A Day In The Life at the Beach

Whenever I tell people about the family beach vacation we take every two years, whereby 18 of my extended family rent an enormous house on the Outer Banks of North Carolina for a week, about 30% of them say something like, "Oh, that sounds wonderful!" Everyone else looks at me hesitantly, mouths agape, waiting for the punch line. "Wait...your whole family rent a house...together? For an entire week?"

Being in close quarters with large numbers of relatives can be difficult.  Every family is some combination of the Walton's and the Manson's, I suppose. But somehow for us, it all works. This is the 13th such vacation, so we've been doing this since Patrick was a fussy three month old. That inaugural trip was in Sandbridge, in a house with a window air conditioner in two rooms of the entire house, artificial turf on the floor in the kitchen, and roaches the size of adult sandals. Despite such third world conditions, we all had a blast, and against all odds decided that it should become a new family tradition.

As the family grew, the houses would get bigger. As our financial prospects improved they would become more luxurious. Once mom and dad got too old to climb four flights of stairs all day for a week, we began to rent only houses with elevators. As a result, we narrowed the field to houses constructed relatively recently, elevators not being a common feature of houses built in the 1950's. As the rental cost began to escalate, somebody came up with the brilliant idea of having a family yard sale on trip years to finance the week's groceries. At that point, the week took on a life of its own, permanently gaining a beachhead in family lore.

Beach week has also served as a testing ground for would-be suitors. My sister Paula introduced us all to her boyfriend Ron one year. Some of us were dubious, what with his problematic backstory which involved prison time. Ever sensitive to the feelings of others, we decorated the house for a surprise birthday celebration for him by decorating everything in a jail theme, complete with prison uniform stripes! A few years later Christina brought her boyfriend Paul along. He was nice enough, but guilty of false advertising, since for the week he had a head full of hair, but as soon as they tied the knot, he shaved it all off, and hasn't had hair since. Then, a few years ago, Kaitlin's boyfriend Jon, just happened to be a park ranger working at the Hatteras lighthouse, and so just casually popped in for a visit every stinking night, where he was a blatant suck-up the entire week, ingratiating himself to the entire family...except me. This year, Patrick has brought along his girlfriend Sarah. Due to her Greek heritage, we are forcing her to make baklava for 18 people. She's been here for over 48 hours and so far hasn't fled the scene in tears, so I'd say it's going pretty well.

"But, what do you do all week with all of your family?" When people ask this, what they are trying to say is, "Don't you get on each other's nerves??" The answer is...kinda. But that's what nerves are there for...to be gotten on. So, why not have your nerves gotten on by people you love? Essentially, most days go something like this:

5:30-8:30am. People wake up gradually and when they do, breakfast is an on your own affair. Usually a group of ten or so wind up at the table together eating everything from cereal to pound cake slathered in strawberries. At the beach, meal boundaries vanish. If you decide that breakfast should consist of left over lasagna, then bless your heart.

10:30am. The beach calls. We go down and stake our claim with umbrellas and beach chairs. It is quite a sizable enclave, and I'm sure other smaller, less loud families resent us. Yesterday's session featured a fake snake placed close to the new girl...who barely flinched. She has promise!

1:00pm. We head back to the house for another a la carte lunch, after which everyone heads down to the pool for the afternoon. Everyone, that is, except the unfortunate slob who is responsible for the evening's dinner. Yesterday, that was Pam, and by extension...me. Although the final product was a raging success, the process was stressful, featuring as it did a defective crock pot ordeal. But the pulled pork barbecue, apples and cranberry cold slaw, bacon topped baked beans, tomatoe pie and homemade ice cream cake was wildly praised by all. 

Sometimes after dinner, we all head to the beach for a walk as the sun sets. Then we all gather in the big family room to eat Uncle Bill's stove top pop corn and gossip about all the idiots back home. Sometimes games break out, other times it's just a million small conversations taking place all at once. One thing that never happens? The large flat screen television that hangs on the wall, large and foreboding...never gets turned on. It just hangs there, black and useless....sorta like Al Sharpton.

So far this year, besides the fake snake, there has been a fake dog poop sighting and a remote controlled  fart machine employed during dinner, with six year old Bennett at the controls. Just your basic, everyday Tomfoolery. 

I wouldn't want to be anywhere else.

Renaming the Beach House

Ok, I realize that I should probably let it go, but I just can't get over the cognitive dissonance that surely must have been involved in the naming of this house. I mean, when you set about naming a beach house, Absolutely Fabulous,you are making a rather emphatic statement. You're saying that everything about your house is, well...fabulous. I am here to tell you that, as God is my witness, this is not so! So, to correct the record, I have come up with a list of alternative names that do less violence to the truth.

