Flotsom and Jetsom

Today dawned warm and cloudy and windy. After being lazy for most of the morning, and helping Hilda wrap a few Christmas presents, I decided to go for a walk.

I walked down to the oceanfront to see how it looked, because the noise of the surf had been real loud all night we knew it must be pretty rough. Sure enough it was rough. The surf was pretty much solid white as far out as the end of the Army pier, and some waves were breaking much further out, probably a quarter of a mile or more.

I walked north toward the Pier, which is about a mile down the beach from our overwalk, and had a brisk wind to my back, I knew walking back would be a lot harder. The tide line was covered with stuff blown up by the rough seas. A few years back, on a sea like this we would find lots of shells, sometimes many whole Whelks, and lots of sea glass. Today I found one tiny, jagged piece of green glass, a smooth flat rock that surely didn't come from around here, and tons and tons of garbage.

Most of the stuff was plastic of every description. Thousands of milk bottle caps and the little plastic band that you tear off when you open the bottle, drinking straws and swizzle sticks and tons of broken small bits of plastic that looked like it had been coarsely shredded. Only a few pieces were more than a couple of inches square, but it covered the tide line for the entire mile down to the pier and who knows how much further. Curiously, there was also a large amount of bird feathers in the wash. Big feathers, like those of a big gull or other sea bird.

I don't know where this garbage came from, (oh, yeah, I forgot to mention the single large yellow onion) but I suspect because of the size of the bits of plastic that it was from some ship that had chopped it up before dumping it overboard to get around the law against throwing large pieces of plastic overboard. All in all, a beautiful Outer Banks winter beach was ruined by this disgusting mess.

Winter Solstice

We had our Winter Solstice celebration today. Well, Jenni and Sean and Phoenix came over for lunch and fun so I had to call it something, and it is the first day of winter. So, it was our solstice celebration. We had an indoor picnic of cheeses, fruits, chips and dips , crusty bread and a bottle of wine. We also had a couple of early gifts, Phoenix got his first crayons and drawing paper and some markers made for little hands.

Hilda got a new camera, a Canon A720. Her old camera, a Sony had a nasty little button that put it into slow shutter mode without warning. Too many out of focus pictures got to be too much. This one takes really nice pictures, and the controls suit Hilda's non-techie style of photography. All together we had a great day together.

The weather today started out sunny and warm, but by noon it had turned cloudy and cooled off considerably, with a pretty good NW breeze blowing. I guess that's what happens when winter gets here.

Brrr

It's been cold on the Outer Banks for the last few days. Lows in the low thirties and highs at or below the fifty mark. It was windy for the first couple of days this week, but it calmed down a lot yesterday and today is virtually still.

Now, I know that some of you might think that 30-50 degrees is not cold, but for paradise it's pretty darn cold.

We've been laying pretty low the last couple of days, I think Hilda is about ready for Christmas now and I'm as ready as I'm likely to ever be. I'll probably have some interesting events to report after the big day arrives.

Take care.

Christmas tree

Yesterday morning, we decided to bring the Christmas tree inside the house so that it would be inside in preparation for decorating today. The weather forecast was for rain and wind, so we thought we should bring it in just in case.

Sure enough, the rain came last night pretty hard, and the wind blew some although not as much as predicted. Anyway, this morning we set about decorating the tree, which is something of a ritual with us. Together, we strung the lights, only to come up a little short so I had to make an emergency trip to Kellogg's Hardware in Duck or another string. The lights were on and looking pretty good, so Hilda started unpacking the ornaments. She carefully packs the ornaments, many in their original packages, and wrapped in tissue after the Christmas season, so unpacking them is another ritual.

According to tradition, the "Merry Christmas" ball is the first to be hung on the tree, then the rest follow. Our decorating styles differ a lot. Hilda is very methodical and thoughtful about the placement of each ornament, whereas I tend to just place them randomly in any spot that seems to be available. Overall, I think it worked out pretty well.

The sky cleared this afternoon, and the temperature started to drop, and now it's blowing pretty hard outside, so I guess the forecast is going to be right after all.

Work week

I've been working this week...every day from early till late. I've been from Hatteras to Elizabeth City and back and I'm "wore out".

