4th of July since utero (sick), my entire family vacationed for a week at Edisto Beach, SC. Actually, no, my birthday is in April, I couldn't have been in utero because it's...9...months..from the 4th of July. sick.

July 1986: dad, yours truly, and laura's forehead.

Admitting that I was actually conceived is probably one of the hardest things I'll ever not do.

This is what Rudy looked like the entire ride down. Needless to say, I was almost the cause of no less than 7 car accidents as I stalked him in the rear view mirror.

dead.

Anyhoot. Edisto is great. Though it's not the place for everyone. In fact, it's rare that I come across anyone who has actually heard of it--and when I do, the reviews are often less than stellar due to it's lack of restaurants/bars/anything entertaining beyond my immediate gene pool and/or someone my dad went to the Citadel with. But to me, it's really a delight.

photo by Dave Allen, Edisto Island 

In general, the majority of the population seems to be over 60, and the portion of said population occupying the actual beach is over 250 lbs. Which just so happens to be my sweet spot, bathing-suit-beach-bodily speaking.

Every year, it seems that more and more babies are popping up and attending this vacay. Circle of life, y'all. I love babies, and I kind of think they make the beach even more awesome. Well, maybe not 1-day-old ones that can’t really move or not cry. Or ones that scream. And especially not ones that throw cheetos or any other consumable item to sea gulls anywhere near my 25’ preferred beach isolation radius. Incidentally, I also happen to have a mission to expose J to as many non-terrifying ones as possible, so that one day, (circa 2034) I’ll be able to convince him to let me reproduce (beyond tiny baby rudy frenchies).

Although it probably comes as no surprise, babies related to me are effing cute. Like, people have gone to jail for being less obsessed with babies cute.  exhibits 1-4:

nephew, Holmes and dad, and an oreo

son, Rudy.

cousin's son, Louis, photo via Stevie

Louis, Edisto Serpentarium, via Stevie

*The Edisto Serpentarium is a pretty legit place, especially for little kids, but it does rival as one of the most frightening experiences of my life, as I found myself face to face with MANY snakes, uncaged, and inches from killer crocs, possibly alligators..I couldn't stop crying long enough to analyze the subtle differences in species. Looks like a croc here though. Also, the smell of the interior spaces rouse memories of my dead pet hermit crabs' carcasses--and I'm really not just being dramatic here, it was terrible.

Anyway, not a lot goes down at Edisto, (clearly, if I was hanging out at a serpentarium), outside of the occasional dolphin sighting, which, depending on it's proximity, I either gasp at in awe of it's mystical majesty or PANIC and vomit in the water. (I'll save a post recalling stories of my dad forcing my sister and I to water ski in low-country inlets alongside these beasts for a later date). But, as always, the week was a dream, and I already desperately miss my sisters and cousins and those careless days without a thing to do but read 50 Shades of Grey (later post!) and gush about how cute Rudy looks in a life vest. *Note, this accessory was not worn as successfully as hoped, and due to an aggressive amount of thrashing while donning it, there is sadly, very little photo documentation.

Coming up...this weekend J and I are headed to the firefly music festival in Delaware for 3 days. Which can quite literally only be described as his HEAVEN on earth, and potentially my hell. I'll let you know how it all goes down when we return.

Laters. (50 shades of grey readers, see what I did there?!?)

A hike.

This past weekend, my mother retired. And I, made a 12,775 day tear-away calendar to mark my own retirement. Not really, but I did slump into a state of semi-depression thinking about how many more Mondays (and Tuesdays through Friday afternoons at about 5:29) that I was going to have to endure. And, decided for the 97^th time this year without actually purchasing a ticket, to play the lottery. Or to dance topless. KIDDING, mom! A little bit not kidding.

Anyway, we went to my parents’ property in western North Carolina for a surprise celebration and due to the lack of internet, television, and viable companions in the county—we decided to go for a hike to Catawba Falls.  (This blog might host quasi frequent hiking expeditions/reviews, due to my significant other’s love of sweating outside). Now, before you go start thinking that I am athletic and/or outdoorsy, I’ll need to describe how a physical event like this typically goes down for me.

every time.

Justin, whose self-admitted celeb-crush is Jillian Michaels (sick. I know), literally plays her role (on the Biggest Loser, for those of you who are ill-informed in the reality television world, and I pity you) when we do anything beyond my realm of exertion (elliptical, moderate intensity, i.e. slow enough to read my kindle without barfing, once a week month).  I can usually keep up for the majority of the activity, and by keep up I mean walk/hike/ski no less than 30 yards behind him, and for the rest of the time, am bent over, clutching an unfortunate tree or stranger, claiming/feigning adult asthma, diabetes, HIV, or anything remotely believable enough to earn me a sip of water.

handsome, eh?

(note: Justin is a male friend, as my dad would introduce him, with whom I spend a very large (and enjoyable) amount of my time. He is highly private and will probably hate this blog, so from this point forward, I will refer to him as simply J, for his protection. Though, as it turns out, he uses the internet about once a year (to look for my Christmas presents(!)), so he will likely never read this).

*Rudy story!! Although it was I who brought Rudy into this world, not physically/creepily, but I like to think in every other sense of the word, he is utterly and completely, 100% in love, with J. Insert tears/denial/confusion/depression/aggression/death. But actually, it’s sort of okay, because it generally looks something like this:

I'm dead.

