Beck and I rolled in just a little before sunset. A lady was out on her dock next door - I couldn't really see her, but thought that my grandparents' friend Pat (whom we were supposed to meet that week) lived next door. She doesn't. We walked over and, narrowly avoiding severe mistaken-identity embarrassment, met the Hendrixes, a lovely couple from whom we proceeded to steal occasional wireless reception for the week. Nice folks, and they knew we were coming; seems word travels fast in these parts. We, of course, had a message for them: pick up your dog Rover!
(Sorry, couldn't resist).
The house is in great shape - at some point my parents and Aunt Pat redid the carpets and wallpapered the bathrooms, so it didn't look quite the same as in my youth. Many of the shrines are still in place - shrines meaning collections of pictures, so we got to see me in all of my delicious life phases, mullet-headed and otherwise. And my parent's wedding album, and my dad's basketball pictures. And a homecoming mum my grandma wore to one of my football games, and a bunch of programs for those games. So it was a bit of a memory trip for me, and Beck got to do some ethnographic studies of Texas HSFootball culture - what exactly distinguishes a "Top Cat" from a "Cougarette?" Fun visit for both of us - first time I had been back to the house since my grandma's funeral some ten years ago, so it was a flashback experience.
(My grandma, incidentally, was the biggest grandma sportsfan of all time. She knew Ernie Banks, for heaven's sake. When I think back on the "glory" and/or torture that was my high school sports years, one accomplishment stands well above the rest - when I was roughly 16 or so, my grandparents came down for a visit and came to a summer league baseball game. I wanted very, very badly to hit a homerun for my grandparents, and somehow I did. I've got a pretty clear image in my mind of grandma clapping behind a chain-link fence with Papa smiling behind her. So that's good).
Some lake pictures to establish setting:
(1,1) View from the lake's end (1,2) View from the porch (1,3) From the living room - I love those squirrels! (1,5) From the rose garden (2,2) A little fish nest right next to the dock (2,3) The lake as seen from the dock (2,4) Big magnolia tree in the back yard.
Of course, this is my favorite view:
On Tuesday, Pat came over (for real) and told us about a dinner being held at the local community college. We made plans to meet the following day for pottery hunting and took to severe amounts of hanging out and reading for the rest of the day (our general MO for the week was read, nap, eat, watch movies, take walks in icky heat, repeat). I idiotically went running at 2 that afternoon; not the best decision of my life, though I clearly survived. We headed over to the CC and enjoyed some really good Carolina BBQ and free lemonade. Good times. We were the youngest in the room by 40 years, too. We made the executive decision to skip the concert involved - it was all silly jazz standards, and as much as I wanted to relive my middle school jazz band days, we forewent hearing Little Brown Jug.
We spent all of the nights (re)watching the Indiana Jones series. Excellent, or at least vastly more excellent than the Fourth. Lots of good eatin' while were up there, too - after that night of BBQ, Beck made a great egg / broccoli / cheese / sausage casserole, and we had turkey burgers off the grill the following night. YUM. Those were grilled in a rainstorm - a couple of thunderstorms blew through while we were there, making for a serious lakeside light show. The weirdest thing about that part of the experience is that we hadn't heard thunder in months out in the desert! In fact, on the first strike, Beck ran under the bed a la Sparkle.
Early on Wednesday, we made the trek out to Pottery Row. Apparently in NC, Pottery is a Big Deal. We went to at least seven places that I can think of off the top of my head. Nice of Pat to take us around, and there really were a ton of incredible pieces (most of which in the "I'm bored at my retirement lakehouse and need something to blow $350 on" price range). Not sure if it was intended, but there seemed to be an unspoken expectation that we would buy something. Happy to oblige - Beck caved at the last place and got us an elegant white, crystalline vase which is theoretically en route to our place right now. The NC House (and my parent's house house) is full of these works that my mom has picked up - I'm fairly certain she's keeping the entire Row afloat. Anyhoo, here's photo evidence that we rocked the local capitalist scene:
Pat took us out to lunch at a little place that was also hosting 35 graduation parties from the middle school across the street; we waited a long while for our food, but it was pretty tasty (Cheesesteaks, and especially the "Chocolate Pizza" which came in a bowl. Eh?). We made an appointment to meet with her and Joe Johnson on Thursday before we headed out of town.
We came home mid-afternoon and, though I wanted to run, I could not imagine the idea of taking off in the heat. So I pulled a little "when in Rome" and went to the local driving range. I was shockingly competent. Inspired, I decided to come back the next day and play the little nine hole course twice for an afternoon round. And:
A little bit of an asterisk on that card: I gave myself infinite mulligans, declared that a three putt would be my max on any hole, a putt within four feet of the hole was a gimme, and, in the event of the ball sitting in less than agreeable turf (meaning pine straw or rocks), I would drop it in a better setting so as not to destroy my dad's clubs. It's more fun to play if you're not constantly cursing and throwing things, yes? Some of my more memorable shots included a drive that hit a pine tree flush and landed behind the tee box and another that ricocheted off a tree straight into a window. Exciting (hey, I only LOST two balls). I didn't mind dropping the $12 it cost to play this course, but I don't think I'll be taking up real golf really any time soon (case in point - I played disc golf yesterday, scramble style, and shot a 5 under. Lower price, higher reward!).
On Thursday, Beck and I packed and met Pat and Joe for lunch at a sandwich shop in Southern Pines. Good stuff; very, very nice folks. I'm glad we had Pat as a tour guide for the week. We had contacted Brett earlier in the week and found out that people / vents were happening that evening, so we drove to Virginia that afternoon. Another tale for another post...
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