Back From the Coast

And I had a lovely time, folks. The weather was great, the beach house was fine, although beach re-nourishment has made the word "oceanfront" very much a relative term. What the hell, though, I could use the exercise.

It was an interesting experience being as totally "off the grid" as I was. I decided not to take the laptop, and when we got there we discovered just how basic "basic cable" can get-basically the Big Three networks, FOX, and the Spanish language channel Univision. My kids are now hooked on the telenovela (Mexican soap opera) that Univision plays around the time we usually came in off the beach for lunch. Since they don't speak Spanish, their "translation" of what's going on is frequently hilarious. Other than that, though, we pretty much wrote off TV (even the news!) in favor of long conversations, walks on the beach and in the lovely historic town of Southport, playing guitar, and board games. It was a blast. I actually did do some writing, mostly jotting ideas and lines of dialogue that came to me down in my notebook.

All in all, it was the best way I know of to re-boot my head.

So, what happened while I was gone?