1. Insidiously Ordinary

2. Predictably Disappointing

3. Insanely Overpriced

4. Mildly Irritating 

5. Shockingly Dirty

I've been thinking about writing a follow up to my book, Finishing Well.  

If I wrote a book about this place, I could call it, Aging Poorly.

Alright, now that I've got that out of my system, I can report that everyone has arrived safe and sound. Patrick and Sarah pulled an all-nighter from Nashville, arriving at noon yesterday. Today is the day that the Dunnevants are responsible for making dinner...pork barbecue. 

The weather is here, wish you were beautiful.

Our Ghetto Beach House

We made it. Six hours in a car with Lucy, despite organizational dysfunction and a minor tick infestation, we made it to our beach house in Hatteras. The house is optimistically named Absolutely Fabulous, in much the same way as some parents might nickname an effeminate kid, Thor, in the vane hope that a mere name might somehow endow the recipient with qualities that are otherwise lacking. To name this particular house, Absolutely Fabulous is to forever strip any reasonable meaning from those two words.

It is not without its benefits. The roof seems to work. Electricity is fully functioning, as is the indoor plumbing. There are no broken windows. No roaches, rats or other pests have made an appearance, and the kitchen seems to be fully functioning. Thus ends its positive qualities.

The negative side of the ledger must begin with the smell of the place. The first floor game room has that stale, film of mustiness most often associated with Southern Baptist fellowship halls. It's as if someone years ago had an Easter egg hunt using moth balls. As you venture up the stairs on the carpeted steps, which appear not to have been vacuumed since the Eisenhower administration, the smell changes. The second floor has four bedrooms dissected  by a single hallway. The air is thick with disinfectant, the kind that motels spray after four college kids check out of their Spring Break room at Motel Six. By the time you reach the third floor living space and kitchen, the smell becomes less noticeable, not offensive, but with a 1950's, Green Mile staleness that makes you want to throw open every dirty window in the place and let in some fresh air. Speaking of dirt, there's lots of it here at Absolutely Fabulous. I am hoping and praying that none of the ladies happen to look up at the blades of the ceiling fan above me...there's enough dirt lining those babies to plant tomatoes.

But, I have no business complaining. I'm on vacation, and my son and his girlfriend are four hours away, having left from Nashville at 10:00 last night, driving through the night. I will have an entire week to be charmed by the hidden beauty of Absoluetly Fabulous. After all, when you pay $7000 for a house at the beach, there has to be hidden beauty, right? Oh wait...Christina just found an ant! 

My Nightmare Afternoon

I had big plans for my Friday. After my one morning appointment, I was going to spend the rest of the day plowing through a list of vacation preparation jobs and generally getting all geeked up for my family trip to Hatteras, North Carolina. Instead, some clerk in a skyscraper in Boston, Massachusetts set off a series of events that sent my financial life spiraling out of control. I will attempt to write about it here as a form of therapy, since there's nothing else I can do about it, and writing about it is probably a better idea than buying a gun and driving to Boston.

Eight months ago I began work on a sizable life insurance case. Finally, in late June, all of that work was rewarded when I closed the largest such case I had ever written in the 32 years of my business career. I will not name the company through which I placed this business for fear that the simple act of typing their name might very well send me into apoplectic spasms of violence. Suffice it to say that this company was named for a prominent signer of the Declaration of Independence. Unlike the vast majority of companies I deal with, this company does not pay me by way of electronic deposit. Consequently, on Monday the 13th of July, I received by Federal Express, the largest single check of my life and promptly deposited it into my checking account. Knowing how weird banks are about large checks, I waiting a couple days until I saw it appear on my online statement as "ready to access." Then I began writing checks, transferring money to other accounts belonging to my wife and my business, etc..etc..

Imagine my surprise, when yesterday at 12:45, after my appointment had left, I read four e-mails from my bank notifying me that I had bounced four checks and that the largest check of my career had been returned to my back as UNPAID! I made a bee line to my bank to get to the bottom of what was surely a bank error. My helpful bank officer was certain that it was not a bank error, that in fact, the insurance company bearing the name of a signer of the Declaration of Independence had refused to honor their own check. But, no worries, I had overdraft protection, which had kicked in to limit the damage. Only, my overdraft protection had limits and I had exceeded them due to the large nature of this particular deposit. Dazed and confused, I raced back to my office to demand an explanation from the hapless guy who handles the processing of life insurance. After an agonizing two hours, he informed me that a clerk at the home office had made a "clerical error during the processing of my case which had inadvertently caused the case to be backed off the system..." But, not to worry, they have taken full responsibility for their mistake and have agreed to reimburse me for any bank charges that might have resulted from said error and have vowed to overnight me a replacement check by Tuesday of next week at the latest.

