So this is where it goes every year…

Tuesday, October 2, 2012 at 10:08 am (Writing by Ear)
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One of the many things we’ve enjoyed on vacation is how nice people are. From random strangers we pass walking on the beach with a smile and a “Morning,” to the locals at the “Friendliest bar in Myrtle Beach” (so named in 2006) that we stumbled on by a chance coupon deal, to the hotel staff arranging the poolside lounge chairs. I’m sure it’s a combination of realizing your livelihood depends on people liking to frequent your place of business (the professional courtesy) and the fact that people are generally happier at the beach, on vacation (the random courtesy).

I have heard more people say thank you, excuse me, and sorry (often for no real slight or misstep) more in the past week than I can remember in a long time at home. In fact, when staying with a friend a couple months ago at a large hotel downtown (in Pittsburgh), we were both annoyed by the lack of service mentality among the staff, especially because my friend was a paying customer in charge of managing her employer’s seminar there. I even commented on the fact that they didn’t seem to understand they were in the hospitality industry, and how poorly it reflected on the city.

Not so here. A few of the random niceties we’ve encountered: While we were at the sports bar having a late lunch — the only nonlocals in the place and the only people eating — some local guy, known to be a troublemaker apparently, wandered in and started annoying folks at the bar. Voices got a little heated, and the man was asked to leave, forcefully. It was practically over before we knew there was even an issue, but the owner/bartender/waiter came over, apologizing up and down how “things like that NEVER happen there” and feeling bad because it happened while these nice folks from Pennsylvania were visiting for the first time. To boot, he gave us a little card for a “free hug,” (which serves as their business card of sorts apparently), on which he wrote a note that it was good for two free drafts.

Seriously, how nice.

Then there was the conversation we struck up with the retired Air Force vet in the same bar. Turns out he was from Williamsport, PA, where Mike went to school for a couple years. We had a nice talk with him, too — another random stranger.

Just yesterday, we were taking a stroll on the beach and had just turned around to head back to our chairs when a man approached us, asking, “Would you folks like to share an ice cream bar on your walk?” and he handed us a box so we could have one. (And, it was one of those pricey Magnum bars that I’d eyed and wanted to try, but hadn’t yet.)

Seriously, how nice.

There was the waitress who took care to “warn” us not to try to pick up the ribs we’d ordered or we’d end up wearing them — they were that fall-off-the-bone. (And they were. Simply delicious.) The clerk at the muscle car museum who insisted we take a couple coupons to restaurants she enjoyed and recommended. The man working in our hotel who held the elevator door open for me even after I walked across his freshly swept floor in my soggy beach shoes.

It’s been so nice to be around pleasant people, and I’m sure we’ve been more pleasant than usual ourselves. Everyone seems to be trying to convey a good impression of themselves and the town they represent. And to be genuinely nice to one another.

Finally it hit me. No wonder people like it here so much: This is clearly the place where the Christmas spirit we all love (and wonder and lament why it doesn’t last longer) comes to spend the rest of the year.

I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.
~ Charles Dickens

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I had no idea

Saturday, September 29, 2012 at 9:35 pm (Writing by Ear)
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I fall into the category of “luckiest person on earth” this week, as we are on vacation. In Myrtle Beach. Staying in a lovely little efficiency overlooking the ocean. I feel very grateful and very blessed. I thank God every time I look out over the water.

But I’m also kind of surprised and puzzled. And a bit pissed. Because I had no idea so many people still smoked.

Granted, I have family members who smoke (we who don’t smoke yell at them all the time). I have friends who smoke — not a lot of them, but a few. But since Pennsylvania passed the “no smoking in restaurants” law a couple years ago, I really haven’t had to be around much smoke. It made our local hangout bar SO much nicer (to me anyway). I work at home, so don’t have to walk through a cloud to get to my office every day. In front of stores or other buildings, I just hold my breath for 10 or 15 seconds when I walk in, and all is well. I do still get mad when I’m in my car, my little bubble oasis of me-dom, and I have to smell smoke when the person in the car in front of me is smoking. Sometimes for many miles or while sitting in traffic for many minutes.