Back to the hike. Overall, highly bearable. The ultimate goal I would surmise to be the big waterfall at the end; I think they call it Upper Catawba Falls, but there are a number of really pretty smaller falls and sights like century old mills/dams along the way. Now, when I originally looked this bad boy up (on my phone, on the hike, to pass time/think about anything but hiking), there was a bright bolded red sentence at the top describing yet ANOTHER person’s unfortunate death by falling from the top of the falls or wandering off the trail or some crap. To which I responded by assuming instant fear-induced paralysis if I stepped more than 7 inches off the centerline of the path.  Which makes the next part of the hike pretty unbelievable. 

Upper Catawba Falls

Also on the website (which turned out to be just somebody’s personal review of the trail, NON expert), they guy told of some more obscure paths that will get you to the very top of the waterfall. I timidly inched my way closer and closer to the top, arriving ultimately at a single, threadbare rope—with which I can only assume one was supposed to scale a rock face to get to the top. WHICH I DID. For all of 7 feet, before I cried and made J come help me down. Point being, I climbed higher than him. CHAMPION. And he was really impressed (and even a little winded!!!), which I truthfully care very little about, but will certainly recall next time he tries to make me do something scary, like ski down more than a 4 degree slope.

Something you should know about me. Every summer until I was about fourteen nine, I would climb a tree in my grandmother’s front yard, and subsequently have to wait for the mailman to come around and get me (hysterically crying/barfing) down. Every. Summer. I think that this fact, coupled with the recent hiking mishap, might serve as some sort of larger metaphor for my life. Daedalus and Icarus anyone? I’ll let you know when I figure it out.

All in all, I’d call it enjoyable. There are no signs, and it literally looks like maybe 3 racoons do this hike a year, so it’s a bit of a guessing game, but kind of nice that way. Only about a mile and a half in, pretty flat for the earlier leg, and great for dogs, if they aren’t the asthmatic/fat-kid-on-the-playground sort like Rudy. What a cutie!!

*guess who’s used the word barfing three times in two posts?! THIS girl! I’ll try to cut back.

here she is

Well. Hello world, (which I am fully aware may or may not consist of the ten one person who might actually end up reading this [hey mom!]) here it is, MY BLOG.

I've thought about this blog a number of times and for a number of reasons, none of which on their own seemed to justify starting an entire blog--but perhaps cumulatively, my various reasonings will comprise a thoughtful, world-changing, epic DIYing, and just overall evocative read for the masses. OR maybe we'll just look at pictures of Rudy all day. Probably we'll just look at pictures of Rudy all day.

I could tell you all about myself, but I think those of you who will actually read this probably already know, and the few strangers who might stumble upon this site will be able to gather what they need to know of me from the content (likely, that I am a shameless freak of nature obsessed with her dog). Instead, I'll tell you what this blog will be won't be:

dependable

I have a problem following through with things. It is my fervent hope however, that this blog will not be one of those things, but rather an exercise in persistence...though even as I type this sentence I am nervously eyeing the time at the upper right of my screen, hoping to finish this in the 16 minutes before the teen mom (original cast, duh) final season premieres. So, here's to sticking with it, pending that Bravo and/or MTV don't come out with any more fan-fucking-tastic shows. There it is, I decided that this blog will have cursing, just like that. 

funny
I can't promise that this blog will be funny. Mostly because when I think something is funny I generally first, creepy batman-dark-knight grin (RIP heath) to myself as I write it, and subsequently, break out in full on hives overanalyzing whether or not it was in fact funny, or if it was actually offensive/sent to my boss (more on that in a later post because yes, it happened)/just overall too contrived/all of the above. But, hopefully I'll hit the post button whilst the joker grin still lingers on my lips, so that something actually makes it on this site.

expletive free
Trying to clean it up, but there's something just so GD (see what I did there?) refreshing about dropping one in there every once in a while.

unchanging
Similar to the, was that actually funny? internal debate, are all decisions that I make in my life. I'm fairly certain that I have adult-onset-self-induced anxiety and as a result, question basically EVERYTHING that I do. ad nauseum. Lord help me I'm already barfing over the way that this thing is going to look until I can figure out how to format a blog properly, (or use the internet for anything other than googling puppy frenchie videos and the baby Lisa case. Seriously, what happened to her?) I'm 99% sure the domain name, and I'm assuming that means website address, is going to change, given that when I tried looking up hellorudy just now, some sort of Rudy Giuliani bashing blog came up. Which, to each his own, but I'm not trying to have my pup's name dragged through the mud through some mis-associated slanderous mix-up.

I've made three, and only three decisions effortlessly since I was 17 years old. The first, to go to Wake Forest, and that was because my tour guide winked at me. The next, to go to architecture school immediately following undergrad, and that was probably because I was too lazy/scared/drunk to think about a real job at 21. But, it worked out well, for the most part (more on that later!). And lastly, and most unquestionably so, was the decision to purchase Rudy (with a student loan, with an interest rate that kicks my rear, monthly).

So, suffice it to say, the background, content, URL, and pretty much anything about this blog is up for change. Or retraction. So tread lightly with your comments, pls and thnx.

The one thing that will remain consistent, cute, funny, expletive free, dependable, radiant, pure, true, and holy etc. etc. will ALWAYS be, POSTS OF RUDY!!!


I leave you with this.

*note: teen mom has been on for 40 minutes and my computer crashed twice during this upload. COMMITMENT.