I really am a reasonable guy. Yes, I can be volatile. I do have a famous temper that sometimes rears it's ugly head. But, I was so taken aback by the sheer stupidity of this particular screwup, I couldn't even conjure up appropriate rage. I stammered out something about how this was unacceptable, that I was going to be out of town next week on vacation and needed that replacement check to be in the form of an electronic deposit and I needed it to be executed TODAY, not next Tuesday. I was assured that this could be done and not to worry. I took a deep breath and for the first time in three hours felt that I was going to be alright. Little did I know that it was just starting!

Of the dozen or so things on my to do list for Friday, I now only had time to get a haircut. While in the chair at Sortsclips, I get a text from my frantic wife notifying me that while she was standing in line at Martins she had gotten a text from our bank notifying her that all of the money in her account had been liquidated and she now had a ZERO balance. Not only that, but since her name is still on my grown son's account, all of Patrick's money had been removed as well...something about "loss prevention." So now, our friendly clerk in Boston has left my "living paycheck to paycheck" 26 year old son who lives in Nashville with ZERO money in his checking account. Pam immediately launched into Momma Bear mode and heads over to the bank. It's one thing to drain her account, but when you start messing with one of her kids, well now you've got WWIII on your hands. 

I meet her at the bank, still waiting for confirmation from my life processing guy that the replacement money will in fact be electronically transferred today. As we sit across the desk from two of the most helpful bankers in history, the full impact of what has happened begins to dawn on me. For the first time, I become angry. I say nothing. If my guy comes through, all will be well. The call comes. I walk outside into the parking lot where he informs me that the earliest the transfer can be done will be mid-morning on.....Monday.

My Christian faith informs me that anger isn't a sin, but warns that in my anger I should "sin not." Well, I'm pretty sure that the conversation I had in the parking lot of my bank at 5:20 yesterday afternoon failed to meet the Biblical standard...by a long shot.

Back inside, the branch manager was scrambling to come up with a way to put a band aid on the situation that could get us through until Monday. The fact that it was a Friday and that I would be out of town next week made a bad situation even worse. Amazingly, she found a way. It involves an old credit card I had with my bank that had a zero balance but a $25000 line of credit. I hadn't used the card in over a year but hadn't cancelled it either. We will be able, over the next two days, to make cash advances to cover the shortfall in all of the accounts affected by this catastrophe. I will have to call my mortgage company to have them submit my house payment again, since it was one of the checks that had bounced. Luckily, I had cashed a couple of smaller checks before all of this barnyard manure had hit the fan, so at least I have enough walking around money to get me through the weekend.

When this is all over I intend to do two things. One, write a letter of accommodation to whoever is the boss of my bank's branch manager. She was a dynamo and worked feverishly and compassionately to fix this for me, way above the call of mere duty. She was professional and take charge and I will always be grateful for her efforts on our behalf. Once I do that, I'm going to get to the bottom of exactly who it was that plunged my Friday into such chaos. I want to know who it was who managed to transform the biggest case of my career into the biggest financial nightmare of my life. 

Then, I'm going to give him or her a call for a full explanation, and this time try harder on the "sin not" thing.

The Nuclear Deal

I don't know about you, but the poisoned well of politics is starting to get in the way of my ability to reason. The incessant partisan chatter coming out of Washington has managed to completely corrupt my ability to process basic information. For example, I have absolutely no idea what to make of this nuclear deal with the Iranians. None!

To hear the White House tell it, John Kerry just saved civilization. Through steely-eyed tenacity and tireless negotiating, we have ended Iranian dreams of nuclear weapons, and made the entire Middle East a safer place. Not only have we neutered Iranian nuclear ambitions, we have negotiated the toughest, most fail-safe inspection regime in the history of the world. If the Iranians so much as think about cheating, we will instantly know about it and the entire deal will be off!

To hear the Republicans tell it, Obama just capitulated to practically every Iranian demand, so desperate was he for a legacy enhancement. The Iranians got everything they wanted in exchange for destroying a handful of centrifuges. Although Obama-Kerry had promised anytime, anywhere inspections, they got neither, and they both owe Neville Chamberlain an apology! Once again, America got hosed, this time by the biggest State sponsor of terrorism on planet Earth. This is what happens when you place an America-hating Marxist in the White House.

