A short note from a stop on our itinerary! Fred and I headed to Washington DC for a Marine Band event, and now on to a beach vacation down near Charleston, a unique event in the family history.
(Our GPS pronounces it, "Kye-Ah-Wa-heh HIGH-land.")
We had hoped that Laurey would be well enough to join us, as Lucinda planned this week last winter. One of Laurey's texts in mid-January, as the house was selected: "Yay! The Beach!"
 We all knew it was possible, more than possible, that we would have an extra room in the house. Which we do.
A bunch of family and near-family in residence, some beach time for the more sun-accustomed. Some biking, some walking beneath the shady palms for the non-sun-accustomed, and there you are.
A couple of kiddies learning to ride bikes, learning to hula-hoop, learning about young alligators and corn snakes at a nature presentation in the park.
The really terrific wildlife fellow concluded his talk with an invitation to the kids: "Okay, if you want to touch the alligator, just form yourselves into some sort of a line." [Instantly swamped with children].
"Uh, maybe some parents can sort of step in here......"
We petted the alligator, the soft cool corn snake. "He's silky!"
A stuffed gray fox was on display. My favorite quote of the evening, from an exasperated beach mom: "Ralphie, stop kissing the fox!"
Our family friend CD was invited to join us in the beach house, a young man who was coached by Dustin, (father of The Littles). CD has been resident in their home in Kentucky these past few years, and is now in his first year of college, thanks to steady encouragement from Dustin and family.
Lucinda approached the beach with a glimmer of hope that she might clear her cabinets of a backlog of jelly, baking supplies, extra seltzer, and whatnot.
"You know that leavening powder we got in Italy? That might be fun to try."
I can haul out my Italian translator for the packaging, which says something about Angel's Wings. Expiration date here is something like 2007. Yuh.
She also provisioned us up for the Millennia. We are here til Saturday.
CD gazes quietly at the array of jellies. "Do we have any grape?" Mmmm, maybe SaraBeth's Strawberry-Peach, how would that do?
How do you like your eggs? "Scrambled is fine." I tucked in some nice sharp cheddar, heaped his plate, later to discover much of it untouched. Scrambled too soft? Not sure.
After a day of this, Fred and I ventured out to the grocery, and interviewed CD for what he might like added to the household supplies. Regular grape jelly. Got it.
"Do we have any regular cheese?"
Fred offered: "Like square cheese?" A great big beautiful smile. Yuh. Kraft Singles it is.
CD pondered. "Maybe some Sunny D?" "You mean to drink?" An even bigger smile. Please note, dear readers, this orange flavored beverage thing is not food. Not in our world.
At the grocery, we trundled up and down literally every aisle in search of Sunny D. Neither of us had ever bought it. Is it juice? Nope. Kool-Aid? Nope. Soda? Uh-unh.
Ah-HAH! Orange juice! Really?! What are the first two ingredients? Water and corn syrup. Represents over 90% of the contents. Jee-zuz, as we say in Vermont.
Shaking our heads, "This kid plays football! Does he have any idea what is in this stuff?" "Not worse than soda, I guess."
Tonight at the evening's town-wide Low-Country Oyster Roast, CD -- and all of us -- heaped our plates with corn on the cob and salad and dirty rice and macaroni and pulled pork and oysters and Angus beef. The evening drew down, the steel band plinked away, Lucinda and Greg danced and danced.
We coaxed CD, the football champ, over to the hula-hoop area. Fueled by an astounding quantity of protein and, probably, Sunny-D, he steadfastly hula-hooped his way into Kiawah Island history. The kids came and went, the cheerleaders and ex-cheerleaders hooped away, and CD allowed us to egg him on. "Around the waist!" "On your knees!" "Can you get up and then get down again?" "Around one leg!"
Smiling his perfectly handsome Sunny-D smile, he obliged. Lucinda did great, the kids' mother Rachael was terrific, but CD ruled.
We finally closed the joint down, staggering past the plinkers.
"Good night Hula Man!" "Gee, we thought you'd never stop!"
CD sighed into a hot bath, momentarily felled by the hula hoop.
Thank you, Kye-Ah-Wa-heh HIGH-land.
- from Heather Masterton
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Hearty regrets for the late issue of this week's newsletter! (Heather out of town, travelling, mitigating circumstances, sorry, sorry!)
One of our other regular clients, a fellow named John, who is one of the folks who comes here for lunch a few times a week, knew both couples. Tonight's groom was visiting John and his wife here. They had planned to go out to dinner. John and his wife knew tonight's bride and invited her to dinner also. I guess they hit it off enough for tonight's groom to ask tonight's bride to dinner - just the two of them.