June 20, 2007

We went to the beach again. I made reservations months ago and chose what I thought would be the best hotel on the redneck riviera. The Perdido Beach Resort. Expensive by our redneck standards but a balcony over the pool and the Gulf too. It looked nice in the pics on the internet. $300 a night.

So we took off (after the affair with the person who stole our wallet and maxed out our credit cards - I hope a wild pig eats their ass! We're a bit tender after all that). And we drove down through Mobile and that tunnel and past the battleship and out over the marshes and to the BEACH! I love the beach. I truly do. The beach is where all repetition makes sense. In and out, in and out, in and out (quit thinking dirty, this is the waves of time!)

So I had researched this and it all looked wonderful and expensive and finally at the last minute I put in the address right before we left for a map and IT'S NOT ON THE BEACH. It's on the bay. So all the way down there we comfort ourselves saying that the bay COULD be the beach (just like a beach... maybe), but secretly everyone is mad at me for making this huge mistake and not getting us on the beach. So I think madly back a few months and what was I thinking then when making the reservations, and I remember it saying that it's on the beach.

But I must be wrong. This is what happens in my mind whenever anything goes wrong. At first I get defensive and get my quills up. "What do you mean by that?!" And I defend myself until everyone is cowed and feelin' so bad for doubting me that the truth then falls back on my ass. AND, I realize that I am a worthless piece of shit who has made a mistake and has not owned up to it. And I hide. All this in the span of ten minutes.

Well, we get to Perdido and follow the map and it takes us to the bay and a residential area and there is no hotel. No grand hotel with beach-front property. IN FACT! Where the hotel is supposed to be is a vacant, grownup (not grownup as in adult but grownup as in weeds) lot.

So Buzz hands me the cell phone. "Find the number and call them." I don't have a number but I have an email printout. No number. So we call information and they dial a number (good sign!) and this perky female answers and I say, "We have reservations but we can't find you." She answers, "We're right on the BEACH BOULEVARD!" This is wonderful news and we drive back to the beach. And here it is.

And

So we ate seafood. Mahi Mahi (blackened), oysters on the half shell (out of season), broiled redfish, crawfish sauce, shrimp scampi, and on and on.

And there were fireworks! A surprise.

And

Here's Evan with a towel on his head.

And here are some cabanas.

And here's my knee.

And I noticed several types of folks at the beach just like they'd be at the mall. Little bitty girls with sunglasses, curly hair, and frilly bikinis (like two - three years old) and I swear they all looked like Ziegfield Follies girls. So cute. And then the cabana boy who had an eternal sunburn/tan, tattooes and could move your umbrella. I tried to move my own once because of the sun angle and tried to screw it in the ground and it blew away. Far away and I had to chase it down, and THEN when the cabana boy did it I watched him and he didn't screw it. He moved it slowly back and forth into the sand.

Also there was the lone pretty bikini girl who sunbaked while all the guys watched her through sunglasses and then went out to swim and swam way out farther than anyone else and stayed there with the sharks and we all watched her. I salute her!

And here's Evan swimming with the sharks!

And here's a look down the beach.

Just one more thing. There was an Elvis impersonator. Why oh why oh why do they always impersonate the fat white jumpsuit Elvis? Why not the gold-suited cool 1950s Elvis. Well, duh? It's because anyone who can impersonate the cool Elvis would probably not be at this hotel. But I will give this one credit for coming over to us between songs (and we looked like nobodies who were wet from being in the pool) and patted my son on the back and asked him how he was. A good Elvis, I guess. I was in a band, F-Troop, who backed up an Elvis impersonator once. He was a bit overweight and in the white jumpsuit but could really sing and move. He was good. On a break I decided to talk with him over by the food table (it was an outdoor barbecue thing for the media in Jackson, MS), so I walked over and complimented him (he also picked good rockin' songs to play), and I asked him where he was from. "Well, ma'am, I'm from this little town in north Miss'ippi. You might have heard of