Judging by the footage of Iranian's joyous celebrations in the streets of Tehran, the man in the street certainly thinks that his government was the winner. I haven't heard such jubilant death to America chanting since the day after 9/11. But who knows what the citizens of Iran have been told by their State controlled media? Maybe they were out there burning American flags all night because it had been announced that the government was throwing an all you can eat Chelow kababs party. But there were no scenes of joyous Americans celebrating in American streets over this deal, for what that's worth. But there was plenty of vitriol, lots of allegations of incompetence, even treachery, across the political barricades. It's become what we all expect. The impossible dream in America is...consensus.

Donald Trump Is An Idiot

At the risk of alienating many of you, can I just say that Donald Trump is an idiot? I guess so, because I just did. Let me count the ways...

This self-promoting narcissist is running for President the way you or I might take up stamp collecting. It's his new hobby. His qualifications for the job seem to be his often repeated observation that he's "really rich!" Yes, Mr. Trump, you are really rich. That often happens when one inherits a real estate empire from one's father, then greases every palm from Staten Island to Palm Beach to build yuuuuuuge gaudy monuments to your own ego with other people's money. Going bankrupt four times isn't a red flag, its a resume enhancement.

Thus far, the Donald, has ridden a wave of voter frustration and anger at the illegal immigration problem to the top of the polls. His famously intemperate remarks about Mexican immigrants being primarily murderers and rapists have been greeted by his supporters as evidence of his unique ability to   "tell it like it is." What we need, they say, is someone who isn't politically correct. Ok, that's fine. But how about we ask those who tell it like it is to tell it like it really is? How about we ask his Trumpness to explain why he hires so many of those murdering rapists to build his buildings, and mow the vast fairways of his golf courses? Trump Tower would be Trump Shanty without the hordes of immigrant laborers who built it.

But, my biggest objection to the man with the World's Most Hideous CombOver is his attempt to portray himself as a conservative who longs for a smaller, less intrusive government. This is on a par with Barack Obama trying to sell himself as an Evangelical Rotarian. Any casual investigation into his political contribution history will reveal that Trump loves him plenty of big government democrats, most impressively, Hillary Clinton. Small government? Are you kidding me? When you look up the term, eminent domain in the dictionary, Donald Trump's picture is there. Put it this way...Trump was FOR big government before he was against it. The only Party that Donald Trump cares about is the uber-exclusive one he's throwing at Trump Plaza next week where he gets to get his picture taken with Taylor Swift...or some other star of the moment.

Listen, I'm also troubled about illegal immigration and the hash that has been made of the rule of law on the subject by the Obama Administration. But, call me crazy, but I'm thinking that we shouldn't be considering electing a man to be our next President who has his own line of cologne, just because he correctly identified a national problem with tough, straight talk. Tough talk is nice, but it's no substitute for intelligence.

My feeling is that Trump will eventually flame out. His buffoonery will ultimately become obvious to all but his most devoted sycophants. Then he can go back to building kitschy gold-plated junk with his name plastered across the side. He's only 69, he's probably got at least another couple of bankruptcies in him.

Lucy and Jackson

Kaitlin and Jon, along with our grand-puppy Jackson, packed up and left for home yesterday afternoon. When I arrived at the house after my workout at the gym, there was Pam, sound asleep on the sofa, while Lucy was in such a catatonic state on her bed at the top of the stairs that she didn't even lift her head to acknowledge my arrival. I plopped down in my recliner and before I knew it, the clock blinked 6:30 at me. Everyone was still asleep. 

I knew that at some point Pam would hit the wall. She had been going 100 miles per hour for a week. But I hadn't realized how exhausting it would be  having a puppy around the house for Lucy. For 48 hours Jackson had been enamored with his new big dog pal. He followed her everywhere, wrestled with her, bit her constantly around the ears, rolled on the floor with her, desperately attempted to steal every morsel of her food. It was adorable to watch and quite endearing. Lucy was so gentle and patient with Jackson as if she knew that he was just a stupid puppy and couldn't help himself. 

I got a glimpse of what kind of grandparent I will be...and it wasn't pretty. Kaitlin and Jon have taken great pains to raise Jackson the right way...with rules. They even have read, and are attempting to apply, a dog-rearing book by some big shot dog expert. I spent the entire weekend trying to invent ways to circumvent their strict rules. I found myself thinking and saying..."now, yau'll leave Jackson alone! He's just a puppy!" Needless to say Jackson thought I was great fun. That's going to be me...the fun grandparent, the one that will require three days of behavioral rehab after each overnight visit! But, oh my goodness was that little puppy a ton of fun! He had a great impact on Lucy, who seems much snugglier now and less skittish. In less than a week the two of them will be back together for an entire week with us at the beach. It's going to be awesome. But first, here are a few pictures from the weekend: