OFFSHORE FISHING!

• a last minute friday night trip to savannah to go offshore with dave and kim.
• the ride in the car with david that allowed us 3 hours (including a meltdown in wendy's, a lovely dinner instead at waffle house! and 20 minutes in line at subway for lunch on the boat the next day!) uninterupted to get to know each other again away from his working nights and the room project.
• watching the sun come up over the ocean while the waves were over 5 ft. it was a bright deep orange/red fire ball that popped up into a cloudy gray sky. absolutely amazing and had the waves been 2-3 ft, i would have missed it because i would have been down below snoring. now, back to the wave part - i had heard of being beaten up offshore - now i have my own story! it was quite an interesting 3.5 hour ride at 20mph in a boat running over 5+ ft waves that early in the morning on dramamine. needless to say we are all very very sore. i worked my muscles all day long and when we got off the boat last night at 6, i promptly fell on my face and let me just say it was not all because of the vanilla vodka soaked fruit we ate on the way back in!
• the baby porpoise we saw jumping waves to get back to his mama. she was beautiful and spotted and rode the waves off the front of the boat for as long as we watched and told her she was beautiful. when we got caught up catching fish, she went away. as with human women, she just needed a little attention. quite magical really.
• a good dinner at the marina with conversations we can only have with dave and kim. they are not right and neither is david so i guess that means i'm not either. i got to drive the golf cart back to their house with the boys as kim went to pick up the kids. too fun.
• our bed in the 'smoak boudior' (sp) that we fell into early and not waking up until 6am to potty. that is probably a first for me ever. david and i said we don't really remember anything, but i do kind of remember trying not to fall out of bed as i was still rocking like i was on the boat.
• an 8am wake up call of catherine and jada waking up and being able to spend a little time with them this morning before we headed back to charleston to be with big d at church this morning.
• a morning phone call with daddy. he was at the boat with chris and the boys. his expertise at what he loves and how he is so passionate and able to translate his knowledge of furniture into how to help me with the ceiling. his love of his boys, red and jack. he just laughs when he tells stories of what they've done - like how red fell out of the boat and how he giggled while he left me the message.
• a great sermon by mike, minister extraordinnare (again, sp) about dropping the sterotypical 'guy' role and being an example to friends and family about showing emotions.
• mike asking david and me to talk with him about. . .. . . . . the flag issue! holy shit, here we go. . . . the united methodist conference was last week in florence, sc and during the 4 day conference, several issues were discussed - everything from insurance for ministers to their new appointments and parsonages, to budgets. missions was the major part of the agenda as they voted on where to send the money they collected last week. the south carolina convention voted to send $60,000 (the amount they collected at the conference) to the net project which provides mosquito nets (at $10 a net) to families in countries where maleria is still a real issue. they decided to continue the work with water missions as there are still people in the world who have never had clean water to drink. they decided to keep working with fighting hiv and aids in africa and provide the drugs needed to keep people alive. they spent the majority of their time doing this. what the media covered and what crept up someone at our church's ass so much that he's decided he's not coming back is the freakin' flag issue. the church decided to bring to a vote whether to send a letter to south carolina state leaders demanding that they move the rebel flag from a place of prominance at the capitol to a museum. the votes were cast and the majority said they wanted the letter to be written. the interesting thing is that the state government won't allow this issue to be discussed again until 2012 or sometime crazy like that. it was a huge waste of time and waste of media coverage when so much good was done at the conference. mike wanted to know what we thought as david and i have differing views on the flag and what it means and where it should go. what we all came to in that discussion is 1. the whole thing is a waste of time and if this dude from the church is mad at mike he should step up and talk about it so that they can come to some sort of common ground as the 3 of us did today with it and 2. whether people know the 'true history' of the flag or not, it brings with it emotions of fear and injustice and pain that is our southern history and why hurt people? this issue is a point of division in my fine state that i am mostly embarrassed about and it's unfortunately not going anywhere. i will continue to hold my vision that we recognize that this is our history and as it is not our state or national flag, it should be held in a place of honor in a museum. and i really mean honor because the time that is represents should be held gently with respect.

ok, back to previously planned glogging. . . . .

• david smoak having emotions everyday and being willing to share them with whoever. whenever. about whatever. and not backing down on something he feels.
• big d and his willingness to show his emotions (and tell some pretty racy jokes at lunch!) and actually teared up when we gave him tervis tumbler cups with wofford college on them. he actually teared up and said, 'i love this school, man!' holy cow, i wonder what would happen if i gave him a sweatshirt?!
• mom and poppie arriving safely from boston and him taking care of her while she had food poisoning on the trip. he liked his father's day gift as well.
• a quick visit today with the dority's and how he tried to get sue and me drunk on cream rum so that he and david could get special father's day gifts later this evening. ms dority was pretty slurry so he might! we won't discuss david. . . you know you're old when your best friend's parents and your own say something or anything about sex in front of you. david told both his parents and the doritys that he might vomit and please not to say anything like that again. hil-freakin'-alarious!
• more veggies out of the garden when we finally made it home tonight. tons of tomatoes and cucumbers!
• freshly caught dolphin (mahi) and fresh veggies out of the garden. yum.
• my precious husband, the father of my sweet carson, the dog father of abbie, sandy and miss peabody, and the snake dad to 'snake and 'lil 'nake. his excitement of life and adventures. his unconditional love of me. his willingness to not fit the typical southern man role. his love of his friends and theirs of him. how lucky am i.
• you, my little baby porpoise you!