Another Weird Week in Corolla, NC

You know how I tried laugh­ing off the short­com­ings of the Out­er Banks ear­li­er this month? That’s a hoot! Let’s just chalk that up to post-trau­mat­ic stress in the after­math of Irene, ok? I mean, who wants to see their vaca­tion des­ti­na­tion wiped off the map just as it’s time to kick back and relax?

Let’s get right down to it, shall we? The food: still ter­ri­ble. If it weren’t for the Har­ris Teeter con­ve­nient­ly locat­ed in Corol­la, we’d be at a total loss. The best meals we eat in the Out­er Banks are those we make our­selves. There are I think now three places that I will give mon­ey for food and they are: Corol­la Vil­lage BBQ, which we final­ly found after ven­tur­ing into the island’s his­toric dis­trict; Light­house Bagels and Deli, though the bagels were much doughi­er than I remem­bered them being; and Bad Bean Bur­ri­to, locat­ed in Tim­BuckII stripmall.

Every­thing else? For­get it.

You can spend an awful lot of mon­ey try­ing to find some­thing good to eat in the Out­er Banks and it’s my belief that you should­n’t even both­er try­ing. There’s not a good seafood restau­rant to be found. If any­one knows where to get a decent piz­za, please let me know because our old stand­by, Cos­mo’s, has fall­en off since we dis­cov­ered it in 2009.

Lodg­ing is anoth­er mat­ter alto­geth­er. We lived in three dif­fer­ent hous­es in the five years we’ve gone to Corol­la. Last year was our first week in a pala­tial house (pic­tured above) and we could­n’t have been hap­pi­er after being holed up with our two month old in a run­down rental dur­ing back-to-back Nor’east­ers in ’09. This year the cracks have start­ed to show. I guess famil­iar­i­ty does breed con­tempt! The couch­es are thread­bare, the fridge won’t close, the beds are atro­cious­ly uncom­fort­able and, yes, the cable pack­age isn’t exact­ly opti­mal. No inter­ac­tive guide? No wi-fi? We may as well camp on the beach!

I kid, but you’d think rental com­pa­nies would con­sid­er mak­ing upgrades reg­u­lar­ly since the rental mar­ket is so soft.

Over­all though, things went pret­ty well, con­sid­er­ing we dodged two hur­ri­canes and a trop­i­cal storm. Katia wrecked the beach for us, which meant spend­ing more time in the pool (not a bad thing) and Lee just brought sti­fling humid­i­ty to the area. It’s still a great place to spend a week doing absolute­ly noth­ing and that’s what vaca­tion is all about at this point in my life. Relax­ing as much as pos­si­ble while chas­ing Char­lie up and down a beach and play­ing in the ocean. Wish I did­n’t have to wait a year to do it all again.

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Headed to Outer Banks, NC

I was just read­ing a post I wrote last year about OBX and I chuck­led. Sure, the shop­ping is a mess and the tv pack­ages may not be up to snuff, but I can’t tell you how much I’m look­ing for­ward to being down there again, espe­cial­ly after every­thing that hap­pened with Irene. The thought of the Out­er Banks being swept away was more than I could bear. When I try to think of a suit­able replace­ment my mind goes blank. I can’t think of any­where at the Jer­sey Shore being near­ly as relax­ing and remote.

I’m mak­ing a few prepa­ra­tions for the trip. I’m going to try the Mapquest app for nav­i­ga­tion, ditch­ing the native Maps app because with­out voice noti­fi­ca­tions, I’m lost. There’s no way I’m going to be ref­er­enc­ing my phone the entire trip. A quick scan reveals that there will be no such func­tion­al­i­ty added when iOS 5 rolls out lat­er this year, which is a dis­ap­point­ment. I’m a lit­tle gun­shy about Mapquest based on my expe­ri­ences with the ser­vice some ten years ago. All it took were some bad direc­tions on a par­tic­u­lar­ly stress­ful U‑Haul dri­ve and I’d had enough. Mapquest has been syn­ony­mous with bad, dan­ger­ous direc­tions ever since. I’m glad I can laugh about it now, but veer­ing across traf­fic to exit Rt 78 to an access road in a steady down­pour is not my idea of a good time.

I’m look­ing for­ward to an unevent­ful dri­ve and a very relax­ing week at the beach. I may even do a lit­tle read­ing while I’m down there!

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In Praise of Spoon

I know peo­ple have cooled on their steely grooves, but I don’t know how I would’ve got­ten through 2002–2007 with­out steady dos­es of Spoon. Two songs in par­tic­u­lar that gal­va­nized my will when it was bent near the break­ing point: “That’s the Way We Get By” and “The Underdog.”