But here — here it’s much worse. I can’t seem to walk out onto our little balcony, with the big beautiful ocean in front of us, in our non-smoking condo, without smelling someone else’s acrid cigarette smoke. I can’t lounge in the lounge chairs by the pool without smelling that smell. I can’t even sit on the beach, with God’s glorious ocean in front of me, without having those noxious fumes overcome the salty breeze. The AIR. At the OCEAN. The enormous, unfathomable ocean, for goodness’ sake.

Why does someone’s right to smoke outweigh my right to not smell smoke at the freakin’ ocean?

Or while lying in my bed in my non-smoking condo, as the smoke wafts through the electric outlets or the locked, sealed adjoining door, or wherever the heck it’s wafting through?

Or while walking through any of the multimillion-dollar outdoor tourist attraptions you find here?

In a place where, as we learned after getting scolded, you can’t even put your “personal” beach umbrella up unless it’s in line with the other “public” (for rent) beach umbrellas because there’s a freakin’ “umbrella line” in force?

I can’t put my umbrella up anywhere I want on a public beach, but you can smoke and pollute the very air I have to breathe?

I just had no idea so many people still smoked. And I’m sorry to offend my smoking friends with my rant. I’m sorry I despise something you enjoy. I just want to breathe smoke-free air. Everywhere. But especially at the freakin’ ocean.

Thank you for Not Smoking. Cigarette smoke is the residue of your pleasure.
It contaminates the air, pollutes my hair and clothes, not to mention my lungs.
This takes place without my consent. I have a pleasure, also.
I like a beer now and then. The residue of my pleasure is urine.
Would you be annoyed if I stood on a chair and pissed on
your head and your clothes without your consent?
~ Sign from Ken’s Magic Shop

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Weakness or Why not?

Wednesday, September 12, 2012 at 10:22 pm (Writing by Ear)
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Do you give in to your cravings? Right now, with Mike away overnight, the America’s Got Talent final on TV, one cat curled up next to me, and the other one busily licking my hair in the hopes I’ll feed him, I can’t stop thinking about two things…the bag of barbecue potato chips downstairs in the pantry and the half-full (see, optimism) bottle of red wine in the kitchen.

I don’t need either one. I had dinner — a good one (roasted veggies & couscous/quinoa) — which didn’t make up for a rare splurge at lunch — Chick-fil-A, just because it was gorgeous today and I had a new haircut (just so I could get my driver’s license renewed — bye-bye hideous photo I’ve had for 4 years) and I couldn’t stand to go back home. I also walked for 5 miles after work instead of my typical 3 or 4 (again, it was gorgeous out). But still…I don’t need the chip calories or the wine calories.

But when is it ever about calories? It’s about a lifelong love of chips and a decades-long love of red wine. It’s about being lucky enough to have a cozy house, cute annoying cats, a big TV, and chips and wine at my disposal. It’s about wondering if, on my deathbed, I’ll be glad I didn’t have the chips or wine or wonder why the hell I didn’t.

And of course there’s a back story — beach vacation in a couple weeks (yep, we finally decided to go somewhere — Myrtle Beach for the first time. We’re excited.). Plenty of indulgence to come. Bathing suit to wear. Yada yada. I could just strap the chips bag and wine glass to my thighs and be done with it.

I guess I could ask myself WWJD?

I’m thinking yes to the wine on that one.

I could ask what would any health expert/fit person/skinny person do?

Run away. Or tell themselves they’ll only have 3 chips or 2 sips…and then actually do that.

And now, the more I think about it, we also have killer cookies from Sam’s, 2 kinds of Klondikes, and Edy’s coconut fruit bars.

What are the chances I end this post, switch on the Downton Abbey Season 2 DVD, and DON’T consume a darn thing?

Willpower or Won’tpower?

Food for thought is no substitute for the real thing.
~ Walt Kelly

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