On the brighter side, the weather on the Outer Banks has been unbelievably nice this week. We've had our heat off and windows open for most of the week. Except for Tuesday when the fog socked everything in and stayed around all day, the sun has been out and it's been a real pleasure to be out and about.

There are lots of birds on Pea Island now, so that part of the week's travels was very pleasant. I saw a pretty good flock of Tundra Swans, a lot of Snow Geese, assorted puddle ducks and gulls, and a whole flock of Ibis. The latter was a real treat to watch as they took off from one of the fresh ponds on the island and cruised right over the road as I was passing by, must have been at least a hundred of them.

As I pass by Pea Island on my way to Hatteras or Buxton, I get kind of wistful for the wonderful days on the beach there, but even though the weather's nice, it isn't really serious beach weather, so I just keep on driving and daydream a little about warmer, sunnier days.

I'm afraid the weather outlook for the next few days isn't quite so good, they say we're going to get a bit of a blow, but I guess we deserve to have at least a little winter to make us appreciate the rest of the year here.

Great day on the Outer Banks

Today is just about as good as it gets for December 9th. I took a walk down to the ocean front this morning, and the beach was so beautiful, I just couldn't resist taking a walk on the beach. I walked north, toward the army research pier, and only saw a couple other people along the way. The temperature was in the mid-fifties, but with only a very light SE wind, it felt much warmer. I was dressed in warm up pants and a sweatshirt and it felt just right.

After walking to the pier and back, I sat for a while on the walk-over benches and just looked at the ocean. The water was calm, but not slick like it's been for the last couple of days, there was just enough breeze to cause a slight surface ripple and the smallest of shore breaks, with an occasional foot-high breaker. Far out, there were some terns flying low over the surface, and occasionally a gannet would crash dive into the water. There must have been some bait fish near the surface, but I didn't see any signs of fish breaking the surface, or any dolphins rolling.

After taking in the peaceful scene for a while, I made my way back up the hill to home, reflecting on how lucky we are to have been able to live in this marvelous place for more than twenty years.

We talked to David and Susan for 3/4 of an hour after I got back from the beach. We had been playing telephone tag with them all weekend, so they called us from the car. They were on the way to St. Louis (about a 3 hour drive for them) to see a Christmas music concert by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. David filled us in on his latest job search activities, and everything seems to be going very well for him. He has three very promising personal interviews scheduled, and a few others in the early stages of development. As usual, he's treating the job search like a job, and he's getting results.

I'm back on the road tomorrow, for five straight days of leaving early to see clients in remote areas, two days on Hatteras Island, one in Currituck, one in Elizabeth City and one in Nags Head. That's my most demanding work period for the month, so I probably won't be posting anything for a few days unless something really exciting happens.

Christmas by the sea

My class in Winston Salem earlier this week was good. I learned some important information that I will need during the upcoming tax filing season, and got the usual surprise information that will not be too good for my clients. One important item this year is that because of Congress' inability to get anything done on the issue of the alternative minimum tax, the IRS will probably not be ready to process tax returns until the first of March, or so. That will definitely have an impact on those folks who expect a large refund, and need it for something important early in the year.

But, I'm glad my business traveling is over for this year. This trip was especially tiring, and I was really glad to get home. I drove straight through to home from Winston-Salem (about a seven hour drive) after the session was over, simply because I couldn't stand the thought of spending another night alone in a hotel.

The weather was quite cold early this week, and on Thursday when I started my monthly work seeing remote clients it was very cold and windy. Gassing up the van on Thursday morning with the temp and the wind both in the high 30's was a challenge. On Friday morning, however the sun came out and it warmed up nicely. The weather for the tree lighting in Manteo on Friday night was pretty nice compared to previous years.

Hilda, Jenni, Sean, Phoenix and I went together to Manteo last night for the start of Christmas by the sea, the lighting of the community Christmas tree. As I said, the weather wasn't bad, with the temp hovering around 50, but the bonfire in the middle of the street still felt good, and the hot chocolate hit the spot, too.

We left the program a few minutes early and went to Ortegas Restaurant for dinner. The restaurant in in the building that was the Green Dolphin for many years, and has just been completely remodeled. It is beautiful, and a wonderful addition to the downtown Manteo scene. Because we left the program a little early, we beat the huge crowd that surged in later, and got a seat as soon as we arrived. Late comers were treated to a considerable wait to be seated. The food was very good, and the service good, also, considering the crush of business because of the downtown celebration.

For those who haven't been to one, the town of Manteo just closes down it's downtown area to traffic a few times a year, and turns the entire area into one big pedestrian mall. A stage is set up on the steps of the historic courthouse, and entertainers perform, sometimes all day, but in this case just for a couple of hours to kick off the Christmas celebration. Today, they will do the same thing over again for the Christmas parade. And yes, as far as I know they still unabashedly call it Christmas by the sea, and the Christmas parade.

I've been informed that today, we will go Christmas tree shopping. This is an annual ritual that Hilda enjoys immensely, and I have to admit that I think it's fun too. We'll most likely bring the tree home, and sit it in a tub of water in our outside shower and let it soak up water for a week or so before bringing it into the house to be decorated. Once inside, the tree will be decorated with our collection of ornaments that have accumulated over the past 50 years. A few of them are from our first Christmas tree, and the boxes still have price tags on them showing that we paid 29 cents for a dozen glass ornaments made in Ohio! Many of our ornaments commemorate important times in our life together, and decorating the tree is always an event that brings back floods of memories. I can't imagine not doing it.

Off again

Today, I'm off again to Winston Salem for another continuing education session. This time, it will be a program presented by the NC chapter of NATP, a professional organization I belong to. This session will cover a lot of NC issues that you don't get exposed to when attending sessions put on by national organizations that concentrate on federal tax issues. It's always a good program, but I'm not looking forward to driving six or seven hours each way. Oh, well, that's the price I pay to live in paradise.

Yesterday was the day that we had to babysit Phoenix, so Hilda went over to Sean's house about 2:00, while I stayed home and caught up on some work and joined them later. Jenni came over and visited with Hilda and Phoenix for a while. We went out to dinner at Henry's Restaurant in Kill Devil Hills. Henry's is kind of a family type place, and there were a lot of people our age in the restaurant last night. Things have really slowed down on the Outer Banks now, there was hardly any traffic at 7:00 on Saturday night! Many of the restaurants are closed for the season, but Henry's depends a lot on locals business, so they stay open all year.

Phoenix is so well behaved when you take him out, that it's a lot of fun to go out with him. He eats his food and enjoys watching all the other people in the place. Of course, all the women in the place ooh'ed and ahh'd over him, which he didn't mind at all.

I'm off to Winston-Salem.

Back home

After over a week away, we're back at home in Duck. We had a great time over the Thanksgiving weekend, first visiting with all the Wootens at Bobby & Kathy Johnson's house on Lake Wateree in SC. David, Susan and Sarah and Rachel, Jenni, Sean, Jantaporn and Phoenix were there from Wednesday until Saturday, Kevin, Lisa and Brycen came up on Thursday and Saturday, and I stayed until Monday. Hilda left on Saturday morning with our kids and went to Dillon to visit with her brothers and sister and their families. Complicated enough? There's more. I left Kathy's on Monday and went to Charlotte for a tax seminar and picked Hilda up in Dillon on Wednesday night and we returned home on Thursday. Whew!

Our visits to Wateree are always lots of fun, with good food and a lot of laughing. This was Phoenix's first experience with his extended family since he was tiny, and he enjoyed himself immensely. Brycen, of course is in love with Sarah and Rachel, so their challenge was to avoid being permanent baby sitters. They're pretty skilled at that, but did spend lots of quality time with him. All of them are really growing up fast.

Hilda's visit to Dillon was really enjoyable for her too, she got to visit with her aunt Joyce, as well as her brothers, and spent lots of time with sister Cecelia. Sean, Jantaporn, Jenni and I got to visit with all of them for a couple of hours on Wednesday on the way down. Lot's of fun there too.

My tax seminar was pretty good. I usually attend seminars put on by a firm I have been using for continuing ed for many years, and their sessions are always outstanding. I have to admit, though, that I'd really rather be home than staying in a hotel alone and attending CPE classes. I guess we just have to do some things that we'd prefer not to do.

When we got home, we discovered that we didn't have a home phone or an e-mail address that worked, so we didn't have very many messages to deal with. Who knows how many we missed. We now have both of those situations fixed. The e-mail took a little figuring out, but the phone line was just a matter of waiting for the phone guy. Phone lines take a pretty good beating in our salt-laden atmosphere and have to be repaired fairly often.