Can’t lis­ten to either of these tunes with­out being trans­port­ed back in time. The for­mer reminds me of a sweaty sum­mer spent in Brook­lyn, punch­ing F5 on craigslist or inter­view­ing for jobs for which I was but one of hun­dreds of appli­cants. I’d turn this all the way up as I sat on my futon, scrap­ing by on adjunct lec­tur­er’s wages and what­ev­er was left on my stu­dent loans. The lat­ter takes me to a bet­ter place: final­ly back on the job after near­ly a year out of work. It was their brand new album at the time and I had a hard time believ­ing that “The Under­dog” was­n’t my per­son­al anthem that summer.

A few years on and I keep find­ing myself com­ing back to these records. I can’t think of a band whose body of work has more close­ly fit my moods over more than a decade of fandom.

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A Few Thoughts on That Thurston Moore Gig

First, I love Demol­ished Thoughts. I feel like I’m get­ting to that age where I’m com­fort­able enjoy­ing albums by my ’90s heroes unapolo­get­i­cal­ly, despite know­ing in my ratio­nal mind that they’re sad imi­ta­tions of their Great Works. To me, Demol­ished Thoughts is a great Sun­day morn­ing album, and last I checked, there are lots of Sun­day morn­ings where that brand of acoustic strum is absolute­ly necessary.

Last night’s show was also very good in that way Thurston Moore shows are good: he’s this dopey man­child with a real thirst for knowl­edge. He’s pre­ten­tious to a fault and last night was no excep­tion. The inter­sti­tial poems I could’ve done with­out, but by the same token, his hilar­i­ous­ly over­wrought poet­ry took me back to the place when I first start­ed lis­ten­ing to Son­ic Youth. His brand of dorky pater­nal­ism, i.e. the “I, char­ac­ter in this song, will pro­tect you, afflict­ed puta­tive­ly female char­ac­ter of song, from these dumb jock mis­cre­ants.” It’s cute in this total­ly hack­neyed I‑can-still-regur­gi­tate-assort­ed-gen­der-stud­ies-talk­ing-points sort of way. I mean, I remem­ber the ’90s, too, and some­times I’m embar­rassed for how I act­ed then. I think Thurston feels this way, too.

When it was over I was most­ly sad­dened that he played “Bene­dic­tion” with­out men­tion­ing Jack Rose, for whom the song is sup­pos­ed­ly writ­ten. Maybe I can blame Byron Coley for the bad poetry.

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Hurricane Irene Made for a Hectic Weekend

Here’s how I fought Hur­ri­cane Irene last week­end in Philadel­phia, PA:

  • Drove wife and son to be with fam­i­ly in north­ern Va as they pre­pared to vaca­tion in, gulp, Corol­la, NC this week.
  • Watched news at moth­er-in-law’s house. Won­dered if Out­er Banks would still exist.
  • Slept.
  • Drove home to Philly at 6 AM. Caught in traf­fic twice behind ter­ri­ble acci­dents. Won­dered if I’d be stuck in traf­fic for hours both times.
  • Upon arriv­ing home, made per­func­to­ry ges­tures at shoring up base­ment storage.
  • Ate hot dog lunch in a light rain at Mem­phis Tap­room Beer Garden.
  • Ratch­eted up pan­ic by watch­ing nation­al and local news outlets.
  • Did­n’t eat din­ner. Drank a pitch­er of daiquiris instead while watch­ing Bourne Suprema­cy with friends.
  • Hid in bath­room, then base­ment dur­ing tor­na­do watch.
  • Fell asleep around midnight.
  • Awoke to howl­ing rain at 2:43 am.
  • Checked base­ment and ceil­ings. Found no leaks.
  • Tried falling asleep. Couldn’t.
  • Stayed awake until dawn when storm relented.
  • Walked over to friend’s house for coffee.
I still can’t believe that my house made it through rel­a­tive­ly unscathed. Watch­ing Twit­ter and Face­book I read a litany of things going wrong at friends’ homes through­out the region and I just could­n’t believe my house — which has leaked repeat­ed­ly — would be spared. (Here’s where I take a moment to praise Reit­er Roof­ing, as well as Port Fish­ing­ton’s rel­a­tive high ground for a river­ward community.)
I slept like the dead last night. I still feel com­plete­ly exhaust­ed. Helen and Char­lie will be in the Out­er Banks tomor­row morn­ing. I can’t wait to join them on Friday.
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